Well I certainly hope so, the smart people in the MMP certainly uplift my spirits…
In view of the above, and borrowing from David Morgan-Mar:
- I always wear a bra to the store.
- I have, on occasion, worn a bra to the store.
- I have, on occasion, worn nothing but a bra to the store.
- I have, on occasion, worn absolutely nothing to the store.
- I never wear a bra to the store.
- Wear a bra to the what?
- Wear what to the store?
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Here is link to original recipe: https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/million-dollar-spaghetti/#recipe
This recipe as you can see is called Million Dollar Spaghetti Casserole; however, I prefer to use different types of pasta. Also, this recipe calls for a 9x13 baking dish. That’s way too much for us, just Hubs and myself. So, my version is kind of halved (it’s still enough for at least 3-4 dinners) and also includes seasonings not called for in original. I also use different quantities of ingredients depending on what/how much I have of each. The first time I made it I used only ground beef, last night I used both ground beef and ground pork. So, feel free to modify to your preferences. Here’s my version:
Million Dollar Pasta Casserole as revised/(improved) by KittenMitten
Ingredients
2 cups of your choice of pasta (macaroni, rotini, penne)
1/2 pound ground beef
1/3 - 1/2 pound ground Italian sausage or ground pork
salt substitute and pepper, to taste
Italian seasoning
oregano
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced (alternate: garlic powder)
1¼ cups pasta sauce
1½ Tablespoons butter
4 - 6 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/8 - 1/4 cup sour cream
½ - ¾ cup cottage cheese or ricotta cheese
¾ - 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/3 – 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese or shredded
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Make Meat Sauce: In a large skillet sauté onion in 1 T olive oil over low heat until almost translucent then add garlic for one minute. Transfer to baking dish. Crumble the ground beef and Italian sausage/ground pork into skillet, season with salt/substitute and pepper and cook . Drain grease. While the meat is cooking heat the pasta sauce in a saucepan along with the Italian seasoning and oregano. Add onions and garlic and all but ½ cup of the pasta sauce (reserve ½ cup for later) to the mixture and stir to combine. Set aside.
Prepare noodles : Cook pasta according to package instructions, just until “al dente” (generally 8-10 min). Drain, and place hot pasta in a large mixing bowl with butter and stir until all pasta coated with butter. Then add ½ cup reserved pasta sauce and toss to combine.
Make Cheese layer: Combine cream cheese, sour cream and cottage cheese in a bowl and mix well.
Assemble : Pour HALF of the pasta into a casserole. Smooth cheese layer on top. Top with remaining pasta. Add meat sauce on top and smooth into an even layer. Top with mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese.
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until hot and bubbly. Check it around 20 minutes and if the cheese is browning too quickly, tent a piece of tinfoil over it. Wait at least 15 minutes before cutting and serving, to allow it to set up. Enjoy!
Notes
To Make Ahead: You can prepare this casserole 1 day ahead of time. Follow recipe instructions up to step 8 (just before baking). Allow it to cool, cover it well with plastic wrap and store it in the refrigerator until ready to bake. Or, prep the sauce, pasta and cheese layer 1-3 days ahead of time and assemble right before baking.
To Freeze: Prepare recipe right up until the baking step. Cover well with greased aluminum foil and freeze for up to 3 months. When ready to eat, thaw in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 days, then bake for about 20 minutes, covered, and then 20-25 minutes uncovered. If baking from frozen, bake covered for about 40 minutes, then uncover and bake at least 30-40 minutes longer, or until bubbly and warm.
Vegetarian Million Dollar Pasta: leave out the meat entirely or substitute plant based meat!
Ground Beef vs. Sausage: You can use both ground beef and ground Italian sausage/ground pork in this recipe but you don’t have to use both.
during the pandemic, i went down quite a few you tube rabbit holes. one long weekend i got clippers from amazon, watched videos, and came up with a pixie type cut. it worked, i’ve done it 2 or 3 more times until going to an actual salon in january.
1.5-2 inches seems to be a good length if i am going super short.
My hair got almost down to the top of my butt during the pandemic. I cut it just beyond shoulder length about a year ago. Now I’m thinking of going super short, bleaching it and putting temporary colors in.
Going through a midlife crisis? Who, me?
