Baked Pasta

I needed some serious comfort food the other night, and baked pasta was on my mind.  It wasn’t the most photogenic dish I’ve ever made, but it was delicious and hit the spot.

I almost always make my own sauce because it’s easy and usually tastes better than jarred.  This time I was out of onions (the horror!) so I made a basic sauce by heating olive oil in a pot, adding 3 cloves of garlic and some crushed red pepper, cooking until it smelled fragrant, adding dried oregano, s&p, a big can of crushed tomatoes, and a small splash of leftover red wine.  I usually just cover it and let it simmer while I make the rest of the dish.

Next, I mixed about a cup or two of the sauce with the remains of a container of cottage cheese (maybe 1/2 a cup), about 1/4 of a brick of extra firm tofu (crumbled), and some cooked macaroni.  Any short-cut pasta will work here, I had a small amount of elbows on hand for far too long so I took the chance to use it up.  Topped it off with some steamed broccoli, grated cheese and baked it at 350 until the top was browned and crunchy.  A few fresh basil leaves on top made it feel a little classier than it really was.