Linden: Baked Ziti

And for those of you following along at home, I have now surpassed Xan in the name tag department. Dinner tonight was baked ziti (made with ground beef instead of italian sausage, because the English do their sausage differently, it's all "Sage" and "Cumberland", no "italian" to be seen) and carrot sticks and zucchini. I am still working on the three veggies per meal thing, but it's difficult. Unless you count onions, which are debatably full of goodness.



Now in the process of acquiring ingredients for this, I made a discovery. It is going to require a bit of explanation. There's a cheeeeese section in the grocery store, which is comprised of three refridgeratory bits. Usually, I'm either there for cheddar, or for something exotic like gruyere. All the exotics are contained in the rightmost fridge bit. Yesterday, however, I was looking for mozzarella. And discovered that the two other fridge bits contain cheddar. There is a bit of cream cheese on one shelf, and I found mozzarella squeezed into a corner and forgotten, but for the most part? All cheddar. So, you know, well done the English.



And, my plate. I also discovered that flower mode (which my friends tell me is actually called "macro", but what do they know, sometimes I take pictures with a fancy camera and that makes me an expert) works for photoing the papers I have to read for my course. So this blog has positively contributed to my academic success.


I think this recipe was missing something too, like perhaps salt or maybe it should have been slightly spicier, and definitely some parmesan would have helped. But it was still very good. And easy! And only takes three dishes to prepare. (it would be even easier if you used premade sauce. Then, it would just be, cook the meat, toss in the sauce, toss in the pasta, toss in the cheese, cook for half an hour. My way requires onion chopping and other evils, but is delicious and doesn't make me itch, although something is making me itch and I am not pleased about it.)

Now I am searching for a recipe that requires croutons and is not lettuce-based. I have one that is chorizo-based, but I would feel bad subjecting my fellow diners to that one, so I must find something else.