I’m also thinking of giving myself the gift of a tattoo for my 50th birthday next March
I agree. Whenever I see a woman really rocking a super-short haircut, it’s a black lady. With the exception of Sinead O’Connor back when.
Busy morning. I wanted to do all my errands before the rain set in which it won’t cuz I did all my errands. Took pictures and listed 2 items on eBay. Riding tights and Persol sunglasses. Dropped off for return via the p off the suction shower bars that don’t work. They fell off 2 hours after I stuck them to the wall. Went to the dry cleaners to drop off 2 bags of irk clothes for their clothing drive. Next was Fresh Market for chikkin, bacon, and ground sirloin. And 2 chocolate covered Oreos. Stopped at the vet to find out how to bring a horse’s fecal sample in for a worm check. Answer. In a Baggie. Final stop was the barn where I had to swap out the heated buckets for non heated.
It’s 12:40 pm Central time (the best time). Lunch is homemade chikkin Cordon Blue with a wedge sallit.
Even in my youth, back in the days of long, straight hair parted down the center, like early Cher, try as I might, I couldn’t get my hair to go much past my shoulders - maybe 2" down my back. No body, no waves, no curls - just strings that started to split when they got to a certain length. It was rough being teenage me. 
On the plus side, I’m 69 years old and still nary a strand of gray, so there’s that.
Someone has refused to nap - he’s wearing me out!! I’ll be glad to turn him back to his mom this afternoon…
Wow, thank you so much!!!
Do you think I could leave out the ricotta/cottage cheese entirely? I don’t like either of those …
Earplugs!
Go for it!
Dooooo ittttt!!!
Hint: you can Sharpie “draft” versions onto yourself in advance, to check out how you like the size, placement, etc.
Wow, I haz an impressed!
Okay, I need to put on clean socks and eat something solid e.g. get ready for work.
Y’all have a good one!
For the most part, the rain has stopped and it is drying out. When I went to pick up surplus produce I saw many more horse trailers on the road than usual but none of them came to our place.
It’s not monsoon season yet, not warm enough. This is just a lot of winter rain and snow melt over burn scars. We’ve been in a 20 year drought and the ground can’t absorb all the water it is getting now.
Thanks for the kind words about the critter rescue thing, but all we do is offer up a place to stay for a few days. The real heroes are the ones working at the shelters day and night.
My BFF had to go to work today (means her road didn’t wash out) and she says she hasn’t heard of any property loss which is a good thing.
Considering how bad my dog looked after I took the clippers to her, it’s probably best I didn’t go down that rabbit hole.
There is a hairdresser the next town over who could probably give me a nice, short haircut, but nobody stays at that shop long due to lack of business and I don’t want to do the growing out thing again if this one leaves.
My Tai-chi instructor (Sifu) has started doing Wednesday morning classes too so I worked out this morning and now I feel all disgustingly healthy. I’m really glad she is doing this, I’m too lazy to force myself to get off my ass and exercise, but if I promise to be somewhere, I will be there on time or early.
Now that I’m one of her “regulars” I’m pretty much obligated to be there unless I have a super good reason to miss a class. This works out just fine as far as I’m concerned.
Yes, just increase the sour cream and cream cheese a little and/or add some mozzarella to this layer.
Midafternoon Wed in Curacao. Sipping Mojitos beside a fake beach adjoining the real ocean. That’s the happy part.
Rolled out of bed at 3:30 this morning to go to erk/irk. That was less happy.
It was about 55F in Pittsburgh 3 hours pre-dawn as we left the hotel. Spring has Sprung with a vengeance. The driver reported they’d had almost no winter, just a few inches of snow total. Sounds pleasant in isolation, but that’s flat terrifying for what it says of the future water balance of the Northeast US.
Got to erk/irk, met my team, flirted with the hawt 70yo head FA. They don’t make 'em like that anymore. They really don’t.
Sunrise at altitude over Kentucky was spectacular Not real photogenic, but totally cool. Damn I’m gonna miss this job when it’s over all too soon.
OTOH, had I spent the last 3 days at home woman and I would have had a lot fun together. Instead of txts apart. Everything is a trade-off.
Separate rooms, CPAP or smother him. Your choice.
