Baked Ziti, My Way

If you just love authentic Italian cuisine, look away. This it not that.

This is ziti, the way I like it. I hate ricotta cheese. And cottage cheese. Any and all cheeses that are dopplegangers for baby spit up get a hard no from me. I can not abide by such abominations in any foods, and have thusly usually turned up my nose at lasagna and ziti and other such noodle dishes with my #3 least favorite food.

What’s are the first two? Glad you asked.

1. Mayonnaise. Hate it. With the passion of a thousand fiery burning suns.
2. Tuna. It is terrible and I hate it, and if you ever see me eating it, it is a sure sign that an alien being has taken over my body.
3. And number 3 is ricotta and cottage cheese. They are same the food to me and equally abhorrent.

Anywho. This ziti recipe is originally from my great friend Shaelynn. She made us ziti one night and I steeled myself for powering through a dish I hate, when she told me that hers is not made with any offensive cheeses. I was so happy to welcome this cheesy, melty, meaty dish into my tummy and into my life.

I’ve tweaked the recipe a bit since then, to make it a little lighter and to sneak some vegetables in. You see, certain members of this household are real turds about eating their vegetables. I have tried begging, pleading, bribing, and shouting, and I just can not get the stinker to change his mind. And at some point, you just have to give up. I mean, the man is 32 years old, and I have to let my husband make his own choices. So for picky husbands and children alike, I have learned to sneak all manner of vegetables into this dish, with no whining from the peanut gallery.

This dish is highly customizable. The homemade pasta sauce really kicks it up a notch, but jarred sauce works just fine too. I usually put carrots, onion, and zucchini in the sauce, and you could definitely get mushrooms and spinach in there.

Start by grating up your vegetables. Using a big carrot is highly preferring to using baby carrots here, unless you would also like to include a few finger bits in your pasta. But I like to live on the edge/ we only have baby carrots, so those work too if you watch yo fingas.

Brown the meat and onions. When the meat is cooked through, add your shredded vegetables and cook until they have shrunk up and are tender and practically unrecognizable to picky little eaters. If you could take some really bad pictures of the whole process while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it.

Stir in your pasta sauce and simmer a bit, to continue softening the vegetables and marry the flavors. If your pasta sauce is lacking flavor, add some Italian seasonings here to spice things up.

Assemble your cast of characters and let’s make some ziti. This feeds an army, so I like to make two 9×9 pans and freeze one. Stir together your noodles and sauce and put half of that in the bottom of the pan(s)

Lay the provolone slices over the noodles, and spread the sour cream on top. Stay with me, people. I know this seems weird. But it works, I’m telling you.

Pour on the rest of the noodles, and sprinkle the mozzarella over the whole thing. Struggle for a while to take an artsy picture of you sprinkling mozzarella. Top it off with a sprinkle of shredded parmesan cheese.

Stick one pan in the oven and one in the freezer, and you’ve got dinner tonight and ready for another night!

I wish you could make internet scratch and sniff pictures.

Sometimes I have nightmares that I become intolerant of gluten and dairy.

I mean, really. Nightmares. What is life without melted cheese?

Where do you stand on ricotta? Are you with me or against me? You could probably substitute ricotta for sour cream in this step but you could probably also just go ahead and put some sweaty socks in there too while you’re at it.