baked rigatoni casserole

okay.
so i have this habit.
bad habit.
of cooking and baking excessively.
usually at odd hours of the day. 

its getting ridiculous. 

like for reals, i spend more money per month on food and ingredients, than on rent.

i posted this on facebook the other day (the text below)

ten things that i have learned about myself recently...

1. i create more dirty dishes in an hour than a normal person does in a week. 

2. my roommates (and their boyfriends) have approved of my obsessive cooking habits.

3. i need to raise my monthly grocery budget. like by a lot. 

4. you can never add too much cheese. ever. to anything.

5. i will never be as good of a cook as my mum. like ever. not in a million years. 

6. im pretty sure that i take up 84% of the space in the fridge. 

7. this was NOT supposed to be a casserole. my original idea fell apart (literally), so i just threw it all in a pan and called it a casserole. it works, right?! 

8. on a scale of 1 to paula deen, i use a lot of butter.

9. my idea of "trying out a new recipe" is seeing a pretty picture on pinterest, glancing at the ingredients, realizing i only have 1/2 of them and saying to myself "i'll figure something out".

10. i just became the biggest nerd by photographing this food and posting it here on facebook. i apologize. 

annddd THIS is why i jiggle reason #148 = baked rigatoni casserole   

that morning i texted my roommates "will you girls be around tonight? im trying out a new pasta recipe and i need you to help me eat it." Basically the translation of that in bethany language means "i saw a pretty picture of fattening food on pinterest, and i glanced at the ingredients list, i may have 1/2 of the ingredients, and i think i can make it work, and i need someone to taste it first and see if its okay, before i eat it."
and my origional idea was to cook the pasta, then pour the sauce into the hallow pasta holes, then bake it, but the pasta was too soft that it wouldn't stay upright for its life, so i just threw it all together in a pan and called it a casserole.
i really wish i could just quit my retail job and cook and bake for the rest of my life, but unfortunately i dont think my father would approve....nor would that pay my bills and make me a living. so until then, i will work my butt off in retail and eat cheep pasta until i find a real job to pay for my groceries.

okie dokie, here is what i did!  

cook the rigatoni pasta

chop up whatever vegetables you would like to add to the sauce. i did tomatoes, spinach  onions, and mushrooms. 

after you drain the pasta, throw the veggies inside the empty pan.

brown a pound of hamburger

add a jar of pasta sauce to the veggies, and let it simmer on the stove.

combine the cooked pasta, along with the chunky sauce, and put into a 13x9 pan, cover with a layer of mozzarella cheese, and put in the oven at 400 degrees for about 7 minutes, just so the cheese is melted and the blob of pasta and sauce and vegetables becomes a casserole.  

my roommates approved. the entire pan was devoured by the end of the evening. 

easy. simple. delish. 

peace out fellow chefs!