When I was a kid, I use to love baked ziti. We would order it usually from a place called Dusal’s in my hometown. Or actually, I would get a chicken or veal parm and the free side was always baked ziti.
Never reading the menu, it was my go to order. “I’ll get the chicken parm and a side of beg ziti”.
One day I was out to dinner with an old friend, Andrew Horlick and he noticed me order my “beg ziti”. “Do you call it beg ziti”. I say yes, begged ziti, what do you call it. He replied “baked, it’s baked ziti”.
Only years later would I also learn the right correct way to say mozzarella. This is when an Italian man in Florence sang it back to me whole overly articulating the word. It was so shocking and beautiful, a light turned on for sure
Here’s my vegan begged ziti with roasted red peppers, eggplant, roasted tomatoes, basil, cashew ricotta and a very little vegan mutzahrell
In terms of recipes. I don’t really use any. I took some tomatoes, salted and olive oil and spiked with cloves. Roasted cut side down at 300 for an hour along side an onion treated the same way. I had also cut eggplants into pieces and covered it salt for a couple of hours And drained then cooked with garlic and oil. I also had roasted red peppers that had been sitting in garlic and a little balsamic. Cut all of that into manageable pieces. Mixed with the pasta. Added cashew ricotta, a pesto, Calabrian Chile’s, lots of fresh basil, then sort of fake mozzarella, little tomato sauce baked for like 30 minutes covered and then broil the last little bit.
