Bakin' me up a little piece of heaven
(Baked Ziti page535 hardcover)

This weekend I went out to visit my boyfrannnd in the wonderful state of Colorado for his birthday and in honor of this holiday I decided to make him/us a delicious dinner.  I chose to make us some Baked Ziti, because you can never go wrong with baked ziti, plus you end up with lots of left overs (also known as breakfast).

I decided to also include ricotta cheese in this bake because I love cheese to the max!

Googles are a must when cutting up a whole onion....this actually didn't help, he claimed that the googles trapped the onion fumes inside. Good boyfriend for taking one for the team.

Sautéing the mushrooms till they are soft

After the mushrooms are soft enough, add in the onions and
garlic until they are soft as well

Then you can add in your tomatoes and let the sauce gently
bubble before adding it into the partially cooked pasta

Once the sauce was done I added it into the partially cooked pasta noodles, as well with the ricotta and half of the mozzarella and stir it all together so that each noodle came in contact with each cheese and all the components of the sauce. (I chose to use the whole container of ricotta because you can never have too much ricotta in your life).

I then put the mixture into a 9x13 pan and added the remaining mozzarella and 1/2 a cups worth of Parmesan on top

We baked the dish until the cheese was a golden brown.

Perfection! ------ it was and still is an amazing dish, and the Malbec really helped further bring out all the flavors in the dish! :)