A New Way with Pasta

Yesterday I decided to make what I refer to as goulash for supper. It is simply cooked macaroni with spaghetti sauce and ground beef topped with a little mozzarella and some parmesan cheese. Sometimes I use crushed canned tomatoes and some tomato sauce that I season with italian seasoning in place of the spaghetti sauce. Again, simple and frugal. 

I had some leftover spaghetti meat sauce that had been frozen waiting to be used. 

So what was the "new" about this dish? I cooked the macaroni and drained it well. Then I put a little oil in a skillet (and I mean about 1 tablespoon) and I coated the dish thoroughly. I dumped the drained macaroni into the skillet and proceeded to fry it until it was crisp. The key here is to be patient and let the heat do the work for you. When the bottom was nice and crispy I turned it over to cook the top and then broke it up so that each piece of macaroni had a chance to get crispy. 

I heated up the spaghetti meat sauce and then served the dish by simply placing the macaroni on each plate, topped with spaghetti sauce and sprinkled a little mozzarella on the top. I served this with a nice tossed salad of lettuce, yellow and red sweet peppers and carrots. Walmart had their day old French bread marked down so that rounded out the meal.

The crispy macaroni gave the whole dish a new flavor in that it was crispy and almost "popcorny" tasting. It was nice to have a crunch to the dish and it actually made me think of fried ravioli that you can get in a restaurant as an appetizer. 

I will definitely be doing this again. Best part - it was gobbled up and there were no leftovers.