Smack Your Mama Good!: Three Cheese Pizza Pasta Bake

I am giving 100% credit and props to my husband for this recipe. His taste buds gave him a revelation that even I was surprised by. Like most everybody now, I find most of my recipes on Pinterest. Greatest invention ever. But, sometimes you strike out on recipes that you find. You think to yourself "Ooooo! This looks and sounds tasty." Then you try it and... not so much. Well this is what happened here. I found this recipe for a pasta bake and it was with cheese. I thought to myself "pasta- good, cheese- good!" Well, it's not that it was bad, but it was just way, way, way bland. Curtis told me not to make that again. So I shrugged and put the left overs in a container and put it in the fridge.

One day, as Curtis likes to do, he reached in the fridge for a little snack while he was holding our baby, and pulled out the pasta bake instead of mashed potatoes. Who just wants to eat mashed potatoes, by the way? He decided to eat it anyways, even though it wasn't what he was looking for. He said "You know, this would be a lot better with some garlic in it, and some sort of tomato sauce. Do we have any?" All we had was pizza sauce, so he went for it. He sprinkled some garlic powder, a little pizza sauce, and then he topped it off with some crumbled crackers. I gave him a weird look that said there is no way this is going to be any good. He nukes it in the microwave for a few seconds and takes a bit. He didn't say anything other than asking me to taste it. I did and I was shocked. It was SO much better!

I told him I would try to make it as a full recipe and if it turned out good I would include it in my blog. I did, and it was pretty good! So here you have it, a recipe for a pasta bake a la Curt.

Ingredients:
1 package of Ziti Pasta
1 Jar of Alfredo Sauce (16-20 oz)
1 container of Sour Cream (8 oz)
1 container of Ricotta or Cottage Cheese (15 oz) I used Ricotta
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese
1 Jar of Pizza Sauce
2 Cups Mozzarella Cheese
About 20 Multi-Grain Crackers, crushed Or any other crackers you want, or you can omit

Preheat oven to 350.

Cook Ziti according to the package. In another large bowl, mix together the Alfredo sauce and sour cream. Once Ziti is cooked, drain and add to the Alfredo sauce mixture. In a smaller bowl combine Ricotta or cottage cheese, eggs, garlic powder, and Parmesan Cheese. In a 9 X 13 baking dish, layer half of the pasta, then your Ricotta cheese mixture, then the jar of pizza sauce, then the remainder of your pasta. Top with the Mozzarella cheese and cracker crumbles.
Bake for 30 minutes or until the cheese and nice and melted.