Baked Ziti with Eggplant & Ricotta

This recipe is delish! I am not a huge fan of eggplant myself, but my family really enjoys the dish so I've been trying to find new ways to make it more enjoyable for me. This dish was sooo good. And pretty easy. For all your health conscious followers this is a great dish to make for your family, maybe pair this with the baked parm tomatoes. Yum! If you want to prepare this dish ahead, roast the eggplant, make the sauce and refrigerated separately. When you're ready to bake cook the pasta and mix everything together as directed. Add about 10 minutes to the baking time to compensate for the chilled ingredients. And wallah! When have dinner guests over I always try to make dishes I can start ahead of time, so I'm not in the kitchen a lot while they are here. That wouldn't be much of a problem if my kitchen was larger and I had a breakfast bar but I am not that lucky, YET! ;)

Below is the picture of the dish, and the ingredients and directions! I hope you all have a chance to make this and enjoy it just as much as we did here at my home! Sending much love to everything! I will be posting a update on my school in the next few days so be on the look out! :)

Good night ya'll



Total time for this dish is about 1 hour.

Gather ingredients before beginning:

*1 medium eggplant cut into 1in pieces
*3 tblsp olive oil
*3/4 teasp salt
*1 small onion, diced
*2 garlic cloves, minced
*1 caan plum tomatoes, 28 oz.
*2 tblsp tomato paste
*1/4 teasp ground black pepper
*3 tblsp chopped fresh basil
*1 package ziti or penne, 16 oz.
*1/4c parm cheese
*1c ricotta cheese (honestly I used more than this because I made a huge casserole dish)

Preheat oven to 450. In a large bowl toss eggplant, 2 tblsp olive oil, and 1/4 teasp salt until evenly coated. Arrange eggplant in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake in the oven to roast the eggplant for about 30 minutes, or until golden and tender. When finished set the pan aside to cool. Turn oven to 400.
In a saucepan heat remaining tblsp olive oil over medium heat until hot. Add onion and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute longer, stirring frequently. Str in tomatoes with their juice, tomato paste, pepper, and remaining 1/2 teasp salt. Break up tomatoes with the side of a spoon. Heat to boiling over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer until sauce thickens slightly this takes about 10 minutes. Stir in 2 tblsp of basil.
In large saucepan prepare pasta as directed on the pasta box. Drain, return pasta to sauce pot. To the pasta in saucepot add roasted eggplant, tomato sauce, and parm cheese toss and mix everything evenly. Spoon mixture into casserole dish, top with dollops of ricotta. Cover casserole with foil and bake until hot and bubbly, about 20 minutes. Sprinkle the top with remaining basil!
ENJOY!