timed baking

So, feeling adventurous and impatient while waiting for the kids to clean the playroom 'Daddy Clean' before we could leave for the park, I made Quick Ziti. Which is pretty much the same as Quick Lasagna except using penne pasta instead of lasagna pasta. I took a box of Hodgon Mill whole wheat penne pasta and dumped it UNCOOKED into a 13 x 9 Pyrex baking dish. To it I added 3 diced (1/2 inch cubes) Rosa Bianca eggplant (each the size of my fist), 1 large scalloped squash (peeled and diced to 1/2 inch cubes), 1 small onion 1/4 inch diced. I mixed it all up, leveled it, poured on one full jar of Organic Prego Mushroom Pasta Sauce and half a jar of water. I topped it with some Italian Seasoning, shredded Parmesan cheese and shredded Mozzarella cheese (unfortunately it's the low-moisture kind so it doesn't melt well at all). I popped it in the oven at 2:15 AND (here's the exciting part) I set the oven to turn itself on at 5:00 to 350 degrees and bake for one hour! So while we were playing in the creek at the park my dinner was taking care of itself, and when we came home at 6:02 I just needed to cook it for 15 more minutes at 375 for it to be done. The extra time was needed because the oven is SLOW to preheat so it took about 20 of those 60 minutes to just get to full temperature. But the temperature is accurate - I installed an oven thermometer last week so I could double check. Next time I'll probably not mix the veggies with the pasta, instead I'll just leave the pasta on the bottom and use 3/4 jar of water instead of just 1/2. And the next next time I'll use frozen tortellini or ravioli, some meatballs, mixed veggies, pasta sauce and no cheese.
But that was great to be able to leave and come back 3 hours later and dinner be pretty much ready and waiting.

The creek was running full blast due to the tropical storm that came through yesterday and today so we had a lot of fun playing in it. We also followed the hike trail to the other part of the creek where we saw some small perch and some big minnows.