Saturday, February 14, 2009

An Irish Girl Cooks Italian

On Saturday morning Megan texted me asking for a good Baked Ziti recipe. She was having some friends over for dinner and they wanted pasta (and I'm sure lots of wine)! I heard through the grapevine (Mike, her twin, is our family Rona Barrett) that it was pretty darn good. Meg sent me a picture but it got deleted so I'm posting one from http://www.allrecipes.com/ where the basic recipe came from with some adaptation from Megan.






Here's the recipe I gave her.


Ingredients:
1 (16 ounce) package dry ziti pasta
1 pound mild Italian sausage
1 (15 ounce) container ricotta cheese
1 egg
1 large yellow onion, minced
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 1/2 (26 ounce) jars spaghetti sauce, divided
2 cups shredded Italian cheese blend


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish. Cook the pasta about 8 minutes in boiling salted water until almost cooked through. Drain.

While pasta is cooking, heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add the sausage, and cook and stir until brown, about 10 minutes. Drain sausage and set aside. Stir together the ricotta, egg, onion, garlic, and oregano in a large bowl until well combined. Stir in the drained pasta, the drained sausage, salt, pepper, and 1/2 jar of the spaghetti sauce; mix well.

In the prepared baking dish, cover the bottom with 1/3 jar of spaghetti sauce. Layer 1/2 of the pasta mixture, 1/3 jar of spaghetti sauce, and 1/2 of the shredded cheese. Then layer the remaining 1/2 of the pasta, 1/3 of the sauce, and 1/2 of the cheese. Sprinkle with basil. Cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil.


Bake until heated through, about 20 minutes. Uncover; return to the oven and bake until cheese is melted, 5 to 10 more minutes.

1 comment:

Donna-FFW said...

I love baked ziti, after reading your list if ingredients I have a craving forit, along with a glass of wine, maybe. Looks wonderful!