Mother's Day Baked Ziti

The blog layout finally changed! It's got 99% less birds, 100% less stripes, and 100% more food. Looking at that picture does make me wish I had more of those tacos, though... I'll add them back onto the list of recipes I need to make. First on the list is everything I ate in England. I swear I'll get to that before it's been a full year.

I wasn't sure what I should have shared today. As the first day of my meatless month thought it'd be fitting to share something vegetarian, but I don't have anything vegetarian I've been waiting to share. I was tempted to post the last muffin recipe I have stored just to make it three muffins in a row, but I decided a real meal every now and then is a good idea too.

Not that I couldn't live off muffins. You can put fruits and veggies in those, so don't let anyone tell you a muffin isn't a complete meal.

Mother's day was almost two weeks ago, which is years in blog time. But I never shared when we cooked up for Mama Bird, and that's really a shame, because it was a very filling meal that lasted us for quite a few days.

Yes, I said what 'we' cooked up. Sister Bird and I told Mama Bird that we would take care of dinner for her on Mother's day. I originally was hoping to make her stuffed zucchini, but Sister Bird isn't quite on-board with my desire to be trying new food, so she vetoed it as soon as it was suggested. But since Mama Bird been's bragging to her about what a good cook I am now, she still wanted me to come up with something for us to make.

One thing I've learned about my sister over the years is that she loves meaty, cheesey pasta dishes. So I told her we should make ziti. She vetoed the meatless version, too. It was not a terribly healthy dinner, but you can't win them all.

We also decided to make garlic bread. If I had thought about it more, I would have prepared it differently, but I am rarely known for thinking ahead.



So I just melted some butter, minced some garlic, and stirred them together for a little, then put them on the bread. It was super garlic-y.



Luckily everyone in my life loves garlic. A lot.

So, if I had thought ahead for the garlic bread, I would not have melted the butter, but just left it soften. Then I could have stirred the minced garlic into it, spread it on the bread, and then broiled it. That would have made sense, instead of spooning melted butter and slightly cooked garlic onto pieces of bread.



The baked ziti was HUGE. I don't mean 'oh, it fed our family and we had leftovers the next day' huge. I mean it fed all four of us, Sister Bird took another fourth of it to school with her, and Mama Bird and I ate it for lunch for another four days. It was so bulky that when I put it in the oven it scraped up against the top. There's still melted cheese in the oven now, and you smell it whenever you use the oven.

It's been annoying Mama Bird quite a bit. Happy Mother's Day?



These pictures were extremely rushed, because we were all quite hungry by the time it came out of the oven. Well, I saw all of us, but maybe it was just me. It's so hard to tell sometimes.

Overall, it was a little sweet for me. I don't care for sweetness in most main dishes, and although I think my family agreed it was slightly sweet, no one else had that problem. Don't get me wrong: this was still a meaty, cheesy, pile of delicious pasta. I would have just upped the red pepper flakes and most likely included Sriracha if I had been making it for myself and friends instead of Mama Bird. I also think this was really closer to 16 servings than 12, but we had eaten signifcant salads and a fair bit of super garlic-y bread before we really got into it.

Recipe from Simply Recipes.
(Makes 12 6 ounce servings, with 441 calories and $2.37 per serving)

1 pound ziti pasta

1 pound ground beef, pork, sausage, or a mix

1 onion

3-4 garlic cloves

3/4 tablespoon basil

1 tablespoon thyme

1 tablespoon rosemary

1/2 tablespoon red pepper flakes

32 ounces marinara sauce

1/2 pound mozzarella cheese

1 cup ricotta

1 cup parmesan

1. Preheat oven to 350.
   
2. Bring a pot of water to boil, and cook pasta.
   
3. Brown the meat, adding onion and garlic whenever desired.
   
4. Add herbs once meat has been browned, and stir well.
   
5. Cook about a minute, then add tomato sauce and bring to a simmer.
   
6. Spread a thin layer of sauce in the bottom of casserole pan.
   
7. Spread half of the ricotta over the sauce.
   
8. Mix some of the sauce with the pasta, and then add to pan.
   
9. Spoon the remaining sauce over the pasta, and layer with cheese.
   
10. Bake in the oven until top is browned, about 20 minutes.
    

Today's lessons learned:

• When putting stuff in the oven, make sure there's enough room for it. If not, move the racks down.
  
• Don't get cheese inside the oven, it will smell like burning for weeks.
  

What's a gnudi?

Almost a month ago, I came across an interesting recipe for something called gnudi. At first I thought 'oh, I wonder if this is just some variation of gnocchi...' But all my internet sleuthing turned up very little. Searching now, there are many more pages for gnudi than there used to be.

I had... approximately zero experience making anything like this. But wasn't that the point of making this blog? To give me experience trying things. So I decided that the worst thing that could happen would be I'd end up with little dough balls that weren't delicious, and I'd have to throw them out. So I set about assembling the ingredients.

And then realized that the Harris Teeter and the Giant near me don't carry semolina flour. So I just sort of gave up on finding it, and complained to Boyfriend Bird a few times about it, until he learned that his father had semolina flour, which I happily 'borrowed.' It still took me a few days to get around to actually making them, but I was extremely nervous from reading the directions. They didn't look that complicated. Just make little cheesy balls, sit them in flour, and then boil. Pfft, if that was all pasta-making was, I could be running my own pasta shop.



It seemed so flawless at first. It smelled beautiful, and it was SO MUCH cheese. I sort of wondered about how much cheese it was as I was doing it, but I didn't worry about it. I probably should have. I also probably should have not used Kraft grated Parmesan. I will regret that for some time.



