Cottage Cheese Loaf - Nutty Version

I got hungry for cottage cheese loaf and whipped up this one.  I changed a few ingredients thanks to some suggestions from readers and a couple of ingredients I wanted to try out for a nuttier version. If you guys are allergic to nuts, this one is not recommended. Here's the recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 large carton cottage cheese (24-32 oz. size)
• 5 eggs (higher in protein with the extra egg and binds the extra oatmeal)
• 1/2 cup pecan meal (If you have pecans, dump a cup in the blinder and whiz it up till it's meal)
• 1/2 cup slivered toasted almonds
• 1 cup oatmeal
• 2 Tbsp peanut butter
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 packet Lipton's onion soup mix
• 1 regular box of Special K cereal
• 1/2 stick of butter

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Crush the Special K in a large bowl. Grind up the pecans to make meal if you don't have pecan meal.
3. Stir in oatmeal, peanut butter, oil, soup mix, cottage cheese and eggs. Mix together thoroughly.
4. In 9x13 casserole dish, melt butter.
5. Press loaf mixture into the casserole dish
6. Sprinkle toasted almond slivers over the top
7. Bake in the oven for 40 to 60 minutes until the top is brown and the edges are crisp and pull slightly away from the sides of the pan.

SERVING SUGGESTIONS:

Cover and hold in the refrigerator for tomorrow's potluck or serve immediately. I tend to go with "serve immediately" as you can tell from the picture above. This version has a nuttier flavor than the original recipe. The oatmeal doesn't much change the taste and gives you more of it if you need to feed a larger group. An extra egg covers the extra ingredients. I love this stuff. If you haven't checked it out, here's the original recipe the way my grandmother and Miss Sheila made it.  (Just click the link).

Tom King