Tremendo Mango!!!

Haha, this post is titled IHO Adri and her tremendo Mango status..

Today I had all day to laze around and relax, so there was more than enough time to make dinner AND dessert! Anthony's going to be sooooo happy when he gets home.
It's been a while since we had Italian (at least GOOD Italian), so I decided it would be a good night to try my hand at some Baked Ziti.. It was sooooo incredibly easy, so easy in fact, that I decided to name it Easy Baked Ziti - Ha, say it out loud, it rhymes!

Easy Baked Ziti


Prebaked Ziti -


Just out of the oven...






Ingredients
1 lb of Ziti pasta
1 onion
1lb ground beef
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 3 lb jar of your fave tomato sauce
Ricotta cheese (I used half of the big tub, so I don't know exactly how many oz..)
16 ounces shredded Mozz cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan

First, bake the pasta until it is al dente, and drain

Chop up the onion, and put it in a sauce pan with the beef until the beef browns. Add the garlic powder and salt. Then, add the sauce and let it simmer for 12-16 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9 X 13 pan and pour 1/2 of the ziti in the pan, followed by 1/2 of the sauce and 1/2 of the mozzarella cheese and all of the Ricotta. I kind of chunked the Ricotta cheese and spread it out. Then pour in the rest of the Ziti, the rest of the sauce, and sprinkle with the rest of the cheese and the grated parmesan. Stuff that baby in the oven for 30 minutes and voila!! Instant Ziti!!



While my Ziti was baking, I got a head start on my Mango-Peach cupcakes, which came out better than I could have imagined. The filling gives them a super moist, sweet center that is Sooooo GOOD!


Mango-Peach Cupcakes





Ingredients


Filling
2 Mangoes
2 Peaches
1/2 cup sugar
1tsbp lemon juice
1 can Condensed Milk


Cupcakes
1 cup of butter, softened
4 eggs
2 cups of sugar
1 1/2 cup of self rising flour
1 1/2 cup of all purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 tsbp of vanilla




First things first, make the filling - I peeled the mangoes and the peaches and chopped them up. I put them both in the food processor until they pureed, but was still chunky. I added half a cup of leche condensada, the sugar and the lemon juice, gave the processor another run and put it in the fridge for the flavors to really combine.

Next, I got to work on my batter. With an electric mixer, cream the butter until it's nice and smooth - then add the sugar gradually until the mixture is fluffy. After that, you add the eggs (make sure they are room temp) one by one and really mix them in.

After that, add the liquids (milk and vanilla) and dry materials (flour) a little at a time, alternating between the liquids and dry materials. Do NOT overblend.



Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. I always bake convection, so i put mine a little higher (375 degrees). Line a cupcake pan with paper holders. Spoon the batter into each cup until each is filled halfway. Then spoon about 2 tbsp of filling into each cupcake. Cover each cupcake with the remaining batter until the cup is full.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until each cupcake is golden brown.


Remove from oven, and let them cool. I drizzled them with the rest of the condensed milk (they don't need frosting) and they were DELISH!!



Enjoy, ladies!!

Love,
Eli