Baked Ziti June 1, 2009

Happy first day of June! I’m so glad it’s finally getting warm here. I love summer!

This baked ziti was the second thing that Jen and I cooked during our cooking extravaganza. I love baked pasta dishes, because they’re always so easy to make and they freeze and reheat really well. This one was a little bit different than the baked ziti I always make, because it calls for adding some fresh basil (always a good thing!) and ricotta cheese. I will definitely be making it sometime soon!

That’s me!  Mixing spaghetti sauce into the cooked ground turkey.

Mmmm, look at that fresh basil and garlic!

(And wine and Wheat Thins…hey, we can’t have hungry cooks!)

Jen and I with the finished product!

This recipe is really easy to customize to fit your own tastes.  You can use ground beef or turkey and you can add more or less cheese and fresh herbs.  Instead of using plain tomato sauce, we used spaghetti sauce, which will bump up the flavor quite a bit.  My favorite is Prego Fresh Mushroom, but you can use whatever kind you like.  Instead of using shredded mozzarella cheese, Jen ended up buying a few balls of fresh mozzarella.  We cut it up into chunks and mixed about half into the pasta mixture and then sprinkled the rest on top right before baking.  I actually liked this better, because then there’s little pockets of cheese inside the pasta, along with the nice little blobs of it on top.

Baked Ziti

Makes: One 13×9 inch pan (about 8 servings)

Adapted from: Foodfit.com

1/2 lb. ziti pasta

4 tsp. olive oil

1/2 c. chopped onion

1 1/2 cloves garlic, minced

1 lb. ground turkey

2 c. tomato sauce (or spaghetti sauce)

1/3 c. fresh basil, chopped

1 c. ricotta cheese

2/3 c. grated mozzarella cheese

1/3 c. grated Parmesan cheese

1) Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Add the pasta and cook until just shy of being done (you want them to be still slightly chewy in the middle), about 8-10 minutes.  Drain and set aside.

2) Meanwhile, heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Once hot, add the onion and saute until translucent and soft, about 5 minutes.  Add the garlic and saute for one minute more.

3) Add the ground turkey to the skillet with the onion and garlic, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. Cook until turkey is completely cooked through.  Drain off any excess fat.

4) Add the tomato sauce to the skillet and mix until combined.  Heat over low heat until bubbly, about 5 minutes.

5) In a large bowl, mix together the turkey mixture, pasta, basil and ricotta cheese.  Spoon mixture into a greased 13×9 inch pan.

6) Sprinkle the mozzarella and Parmesan cheese evenly over the pasta mixture.

7) Bake at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes until the cheese is melted and browned and the mixture is heated through.

I’m Back! Plus Crock Pot Turkey Chili May 31, 2009

Hello again!  It’s been a while, hasn’t it?  I bet you almost forgot about me, didn’t you?

I can’t believe it’s been over a month since I last posted.  I feel terrible!  In my defense, I haven’t actually cooked almost anything this past month.  It’s not like I’ve been cooking these fabulous things and just not sharing.

This past month has been, well, stressful.  I managed to get sick, break up with my boyfriend, take all of my finals, and decide to move to a city I’ve never lived in before all in the space of about a week.  Not my best week, obviously.  Needless to say, I was a bit stressed.  I didn’t really eat anything that entire week.  Like literally, there were a few days when I would be getting ready for bed and realize “oh, I didn’t eat dinner.  Wait, or lunch.  Uh-oh, or breakfast!”  And even when I did eat, it was either pre-made TV dinners or cereal.  I couldn’t really bring myself to cook anything.  I feel like I lost my cooking mojo for a bit, but luckily I’m starting to recover.

I moved to Kalamazoo for the summer to live with my little sister.  It was an incredibly last-minute decision, but so far I’m really happy with it.  We get along surprisingly well when my parents aren’t around, haha.  My friend Jen also lives in Kalamazoo, and she had me over for a little cooking extravaganza.  She usually tries to cook a ton of food in advance  and then freezes it, so her and her husband don’t have to cook a lot during the week, and so her husband eats something other than beef jerkey and crackers when she’s off in Big Rapids during the week taking classes.

I had so much fun cooking with Jen!  Her house (and especially her kitchen) is absolutely gorgeous, and I was so excited to finally get to see it!  It was nice to get back in the kitchen and actually cook.  We made three entrees, all of which I’ll be posting, the first of which being turkey chili in the crock pot.  I’m ashamed to admit that I walked out of her house without actually having tasted anything, but from what I’ve heard from Jen and Frankie, everything was delicious.  I can tell you that at the very least, everything smelled amazing as it was cooking!

Everyone, meet Jen!  She’s very enthusiastically browning the ground turkey for the chili.  Also, isn’t the backsplash in her kitchen really pretty?

This is a really great recipe for chili that I will definitely be making sometime in the near future.  I love that it uses the crock pot, because it frees up so much time that you would normally be spending standing by the stove, stirring the chili on the stovetop.  With this recipe, you chuck everything in the crock pot, turn it on, and then let it be.  It’s awesome.

With chili, I’ve found that it’s really important to taste often as you’re adding spices.  Everyone likes their chili a certain way, and you’ll never know if it tastes right to you if you don’t, well, taste it!  We started by adding about half of the spices that the recipe calls for, and then tasting and adding more as we saw fit.  If I remember correctly, we increased the amount of cumin and cayenne pepper to about 1 teaspoon each to fit Jen’s tastes. Also, this makes a TON of chili.  It completely filled up Jen’s extra large crock pot, so if you only have a normal sized crock pot (and unfortunately I don’t know the volumes of each, but you can see the size of Jen’s from the picture below) I would recommend halving the recipe, or making it in batches.

Crock Pot Turkey Chili

Adapted from:  Allrecipes.com

1 1/2 tsp. olive oil

1 lb. ground turkey

1 onion, coarsely chopped

2 c. water

1 can (28 oz.) crushed tomatoes

1 can (16 oz.) kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 tbsp. garlic, minced

2 tbsp. chili powder

1/2 tsp. paprika

1/2 tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. cayenne pepper (or less, depending on your tastes)

1 tsp. cumin

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

1) Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the ground turkey and cook until it’s no longer pink.  Place the turkey in the crock pot.

2) Add all other ingredients into the crock pot and mix well.  If desired, start by adding only half of all the spices, and then adjust to reach the flavor that you like.

3) Turn the crock pot on high and cook for 2-3 hours.