Taco Twist Bake

I like pasta.  Too much.  I pretty much subscribe to the theory that nothing can be bad if it involves pasta.  So when I came across this recipe for a "Taco Twist Bake" involving rotini noodles I knew I'd give it a try sometime.  Fast forward to a rainy day stuck at home with three kiddos.  What's for lunch?  Checked the cabinets and decided I had pretty much everything I needed to make this.  The original called for sour cream and did not involve Doritos.  I subbed cream cheese (I also subscribe to the theory that nothing involving cream cheese can be bad.) in the place of sour cream and added a Doritos crust.  I also used way less meat and threw on some taco sauce upon serving my portion.
What you need:
*1lb hamburger meat (I actually used about a quarter pound because I'm not a huge meat person)
*1/2 green pepper diced
*packet of taco seasoning
*water per the taco seasoning directions (I actually use way less, just the actual packet filled up, which makes the seasoning more concentrated.)
*box of rotini (spiral) noodles, cooked al dente and drained
*8oz sour cream OR cream cheese
*1c (I used two) shredded cheddar cheese (I used the fiesta blend Wal-Mart cheese)
*1can (15oz) tomato sauce
*Doritos nacho cheese tortilla chips

What you do:
Cook hamburger meat until done, drain if needed, add seasoning and water, cook until liquid is absorbed.
Add chopped green pepper and tomato sauce, bring to a simmering boil (if that's a phrase, oh well it is now).
In a bowl toss cooked rotini with the cream cheese (or sour cream, or actually you know what you could use a good plain Greek yogurt which would bump up the protein) and half the shredded cheese (going by the original recipe that'd be half a cup, going by the Shannon-loves-cheese-ipe it'd be a whole cup).
Crush a couple handfulls of Doritos into the bottom of a pan (I used an 8x8 glass baking pan and it was FULL so you may wanna go 9x13 on this one it's up to you).
Pour cheese/noodle mix on top of chips, then top with the meat/sauce mix and top that with remaining shredded cheese.
Bake at 350 about 20 minutes or until cheese is melted.
Eat it.
Say YUM.


It was seriously more difficult to type that ^^ out than it was to make this.
The result was YUMMY and both my food-eating age children ate it with no complaints, which is rare.
I think you could really expand on this to make it suit any taste, adding jalapenos is something I think I'd like.  I also considered adding a layer of taco sauce on top of the meat sauce mixture (before the final cheese layer) just because I love taco sauce.  I mean love it like I should have a shirt that says I heart Taco Sauce.