The Wine-Drunk Italian Chef: My Baked Ziti Recipe

My first homemade, delicious recipe in an ongoing series

I’m Your Wine-Drunk Italian Chef, and this is my Baked Ziti Recipe. Enjoy!

I started cooking 20 years ago. My fascination with The Sopranos HBO series is honestly what got me involved with cooking. They seemed to mention a dish called “Baked Ziti” often in the show. It always made me hungry.

There were plenty of scenes throughout the series that showed the Soprano family and Tony’s mob family eating together. That’s not hard to believe, Italians love to eat. I decided I was going to start cooking, and Italian Baked Ziti was my first choice to make.

Here’s a humorous rundown of how Baked Ziti Night usually happens in the Wine-Drunk Italian Chef’s kitchen. Enjoy!

Italian Baked Ziti

Wine-Drunk Italian Chef Jason Provencio, at your service. Today, Imma gonna teach yous guys about a Sopranos classic, Italian Baked Ziti. Let’s wheel over to the kitchen. I’ll post the ingredients at the end of this blog, so you don’t fuhgeddaboutit.

The first step in any good chef’s kitchen is prep work. And no, I’m not talking about pre-preparing ingredients. That will come in a bit. I’m talking about ESSENTIALS. A good chef’s apron. Music. And WINE. Plenty of wine.

Back when the apron was new, and before I had good hair. Photo: Author

That’s half the reason I started cooking. The kitchen is where the wine is. If you’re not having fun cooking, then what’s the point? Capiche? I like to start with the chef’s apron, first. Just in case I get a little excited for the joy that is about to come next. The pouring of the wine. Hey, if it was good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for Jason.

Due to the frequency with which I cook dinners for my family, and the size of the glass I prefer to drink with, I often opt for Franzia boxed Cabernet. Screw you if you’re a wine snob and judging me, either send me the good shit or quit reading. Be the change you want to see in the world.

This is only if someone fancy isn’t coming to dinner. I straight up once invited Vanilla Ice over to come to have our house-special baked ziti when he was in town. That’s right. “YO’ VIP, LET’S KICK IT!” A local Facebook friend was doing a tattoo for him after his concert and I mentioned to her that they should come over and have our baked ziti.

He didn’t show, his loss. Back to the setup here. We’ve got a chef’s apron. We’ve got wine. Now we need tunes. With my laptop, YouTube, and a set of speakers, we’re all set. Time to crank it up and start singing.

Wait, nobody told you that a dinner show was included? MARONE. Oh yes, if you arrive before the food is served, you’re getting a dinner show. Think karaoke, but more of a duet. Me and Mr. Bon Giovanni. Or Frankie Valli. Possibly Karen Carpenter. After two jumbo wine glasses, Whitney or Mariah.

I’m not saying I’m good. I’m not saying you’ll enjoy it. But you WILL hear it. Because I love to sing. I’ve been told that I shouldn’t love to sing, but screw that, I do what I want in my kitchen. With this amazing food I’m making you, the least you can do is listen. Make a song request. Sing along with me. Tap ya foot.

Libby is requesting Red Red Wine, by Neil Diamond. She doesn’t drink it, she just guards my glass.

I often have the help of my lovely daughter Avery when preparing Baked Ziti. She’s not actually an Italian princess, but she’s wonderful. Razor-sharp wit. The biggest heart you can imagine. Mouth like Joe Pesci in GoodFellas. Funny like a clown. Funny, like she amuses you. Cooking with her is my favorite thing in the world.

She’ll usually start chopping the onions which allows me to DJ and toss back the initial glass of cabernet with a bit more ease. We’ll rotate who picks the next song and go back and forth between songs that rock and some that are just beautiful. It can change from Prince to Soundgarden, to Sinatra, then maybe Guns ‘N Roses, and of course Queen.

Once we toss the chopped onion in a saucepan with heated olive oil, we keep it moving. I put the olive oil on at about a six on the oven dial. You don’t want to go too hot and burn that or the garlic that’s coming next. Always keep it moving along.

No, we don’t use a razor to slice cloves of garlic so thin that they melt in the saucepan, like on GoodFellas. We don’t have time for that BS. We take a few shortcuts. This dish takes about two hours to make. There’s nothing wrong with making your work a little easier when cooking.

Mushrooms come next. We’ll add a package of Baby Bellas, chopped up into medium-sized pieces. Once again, The Kid handles all the slicing and dicing. I get a bit nervous sometimes at how skilled she is with our “murder knife”. Her nickname for it, not mine.

Avery has been wielding “The Murder Knife” for many years. Onions and mushrooms, beware. Photo: Author

She’s left-handed, like Rocky Balboa. I can imagine her mafia nickname now: “Lefty the Hacker”. Better pay your debts on time, or Avery is coming for your pinkie. The envelope better not be light.

We add the mushrooms to the cooking onions and garlic, and it’s already smelling better than Olive Garden or Macaroni Grill. I know, I know, those aren’t THAT hard to beat. We add a pound of spicy ground Italian sausage to the mix. I try not to think about the things they did at Satriale’s on The Sopranos during this part of the cooking, but I feel a slight shiver. At least I don’t pass out.

About this time, our dog Mooch will usually make her way downstairs. She smells Daddy’s cooking a mile away and always makes her presence known at this point. Roomba, reporting for duty. She’s ready for shredded cheese clean-up on aisle six.

With the difficulty level increased due to a small dog underfoot now, I start to stress out a bit. Avery keeps the mixture moving along and we add a medium-sized scoop of pesto to it. I forget when we started doing that, but it’s a regular thing now. We pour a liberal amount of cabernet into the heated mixture and a similar amount into my now-empty first glass of wine. Stress level, reduced.

