Baked Ziti: Easy Organic Living Challenge #3: Give a Meal a Makeover

If you have been following along with my Easy Organic Living challenges, you have seen me Shift and Save and Invent a Snack. The Third challenge is to Give a Meal A Makeover, which is to take one of your traditional family meals and change at least one ingredient to organic. I decided to go with my great-grandmother's recipe for Baked Ziti. Let me preface by saying that my great-grandmother, grandmother and mother do NOT use jarred sauce. They make their own. However, I have not reached the point in my cooking career where I am making my own sauce yet, hopefully someday. So I made sure that the sauce that I bought was organic, mainly because tomatoes are in the Dirty Dozen list for containing a lot of pesticides. I chose the Nature's Promise Organic Traditional Pasta Sauce but any organic brand should do just fine. The Trader Joe's sauces are also very yummy.

Baked Ziti Recipe

Ingredients
use organic whenever possible

1 lb ziti pasta
26-32 oz jar of organic pasta sauce (I used 26 but I think 32 would be better)
1 lb ricotta cheese
1 lb shredded mozzarella cheese
1 large egg
2 TBSP grated cheese (I prefer Pecorino Romano)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Cook pasta to al dente according to package directions
3. In medium bowl, beat egg then add ricotta cheese and grated cheese. Mix well.
4. Line the bottom of a 13x9 baking pan with a thin layer of sauce.
5. Place a single layer of cooked pasta. Should be about 1/2 the pasta.
6. Spread the entire ricotta cheese mixture on top of the pasta. Sprinkle 1/2 of your mozzarella on top.
7. Place the remaining pasta in s single layer on top of ricotta mixture.
8. Pour the rest of the sauce over the pata. Try to spread as evenly as possible.
9. Top with remaining mozzarella.
10. Cover dish with aluminum foil and cook for 20 minutes. The remove the foil and cook for 10 more minutes or until mozzarella cheese is bubbly.
11. Remove from oven and let sit for a few minutes to settle.

Enjoy!

Don't forget to enter my Easy Organic Living Giveaway!

I am participating in the Easy Organic Living Blogger Challenge however I was not compensated for this post. I will be receiving a goody bag for my participation. The challenge is co-hosted by BabyCenter.com and Healthy Child Healthy World and sponsored by Stonyfield Yogurt.