We were spending New Year’s Eve with some friends and decided to bring a baked ziti to share, and this Old School Baked Ziti immediately jumped to mind. I’ve made it a couple of times previously and it’s simple and delicious and I knew it would lend itself well to being riffed on.

For this variation, we omitted the sausage (we were feeding a vegetarian). To backfill a bit of the flavor I added a heaping tablespoon or so each of crushed red pepper, dried basil, dried oregano, and fennel seeds. And lots of garlic. To fill it out a bit I used a huge onion and about 5oz of spinach. For cheese, we used a mix of mozzarella and parmesan, and also threw in some ricotta we had leftover from making ravioli.

We assembled this and then baked it at our friends’ house, where it came out perfectly, and was cozy meal for a cozy night in.