I'm back... with Ziti

I've been on blogging hiatus lately. Beating Bowser in Super Mario Galaxy for Nintendo Wii became a priority over the past couple weeks. Fortunately for me (and my cooking skills), we've successfully collected all 120 stars, beaten Bowser twice, and unlocked Luigi to make him playable.

A few days ago, I made a really great baked ziti, and I thought I'd share it with you all. It's a Robin Miller recipe. I'm torn on her. I really like her concept, but most recipes I've tried have just been so-so. This one was great, though. It got a big thumbs up from both of us. This recipe is HUGE, though, so I highly suggest making a 1/2 batch, unless you have a family of 20 or so.

Photo from www.foodnetwork.com

Baked Ziti with Sweet Turkey Sausage
Recipe by Robin Miller
Serves 8-12
Total Cook Time - 1 hr

1 pound ziti noodles
1 pound sweet turkey sausage, cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
2 (28-ounce) cans diced tomatoes with seasonings (garlic and oregano)
2 teaspoons dried thyme (I omitted both Thyme & Rosemary in favor of Italian Seasoning)
2 teaspoons dried rosemary
(I also added some minced garlic)
1 (15-ounce) container regular or part-skim ricotta cheese
4 cups grated part-skim mozzarella cheese, reserve 1 cup, for topping (I also added a handful of a shredded cheese blend).
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup grated Parmesan Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside. Meanwhile, cook sausage in a hot skillet over medium heat until golden brown on all sides. Add tomatoes, thyme and rosemary and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat. In a medium bowl, combine ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese and garlic powder and mix well. Spoon 1/2 cup of the tomato sauce in the bottom of a 4-quart casserole dish. Top with half of the cooked ziti. Top with half of the cheese mixture. Top with 1 cup of the tomato sauce. Repeat layers (remaining ziti and remaining cheese mixture). Top with remaining tomato sauce. Sprinkle remaining mozzarella and parmesan cheese over top. Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 15 more minutes, until cheese is golden and bubbly.

Tip Time

Seeing as I haven't really blogged much lately (excuses will be posted later), I thought I'd sign on and share two of my favorite cooking tips with you.

1. Rotisserie chickens make the best chicken salad
2. Coarsely shredded rotisserie chicken meat makes awesome taco meat.

Lasagnas

I've been making quite a bit of lasagna lately. I like making lasagna. I find the assembly somewhat tedious, but I enjoy it. I like seeing the progress as the layers are put together. I think my homemade recipe book has about 6 or 7 lasagna recipes I want to try some day, and I swear, I'll make them all one day. I made the following recipe for the previously-mentioned dinner with the in-laws and it was a big hit. I know I might be biased because I made it, but I do think it's the best lasagna I've had outside of Italy.

Photo from www.foodnetwork.com

The Lady and Sons Lasagna
Recipe by Paula Deen
*Serves 8-10*
Prep Time - 25 min Cook Time - 2 hrs, 20 min

For the sauce:
2 cups canned, diced tomatoes, with juice (I use petite diced tomatoes)
2 cups tomato sauce
1 cup water
1/2 cup onions, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves
1 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp seasoning salt
1 1/2 tsp sugar
2 bay leaves
1 lb ground beef

For the Lasagna:
6 to 8 long strips lasagna noodles (I think I used about 10)
12 oz cottage cheese, mixed with 1 beaten egg and 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup shredded Gruyere cheese
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese
1 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese

For the sauce:
Combine tomatoes, tomato sauce, water, onions, garlic, parsley, seasoning mixtures, sugar, and bay leaves in a stockpot. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 1 hour. If sauce is too watery, thicken it up by mixing 1 TBSP of cornstarch with 1/4 cup water.

Brown ground beef in a saucepan. Cook until no pink remains and drain off any excess fat. Add ground beef to the stockpot. Simmer for another 20 minutes. Remove bay leaves. Par cook noodles. Drain and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

For the lasagna:
Place a thin layer of sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Place a very thin layer of sauce at the bottom of the pan. Layer as follows:

1/2 noodles
1/2 cottage cheese mixture
1/2 Gruyere cheese
1/2 Swiss cheese
1/2 cheddar cheese
1/2 cream cheese - pinch off small pieces and dot over the other cheeses
1/2 meat sauce

Repeat with the remaining ingredients, ending with the sauce.

Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and top with mozzarella and continue to bake for another 10 to 15 minutes.


