30 Minute Meals: Three-Cheese Baked Ziti

Hey Guys,

How are you? Hope your weekend was awesome. As you may or may not know, I have been taking a break from the blog. However, before I fully dive back into things I thought I’d share with you some posts that have been sitting in my drafts. So, first up is a food post; sometime ago I made Baked Ziti for the first time. It was a spur of the moment thing and using ingredients I already had on hand. I decided to place this under the “30 minute meals” heading as it didn’t take long at all. You can use this recipe for a Sunday dish or mid-week when you’re not fully into preparing a large meal.

I tried my best to give appropriate measurements, but as I’ve mentioned before, I pretty much eyeball everything and taste as I go.

Directions

• Start by preparing all your seasonings; dice and chop the onion, garlic, sweet pepper and mushrooms
• Boil water for pasta
• Heat pan and place defrosted meat in; sprinkle black pepper and salt while it’s cooking
• Add chopped seasonings and begin to crumble meat
• Add pasta to boiling water with salt and a tbsp of oil
• When meat is brown, add in marinara sauce and heavy cream. Stir until everything is mixed in. Add Italian seasoning, mushrooms and spinach. You can also add in cheese here.
• When pasta is finish cooking, drain then add a half cup of marinara sauce to coat pasta.
• In a 13″ x 9″ baking dish, layer pasta first, then meat, following with cheese; repeat until to the top. Cover in remaining cheese and parsley.

Remember the key to finishing quickly is to prep everything beforehand (take out ground meat to defrost in the morning) and to multitask (boil pasta while cooking meat).

Have you ever tried this dish before?