Baked Ham and Cheese Spaghetti

First of all, I hope you all had an amazing Easter! Jon and I cooked a ham yesterday using this recipe. Yes, I said Jon AND I. He actually helped me in the kitchen guys! He put the cloves in the diamonds and helped me dress it with the pineapple and cherries. Win!

We actually got the ham for free! How awesome is that? Foodland (our grocery store) always has a deal around holidays where if you have 2 of their reward certificates you can get an item for free. For Easter it was a ham! I got a 12 lb beast of a ham. Hi, there are only two of us. So we had some yesterday for Easter dinner then I packed the rest away in EIGHT gladware containers.

I was driving home today and trying to think of ideas of how I could use this ham. I remembered I watched Paula Deen the other day and she made a baked spaghetti and I thought I would give it a try with my favorite cheese sauce. It worked out wonderfully! So, if you guys ended up with lots of leftover ham, give this a try!

1/2 lb fully cooked spaghetti
1 serving Cheese Sauce
3-4 cups fully cooked ham, chopped into cubes or shredded
4 slices American Cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray casserole dish. Spread a little cheese sauce on the bottom of baking dish. Layer spaghetti, ham then cheese sauce twice. Top with slices of American cheese. Bake for 20-25 minutes, just to heat through together.

Easy enough right? Here's some pictures I took yesterday from our walk with the dogs :)

Individual Meatloaves

So, I know I only recently shared with you guys Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs made with Italian Sausage. And yes, these are also stuffed with mozzarella cheese and made with Italian Sausage. Maybe there is some etiquette to spacing out similar recipes you share, but I've never been the type to have manners. And I have a feeling you'll all forgive me. These were ridiculously delicious, just like the meatballs.

This recipe was actually inspired by a recipe I found in the magazine Anyone Can Cook. I got it at a Borders out here that is closing so it was 40% off. Best $6 I ever spent! There are a ton of good recipes in there for me to experiment with. The first recipe I just had to try was their Sicilian Individual Meatloaves. The recipe called for ground beef and didn't follow my usual meatloaf formula. So I went ahead and took their idea for the mozzarella and ham stuffed inside, and then ran with the rest on my own. I served mine with some marinara sauce. I wanted to make a roasted red pepper sauce for it, but my grocery store had no red peppers (jerks!). Its probably for the best anyways because it tasted so good with a simple red sauce. I hope you guys like it. Send me your feedback or questions: cookingwithcait@gmail.com.

2.5 lbs Italian Sausage, casing removed
2-3 cloves garlic, finely minced or hand grated
1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 cup parmesan cheese, grated
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp oregano
1/2 cup warm water
2 eggs, beaten

Stuffing:

5 2oz portions of mozzarella cheese (or you could use string cheese)

10 slices thinly sliced deli ham

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat baking sheet or shallow baking dish with cooking spray. In a bowl, combine all meatloaf ingredients until spices are evenly distributed throughout. Divide meat mixture into 5 even portions to ensure they are finished at the same time.

Wrap mozzarella sticks with two slices of ham. Wrap ham/mozzarella with meatloaf mixture until fully sealed in. Place on baking sheet/dish and cook for 35-40 minutes until internal temperature of meat reaches 160 degrees.