Baked Ziti

[AcuraTech]

Brown 1/2 large onion in a cast iron skillet with a bit of EV olive oil. Add 1 lb ground mild Italian sausage. Add garlic to taste. Continue until meat is browned.

Pour meat/onion mixture into saucepan. Add one 28oz can of diced tomatoes. Add one can tomato paste. Add salt/pepper/oregano/basil/crushed red pepper to taste. Simmer for a couple of hours.

Boil ziti noodles to al dente. Pour noodles into sauce mixture along with chopped fresh basil and approx 3 ozs shredded romano cheese. Stir.

Pour noodle/sauce mixture into oven safe baking dish. Top with fresh mozzarella cheese (not the shredded junk, the pale white stuff that comes in a ball packed in liquid).

Bake in a 350 oven until the cheese gets crusty and slightly brown. Be careful, this stuff is really easy to eat way too much of in one sitting!

 

[crinkles]

sounds awesome. I'm going to print it out

 

[AcuraTech]

The cool thing about this recipe is the amount of leeway. You like mushrooms? Add em to the sauce. Not big on pork sausage? Add turkey sausage or skip it all together.

The one thing I can say is that it's KEY to use quality cheese, that makes all the difference. I like this dish because it's really, really hard to make it taste bad. Plus it makes about 6-8 portions, depending on how you slice it.

 

[moribundman]

I never follow a recipe when making a casserole. I assemble such a dish based on what I have available and what I want in it. There's no way of doing it wrong, really.

I do however advise using and enameled metal baking pan instead of a ceramic baking dish. In the metal pan, the dish will get also a crust at the bottom, especially if you sprinkle the pan with a bit shredded cheese. Twice the crust makes it twice as good! I also use generally eggs and milk as a binder for the ingredients.

 

[AcuraTech]

Originally Posted By: moribundman
I never follow a recipe when making a casserole. I assemble such a dish based on what I have available and what I want in it. There's no way of doing it wrong, really.

I do however advise using and enameled metal baking pan instead of a ceramic baking dish. In the metal pan, the dish will get also a crust at the bottom, especially if you sprinkle the pan with a bit shredded cheese. Twice the crust makes it twice as good! I also use generally eggs and milk as a binder for the ingredients.


Dig it. My girlfriend LOVES the crusty part, I'll have to try the metal pan thing. Typically I use a Pyrex glass oven pan (regardless of exploding Pyrex horror stories) with decent results. Haven't tried using eggs, the cheese seems to keep it all tied together pretty well. Like I said, the reason I love this recipe is the flexibility of it.

 

[moribundman]

Pyrex is fine unless you use the broiler for more than just a few minutes. Always remember, you only have two eyes. I'd hate if I had to call you Patchy, or even worse, Patches.

 

[AcuraTech]

BTW I was a bit skeptical of Pyrex oven dishes after reading all of the horror stories, but then I remembered a personal story.

I used to store my coffee beans in a Pyrex glass bowl with a plastic lid. The bowl was stored on the 3rd(highest) shelf in my kitchen cabinets. One day I went to grab the coffee beans and ended up dropping it onto a ceramic bowl sitting on the counter (approx 3 foot drop). Guess which one won?

Needless to say the ceramic bowl is long gone, while the Pyrex is still in use. To this day I have faith in Pyrex, until one explodes in my oven.

Even at that, I still use caution. It IS glass, and must be handled carefully. I prefer Corningware or metal for most things. I see that All-Clad has a new line of ovenware, might need to check into that.

 

[Iain]

Originally Posted By: AcuraTech
BTW I was a bit skeptical of Pyrex oven dishes after reading all of the horror stories, but then I remembered a personal story.

I used to store my coffee beans in a Pyrex glass bowl with a plastic lid. The bowl was stored on the 3rd(highest) shelf in my kitchen cabinets. One day I went to grab the coffee beans and ended up dropping it onto a ceramic bowl sitting on the counter (approx 3 foot drop). Guess which one won?

Needless to say the ceramic bowl is long gone, while the Pyrex is still in use. To this day I have faith in Pyrex, until one explodes in my oven.

Even at that, I still use caution. It IS glass, and must be handled carefully. I prefer Corningware or metal for most things. I see that All-Clad has a new line of ovenware, might need to check into that.

I store open coffee beans in their OEM container in air-tight stainless steel container.

BTW, is you're considering All Clad product, defo would look at Calphalon One Infused-Anodised product line:
http://www.calphalon.com/calphalon/consumer/products/subProductLine.jhtml?catId=CLCat100145

...excellent for either oven, broiler or top-of-stove use.

Also, their Tri-Ply stainless steel product are equally good, but somehat less pricey.