Sunday, September 28, 2008

A good dinner calls for a good dessert

Last night despite not feeling well I cooked dinner for my family and Jeremy's mom and brother. I tried two new recipes: Baked Ziti and Big Bad Chocolate Muffins. Both of them are keepers, so I want to share them with you. The Baked Ziti is super easy and takes delicious! It's a meatless meal, so it's a frugal meal! I recommend keeping the extra 1/2 jar of spaghetti sauce to add to your leftovers. Can you guess what's for dinner tonight? The muffins are definitely a dessert muffin and remind me of the chocolate muffins that I love at Sweet Tomatoes. We added some ice cream on top like I do at Sweet Tomatoes. Yummy!



Baked Ziti



Ingredients

  • 1 lb ziti pasta

  • 15 ounces ricotta cheese (1 container)

  • 8oz. mozzarella cheese, grated and divided

  • 1 ½ jars of spaghetti sauce (26 oz. jars)

  • 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350.

  2. Boil ziti, following package directions, drain and place in a large bowl.

  3. Mix all the ricotta cheese and half of the mozzarella with the ziti.

  4. Spray a 13×9 pan with Pam.

  5. Cover the bottom half of the pan with about half the sauce.

  6. Put the ziti mixture on top of sauce.

  7. Pour remaining sauce on top of ziti.

  8. Sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese.

  9. Top with the remaining mozzarella cheese.

  10. Cover with foil and bake for 20-30 minutes until cheese is melted and it is lightly golden. (Remove foil around the last 10 minutes or so.)





Big Bad Chocolate Muffins ( From the book Cupcakes From The Cake Mix Doctor)



1 devils food cake mix

1 (3.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding

3/4 cup vanilla yogurt

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup oil

3 eggs

2 cups chocolate chips



Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease muffin pan (this makes about 20 muffins)or use muffin liners. Set aside. In a mixing bowl combine cake mix and pudding mix. In a separate bowl combine yogurt, water, oil, and eggs. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Fill muffin tins about 3/4 full. Bake 20 -22 minutes or until center springs back. Cool on wire rack . (Store in a tight container, and they are yummy for several days! You could even pop them in the microwave for a couple of seconds... I doubled the recipe and froze 1/2 of them for later. I will thaw one and pop it in the microwave for my dessert one night.)



4 comments:

  1. did you ever get a refrigerator???

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  2. I've never had a muffin with ice cream on top. That sounds so fun! Thanks for the idea! :)

    Thanks for stopping by my blog, and for the compliment on the purse! I've been working on getting an Etsy shop set up, so the feedback is much appreciated.

    Blessings,
    Michele :)
    www.frugalgranola.blogspot.com

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  3. I made this ziti tonight - yummy! Thanks for sharing the recipe! :)

    ReplyDelete