Fit for the Godfather

Like Richard Nixon said, "I am not a cook." I love baking, but anything requiring olive oil rather than vegetable oil is usually out of my domain. However, I was inspired to put away my bundt pans (temporarily) by a recipe for baked ziti with seitan from a Vegetarian Times cookbook. I made it last night and it was tasty. Leftovers tonight were equally pleasing. Here's the recipe in case you want to try for yourself.

Ingredients
12 oz. dried ziti
8 oz. seitan
2 cups button or cremini mushrooms (I used cremini)
1 25-oz. jar tomato sauce
1 lb. extra-firm tofu, drained, or low-fat ricotta (I used high-fat ricotta)
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil or 5.5 tsp. dried basil
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 tsp. olive oil
salt to taste
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 400F. (That's a lie. Preparation takes a while; no need to preheat yet.)
2. Heat pot of lightly salted H2O over medium heat and cook pasta. Drain & set aside.
3. Chop the seitan and mushrooms until coarse and crumbly. (That's the seitan that should be crumbly, not the mushrooms.) Put the mixture in a large saucepan, stir in the tomato sauce and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and cover to keep warm.
4. Put the tofu, basil, lemon juice, 2 tsp. of oil, pepper and salt into a food processor or blender, and process until the consistency resembles ricotta. If using ricotta, mix by hand.
5. Spread several Tbsp. of the tomato-seitan mixture in a 13x9 inch baking dish, making sure to evenly coat the bottom and sides to prevent sticking. Combine the pasta, tofu mixture, the remaining tomato-seitan mixture and parsley. Fold gently to combine all the ingredients. Spread evenly into the baking dish.
6. Bake for 15 minutes, or until heated through. (Or until you've dealt with the blaring smoke alarm and turned the oven back on.) Remove from the oven, and serve hot to Don Corleone.