Baked Ziti for 70
This made three half
sheet steam pans
Ingredients
9 boxes of Ziti pasta (or rigatoni)
9 onions, chopped
9 lbs ground beef
4 heads of garlic, minced
10 Value Sized jars of spaghetti
sauce (we used Classico Tomato and Basil) == 50
cups, or 12.5 quarts of sauce
70 oz provolone cheese, sliced
thinly
14 cups sour cream
70 oz mozzarella cheese, grated
5 cups parmesan cheese, grated
Directions
Bring two large pots of salted water to boil on the stove. When at a rapid boil, add the pasta and
return to a boil and then turn off and let cook for 8-10 minutes until pasta is
al dente. Do not overcook!
Place ground beef in a steam pan, and into convection oven
at 350 to cook. Stir every five minutes
until well cooked.
Place onions in a steam pan with some olive oil and also
cook in the convection oven. Stir every
five minutes until the onions are beginning to brown, and onion liquid has been
absorbed. Add garlic and cook five more
minutes.
Combine onions, garlic, ground beef, & pasta sauce.
Butter the three steam pans.
Layer as follows (in each of the pans)
Small
amount of sauce mixture
Ziti
Provolone
cheese
Sour
cream
Sauce
mixture
Ziti
Mozzarella
Sauce
Mixture
Top
with parmesan cheese
Cover filled steam pans with foil, and place in oven to bake
for 30 minutes.
About 40 minutes before
serving, uncover steam pans to brown cheese for 10 minutes.
Remove from oven and let pans sit to cool for 30 minutes and firm up. Then cut into large squares and serve.
What we Learned:
that cooking the onions/garlic and ground beef in the convection oven is the way to go. It was so fast, and didn't burn the onions or ground beef. This was an easy dinner to make and received high praise from the crowd. Altogether the ingredients cost about $200, includes bread, salad, roasted carrots, and fruit.
