noodles and cottage cheese

It’s snowing, again.  It is below freezing, again.  I need inner warmth.  I need noodles.

I don’t eat much pasta. Watching those carbs.  But there are times when nothing else will fill that hole.  Nothing else will satisfy.  Noodles please!

My husband has rules about noodles.  Essentially he doesn’t like “flat noodles”.  He likes very thin spaghetti and elbow macaroni.  That’s about it.  I usually oblige but today I craved…I needed…noodles and cottage cheese.  One can only make truly good noodles and cottage cheese with flat egg noodles.  Nothing else will do.

This is a dish that my mother made.  She learned from her mother.  And so on back down the line.  My mother often served this as a side dish.  I did too.  But with so much snow and so much very cold weather this is a perfect lunch by itself. There is something indulgent and satisfying about eating out of a big bowl.  This is also a dish children love.  Love.

A word before the recipe about an ingredient.  My mother made this dish as her mother did with dry curd cottage cheese.  I did too.  Up until a few years ago dry curd cottage cheese was easily found at grocery stores.  Now.  Nowhere.  You can make your own dry curd by dumping cottage cheese into a colander, rinsing it gently with water to get the excess “dairy” off it, and letting it drain for about an hour.  BUT….regular cottage cheese works just fine.  Not light or lite or low fat.  Full fat cottage cheese is required.

Ingredients:
Two cups of flat egg noodles
Large piece of good butter (I use unsalted) …about 3-4 tablespoons
1/2 to 3/4 cup of 4% cottage cheese
Dash of salt to taste

For browned bread crumb topping:
Two tablespoons good butter
3-4 tablespoons bread crumbs

Directions:
1.  Fill a large saucepan with water and bring to a boil.  (putting a wooden spoon across the pot will keep the pot from boiling over.  It will.  Honest.)
2.  While waiting for the noodles to boil make the browned bread crumbs by melting butter in a mall frying pan.  When the butter is melted drop in the bread crumbs and stir until brown.  Watch the bread crumbs don’t burn…they can go from bland to burned very quickly.

3.  Boil the noodles until they are soft enough to your taste (al dente does not work here).
4.  When noodles are done, drain the water off in a colander.  Put the hot drained noodles back into the hot pot in which they were cooked.
5.  Drop in the butter and cottage cheese and salt.  Allow to start melting (30 seconds to a minute).  Gently stir to mix.

6.  Pour noodle mixture into a serving bowl and top with browned bread crumbs.

Eat!  You’ll feel so warm inside and out! (These are also delicious in the Spring!)