Plus she’s counting on you to preserve the balance of vax cooties and serve as a life lesson to the idjiits.
Does the spouse of the snorer only get one of those options or can it be a combo platter? 
I’m a pacifist so I prefer #1 or #2, either separately in in combination. #3 by definition is a stand alone.
Still here, still itching. I made the mistake of reading the package instructions with the new medication and almost decided not to take it. I would’ve skipped the read, but the young pharmacist knew nothing about its use as an antihistamine and stumbled through a non-answer when I asked a question. This and another medication I’m on increase the risk of dementia pretty significantly. That and some other stuff (more dangerous for people over 60) freaked me out enough that I couldn’t sleep. But I did take the new med and am alive and breathing. (Yes, at the same time. I’m a multi-tasker.)
It’s a gorgeous day. I’m going to take the babushka cart to the store to get more produce and go to the gym. I mean, I’ll go home in between. It’s not like I’d put cukes and peppers on a treadmill. For one thing, they refuse to use the handrails. So annoying.
Riddle me this, Mumpers. I put my phone on the kitchen counter and went into the living room. About 15 minutes later, I heard a faint voice say, “Hello? Hello?” It was my sister. My phone had just dialed her, and I wasn’t near it. AND it tried to simultaneously dial another number: there was a pop-up message saying it couldn’t dial my sister’s number because it was already calling my insurance company. (Yet it did call her, not USAA.) How the heck did this happen?
It sounds more like a midlife chrysalis. I love both ideas! Any tattoo in particular?
I’ve never had these. Are they good? I’ve done a 180 since my childhood and don’t eat the middles, but chocolate coating might change my mind.
But think of what you were spared, like ironing your hair or setting it on cans from frozen OJ. On bad hair days (most days for me), I miss being able to wear a bandana kerchief.
Wow, that’s great!
JtC, so how many days a week are you doing Tai-chi? I like the idea of movement that’s good for you AND can be used for self-defense, but I could never remember long series of movements.
I’m going to miss your posts about it.
Nothing worse than a snorting keyboard.
Hello all, haven’t been here in a while. I’m getting better at sitting up for longer periods. hotpads help and so does oxycodone and twice a week phtsical therapy, I’m still puzzled as to how I got the cracked L4 vertabra, in addition to the kneecap. All I can say is do your best to not trip on a rug in your living room. Hope everyone here is getting by well, I need to start reading here daily. Next week I will be able to start, or at least try to start driving again. My sister has been doing it for me, taking me to medical appointments and phys-ed therapy, shopping, church, and so on. She just retired in December so it’s been a drag on her, although she doesn’t say so.
So now I need advice, I;ve said thank you to her a hundred times, but I want to do something special when I’m fully independent again. I’m thinking of a gift card, Last Sunday we ate at a local place we hadn’t been to before. It is a hotdog restaurant, and I love hotdogs. But as it turned out on Sunday they have a brunch buffet instead, and OMG it was wonderful!!! Sort of pricy but lavish as all get out and all you can eat. They even had smoked salmon, which I adore, as well as omelettes, bacon biscuits and gravy, fruit, you name it. Everything was delicious, and I know I’ll have to go back some Sunday, and during the week for a hotdog. If the latter are as good I may go into a food coma. I’m sorry my BIL wasn’t with us.
So do you all think a card to this place would make a good gift? Both my sister and her husband like eating out. Or would something else be more appropriate?
I saw the nurse practitioner yesterday as well, and she seemed pleased with my improvement, including my blood sugar. I’m on a diet and have lost a few pounds, Not a lot yet but every bit helps. I’m even walking outside by myself to get the dog out, although sis does it once a day more to help him.
Just don’t trip on your rug, and be where I have been.
I like midlife chrysalis. Yeah, that’s it… For the tattoo I’m thinking something Pisces related. (Who’d have guessed!) Im thinking something that combines the constellation with the astrological sign. Im no artist, but I’m hoping I can draw something decent.
Agree. Glad it’s getting better and glad you have willing helpers. The gift card sounds like the perfect thank you.
I once tripped in my hallway and broke my hand and wrist in several places, had to have surgery, wires, braces and PT. Didn’t even run my pantyhose but destroyed my hand. It looked like Frankenstein’s science project got months.