Sometimes I crave the garbage-food of my youth (okay… early 20s). The problem is, since I’m allergic to dairy, I can’t just pick up a can of Chef Boyardee and go to town on it. No, I have to MAKE it. So what is normally a 3 minute convenience food for many becomes an hour-long process0 for me, just to satisfy that one little craving.

Enter, Lainey-Style Beefaroni. All the gooey goodness/badness, none of the dairy, and somewhat less preservatives.

Ingredients
Tomato sauce
1/2 lb. ground beef
1/2 package Daiya mozzarella shreds
4 cups or so of cooked Kraft Dinner macaroni noodles, substitute with good pasta if you want.
Bread crumbs

Let’s do it!
Brown the ground beef in a skillet and drain. Add to the tomato sauce and simmer while making the pasta.

A note on the pasta: The reason why I have KD macaroni in the house is because my friend came over, planning on dropping off a bunch of food at the grocery store in the donation box. The grocery store didn’t have a donation box for some reason, so he ended up leaving it at my house. I noticed that the KD was past its expiry date, meaning they probably wouldn’t take it. So I threw out all the seasoning packs and put all the noodles into a plastic container to cook myself. I use these noodles every time I want some garbagey pasta.

Put the pasta in an oven-proof dish with most of the Daiya and the meat sauce. Mix well.

Top with a thin layer of breadcrumbs and the rest of the Daiya.

Place in the oven (or toaster oven) on broil for about 20 minutes. You don’t NEED to do this, but I like having some crispy portions to the otherwise soft mess that is this dish.

This isn’t nearly as garbagey as the canned stuff, but the processed taste of the Daiya cheese mixed with the beef and tomato sauce hits the right spot for me.