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Baked Spaghetti

March 10th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Cooking, Family Life

Fifteen or so years ago, I had a subscription to a magazine called Taste of Home.  David and I were still, relatively, newly married and in one of the magazines,  I found a recipe for a casserole called “Baked Spaghetti.”  This was back when I had time and energy for cooking and reading magazines. A time when I could easily eat fattening, yummy comfort foods with abandon and read cooking magazines unmolested by demands to play Bakugan or Legos or Super Mario Brothers on the Wii.

Like many recipes I wanted to try, I tore it out of the magazine. It’s ragged edges were turned under, so only the recipe was exposed. About the size of a 3×5 inch card, it has been in my recipe box this whole time making an appearance on our menu at least once a month ever since.

I remembered it had 28 ounce can of tomatoes, ground beef, a pound of spaghetti, cream of mushroom soup, black olives and lots of cheese.  There were other things in it, but I could not recall what they were, or the amounts.

A couple of months ago we were going to have it.  David pulled the recipe to make his grocery list.  That was the last anyone saw it.   We tried to recall the recipe from memory by looking at the pantry.  That was simply too hard to pick out the ingredients among our cans of stewed tomatoes, rotel, diced tomatoes, black olives, mushrooms and pasta.

As silly as it sounds, I mourned the loss of that recipe.  Not just the cheesy, delicious, goodness of the meal itself,  but the shiny magazine page, the picture, the stains from years of use.  Since we lost it, I’ve trolled around A Taste of Home‘s web page hoping to find it.  They have a nice search engine.  I’ve tried several permutations of “Baked Spaghetti” and looked at dozens of casseroles with the same name.

Today, while I was eating my lunch I idly run another search.   I found it!  Because it made me so happy, and we are going to have it for dinner tomorrow night, I wanted to share it with you.

Baked Spaghetti by Taste of Home
12 Servings Prep: 20 min. Bake: 30 min.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup chopped onion
  • 1 cup chopped green pepper
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained
  • 1 can (4 ounces) mushroom stems and pieces, drained
  • 1 can (2-1/4 ounces) sliced ripe olives, drained
  • 2 teaspoons dried oregano
  • 1 pound ground beef, browned and drained, optional
  • 12 ounces spaghetti, cooked and drained
  • 2 cups (8 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
  • 1 can (10-3/4 ounces) condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

  • In a large skillet, saute onion and green pepper in butter until tender. Add the tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, oregano. Add ground beef if desired. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.
  • Place half of the spaghetti in a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish. Top with half of the vegetable mixture. Sprinkle with 1 cup of cheddar cheese. Repeat layers. Mix the soup and water until smooth; pour over casserole. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until heated through. Yield: 12 servings.

Nutrition Facts: 1 serving (1 cup) equals 239 calories, 9 g fat (5 g saturated fat), 25 mg cholesterol, 500 mg sodium, 30 g carbohydrate, 3 g fiber, 10 g protein.

Thank you Taste of Home!  Enjoy internets!

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2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Kelly // Apr 10, 2010 at 9:17 am

    I loved this recipes and spent years looking for it. I could not remember what magazine I found it in about 15 years ago. I gave my copy to a friend that never returned the recipe. I want to Thank you for finding it. I guess I checked online at the right time.
    Have a great weekend!
    Kelly

  • 2 Susan // Jul 13, 2012 at 8:16 pm

    Thank you, thank you, thank you! I, too, loved this recipe, kept my magazine for YEARS with that page dog-earred, and went to find it this week and no Taste of Home. All I could remember about it that was somewhat unusual were the black olives; your blog came up when I put that in my search. So glad to have this recipe again!

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