Here’s another recipe that I loosely followed from one of my sis’s Home Chef recipe cards - I wouldn’t have thought to bake the casserole without browning the sausage first, they say to just crumble it on top of the pasta and bake - who knew?! Dave and I really liked this, read below for Jen’s review. Here’s what I did to make this almost copycat version:
- 4 oz light cream cheese
- 1/4 cup seasoned croutons, crushed
- 1/4 cup herb butter (I mixed a teaspoon of Italian seasoning into softened butter)
- 4 oz baby spinach
- 8 oz cooked pasta (recipe called for fettuccini but I used curly cavatappi pasta)
- 8 oz marinara sauce
- 8 oz Italian sausage, removed from the casing if using links
Bake uncovered until sausage reaches a minimum internal temperature of 160’, 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven and stir in the butter until combined. Garnish with crushed croutons.
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| before baking, with the raw sausage on top |
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| herb butter |
You can also try this with sliced flank steak (cook to at least 145’, 15-20 minutes), ground beef (20-22 minutes) or ground turkey (20-25 minutes or until no pink remains).
Before I show you her review here’s a funny story - while making this I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be spicy enough for them so I liberally sprinkled the dish with chili pepper and red pepper flakes, hoping I didn’t add too much! Here’s her review:
So I’m always afraid to give a negative review – for fear my sister will stop cooking for me. This one isn’t really “negative” but its not glowing. (like the buffalo chicken one was- go look that one up). Anyway- back to the topic. So this pasta was “ok”. To be honest and fair my sister did ask if I wanted spicy sausage or regular. I said regular was fine but that might have been the problem? It was just kinda ok. nothing special. The flavor was ok, just a little blah for me. She did give me a big blob of flavored butter I had to stir in after cooking-so that automatically combined with the sausage made me feel a little nauseous and like I needed to go for a run- but yet the butter wasn’t enough to give it great flavor. After trying as is I added red pepper chili flakes which did make it better.
So, hopefully my honest review doesn’t make my sister not cook for me again. My advice is to make this – but choose the spicy sausage when you do!
11.17.21: chocolate zucchini brownies
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