Beef and Zucchini Casserole

This zucchini and ground beef casserole is layered like lasagna, with ground beef, rice, zucchini, squash and cottage cheese.

3 cups of thinly sliced zucchini

1 cup of thinly sliced yellow squash

salt

2 tablespoons oil

1/2 onion

1 teaspoon of garlic powder

1 pound lean ground beef

1/2 teaspoon of oregano

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 cup cooked rice

1 14 oz can of peeled diced tomato's (do not drain)

1 cup cottage cheese

2 cup casserole blend cheese*

1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Toss zucchini and squash with 1 teaspoon salt and let stand 20 minutes; drain.

Place half of the zucchini and squash in a buttered 8" x 8" Casserole dish.

Heat oil in skillet; saute onion until tender; add ground beef and cook until no longer pink. Drain off excess fat; add oregano, garlic powder, pepper and 1/2 teaspoon salt or more to taste. Stir in cooked rice and diced tomato's. Spread over zucchini and squash in casserole dish.

Combine cottage cheese, 1 cup cheese, and egg, spoon over meat mixture.

Top with remaining Zucchini and squash and sprinkle with remaining cheese.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until bubbly.

Story behind this dish!!

When thinking of what to make for dinner tonight, I remembered I had some ground beef I needed to use and some zucchini and squash. So I googled both of them and came up with a few casserole dishes and skillet recipes. This particular recipe seemed easy enough and I had all the ingredients already.

I thought this turned out good enough to share with everyone. Everyone seemed to like it except not all my kids like zucchini but they just ate around it.