Baked Ziti is not a weeknight meal

But alas, I made it anyway. The reason I set out to make this very non-summer dish is because I had ricotta leftover that I wanted to use, as well as heavy cream. And this recipe asked for both of those. It also asks for tomato paste, which I had too, but I found mold on it and had to go buy more #fail.

However, this recipe took a lot of energy out of me. I think next time, I’ll make it on a weekend or make it ahead of time. Part of the reason it’s so good though is because you make your own sauce. This is not hard, but it adds extra time and cleanup.

Alison Roman’s Baked Ziti via NYT Cooking. If the recipe is behind a paywall for you, here’s a YouTube video of her making it!

Bentley’s Way

• I added about a half pound of spicy Italian sausage to this because I’m a sucker for sausage in pasta. It truly would be fantastic without this, but had to share.

• I was bummed I couldn’t easily half the recipe without wasting a bunch of ingredients (my grocery store didn’t have 14 oz cans of tomatoes, only 28 oz), so I made the whole amount. We ate it twice and I froze the rest - will report back.

Splatters on a plate are now my #signaturemove. I’m happy to take photos of my food, but I can’t fuss with perfection when something smells this good.