Saturday, March 14, 2009

Easy Baked Ziti

I've been on a recipe obsession lately, and thought I'd share my DELICIOUS dinner with you from last night. I (and my boyfriend) enjoyed it so much, and it was pretty inexpensive too!

I'm not exactly sure where I got this recipe, but THANK YOU to wherever/whoever I got it from. It's great!


Easy Baked Ziti

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef (I used 1/2 lb)
8 oz ziti (I used penne pasta)
1 jar spaghetti sauce
7oz ricotta cheese
1 egg
1-1/2 cups mozzarella
1/4 cup parmesan
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbsp parsley
1/2 onion, chopped (didn't have any fresh onion, so I used dehydrated minced onion)

Cook pasta according to package directions. In skillet, cook beef, onion, and garlic until done. Meanwhile, in a bowl mix egg, ricotta, 1 cup mozzarella, parmesan, and parsley. Drain beef and add sauce. Preheat oven to 350. In casserole dish, spoon in spaghetti meat sauce. Top with 1/2 of pasta. Top with cheese mixture. Top with 1/2 of pasta. Add remaining cheese to top. Cover and bake 40 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 5 minutes.


I cooked a full 16oz box of pasta before I realized "Wait.. all this pasta will mean there won't be enough cheese/sauce!" so I have leftover plain pasta that I don't know what to do with yet, and a half carton of ricotta cheese as well. hm.

Anywho, it was very tasty! I whipped up some garlic bread as well on some hoagie-like rolls that were marked down in the bakery at the grocery store, and they went great with the noodles!
Ham was on sale at the store this week, so I've got 4 lbs of this delicious ham that's already cooked and delicious.. I just want to snack on it all day!


Sorry I don't have pictures of the ziti, but it is delicious and we still have half of it as leftovers for dinner tonight.. :)

Enjoy!

3 comments:

Winklepots said...

Sounds like a variation of lasagna. I'll have to try this! Tasty. :o)

Thinkoutsidethebox2008 said...

Yeah..I agree with Winkle pots...I call this dish.."Lazy mans Lasagna"...It actually tastes better on day two! With that leftover Ricotta cheese..It is really tasty spread on those day old Hoagie rolls..spread it on..add some tomato sauce..salso or whatever tomato-based items you have..add a little cheese on top of that and broil or bake..My daughter likes it without the tomato sauce and adds grilled chicken on top of the cheese..it's like a 'white pizza'..turn those leftover ziti noodles into pasta salad..cut some onion and add Italian dressing..delicious!

Michael said...

Sounds delish! Thanks for sharing.