Okay, Baked Ziti is pretty easy to make – quick, good, and a great way to get rid of some leftovers. By the time Wednesday usually rolls around, we’ve finished the chicken casserole leftovers and have been eating leftover quesadillas for lunch. So the idea here is to use up the fresh veg that survived those two dinners and to clear the fridge, all while providing lunch leftovers for Thursday. We usually end up with enough ziti for dinner, lunch the next day, and a fair amount to go in the freezer for later.
Baked Ziti is kind of like lasanga. It’s not complicated to make – all you need is:
1 16oz bag Penne Rigate pasta
2 29oz cans of tomato sauce (can substitute with jars of cheap spaghetti sauce)
Shredded cheese
The rest is veg, and a good excuse to clean out the fridge. We usually use onion, mushroom, zucchini and broccoli left over from dinner on Monday and Tuesday. You can also use garlic, fresh tomatoes or anything else you happen to have on hand. I’ve also tossed leftover ground turkey burger in from time to time, and you can use chicken as well; as I said, it’s whatever you’re trying to get rid of that week.
Put two pots on the stove. Fill one with water, and in the other pour the tomato sauce. Chop the vegetables to taste, put them in the sauce and start cooking up a basic marinara: your regular Italian pasta sauce, seasoned with oregano, basil, onion salt, garlic salt, etc. to taste. Cook the sauce until the sauce has been fairly well cooked down, to the point that you’d be willing to serve it alone over pasta.
Next, boil the penne, but not all the way. Leave it a slight bit undercooked.
Take a 9″x13″ glass pan and pour the pasta into it. Then SLOWLY pour the marinara sauce over the pasta, mixing it in as you go. (Do the pasta first because you may end up with leftover sauce, which is more leftover-usable than cold cooked penne.) Once the pan is filled with the penne/sauce mixture, put a layer of grated cheese to taste over the top. Then put foil over the pan and put it in the oven.
Cook about 35-40 minutes at 375F. Let cool a bit before serving with bread and/or salad.
Like I said, a baked ziti is easy and fast and useful for flushing leftovers. Hope you enjoy it.