Recipe: Three-Cheese Baked Ziti with Italian Sausage

Today's world food you can prepare at home is a familiar one to many people. Baked Ziti comes in a myriad of styles and interpretations. That's because it's good and everyone takes their own angle at it. For many of my Italian friends it is one of their favorite comfort foods.

I'm not going to stretch the truth here, the recipe below is a little involved, but not really complicated, nor does it demand any special talents or tools. It's a large recipe that is suitable for a family dinner or even a party. Generally, this dish will get my family through three days worth of dinners. Correction: three days worth of welcome dinners!

Leftovers can make some folks groan, but there's a way around that kind of resistance. One restaurant trick I suggest using with this dish or similar ones like lasagna or chicken or eggplant parmesan is having a quantity of hot marinara sauce reserved for dressing the dish while placing it on individual serving plates. Sure, this may be common sense for a lot of home cooks, but I cannot count how many times I've been served similar dishes without the benefit of some fresh sauce! That's the reason I suggest the extra marinara first in the ingredients below.

Three-Cheese Baked Ziti with Italian Sausage

1 quantity of Sun-Dried Tomato Marinara Sauce
2 1 lb. boxes of ziti
3 TBS olive oil
4 cloves garlic (crushed)
1 lb. Italian sausage (skin peeled off)
1 lb. ground beef
1 28 oz. can roasted tomatoes (I use Muir Glenn Fire Roasted, see link at top of page.)
1-1/2 cups tomato sauce
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 tsp ground fennel
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper (to taste)
2 TBS sweet butter
1 lb. ricotta cheese
3/4 lb. mozzarella cheese (shredded)
1/3 cup parmesan-reggiano cheese (grated)
1 large tomato (thinly sliced)
1/4 cup Italian breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Make the Sun Dried Marinara Sauce and keep it on a low simmer on your stove while you prepare the other ingredients.

Place a large sauce pan or dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil and when it begins to shimmer add the crushed garlic and cook it until it browns and softens. Remove the garlic and allow it to cool, then mash it into a paste and set aside.

Add the Italian sausage and ground beef to the oil and cook until crumbly and well browned.

Add the roasted tomatoes, tomato sauce, chicken stock, fennel, bay leaf, mashed garlic, salt and pepper to the sausage and ground beef mixture. Mix well, raise to a boil, lower to a healthy simmer and continue cooking for 30 minutes stirring occasionally. You want it to reduce and thicken.

While the sauce simmers cook the ziti in the normal way being sure to keep it al dente. When the pasta finishes cooking, drain it and pour it into a large bowl. Gently mix in the butter to coat the ziti.

When the sauce is done, check for seasoning and adjust, remove it from the heat. Add the finished sauce to the ziti and blend it well.

Take a 10 x 14 baking dish and spread the ziti and sauce mixture evenly within the pan. Take spoonfuls of the ricotta and slip the ricotta under the ziti at regular intervals throughout the ziti. Now firmly level and press the ziti into the pan. You are looking to get it to pack a little so it will hold it's shape like lasagna after baking and cooling.

Sprinkle the mozzarella evenly over the top of the ziti, followed by the parmesan-reggiano. Then take the tomato slices and lay them out over the top of the mixture. Finally, sprinkle the bread crumbs over the mix and pop the pan into the oven for 35 to 45 minutes. You're looking for the top to get golden and bubbly here.

Remove from the oven and allow it to cool and set for at least 20 minutes.

Take your serving plates and spoon a generous portion of the marinara onto it. Carefully cut and remove a block of baked ziti and place it on the plate. Then add more marinara to the top. Serve with a sprinkle of cheese and perhaps some basil.

Red wine, crusty bread - HEAVEN!

Recipe: Three-Cheese Baked Ziti with Italian Sausage from Chop Onions, Boil Water by Henry Krauzyk http://www.choponionsboilwater.com

Recipe: Sun-dried Tomato Marinara Sauce

I'm going to make a statement that may upset a lot of people (especially Europeans). As I live my life generally not caring about upsetting a lot of people, I don't care. This is just an advisory note that you should look past your initial feelings of instant resentment and open-mindedly consider what I'm going to write. Beyond that, I'm also saying that if you cannot do that, I just don't care if you're upset. It's how I roll.

Ready?

Here goes...

Without the contributions of the Native Americans, international cuisine as the world now knows it would not exist!

There would be no Italian, Spanish or Portuguese food as we know it. French, Indian and Chinese cuisines would also be greatly diminished. Strangely enough though, British food would remain completely unchanged and uninteresting.

Why do I proclaim this? Because without the contributions of the Americas there would be no dishes that contain potatoes, tomatoes, chili peppers, peanuts, chocolate, vanilla, sweet potatoes or corn. All of these ingredients in modern cuisine were introduced to the world by Native Americans to the early European settlers.

Think of any of the major cuisines available today without these important ingredients and you'll have to agree. Pasta without tomato sauce? Szechuan, Portuguese or curries without chili peppers? Satay without peanuts? French desserts sans chocolate and vanilla? The Irish without potatoes?

What about the sweet potato? One of the top 15 crops worldwide! The Europeans got their first taste of it in the Caribbean and then proceeded to distribute it worldwide! It helped thwart a Japanese famine in the 1730's and was so integrated by New Zealand's Maori into their mythology as to have eleborate rituals and ceremonies governing its growing and storage methods!

So next time you consider food, consider the contributions of the Americas and the Native Americans! Don't even make me bring up pineapples, cashews, strawberries or medicinal plants!

How does it all relate to the attached recipe? TOMATOES YO!

Sun-Dried Tomato Marinara Sauce

2 28oz cans of ground tomatoes
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes (diced)
1/4-1/2 cup of olive oil
2-3 Tbs of fat back or equivalent (optional)
3-5 Tbs red onion (chopped)
2 cloves of garlic (minced)
2 Tbs dried basil
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cracked black pepper
1 healthy pinch of dried oregano
Salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste

In a deep saucepan add olive oil and place on medium heat until the oil begins to shimmer. Add fat back (if using) and cook until it is rendered. Remove the solids.

Add onions and stir often, cook until translucent.

Add garlic and saute for 1-2 minutes.

Carefully add the ground tomatoes and the sun-dried tomatoes. Blend in well, simmer for five minutes then add the basil, oregano, salt and pepper, stir in well..

Bring mixture to a boil then lower to a low simmer and cook for 45 minutes stirring occasionally.

If sauce is too thin, continue cooking uncovered until desired consistency is achieved. If sauce is too thick, slowly add pasta water to desired consistency.

Serve over pasta topped with Parmigiano-reggiano cheese, or use as an excellent base for meatballs.


Sun-Dried Tomato Marinara Sauce from Chop Onions, Boil Water by Henry Krauzyk