The directions said that as you combine everything, it should become light and airy. No. No it did not. I tried to whisk it for at least twenty minutes, but it just stayed... solid. I was quite concerned at this point, but figured 'well, I'll just see what happens.' I don't know WHY I didn't think to just put this on the electric mixer and let it work its magic, but apparently it didn't occur to me. So I carried on with my experiment.



The next part was easy. Stack cheese balls in flour, and let it sit in the fridge? Okay, I can do that.



It made so many more than I expected... it completely filled the biggest Tupperware container we had.

On that note, I absolutely love those things. That may sound odd, but in our house it's been nearly impossible to find matching containers and lids. Mama Bird recently bought a bunch of new containers. So now I don't have to spend half an hour trying to pack up food whenever I want to put it away. I need to start putting date labels on things, but I never remember that until I'm staring at the container four weeks later and wondering what the chances of the food still being good is.



This may be one of the few pictures I have shown on this blog I actually like. Because I took the extra five minutes to go outside, judge the light a little, and take a 'nice' picture. It's still not perfect- I know now that if I had a lamp, I could have gotten rid of that huge shadow. And maybe I could have found some construction paper to hide the road in the background. But y'know... at least I'm aware of my shortcomings.

Anyway, how did they actually taste? The site described them as little explosions of ricotta and Parmesan covered in a gentle pasta shell. To me, they tasted just like Parmesan. That was it. I could only eat two and I felt sort of ill from the amount of cheese. A complete failure, honestly. Jujyfruits Bird tried them, and he was polite about it but I think he hated them too. They sat in the fridge, with me trying them once or twice more and disliking them every time, until I just threw them away in frustration.

Not everything I cook can turn out well. I'm just glad these weren't really for anything.

Gnudi from The Paupered Chef

1 cup fresh ricotta cheese

1 cup grated Parmesan

2 eggs plus 1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon grated nutmeg

2 tablespoons minced fresh chives

1/2 cup all purpose flour

4 cups semolina flour

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

10-12 sage leaves

1. Combine ricotta, Parmesan, eggs and yolk, nutmeg, and chives in a bowl and combine. It should be light and airy when you're finished.
   
2. Fold in the flour until it's combined, until it's firm until to roll into balls.
   
3. Roll the ricotta mixture into balls and place in a dish with semolina on the bottom.
   
4. Arrange the balls so they aren't touching, and cover with more flour when there is no more room.
   
5. Put in the fridge and leave overnight.
   
6. Allow gnudi to come to room temperature and boil a pot of water.
   
7. Melt butter over medium-high meat, and when it begins to brown, add sage leaves, and then remove from heat.
   
8. Put gnudi in boiling water and cook until they float.
   

Today's lessons learned:

• Cheese is strong.
  

Spinach and Cheese Lasagna Rolls

Lasagna rolls have been on my list of things I've wanted to make for a very long time. I bought the lasagna noodles a long time ago, and then once they were out of sight, they were certainly out of mind. Yes, if I had a witty bird-brain joke, it'd certainly go right here.

I surprised Mama Bird when I told her these were vegetarian. She informed me that Papa Bird would be very disappointed, as he gets a lot of his meals from raiding our leftovers. Apparently Papa Bird doesn't like cooked spinach. He also doesn't like curry powder. I'd call him crazy, but Boyfriend Bird dislikes it as well.

(Actually, I think they're both crazy.)

But back to the lasagna rolls. I did not get many good pictures, partially because my camera's battery was dying, partially because I was hungry and rushing, and partially because I forgot. Take your pick.

These come together very easily, though. It's as simple as making the noodles, mixing everything up, rolling them, and popping them in the oven. The original recipe calls for breading the rolls before baking them, but Mama Bird and I opted to just put sauce on them and bake that way. I think I would have enjoyed the crunch that the breadcrumbs would have given them, but they certainly weren't lacking in taste.

The only other alteration to this recipe is that I have no idea how much mozzarella we used. Mama Bird had bought a block of mozzarella, and when I told her the recipe needed some she just grated up the rest of it. I saw it in the bowl five minutes later and just assumed she had measured it because the recipe was sitting right next to said bowl. So I just mixed everything else up in the bowl, and it wasn't until the rolls were going in the oven that she asked what I did with the rest of the cheese.

Ignore the 'lack' of meat in this recipe, with this much delicious cheese, you won't miss a thing.



You cut the lasagna rolls in half, so you don't just taste pasta. I only boiled 10 pieces of lasagna at first, and ate one. Our pan wasn't entirely full, but we had to make more anyway because I apparently understuffed the rolls. I think they were fine that way, but maybe you want even more cheese in every bite.



Here is another plate that, if only I had plated it well, could have looked amazing. But I was hungry, it smelled good, and Mama Bird was already eating. Waiting was not an option.

Spinach and Cheese Lasagna Rolls from My Kitchen Addiction
(Makes 25 rolls, about $1.48 and 414 calories per 5 rolls)

12 lasagna noodles

5 ounces fresh spinach

1/2 cup ricotta cheese

1/2 cup cottage cheese

4 ounces mozzarella cheese

1 ounce Parmesan cheese

1.25 cups marinara sauce

1. Preheat oven to 425.
   
2. Boil lasagna noodles according to directions. Drain and set aside.
   
3. Cook spinach, drain and shred.
   
4. Combine spinach, ricotta, cottage cheese, mozzarella, Parmesan, and salt and pepper.
   
5. Cut lasagna noodles in half and put about a spoonful of cheese mixture in each half.
   
6. Place seam-side down in PAM'd tray.
   
7. Pour marinara over top and bake for 20 minutes.
   

Today's lessons learned:

• Make sure Mama Bird has measured the mozzarella before you just use it blindly.