The letter E

Tonight’s dinner is inspired by the letter E. E is for “expiration date.” As I plopped a scoop of cottage cheese into my morning oats, I was horrified to find that the newly opened container was about to expire. Let me tell you: I HATE wasting food. Did I freak out? Yes. But only momentarily before I challenged myself to use the rest of the cottage cheese for tonight’s meal. I debated double stuffed potato with a cottage cheese filling, but the cold, dreary Albany weather has me craving cheese and pasta (what doesn’t, really). I searched the Interwebs for macaroni and cheese with a cottage cheese twist. Smitten Kitchen to the rescue!

But before I get to tonight’s dish, can I go on a cheese tangent? While picking up some extra sharp Cheddar at the store, I saw Price Chopper is having a 2 for $4 sale with Cabot cheeses. And imagine my delight when I saw this tucked away:

I pulled out Old Faithful and that block of cheese was reduced to shreds in the pulse of a finger.

I made minor adjustments to Smitten Kitchen’s recipe:

Homey Macaroni and Cottage Cheese

(Homey? Cottage? See what I did there??)

• 1 c. low-fat cottage cheese
• 1 8 oz. block Cheddar cheese, shredded
• 2 c. 1% milk
• Pinch paprika
• Pinch dry mustard
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 lb. multi-colored vegetable pasta, uncooked
• 1 cup chopped broccoli

My pasta came from this box:

This dish is so easy to assemble:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and shred cheese.

2. In a food processor, combine the cottage cheese, mustard, paprika, salt and pepper, and blend. Slowly pour in the milk while blending the cottage cheese mixture.

3. In a large bowl combine all but 1/4 c. shredded cheese, cottage cheese and milk mixture, and the pasta.   Once combined, pour into a greased baking dish.

4. Cover the baking dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove, sprinkle the remaining Cheddar over the pasta, cover, and bake again for another 30 minutes.

Ta da!

The only hard part is waiting for this to bake.