Ziti for the Masses

There are times when gourmet intentions must be thrown out the window.

Last fall, for example, our son was born, and my time to cook disappeared. We received a steady stream of visitors, and none of them came empty handed. Before they sat down to chat with me they handed Shefali a casserole dish large enough to feed the two of us for days. We were humbled by their generosity, as we received more than 30 meals from friends and family. What they'd cooked didn't matter. The food was always satisfying.

When friends of ours recently had triplets, I paid it forward and made portable meals - 24 total - fast enough to deliver them that evening. 

When I was a child my dad traveled often and my mom had to feed the three kids. Between long days at the pool and ball games in the evenings she couldn't spend much time in the kitchen, but we always ate home-cooked food.

This week, 13 of us gathered at my table for Thanksgiving Dinner. Everyone arrived a day or two early, so as host I needed a meal before "the meal."

Baked pastas are inexpensive, simple to make, easy to store or freeze, taste fantastic and feed a lot of people. The foundation of a ziti includes three or four main ingredients:

- short, tubular pasta
- tomato sauce
- cheese
- meat (optional)

These four ingredients are prepared separately, then combined and baked until the cheese browns. Here are more detailed steps:

Baked Ziti

1. Assemble the sauce, meat, cheese, cooked pasta, and baking dish separately.

2. Spread a thin layer of sauce across the bottom of the baking dish. 

3. Add the pasta, meat and two-thirds of the sauce and cheese. Stir to mix.

4. Add the remaining sauce, then cover the top with the remaining cheese.

5. bake at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes, until the cheese bubbles and browns.

 Notes:

You can manipulate the cost and quality of baked pasta by manipulating the four ingredients listed above. For example, a simple, cost-effective variation we make uses dried herbs, bagged shredded cheese, packaged sausage or no meat at all (never buy sauce). A more lavish variation we've made includes fresh herbs, pecorino romano, parmesan, fresh mozzarella, and pork shoulder braised in Christopher Sauce.