Below is the lasagna recipe I grew up with. I don't like it as well as the lasagna recipe above, but it is significantly simpler and is even easy to throw together on a week night. Today, I made one to give away to a friend that's going through a rough time.

Short Cut Lasagna

1 lb ground beef
1 (32 oz) jar spaghetti sauce (I don't like to use homemade for this)
1/2 jar water
1/2 onion, chopped
salt & pepper, to taste
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 (12 oz) container cottage cheese
2 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese
12 oz lasagna noodles, uncooked
Parmesan cheese

Brown ground beef with onions, garlic, salt, & pepper. Mix with spaghetti sauce & water.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Layer as follows:

1/3 meat sauce
1/2 lasagna noodles
1/2 cottage cheese
1/2 Mozzarella cheese
1/3 meat sauce
remaining lasagna noodles
remaning cottage cheese
remaining Mozzarella cheese
remaining meat sauce

Sprinkle top with Parmesan cheese.

Bake covered for 1 hour.

Thanksgiving pies

I made the pies for this year's Thanksgiving dinner for (apparently) 35 people (see post called "Talking Turkey" below). The in-laws usually get pies from Baker's Square, not that there's anything wrong with that. I decided homemade pie would be better. Seeing as I strongly dislike anything pumpkin, I made one apple pie and one pumpkin.

Photograph from verybestbaking.com -
I took pictures on my camera, but the memory card won't let me retrieve them

Pumpkin Pie (from Libby's pumpkin can)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 large eggs
1 can (15 oz.) 100% pure pumpkin
1 can (12 fl. oz) can evaporated milk
1 pie crust (I used the refridgerated roll-out kind for convenience)


Mix sugar, cinnamon, salt, ginger and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk.

Pour into pie shell.

Bake in preheated 425° F oven for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350° F; bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours. Serve immediately or refrigerate. Top with whipped cream before serving.



Dutch Apple Pie
recipe from my mom

Bottom Crust
1 stick melted butter
1 TBSP sugar
1 cup flour

Filling
4-5 sliced apples (sour-ish ones are usually better)
½ cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Top Crust
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
½ cup butter, softened

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix bottom crust together with a fork an press into pie plate.

Mix apples and cinnamon/sugar; put in pie tin with the crust. When filled, it should look sort of like a dome.

Mix brown sugar, flour, & butter to crumbly mass (do this with your hands). Top the apples with this mixture.

What happened to my cheesecake?

We had the in-laws over for dinner and I decided to make cheesecake for dessert. Nothing fancy, just a plain 3-step cheesecake in a pre-made graham cracker crust. I've made dozens of them in the past, and they always turn out great. For some reason, something went terribly wrong this time. This is what happened:


So, I made a new one at last minute. Exact same recipe, exact same ingredients. The results were much better this time:


I still have no idea why this cheesecake turned out great while the other one mysteriously flopped. If anyone can tell from these pictures, please let me know.

Cheesecake (from Philadelphia Cream Cheese Cookbook)

2 pkg. (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1 pre-made graham cracker crust.

Preheat oven to 325°F. Beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs; mix just until blended.

Pour into crust.

Bake 40 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate 3 hours or overnight. Store leftover cheesecake in refrigerator.

Talking Turkey

Now that Thanksgiving is over, I feel the need to talk about the Thanksgiving turkey. We spent turkey day with my in-laws this year. Apparently, they're on a quest to find the biggest turkey possible. This year, there were 4 of us at dinner, and the turkey was 30 1/2 lbs. Yep, you read that right - almost 31 lbs. Easily, this was the biggest turkey I've ever seen. I secretly think it was one of those ginormous show turkeys they have every year at the state fair.

I don't want to be too deceiving, though. They did bring a turkey dinner to my sister-in-law and some of her colleagues, who were on-call at the hospital on Thursday. When they bought the turkey, they were planning on serving 4 or 5 at the hospital. So, they planned on having this 30+ lb turkey feed a max of 9 people. Apparently everyone eats over 3 lbs of turkey. I think about 10 people at the hospital actually ate what they brought, though.

The pictures I took with my camera phone don't quite do the turkey's size justice, but I had to post a couple of them anyway.

Despite its huge-ness, the turkey was delicious. I'm looking forward to finishing off our leftovers. I'll be posting about my spectacular pies soon.

A little spoonful of heaven

I love Nutella.

That's all I wanted to say.