Day 11: Barf

As I mentioned yesterday, school is back in so our daily routine has shifted a lot from our holiday schedule of doing whatever whenever and our poor rainbows are not as colorful as they were last week, but tonight's dinner nabs three of the five colors in one meal--Woohoo! Tomatoes (red), bell peppers (green and orange), onion (yellow). Tonight's dinner has a long history in the family I grew up in and I never ate it as a kid despite it being a regular staple dinner in our household. I disliked this dinner so much that I stopped calling it Sicilian Supper as the original recipe named it and I renamed it barf (because I was a kid, Garbage Pail kids were cool then, and barf was the grossest thing I knew of at that age). All of that being said, I would like to admit that I was wrong and my mom was right after all: it turns out that it really is a yummy, convenient, inexpensive, and healthy meal (and it makes great leftovers and lunches).

I have now made it many, many times and most of the time I not used the recipe as it was originally written. Note: it was originally published in a 1981 Carousel Microwave cookbook that went with a megalith-sized microwave and that means we (my mom or myself) have been cooking this meal for 30 years--WOW!

Bring on the Barf . . .

1 bag of wide egg noodles, cooked, drained and set aside.
1 can of tomato sauce
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 chopped onion
1-2 chopped bell peppers (I like a green pepper and a sweeter red or orange pepper)
1 pound of lean ground beef (or turkey)
8 ounces of cream cheese
1/4 c or less of Parmesan cheese
1 cup of milk
Garlic powder
Seasoning salt

Even though this recipe came from a microwave cookbook, I don't like to cook hamburger in the microwave so I cook the chopped onion and ground beef together on the stove until all of the pink is gone, then drain the grease. While the meat is cooking cook noodles until tender and drain. Move noodles to a bowl. When meat is done, add chopped bell pepper, can of diced tomatoes, can of tomato sauce and then fill the tomato sauce can with milk and add that to the sauce. Season with garlic powder, seasoning salt, and some red pepper flakes if you would like. Pour sauce over the noodles and mix together. Add the cream cheese, cubed, and mix in so the cubes are covered by noodles and sauce. Put the entire bowl in the microwave and cook for 7 minutes at 50% power. Remove from microwave and stir so that cream cheese mixes into the noodles and sauce. Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top and eat.