Sometimes you just want to have only one pan to wash up after dinner. This cheesy, easy skillet pasta is fast to make and even faster to clean up after.

Hey, remember this from Animal House?

Skillet Baked Spaghetti

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef
4 oz hot or sweet Itaian sausage. casings removed
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp oregano
1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes
8 oz spaghetti, broken into 2 inch pieces
2 cups water
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup heavy cream
6 Tbs chopped basil
1 cup shredded Italian cheese blend

Directions:

1. Preheat oven broiler.

2. Cook beef and sausage in a large ovensafe skillet over medium heat, breaking up meat with a wooden spoon until no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Drain and return meat to skillet.

3. Add garlic, pepper flakes and oregano and cook one minute. Stir in tomatoes, spaghetti, water and salt. Cover and cook, stirring often, until spaghettti begins to soften, about 7 minutes. Reduce heat to low and continue to simmer, covered, until spaghetti is al dente, another 7 minutes.

4. Stir in the cream, basil and 1/3 of the cheese. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and broil until surface begins to brown, about 2 minutes.

5. Let cool 5 minutes and serve.

Serves 4 to 6

Here’s a great tip for breaking the spaghetti so it doesn’t end up flying all over the kitchen. Put the spaghetti in a large ziploc bag and seal. Break pasta by pressing bag against counter top until you’ve got a bag full of approximate 2 inch lengths..

Adapted from Cooks Country Magazine

For some reason, I’ve been generating way too many dirty pots and pans lately which necessitates a lot of washing up. These songs have been on my mind as I scrub away.

Yann Tiersen-Dishes

k.d. lang-Wash Me Clean

Cheers!