Monday, March 26, 2012

Baked Mostaccioli

Yes, so this isn't a normal blog post, but I had a request to post a recipe that I put a picture of on facebook and thought it would be easier to post with comments here.  

Instead of the 12 oz of water, I used chicken broth (really just because I already had a box open in the fridge).  I also added about 4 oz of red wine, a couple splashes of balsamic & a tsp of oregano. And, I didn't use quite as much oil as called for.  None in the ground beef/garlic and a couple Tbsp only to cook the onions.  I cooked the sauce for a couple hours in an enamel dutch oven, but covered.  It calls for uncovered, but it was going to make a heck of a mess that way.  Definitely go with whole milk mozzarella.  The part skim stuff doesn't compare.  You usually can find the whole milk kind in Sargento's brand. I used a 9 x 13 casserole dish instead of the pie plate because I just don't see how all that was going to fit in a pie plate without running over the edges and all over the bottom of the oven.  Turned out very, very good.  The sauce would be great for spaghetti or lasagna.