• baked ziti

    I made baked ziti last week. And then, because it was so good, I made it again.

    When I told my girlfriend I had made some amazing baked ziti for supper, she asked, “So how is it different from regular baked ziti?”

    I looked at her blankly. “I don’t know. I’ve never made baked ziti before.”

    She sucked in her breath like I had slapped her. And then she simultaneously snorted and almost fell out of her chair. (Or maybe she was just bending over to reach her cup of tea on the coffee table?)

    Up until then, I didn’t realize that my lack of baked ziti knowledge was that shocking. Now I know.

    I got the recipe from Ree’s blog. The pictures of the meaty ragu sauce won me over. I had to have it STAT.

    I did hesitate a little, though. What with two pounds of meat and two-and-a-half pounds of cheese for just one pound of pasta, the recipe felt a bit excessive. Just a wee little bit.

    But I had a good excuse for making the recipe! Two excuses, to be exact. One, I had (still do, in fact) a lot of meat in the freezer that needed to be used up before we leave the country, and two, my husband had been (still is, in fact) working his buns off and could stand to have a meaty meal (or three or eight) to bolster him onward ho.

    So I made it and my husband swooned. And then I made it again because my parents were staying over and I wanted to spread the baked ziti joy. That night we were lucky enough to have a couple leftover baguettes to sop up the juices. Carbs on carbs—so, so, so good.

    Baked Ziti
    Adapted from Ree of Pioneer Woman

    1 onion, chopped
    2 cloves garlic, minced
    1 glug olive oil
    1 pound ground sausage
    1 pound ground beef
    1 quart canned tomatoes
    1 quart plain tomato sauce
    ½ teaspoons each basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme, sage, rosemary, and red pepper flakes
    1 pound whole milk ricotta
    1 ½ pounds mozzarella cheese, grated, divided
    ½ cup grated fresh Parmesan
    1 egg
    1 pound ziti
    salt and black pepper, to taste

    In a large saucepan, saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil for a few minutes. Add the meats and cook until browned. Drain any extra fat (I didn’t have any).  Add the tomatoes and tomato sauce and the herbs. Simmer for about thirty minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

    Cook the ziti in salted, boiling water until not quite al dente. Drain and set aside.

    In a large bowl, mix together the egg, ricotta, two cups of the mozzarella cheese, the Parmesan, and some salt and pepper. Add the cooked pasta and four cups of the meat sauce.

    Pour half of the pasta into a 9×12 baking dish (or one that is slightly larger—this makes a very full pan). Top with half of the remaining meat sauce and half of the remaining mozzarella cheese. Repeat the layers: pasta, meat sauce, and cheese.

    Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until brown and bubbling. Let cool for about 10 minutes before serving.

    Yield: ten hearty servings (at least)

    This same time, years previous: wild (“wild” as in belly dance-in-public wild)

  • the quotidian (12.3.12)

    Quotidian: daily, usual or customary; 
    everyday; ordinary; commonplace
     


    Kale.
    It makes me feel like a whole person.
    Floor scrubbing: one of the many household tasks that I no longer do.
    In our house, we dress up to cook. 
    Because I have really high standards.
    Yet another mailing, ready to go out to family and friends.
    Holding the computer on his lap helps him to stay still.
    Working on my parents’ house.
    It’s going to be stunning, if I do say so myself. 
    A Sunday morning lesson in tie wearing via Grandaddy.
    When I came down on Saturday morning, this was what I saw: 
    my mother, rocking my baby boy and telling him a story. 
    (We’re going to miss them so much.)
    I did not take this photo.
    Also, a little birdy told me that sometimes, when I’m not around,
    the window gets opened and a puppy wiggles her way into the house, hmm.
    Reality, unedited: my violently dirty windows.
    A two-for-one picture:
    1. The poor guy has been working constantly
    Sometimes he pulls twelve-hour days, leaving as early as five in the morning, 
    working at my parents’ house for a couple hours, and then heading off to his regular job.
    (And then I force him to stay up and watch Parenthood, shame on me.) 
     2. Supper biscuits: instead of making traditional circles, 
    I cut the dough into triangles. Easier, and quite pretty, too.
    Soup making: the kids spent hours foraging for vegetables,
    cutting them up, and cooking them.
    Notice I did not say, “eating them”
    (though they did take tastes).

    I was sitting on the sofa when I noticed the lighting in the mirror over the piano.
    So I took a picture.
    That’s all.
    We turned my son’s first deer into bologna and now our freezer is stuffed with long sticks of the stuff. The kids love it, though they all think it could use more black pepper
    and therefore smear black pepper all over their slices.
    I made baguettes, which is code for “I made my family very happy.” 
    (Lunch that day was baguette butter-and-ham sandwiches.)
    Oh, Christmas tree! 
    The kids put it up all by themselves while I mixed up a batch of peppernuts 
    and my husband worked on finances. 
    Not having to trim the tree is, in my opinion, one of 
    the perks of having growing-up kids.

