Italian Rice Bake

Total Time: 50 mins Preparation Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 6
• 2/3 cup rice (or 2 cups leftover cooked rice)
• 1 1/3 cups water (if using uncooked rice)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon butter or 1 tablespoon margarine
• 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
• 6 ounces water (to make tomato sauce using the tomato paste)
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 dash pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon whole thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed
• 1 teaspoon parsley flakes
• 1 1/2 cups low fat cottage cheese
• 1/2 cup grated part-skim mozzarella cheese or 1/2 cup farmer cheese

Recipe

• 1 cook rice in water.
• 2 in a skillet, saute onion in butter or margarine.
• 3 add tomato paste, water, garlic powder, sugar, pepper, thyme, oregano and parsley to onion mixture.
• 4 combine cottage cheese and rice.
• 5 put 1/3 of rice mixture in non-stick sprayed casserole dish.
• 6 top with 1/3 of tomato sauce.
• 7 continue to alternate layers, ending with tomato sauce.
• 8 top with grated cheese.
• 9 bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes or until it is hot and bubbly.