Sunday, August 28, 2011

Baked Ziti or Rigatoni


Help! I'm in a recipe funk! It's hit me. I do get this on occasion....and sure have it now. I just can't think of what to make. I woke up yesterday morning and was working on planning the week...activities, start of school and menu and grocery list and just couldn't figure out meals. High school swimming is whole different thing for me with planning between the spaghetti dinners (OK..so Eleanor won't be here...maybe we can eat something with tomatoes...) and the swim meets. Add to that the cool weather making me crave apples and soups...but I'm not quite ready to start that....

Anyway, I went running with my friend Nora and everything changed! She was talking about the pulled pork she had made the day before. She said it was so good she could even eat it right at that very moment. Hmmm...must be good if she's thinking about it on an early morning run. She directed me to the recipe she used this time.....simplyrecipes.com...and I realized I hadn't been on that site for a long time. Yay...some new recipes gave me renewed meal planning energy.

I decided that this recipe looks great for Eleanor's evenings away. I had a lot of garden tomatoes from our tiny garden and some CSA basil (and some from my garden) and CSA onions and garlic. So, I made this recipe with rigatoni and my homemade sauce. I also had a partial can of tomato paste (it was the can minus the tablespoon I used in the pulled pork), so I used that.
I did peel the tomatoes by cutting the "X" in the bottom and putting them in boiling water for a few minutes. After peeling them I chopped them roughly and added them to the cooked sausage and onion mixture. I was generous with the basil in this mixture as well.

Since Eleanor wasn't hungry for dinner last night Paul and I had this and really enjoyed it. Yea, Eleanor not hungry for dinner...that's an odd thing. I think it's because she had a large bowl of the rigatoni with Parmesan cheese before I added sauce to it.

Oh...and I did make the pulled pork, so I can tell you about that another day! I think/hope it was a short-lived recipe block.
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