Crock Pot Ziti! Yumm-o-la

So I am trying to turn over a new leaf this year. One of my resolutions is to cook more than I do. My husband loves to cook, which is convenient for me since I am not a great cook. It's not that I can't cook but I don't have a whole lot of experience and so my cooking comes out plain and boring.

A friend turned me on to a Blog, A Year of Slowcooking, and it has really inspired me to try a lot of the recipes. I love the convenience of the CrockPot and since 4-5pm is such a busy time for me already it's fabulous that I can start dinner earlier and it will be ready at dinner time.

The Blog is run by the author of the book Make it Fast, Cook it Slow which you can buy on Amazon or at your local bookseller.

Last night I attempted the CrockPot Ziti Recipe found here. After having read her recipe and all the readers comments I decided to tweak her original recipe.

I used

• 1 box Penne/Ziti pasta
• 3 sliced boneless skinless chicken breasts, pre-cooked about half way before use
• 1 cup shredded fresh mozzarella
• 1 large jar garlic tomato sauce
• 1/2 jar alfredo sauce
• 1 cup of water
• diced onions & sliced tomato
• parmesan cheese

Instead of allowing it to cook in layers like she recommended I stirred it every 30-40 minutes to ensure that all the noodles were cooked and none got dried out.
It ended up taking 3 hours on low as opposed to 4 hours. If I had left them to cook any longer the noodles would have been way overdone.

Overall it was very tasty. My husband commented that the slow cooking seemed to give it a unique flavor.

This is a must try recipe if you love pasta and have a crockpot!