Theme for tonight's dinner "Quick and Easy"

Here is another recipe I found on Pinterest.
It's called Mama's Amazing Ziti.
ingredients

• 1 pound 95%-lean ground beef
• 2 cups shredded carrot
• 2 10 3/4 ounce cans reduced-fat and reduced-sodium condensed tomato soup
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 8 ounces dried cut ziti pasta (about 2 1/2 cups)
• 2 tablespoons snipped fresh basil or 2 teaspoons dried basil, crushed
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese (4 ounces)
• 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese (1 ounce)

directions

1.In a 4-quart Dutch oven, cook ground beef and shredded carrot over
mediumheat until meat is brown. Drain off fat. Stir tomato soup,
the water, uncooked ziti, dried basil (if using), onion powder, and
garlic powder into meat mixture in Dutch oven.

2.Bring mixture to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and cook about
25 minutes or until ziti is tender, stirring occasionally. Stir in fresh
basil (if using) and mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle individual servings
with Parmesan cheese.

It was quite yummy. The only thing I changed was to add a little bit of seasoning salt and a bit of Italian seasoning because I felt that it needed a little something. But the best part about it was how quick and easy it was to put together(especially if you have a food processor to shred the carrots and you already have ground beef browned and in the freezer). To go along with it I made some of my make shift, super easy, garlic bread sticks. I use a recipe I found in our Sommerfeldt family cook book for quick pizza crusts(it's really just a baking powder biscuit recipe).

The original recipe looks like this

4 cups flour
6 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
1 1/3 cup milk
2/3 cup vegetable oil(I almost always use butter or margarine instead)

Mix all at one until dough leaves sides of bowl. Knead until smooth. roll out into pizza crusts.

This is more or less what I do for the garlic bread sticks. First of all I cut the recipe in half

2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1/3 cup margarine
2/3 cup milk(or just enough to make dough moist)

mix flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and margarine until crumbly. Add milk until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Roll out on to baking sheet as you would for pizza crust.(I have a pampered chef roller thingy that allows me to roll the dough out right on my pampered chef stone pan...LOVE both of them). Spread margarine over dough. sprinkle with garlic powder and some Garlic Plus seasoning. then sprinkle with your choice of grated cheese. Bake in oven at 425F for about 12-15 minutes. Cut into strips and serve warm.

OK, now honestly this is a really rough recipe...I'm terrible at actually measuring things. And I never set the timer for this....I just put it in the oven and pull it out when it smells done and the top is nice and toasted. The kids love this. Another note, the kids and I all preferred shredded mozza on top instead of fresh grated Parmesan.