Beef-and-Feta Pasta Bake

From Everyday with Rachael Ray February 2009 (I don't see it on the website.)



Ingredients:
1 pound pasta (I used shells)
2 T butter
2 T flour
2 cups milk, heated
3/4 pound crumbled feta
3 cups meat sauce (I used a jar of pasta sauce)
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves
1/4 t sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the pasta until a dente. Drain.

2. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Whisk in the flour for 2 minutes. Increase the heat to medium, whish in the hot milk and cook, whisking, until thickened, about 5 mintutes. Stir in the feta.

3. In a large bowl, combine the meat sauce, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar. Stir in half the pasta. In another large bowl, stir together the feta sauce and the remaining pasta. Transfer the meat-coated pasta to a 9x13 baking dish. Top with the feta-coated pasta. Bake until golden, about 30 minutes.

Comments:
Adam picked this recipe out. I probably would have avoided it since I'm not really a fan of feta cheese. Or cloves. But it was actually pretty good. Next time I would probably leave the cloves out because neither of us really dug that overtone. I'd also probably make a batch of my favorite pasta sauce and use that instead of the jarred stuff. I didn't plan ahead too well this time.