The original recipe can be found on page 108 of Ultimate Italian. It takes about 90 minutes to make, so be aware of that if you have a tight schedule for the week. And, vegetarians, rejoice! This main dish is meat-free!
Ingredients (for four people):
butter, for greasing (I used Pam Olive Oil spray instead because it's zero-calorie)
1 box of dried penne (I wonder if rotini would be good here, too)
2 large or jumbo eggs
1 3/4 cup ricotta cheese (I used part-skim from Cub Foods; it comes in a 15-ounce container, for reference)
2 cups grated mozzarella cheese (That's a whole brick, which is eight ounces of cheese; this is based on a recommendation from experience, so I did not do this the first time and wish I had)
About 4 tbsp grated Parmesan, plus more for topping once the pasta bake is plated
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 packages of sun-dried tomatoes (If I had to, I'd say that's about 1.5 or 2 cups)
4 sprigs of fresh basil (about 20 large leaves/1 ounce of leaves), plus extra for topping, if you like
3-4 cups of shredded zucchini/summer squash (I had to use two yellow squash and one pale green zucchini because the regular zucchini were all sold out at the grocery store! Who's ever heard of such an abomination?)
Salt and pepper
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray a large baking dish (your choice) with Pam. Cook the pasta in boiling water, as you normally would. Shred the zucchini/squash and add it along with the tomatoes to the pasta. Set aside.
2. Combine the ricotta cheese, eggs, and minced garlic in a large bowl, stirring or whisking until the mixture is smooth and uniform. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Shred the mozzarella and Parmesan.
3. Spoon half the pasta mixture into the baking dish. Cover with half the basil leaves, followed by half of the ricotta cheese. Sprinkle half the mozzarella (if using all two cups), then top with the other half of the basil leaves.
4. Spoon over the remaining pasta mixture, the rest of the ricotta, and the other half of the mozzarella (if using all two cups). Sprinkle over the grated Parmesan.
5. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes, until the top is just browning (you don't want the dish to get dried out, although the squash helps preserve a lot of the moisture for an end product with a great texture). Garnish with the extra basil and Parmesan, if you desire, and serve.
Notes: You might want to soak the sun-dried tomatoes in semi-hot water for about 3-5 minutes before you add them to the dish. This ensures they will be plump and juicy after baking. The tomatoes and shredded squash can be mixed in with the cooked pasta before you start to layer. Another thing I learned today was a little trick to cook sausage when they start out frozen. Add some warm water and a little oil to a pan and set the heat to low, then, when the pasta bake (or whatever else you are cooking) goes into the oven (or when you have about 20-30 minutes left of cooking), turn up the heat to medium-high and cook as normal. In our oven, this dish took almost exactly 30 minutes, but yours might be different, so that's something to look out for. As my mom advised me, things can go from just beginning to brown to burnt pretty quickly, so this is not a dish to walk away from, even though it's tempting because 30-40 minutes can seem like a long time. If you achieve pasta-bake Nirvana, though, you will find that the finished product has quite a pleasant golden crust of cheese. That's something to celebrate.
My family told me that they really liked this dish. I thought it had a wonderful summery flavor with the squash and tomatoes. My only criticism is that the dish did not call for enough cheese. I'm thinking you could get away with using a full brick of mozzarella cheese and just top the second layer of pasta with the remaining ricotta, the second half of the brick, and then the Parmesan cheese, as called for. I just really, really like cheese and don't think there's such a thing as too much. Other than that, adding the garlic was a great move, and I know I would have missed it had it not been there.
As far as side dishes, we ate this with some vegetables (carrots, celery, olives), bread, and cooked turkey and pork Italian sausages (that's why the note above is relevant). And it's a good thing we did because we have been going through food like it's going out of style. Perhaps it's that we're all so active during the summer, but this was the perfect meal for us lately because it's really pretty filling, and we even had leftovers, which has been something of a rare sighting recently.
All in all, this went over really well. It was very easy, if a bit hands-on in the early stages because of all the shredding and stirring. This is one recipe to work your arms, for sure. That's not such a bad thing for me, though.
Anyway, this Saturday is our third farm share, so next week's blog will list the things we receive this time. I'm thinking I'm going to re-do one of my earlier dishes (I'm not going to ruin the surprise by revealing which it is yet), so look for an analysis of any improvements from last time as well as some salivating over farm veggies.
In the mean time, happy eating!
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| What's white, green, and red all over? This pasta dish! Photo enhanced with Instagram filtering. |
