baked ziti to the rescue



baked ziti
 image via faithfulprovision

yesterday, i was totally stressed... i decided then to bake some baked ziti for the boys eventhough it is a working day, as i usually cook for them on weekends.  came home at 6pm and after telling the maid to mince the onion and doing my asar prayer, quickly threw the apron over and got on with the cooking.  browned the minced meat and while doing so, boiled water for my pasta. had some leftover boiled penne in the freezer and by then, it had thawed nicely.  made a mistake when i went shopping over the weekend and instead of penne, got myself a packet of rigatoni instead but it worked the same when mixed rogether.  by 6.35pm, the tomato and meat sauce was done and the frozen penne were already mixed with the three quarter cooked rigatoni in the pot.  drained the pasta, mixed with the sauce and dumped into the baking pan.  found i had only a small portion of sauce left and was doing double thoughts of whether i should make a bit more sauce because i love pouring at least a rich layer of it over the pasta that has been mixed with sauce. and there i was with a not so complete layer of sauce staring at me. since it was already 6.45pm, i decided not to.  the two younger ones have to be off for kumon by 7.45pm the latest, and i didnt have much time to spare.  sprinkled a large amount of mozzarella cheese all over and remembered advice from"the fiance" (it was him who got me into baking this dish), that the cheese has to cover all the area until you no longer see the red of the sauce peeking out at you.  i would usually sprinkle a 125g packet of parmesan but i didnt have that this time. and despite the 500g packet of mozzarella cheese covering the red sauce and pasta, i decided to improvise and seeked out my cheddar cheese.  half cube left and there i was grating it all over, looking behind my shoulder and saw the time was 5 minutes before 7pm.  was pretty proud of myself for being able to pull off having everything done before 7pm. got it into the oven, covered with foil and all.  15 minutes and it was done but the cheese was not browned. the boys and i love it when the cheese gets browned in places. looks really fantabulous and yummylicious.  anyway took off the foil with cheese stringing on it (the foil was passed on to thoriq for "cleaning up" if you get what i mean).  and back into the oven for another 10 minutes and got down to preparing my salad.  at 7.30pm, my baked ziti was nicely on the table and eventhough it was not settled yet (you are supposed to let it cool for it to settle so that it stays put when you cut it), i cut it anyway for thaqif and ruiz.  not much time to spare.  despite the lesser amount of sauce and cheese (to my liking that is), they wanted second helpings and by the time i got them out of the house for kumon, we were running late at 7.50pm. 

my yummy and healthy-licious salad

it could only mean one thing... apart from my baking being well appreciated by my boys, making baked ziti got me away from thinking about my problems and challenges of the day even if it was for that short moment.  i needed that. the stress was threatening to take over my sanity and it was a good break to bake, watch my boys enjoy the food, and be thankful to God for what i have.

anyhow a quick note...  this is a good meal, something you can throw together fast enough when you are in a hurry. you dont need many ingredients, just minced meat, onion, canned tomato sauce (or when in a hurry or lazy, prego sauce would do), pasta and a whole lot of cheese.  combine it with a good mixed salad, sprinkle some feta cheese over, and voila... a great quick meal.

oh... and it takes the stress away.  worth it, even for a short while.