Yummy meaty pasta dish...

Looking for something fresh and hearty for dinner?

Well have I got a dish for you!

This dish was inpired by the Pasta Fasta recipe I make in the summer time using fresh cherry tomatoes from the garden.  I was wistful one day and decided to try something like it mid-winter.

Ingredients List:

ground beef - browned on a skillet

chopped tomatoes

thyme

red pepper flakes

olive oil

short pasta - cooked (any shape will do)

2 (or more) garlic cloves (from Cam & Michelle Mather)

grated cheese (ours was from Wilton Cheese in Wilton, ON)

Cook pasta as per the directions...you'll want a couple of couples worth of cooked pasta to fill a baking dish.

You can also be browing the ground beef while you're boiling the pasta.

Once the pasta is cooked and the meat is browned, you can drain the meat and use the same skillet for the rest of this recipe.

Add meat and a tbsp of olive oil to the skillet.  Warm the skillet and add 2 (or so) cloves of garlic, crushed.  Once the dish gets aromatic you can add the tomatoes, thyme, pepper flakes and pasta.  Turn over the whole mess a couple of times until heated thoroughly.

Add all ingredients to a baking dish and top with as much shredded cheese as you like! 

Bake in oven at 425 degrees F until mixture is bubbly...about 10-15 mins, then broil (500 degrees F) for about 5mins (watch it closely!  you want the cheese to be crispy and brown, not charred and black!) 

Finished product!  Its warm, gooey and yummy!  You can change this dish up if you like, by using tofu, tuna or ground turkey instead of the ground beef.  You can also change the whole flavour of this dish by switching up the cheese type too!  I personally loved that lack of sauce in this dish.  It wasn't too heavy and had a freshness that reminded me of summer.

While this isn't necessarily a dish made entirely out of my garden...it is a yummy, healthy and filling dish that didn't cost a fortune to make.  Beats hamburger helper that's for sure!  No artifical anything...

Plus the kids LOVED it!  (And that's always a winning combination)