Fresh Ideas

Ingredients

• 1 pound ziti pasta
• 1 pound fresh mozzarella
• 3/4 cup freshly grated parmesan
• salt, pepper, crushed red pepper flakes
• extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 pound sweet Italian sausage
• 1/2 pound hot Italian sausage
• 1/2 medium onion
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes
• 1 can tomato paste
• Fresh Thyme
• Fresh Basil

Directions

1. This will be a very long direction to follow, so please bear with me hehehehe!
2. Remove the casing of the sausages and crumble.
3. Add two teaspoons of olive oil, and proceed to browning the sausage.
4. Put the tomatoes in the blender and puree it.
5. Diced the onions.
6. Chop the basil, thyme and garlic.
7. Add onions and garlic to now-browned sausage. Cook for a few more minutes until transparent.
8. Add the tomato puree.
9. Add the chopped spices (basil, thyme and garlic). Stir this up and let it simmer on low for 10 minutes.
10. Cook the Ziti.
11. Grate your own parmesan, and get FRESH mozarella. You can tell the difference. It’s wet and sweet like ricotta.
12. Cut the mozzarella half of it into 1/2 inch cubes, the other half in as thin of slices as you can manage.
13. Add a can of tomato paste to your sauce to thicken it up and give a more intense flavor.
14. Add the pasta, your sauce, the mozzarella and half the parmesan in a baking dish. Add some salt and pepper to taste.
15. Mix all.
16. Top with the sliced mozzarella and the remainder of the parmesan.
17. Bake for 30 minutes until golden brown.

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