Baked Spaghetti with Cream Cheese and French Fried Onions

I'm getting behind on my blog posts! Carl and I have been cooking up a storm lately, and so I have a few recipes I'm dying to share with you, but with all these tornadoes we've been having, I haven't gotten the chance! However, I have a bit of time while supper is in the oven, so I'm going to share what we made last night for dinner. I found this recipe here, but of course we made some changes. Here's what we did:

Ingredients:

• 8-oz whole wheat spaghetti
• a couple tablespoons oil
• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 bell pepper, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 8-oz package cream cheese, softened
• 2 tablespoons pasta sprinkle
• 1 24-oz jar spaghetti sauce (I used Ragu's Sweet Tomato Basil because it was on sale)
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 tomato, diced
  
• 1 2.8-oz can French fried onions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cook the spaghetti according to the package directions, drain, and set aside. In a large skillet heat the oil and add the beef. Cook until no longer pink. Add the onion, bell pepper, and garlic. Add the cream cheese, pasta sprinkle, and spaghetti sauce, and stir until the cream cheese is melted. Stir in spaghetti and mix completely. Pour the spaghetti into a greased 2.5 quart baking dish. Sprinkle the mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses on top and then top with the diced tomato. Bake uncovered for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and top with the French fried onions. Bake for no more than 5 additional minutes.

This was pretty tasty. I think next time we make it, I'd want to make some additional changes. I had some spaghetti in an opened box, so I really didn't know how much would have been 8-oz, so I included the whole thing, and it was way too much spaghetti. The noodles kind of took over everything else. I originally only included 1 tablespoon of pasta sprinkle, but it needed more spice, so next time I'd include 2. I'd consider adding a couple more diced tomatoes and mixing them in with the spaghetti to make it more chunky. I really liked the tomatoes on top, though, and I will definitely keep doing that! I also would include a pound of sliced mushrooms and maybe some fresh basil next time and possibly increase the amount of veggies in general.

Another thing I might want to consider is using a 9 X 13 baking dish instead of my 2.5 quart one. Our's was filled with date bars, so I had to substitute. I think I'd use the 9 X 13 because the amount of cheese and French fried onions with each serving made this dish very salty, so I think I'd either want to use less cheese and French fried onions or a 9 X 13 to spread them out a bit more and reduce the amount per serving.