Ziti With Meat Sauce

There is an Italian restaurant about an hour or so away from my house that I find myself at every once in a while. It's sort of an annual thing -  I have lunch with my grandparent(s), and we always go here because my granddad really likes it. They serve this really fabulous bread as appetizers and every year I order the same meal: baked ziti. I swear, this restaurant has the best baked ziti I have ever had. Turns out that they make their baked ziti sauce by combining their alfredo sauce with their bolognese sauce. It's heavenly.

I decided to try a version of this at home. I was mostly inspired because there was ziti in the cupboard and I thought it'd be nice to have something more than just a butter and white wine sauce. So I cooked the ziti, I made white sauce with Parmesan cheese, heated up crushed tomatoes, cooked up some ground meat and then combined them all. I put the ziti in the bowl, spooned some sauce on the pasta and dug in. It was pretty good - warm, rich and filling. Very satisfying, and very delicious. I probably could have spiced it more, or allowed it to come together, but I'd already been working on it for half an hour or so, so I just wanted to eat.

The nice thing about this dish, though, is even though it took a while, it was relatively simple to make, and the ingredients that go into it are available all year round. I could just as easily make this dish in the winter as I have now in the summer. Also, since the components and the preparation are all basic, there's a lot of variation to be had. You could exchange sausage or chicken for the ground meat. You could eliminate the ground meat and make it vegetarian. You could throw in a some wine wine or some vegetables (like mushrooms - I love mushrooms) to add some more different flavors. This is a very simple and useful dish to know how to cook.