Wednesday, October 10, 2007

A New Recipe: Baked Ziti with Homemade Marinara

I always think it's kinda funny when people blog about their food, but blogging has been increasingly on my mind lately, and as I was attempting this new recipe, all I could think about was, "I need to blog about this!" So this is a blog about my dinner.

The other day, I picked up a copy of Cooking Light magazine. It had some delicious, healthy fall recipes (attempting to disregard the lingering summer weather), and I have been wanting to try something new and hopefully add to my very modest culinary repertoire. So after a quick perusal, I decided on Baked Ziti with Homemade Marinara.

Monday, step #1: I made the marinara. The recipe makes a lot, so you can actually use it for several different recipes. I'm pretty proud of it. I've never made my own pasta sauce before!

Today, step #2: Make baked ziti using the marinara. Super easy! But, the magazine said to add the turkey meat to the casserole without browning it first, and it would fully cook as it baked. This was sketchy to me, but I did as I was told. Anyways, here it is...

Now, I don't know about you, but I try to make it a rule not to serve new recipes to dinner guests. Well, Casey was confident that it was going to be delicious, and so invited our little Brenham gang over to try it. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. I didn't notice anyone dry heaving or anything. I thought it tasted pretty good, but I couldn't fully enjoy it, knowing that it was quite possible that I had just poisoned my only friends in Brenham with salmonella. This is exactly why I am a firm believer in the trial run!

Anyways, here are our sweet, potentially very sick Brenham friends. The Bever's are on the left, and the Hyde's and their son Jonas on the right. The cute one in the middle, that's my Casey.

FYI- I will probably try the recipe again, but just for my own peace of mind, I'll brown the meat first. :)

7 comments:

Melanie said...

Hey girlie! So great to hear from you! This has been a tough, challenging and great year...God is so good! I'm sure you feel the same with your new life in the country! I'm always looking for a new recipe so thanks for sharing! Looks like the family enjoyed! Please be sure to keep in touch!

Coffman Family said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Coffman Family said...

That looks yummy! I might want to get that recipe. Gosh, I haven't seen Casey in a while, I didn't recognize him at first in the picture.

What a wonderful homemaker you are and are becoming.

Anonymous said...

steph, it was great! 18 hours out, and no signs whatsoever of salmonella. Yippee!

I think we actually invited ourselves over, so technically we don't count as guests, anyway. Feel free to experiment on us anytime.

Erin said...

I don't know... they all seem to have a dubious look on their faces. That or they're just indulging your picture taking for the blog! How do you feel about Casey's facial fur?!

Jenny said...

Hello Steph,

I actually had an Italian friend give me her family's recipe for spaghetti with meatballs. I had attempted meatballs before and the result was always tough and/or dry. Her family's secret was to make small meatballs and put them in the sauce raw so that as you make the marinara the meatballs cook to perfection. So I understand your response to the recipe's sketchy suggestion. Well, our results were the best meatballs I had ever had because they were (yes, all the way cooked, yea!) flavorful, juicy and mouth-sized manageable. Your ziti did look wonderful. What issue of cooking light did you pick up?

Hey, you are on a blogging roll. Way to go.

In Christ,
Jenny Neumann

Catherine Haskew said...

You are so domestic!! The ziti looks great. Perhaps next time we have dinner we can cook together. I will have to check my cali ;)

P.S. thanks for the blogging encouragement!!