a preview of today's lunch

It's supposed to be baked ziti, but there was no ziti at the local food mart, so I got rigatoni, which made for a decent substitute:

I like how the pasta below looks like a sandworm from Dune surfacing, or a soul in hell throwing back its head and screaming:

The story behind the dish is that the boss has a friend who makes his own sausage. Over a month ago, this friend gave the boss a plastic container filled with homemade Italian sausage. The container sat in our office fridge the entire time I was on my walk; I had thought my boss and/or coworkers would do something with the meat, but they just let it sit there, waiting for my return. I suggested the baked ziti before leaving for my walk, and the thought apparently lingered, so this past Monday, I said I'd do the ziti as a Friday meal. Et voilà.

My tomato sauce is awesome. The sausages... not so much. They're missing fennel seeds, for one thing, and their fat content is way too low, all of which makes them kind of bland and boring. The guy also had trouble making his sausages one consistent size; there were giants as well as midgets.  The overall ziti dish looks and smells palatable, at least. We'll see soon enough what the troops think.