Triple Cheesy Super Creamy Baked Ziti

Our family loves Italian food! This is definitely a family favorite - better than most Italian restaurant dishes! There is nothing else to say about it, except you have to try it! Oh, and did I mention that it's super easy to make...

1 pound dry ziti pasta
1 finely chopped onion
1 lb ground beef
2 (26 ounce) jars spaghetti sauce (my favorite is Ragu Parmesan Romano)
8 slices of provolone cheese
1 1/2 cups sour cream
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese


1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add pasta, and cook about 8-9 minutes; drain.
2. In a large skillet, brown onion and ground beef over medium heat. Add spaghetti sauce, heat through, then remove from heat.
3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat 9x13 inch baking dish with cooking oil spray.
4. Layer as follows: 1/2 of the ziti, 1/2 of the sauce, Provolone cheese, sour cream, remaining ziti, remaining sauce, mozzarella cheese. Top with grated Parmesan cheese.
5. Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until cheeses are melted. I recommend that you cover with foil for the first 15-20 minutes of baking, then remove foil so the cheese will melt and the top will be perfectly browned!

*NOTE - this is a great dish to make ahead and bake when needed. From the refrigerator, it usually needs an additional 15 minutes of cooking time.

Enjoy!

Toasted Ravioli!!

If you have never tried fried ravioli- you are missing out!  We grew up in St. Louis where it is a local favorite, but lots of our country hasn't caught on that everything fried is better... It is super easy and worth the calories!

Toasted Ravioli
1 bag of frozen beef ravioli (you can use cheese, but then it is just fried cheese!)
3-4 eggs, beaten
Italian breadcrumbs
Oil of choice

Heat the oil in a frying pan.  Put eggs into medium to large shallow bowl.  Do the same with the breadcrumbs.  Dip frozen ravioli into eggs then breadcrumbs and fry in hot oil until brown on both sides.  Drain and serve with favorite marinara and parmesan cheese!

Chicken and Garlic Pasta

This dinner was so easy I have to write about it!

A few days ago, I bought a large package of fresh chicken breasts. Today, I realized that if I don't cook them soon, I'll have to throw them away. So, this morning, I just put them in a crockpot, then filled it to the top with water. I added a little salt and pepper and cooked on low all day. While the noodles were cooking (below), I took out some of the chicken and chopped it.

This evening, I cooked a pot of pasta (doesn't really matter what kind). After cooking, I drained it, then added some olive oil, maybe about 1/4 cup. I then added about 3 large cloves of fresh minced garlic, some sea salt, cracked pepper, and basil. Finally, I mixed in the chicken. Our family loves parmesan cheese, so we topped it off with a generous sprinkling, then served.
We all really liked it, and the kids had seconds. However, because it was an experimental recipe, we decided that we would make a few changes next time. We tried a few things, and realized it needs a little chicken broth (which we added from the crockpot of chicken that had been cooking all day). We also tried adding just a small amount of sour cream and thought that was very tasty, too.

The bottom line is this is a versatile starting point for many variations, depending on what you have in your kitchen at dinner time! Enjoy!