With the world right again and some Bobby Darin playing, it’s time to add the spices. Lefty the Pro knows this part by heart. We turn the heat on the stove down to about 3, and she starts adding them all while her Dad belts out Artificial Flowers. I think I coulda been a crooner at The Sands in Vegas.

We don’t measure the amounts of the following spices I’m about to list here. We just keep shaking until I hear the spirit of my Nana whisper in my ear, “That’s enough, child.” Somehow it always works out.

After Avery adds Italian seasoning, garlic salt, garlic powder, onion salt, and Greek seasoning, we move to the hot stuff. She uses a bit less of the following: Chili powder, cayenne pepper, paprika, and then the spice that most would never think of using for spaghetti sauce: Curry powder.

My Bride comes down the stairs because she’s smelling something great in the kitchen. She walks over to investigate and gets a playful smack on the ass. Libby gets defensive of her Ma-Ma and barks at me. Mean little prick.

If she brings a butt like this into my kitchen when I’m drinking wine, I can’t be held responsible for my actions. Sorry, not sorry. Photo by horn-dog author

“HEY! You better watch it, my husband won’t like that!” she says.

“The hell with that guy. I do what I want. You’ve got an amazing booty for a 54-year-old.”

*Stone cold stare from my Bride.

“Uh, for a forty-four-year-old? thirty-four? Twenty-four?”, I stammer.

She laughs. “Ok, a bit too far, there. But you’re sweet.”

She heads back upstairs and it’s time to do this sauce thing. The base is perfectly cooked and spiced and we’re ready to mix it into our red sauce.

We don’t always make the gravy from scratch. I don’t often have the kind of time that allows me to spend all day in our kitchen or even three or four hours at a time. When time is a limited factor, I just use a stock sauce over this heavily seasoned, meaty base. And it still comes out wonderful, due to the amount of spices and seasonings we use.

I like using Prego. Ragu is shit, I made that mistake once. Prego comes in a giant container for about $5 and I use the whole thing. Once it covers the heavily spiced sausage/onion/garlic/mushroom mixture, just stir it all in well. Once it’s evenly distributed, you have a wonderfully tasty sauce that I’d put up against any homemade sauce.

At this stage, it’s time to boil the ziti noodles. Avery makes a “Your mom” joke toward me. I laugh but feel a slight sadness. I tell her, “You know, that’s your GRANDMOTHER”, and she tells me that she’s talking about my metaphorical mom. I feel better about us breaking balls like good Italians do and we forgive. We’re good like that.

Metaphorical Mom jokes are frequent when two Provencios are cooking together.

Once the ziti noodles are cooked, we toss them into the colander. Never rinse your noodles after you cook them, that’s a rookie mistake. You’re cooking like an Italian, this isn’t fucking Denny’s. You want them to stay sticky, so the sauce mixes and clings to them well.

At this stage, we bring out the 9x13 deeper Pyrex dish we use. We coat the bottom of it with our red sauce, and it looks like the Gotti-ordered whacking of Paul Castellano of ’85. But we don’t talk about that. Fuhgeddaboutit.

We mix the rest of the red sauce with the ziti noodles in the big pot we boiled them in, stirring them thoroughly. Then we pour half the ziti into the Pyrex dish and use half of our cheese supply over the top.

I like to use a pack of four-cheese Italian mix and I also grate a bowl of aged parmesan. I’ll mix both into a large bowl and combine them thoroughly. Now they’re ready to be easily sprinkled.

After the first half of our cheese, we spread the rest of the ziti noodles over the cheese, and then repeat the second layer of cheese. It’s now time to bake this ziti at 350, covered with tinfoil. Headfirst, into the oven. Set the timer for 45 minutes and then set the table. Cue Scenes From An Italian Restaurant, by Billy Joel.

“A bottle of red, A bottle of white. It all depends upon your appetite.” Photo by Davey Gravy on Unsplash

Besides the table set up, making a salad, and possibly refilling once more on cabernet, we’ll usually make some garlic bread. I often do a basic, buttery garlic bread with garlic salt, but sometimes will do a more advanced cheesy garlic bread with green onions, mayo, and shredded cheese in the mix.

Once the ziti timer goes off, pull the tinfoil off and cook for about 10 more minutes, or until the cheese is fully melted, bordering on slightly crispy. Or however you prefer it, just leave me the hell out of it. Vaffanculo!

Once the bread is ready, we’re ready to eat. Time for the family to have a sit-down at the table. Ultimately, that’s my favorite thing about cooking. Our family time. The time spent cooking with my daughter, as well as the time we all spend together eating and joking with each other. We all sit down for a bit and catch up over delicious-tasting food.

If you guys enjoyed this detailed account of our house special, Italian Baked Ziti, please comment and let me know. I’d like to post more volumes of The Wine-Drunk Italian Chef if there is a bit of interest from you all.

I promise that I’ll have several other tasty recipes for you to enjoy with your family and friends. Buon Appetito!

Ingredients for Italian Baked Ziti

• 1 large yellow onion

• 1 medium pack of baby bella mushrooms

• 1 tube of spicy Italian sausage, ground

• (1) 16oz package of ziti noodles (penne or rigatoni also works)

• (1) 67oz jar of Prego spaghetti sauce

• (1) 8oz bag of shredded Italian Cheese (I like 6 cheese Italian)

• (1) small block of parmesan Cheese, grated

• 1 large spoonful of pesto

• 1 solid pour of red wine over cooking sausage

• Liberal shakes of Italian seasoning, onion powder, garlic salt, garlic powder, curry powder, and Greek seasoning

• Slightly fewer shakes of chili powder, cayenne pepper, and paprika

© 2024 Jason Provencio. All rights reserved.