I don't know if it was the nicer weather, but I was eager to cook this week. My teammate at school had Ziti for lunch and that inspired me to try something new.
We love sausage and peppers in our pasta, so I knew I would be
using those things, but I wanted to switch it up a bit. So, since it was such a nice day outside, I ended up grilling the peppers before tossing them in.
Last spring I got myself a veggie chopper and it has been a game changer. It literally takes me seconds to chop my veggies and they're all in uniform sizes--something I struggle with. So, I diced my peppers, tossed them in a bit of olive oil and stuck them on the grill. (Another game changer with grilling veggies is a grill pan--this makes it so simple to just throw them on the grill! This isn't the exact one I have, but I actually really like that it has raised sides...I may have to get it).
While the peppers were grilling, I browned the sausage. We like it a little crisper and spicy. I added Siracha while it's cooking and cooked it until it was nice and crispy. I also started to cook my pasta. I have recently discovered Alton Brown's cold water pasta cooking method--try it out and let me know your thoughts. I'm sold.
Once the sausage was done and the peppers were grilled, I combined them and added in some sauce.
It was about this time the pasta was finished--I really wanted to make sure it wasn't too done because I knew it would cook a little more in the oven.
After draining the pasta, I put a scoop or two of the sausage and sauce concoction into the bottom of my baking dish. Then I added almost all the rest of the sauce to the noodles. I held some back for the top of the ziti.
Once the layer on the bottom was in and even, I plopped a few bits of cream cheese down. I probably would have put more in, but this was all the cream cheese I had. You could easily use ricotta instead.
Next, I added the ziti. Then put the rest of the sauce on top and used my spoon to encourage it in
between the pasta. (I'm not sure this step was necessary). Finally I added the cheese on top. I used mozzarella and parmesan. Again, this is what we had. I suspect any white cheese would be good...if you're into spice a pepper jack would be yummy.
Then I tossed it into the oven until the cheese was melted and golden brown on top. Since everything was cooked I probably could have just turned the broiler on to melt the cheese, but this worked too.
I had no idea how it would turn out, but we were pretty please and impressed! Zach liked the difference of our normal pasta with the grilled peppers. It gives it a bit of a sweetness. Even Kennedy enjoyed eating it until I said something about it being the perfect amount of spice. I love how versatile this can be! You could add in other veggies, different cheeses, different meats. It's a lot like a lasagna, but also, somehow, totally different.
Ingredients:
3 bell peppers
1 jalapeno pepper
1 TBSP Olive Oil
1 lb pork sausage
Siracha
1 box Ziti noodles
1 jar of marinara sauce
2 oz cream cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella
Handful of parmesan cheese
Oven safe dish (mine is 9x9")
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F
Chop peppers, toss in olive oil and grill
Meanwhile, brown sausage in a pan. Add a squirt or two of siracha, depending on how spicy you like it.
Cook Ziti noodles until al dente
Combine peppers and sausage
Add marinara sauce
Put a cup or two of sauce on the base of your baking dish
Place dollops of cream cheese on top the the sauce in your dish
Mix the rest of the sauce with the noodles
Pour noodles into the baking dish
Add mozzarella and parmesan cheese on top
Bake until cheese is golden brown
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