Baked Ziti

I cannot make lasagna. I've tried, but the noodles and the amount of sauce get me every time. I've blundered boiling the noodles; they stick together, rip, and tear. One of my lasagna attempts with one of the no-boil pastas was swimming in a pool of sauce. The optimist in me wanted to present it as lasagna soup.

Choose your culinary battles wisely. Ziti, to this total non-Italian, has the same flavors as lasagna with 100% less headache. I make two batches at a time because it's not at all double the work and then I have a entire dinner with leftovers in the freezer. I started making double batches of ziti when my husband and I, then dating, first moved in together. We were living in a smaller Brooklyn apartment that had a kitchen that was comparatively enormous to what we have now. Go figure.

Ingredients & Tools

• 2 lbs. ziti
• 2 lbs. ground turkey [beef or chicken]
• 2 28 oz. cans of crushed tomatoes
• 16 oz. shredded mozzarella
• 15 oz. ricotta cheese
• 2 defrosted boxes of frozen spinach
• 2 tablespoons oregano 
• 2 tablespoons garlic
• 1 tablespoon basil
• 1/2 tablespoon red pepper flakes
• 4 teaspoons Kosher salt
• olive oil
• 2 large pots with lids
• collander
• 2 oven and freezer-safe dishes

Add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil to a large pot and brown the protein. I'm making beef stew this week, so I went with ground turkey for this dinner.

Drain the protein of your choice and fill another pot with water for the pasta. Crank up the heat and cover it.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In the pot where you cooked the meat, add another 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the dried herbs. Ina Garten cooks dried herbs and spices to "wake up" the flavors. She's a genius, so I do what she does. This "waking up" takes under a minute.

Add both cans of crushed tomatoes.

Add 4 teaspoons of Kosher salt. Add the ground turkey/beef/chicken and cover the pot. Allow the sauce to simmer for about 20 minutes, as the pasta cooks.

Cook the pasta just under al dente, following the directions on the box. I cooked my ziti for 9 minutes. Drain and get the assembly line ready. Start by placing a thin layer of sauce at the bottom of each baking dish to prevent sticking.

Add a layer of ziti. Look, it doesn't matter if they're all lined up! In fact, it'd be pretty hard to line up ziti noodles. Rejoice in the freedom.

Totally drain the thawed spinach. This involved squeezing the life out of these greens. You don't want to add unnecessary liquid. Add all of one box of spinach to each of the dishes. I know lasagna doesn't traditionally have spinach, but I like to have a vegetable with dinner and this is an easy way to get a serving in.

Add another layer of sauce and the ricotta.

Cheese loves cheese. Add a layer of mozzarella. If you're all about equal distribution, think one fourth of the total amount of mozzarella.

Add another layer of ziti. Look at the chaos!

Finish it off with the rest of the mozzarella.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and when it doesn't cut into a perfect square when you serve it, know it's supposed to be that way. Enjoy!

Grilled Hanger Steak with Garlic Butter

I grew up in a meat and potatoes house, but steak was rarely that meat. I'm weary now of buying steak to cook at home because I don't want to ruin an expensive protein. It was just my luck when I saw hanger steak on sale.

Ingredients & Tools

• hanger steak
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 1/6 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 10 garlic cloves
• 1/2 stick of butter
• Kosher salt
• canola oil
• shallow dish
• grill pan
• paring knife

Prep all 10 cloves at once. Five are for the marinade and five for the garlic butter.

Break the garlic down into a paste using a tablespoon of Kosher salt. I used a mortar and pestle for this, but it can easily be done on a cutting board.

I took a picture of the garlic and the salt together, but not the finished, mushed up product. Le sigh.

Hanger steak has a tendon running right down the middle. It isn't tasty. Removing this before cooking will also make the steak grill more evenly. 

I seriously need a paring knife. Using a chef's knife for this job was not ideal. If you have a paring knife, please use that to have control over cutting down into the tendon. The goal is to create two equal cuts. My steak did not have equal amounts of meat on either side of the tendon. It usually does, but don't worry, we ate it!

The last butchering step is to butterfly the steak. You'll reveal all the beautiful marbling by making a horizontal cut without cutting it completely through to the other side.

Put the butterflied steak into a dish and it's time to start marinading. Add 1/6 of a cup of Worcestershire sauce.

Add 1/2 cup of good red wine.

Add the salted garlic and cover with aluminum foil. Allow the steak to marinade for 1-2 hours. Turn it over half way through.

I patted my steak down after taking it out of the marinade, in the hopes of getting a nice crust. The meat was so moist, though, it released some of the marinade on the grill itself.

Moisten a paper towel with canola oil and give the grill a rubdown. Preheat the grill and season one side of the steak liberally with Kosher salt. Place the seasoned side down on the grill and then salt the other side.

Cook on each side for 6 minutes for medium rare, but I'm suggesting 8 minutes per side. I know, I know, any steak aficianado will roll her eyes at cooking steak above the medium rare temperature. I almost always agree, but hanger steak is a tougher cut than, say, a strip and it needed more cook time for my taste.

While the steak is on the grill, cut up 1/2 stick of butter and melt it over low heat with the five cloves of garlic.

Allow the steak to rest for 10 minutes before cutting to allow the juices to redistribute. Cut against the grain and serve with garlic butter. This felt like a very fancy dinner and was even better on the second day when the steak was cooked through a bit more.

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

This is the kind of winter time comfort food that makes me ache for a snow day, endless couch time, and The West Wing episodes [pre-season 5]. Making this in the slow cooker allows the meat to be cut-with-a-spoon tender and all the flavors to infuse into the vegetables. I came home to the smell of this simmering after a long day at work and was probably too pleased with myself for prepping this the night before, when I would have preferred to watch [name of embarrassing show redacted to protect the integrity of this very serious blog].

Ingredients & Tools

• 1 lbs. beef cubes
• 5 carrots
• 4 Yukon Gold potatoes
• 2 onions
• 1 cup of frozen peas
• 1 can of crushed tomatoes
• 1/2 cup of Worcestershire sauce
• 3 cups of water
• 4 teaspoons of salt
• 3 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons of oregano
• 1 teaspoon of basil
• 1 teaspoon of rosemary
• 1 teaspoon of paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper
• slow cooker

This is a hefty list of spices, but you can easily adjust this to your tastes. I like the combination of the Worcestershire sauce and the less traditional rosemary and paprika. You spice this your way. I see recipes as suggestions, not rules. Of course, that kind of thinking doesn't apply to baking, but it may be quite awhile before you see a cake recipe in these parts. I digress. 

Chop the meat into smaller pieces. This will make it easier to eat and create more surface area for your spices. Add the meat and spices to the stoneware of your slower cooker. It will look like a lot of seasoning, but many vegetables and liquid will be added and all that seasoning will be distributed.

Leave the meat at the bottom and layer the vegetables on top. Peel and chop the carrots. Chop the potatoes. I didn't peel them. I don't think it's necessary for a stew. Add your chopped onion. 

Add the can of crushed tomatoes, Worcestershire, and water and stir.

Cook on low for 12 hours and add the peas about 30 minutes before serving. When you come home from work near fainting because you ate your 'lunch' at 10:30 in the morning, this will be waiting for you.