Spaghetti Braid

Ever since I've been married, we have eaten out one, two, three maybe even more times per week. A lot of reasons, lack of time to cook, fast, easy, and just because we could. Even when we had Karson we went out to eat more than we ate at home. But once Easton came along and we realized how stubborn he was, eating out became more of a stress than worth it. Even now, he won't sit still and we have to eat so fast. He gets very impatient while we wait for our food so we have to go somewhere super fast. It's not fun, plain and simple. Anyway, because of this I've been cooking more than ever. It's been fun trying new things and thank goodness for the blogging world these days. It makes it SO easy. Right now just in my drafts I have like 20 things I want to try. It makes it so nice when planning my menu for the week. The one thing I used to hate about cooking was thinking about what to make. I felt like I made the same things over and over again. Now I can look at a variety of different foods with a few clicks and plan my menu. I love it. I have a lot of blogs I follow, but I have a few favorites as you can probably tell from my posts. The ones I love are ones that seem to cook easy stuff, just like me. If I read a recipe and I don't know what the ingredient is, I won't make it. I apologize for writing nothing of importance, but now I'll share this recipe.

I got this from one of my favorites. (Life as a Lofthouse) You should click her link. Her pictures are great. Mine, yeah not so much. Mine turned out nothing like hers, but it sure was fantastic so it doesn't matter. So so so good. This is definitely a must try! Another one Karson ate, THREE times. He never eats leftovers, ever. But this he did. He even told me I'm such a good cook. And also that I needed to get a lot on my plate because I was going to love it. I forgot to get a picture after I cut it. SPAGHETTI BRAID Recipe By: Holly Lofthouse

1 can Pillsbury Pizza Dough

1 pound lean Ground Beef

1 1/2 cups Spaghetti Sauce

2 tablespoons Cream Cheese (I didn't measure, but I spread this on the pizza crust before putting the meat on)

2 cups shredded Mozzarella Cheese

Glaze for the top:

2 tablespoons Butter, melted

1/8 tsp Garlic Salt

1/8 tsp Garlic Powder

1/8 tsp Dill Weed

1/8 tsp Italian Seasoning

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Unravel roll of pizza dough and lay out onto a greased cookie sheet. Set aside. Cook the ground beef in a large skillet and cook until browned. Drain the grease. Pour in the spaghetti sauce and heat to boiling. Reduce heat and let simmer 5-10 minutes or until sauce is thoroughly heated. Dough should now be room temp and easy to work with. Shape it out onto the cookie sheet and form into a large rectangle. Down each side of dough, cut 2 inch wide slits with a pizza cutter. Spread cream cheese down center of dough, spread beef mixture on top of cream cheese. Sprinkle the shredded cheese over the top and start to braid the dough over the top of the filling. Cris-crossing to form a 'braid' and making sure to cover any holes. Microwave butter to melt completely. Add in all the seasonings and mix well. Brush evenly over the top of the braid. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven. Sprinkle the braid evenly with Parmesan cheese. Let stand 5 minutes before slicing. (I didn't read this well, I added the Parmesan cheese to the butter mixture. Although it made a paste it still tasted great. but next time I'll just add it once I take it out of the oven.)