    A little confession: sometimes the photos in the quotidian post aren’t all from the same week. Sometimes I have leftover photos that I didn’t get around to posting and sometimes I have too many so I hold them for the next week. I just wanted you to know that. (Now I feel better.)  
  • pot of red beans

    I am torn between feeling like I need to buy all sorts of stuff to see us through the next ten months and wanting to take just the bare necessities. I try to find a balance by making lists, asking people questions, starting a pinterest board about Guatemala, and lots of good old-fashioned stewing, thinking, and waiting.

    But I can’t wait forever. Five-and-a half weeks isn’t much time, you know.

    On Saturday, in the midst of my knock-down-drag-out cold, we completed the preliminary packing. My husband drug all the boxes of clothes down from the attic and I went through every single one. (Except for a couple plastic bags because by that point I had fallen over on the bed, a roll of toilet paper clutched in my hand.) We put a bunch of clothes in the suitcases, but now I need to go back through and make them into outfits, discard random unnecessaries, and purchase necessary missing pieces.

    As far as non-clothing items, I’ve already settled on twinkle lights, votive candles, and a couple low-light decorative lamps. Go ahead and laugh, all you minimalists, but I have my reasons. Where we are going, they get about five weeks of sunshine a year. (Maybe I should scrap the lights and take Prozac. It’d certainly take up less luggage space…) There’s a steady misty rain—called chipi-chipi—most of the time, and it’s cold-ish. Things don’t dry, they mold. Last night I started talking to my husband about installing a heater in the house.

    Which brings me to another point: out house. Nothing is firmed up, of course, but it looks like we’ll be staying in a house that’s been vacant for the last six years. Which means that it’s been heavily vandalized. Also, the water line is broken and the power lines are down. I hear the hilltop house used to be quite cute, back in the day. I’m clinging to that bit of hope like my sanity depends upon it. (It may.)

    So in other words, we have no idea what our new house will be like. We don’t know what we’ll wish we had until we’re there and don’t have it. Which kind of stinks.

    On the other hand, it’s only nine months. I can do anything for nine months. (At least that’s what I keep telling myself.)

    ***

    My younger daughter is supremely anxious about going to Guatemala. She’s worried about earthquakes and airplane rides and vaccines. Hopefully we’ll evade the former, but the latter two are inevitable, I’m afraid.

    Today when we were running errands, I had the radio set to NPR when Fresh Air came on. Five minutes into the show I realized what I was listening to: plane crash footage from the movie “Flight,” oh my word. I immediately turned the radio off. My daughter piped up, her voice tense, “What was that about? Why did you turn it off? Why didn’t you want us to listen to it?”

    Our agency has requested that we get the kids’ blood types. This requires a stick-in-the-vein blood draw. My already maxed-out daughter is doctor phobic; this would not go over well and that is an understatement. In mounting desperation, I called every medical establishment I could think of to see if they by any chance, ohpleaseohpleaseohplease, had her blood type on record. I called the hospital, the blood bank, and medical records, as well as her allergist and my midwife. Nothing.

    Then someone told me about do-it-yourself blood type tests which require just a finger prick, no blood draw, and now I have four kits in my amazon shopping cart, oh happy day. (Though my daughter won’t think it’s a happy day when I tell her that we’re doing a science project that involves needles and her fingers, but oh well. I’d prefer to sit on her at home than in some strange doctor’s office.)

    Do you have any advice on how to relieve a child’s anxiety? Besides, of course, the obvious, like not listening to horrific plane crashes on the radio.

    ***

    I wrote about beans for my last newspaper column. Because really, what else is there to write about when we’re headed to The Bean Capital of the World? (Corn, I suppose. I could write that. But I’ve never learned to make proper corn tortillas by hand. Maybe I’ll figure it out this time.)

    Recently, I’ve been craving beans all the time. You’d think I’d be all about pasta and curry and exotic salads, but no, I just want beans. My kids don’t share my sentiments. In fact, my older son, a bean-enjoyer if not a bean lover, has actually pleaded with me to stop. “Don’t make them any more, Mom. We’ll have to eat them all the time soon, so we need a break to save up our appetites, pleeeeease?”

    He does have a point…

    Here’s the link to the column and below is the non-recipe. Though knowing how to cook a good pot of beans maybe is a recipe? Like knowing how to fry an egg or bake a potato? It’s the simple things.

    Pot of Red Beans

    1-2 pounds of tiny red beans
    salt

    Rinse the beans with cold water. Put them in a large pot and add enough water to cover by several inches. Bring to a boil, unlidded (or the water will boil over). Reduce heat, place the lid on sideways so some of the steam can escape, and simmer gently for several hours, adding more water as necessary.

    When the beans are partially cooked, add the salt. When they are completely tender, taste and season. Serve hot with scrambled eggs, salty cheese, thick corn tortillas, and a cup of sweet coffee.

    For when there is no refrigerator:
    Boil the beans, eat what you want, remove the serving utensil and bring the pot of beans to a boil again to kill all the germs. Place a lid on the kettle and let it sit at room temperature until the next meal rolls around. By the third or fourth boiling, the bean broth gets thicker, richer, a bit saltier, and the beans become deliciously tender and flavorful.

    This same time, years previous: raveled, peppermint lip balm, Smashing for Pretty opens