A casserole to warm the soul

We made this last night and it was delicious and incredibly easy. 

Ooey, gooey and warm
Served with BACON WRAPPED ASPARAGUS- a perfect pairing for this dish

The inspiration for this meal was the weather. It was cold, rainy and windy out.  Who wants to eat a salad when Mother Nature is dishing out that combination? With this kind a weather a person wants something comforting, oooey, gooey and warm.  Make this for dinner and it'll warm your soul!

What you need

•  A package of pasta
•  A medium sized can or half a jar of tomato sauce
•  Cheese- half container of ricotta and half package of shredded mozzarella
•  A package of chicken sausage, any flavor, except maybe sweet apple 
•  Rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes (4-5). 
•  A red pepper
• A casserole or baking dish

What to do

• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees (see Helpful Hint 1)
• Cook the pasta (see Helpful Hints 2 & 4)
• While pasta is cooking, cut the sausage and red pepper into 1 inch pieces
• Rehydrate sun-dried tomatoes, microwavable bowl/1 minute.  Allow to cool and dice
• Open can or jar of sauce
• If using ricotta cheese, add about a cup of mozzarella to the ricotta. Mix, add some Italian seasoning, pepper, crushed red pepper flakes.  Ricotta is very salty so no need for salt.
• Prepare your casserole dish (see Helpful Hint 3)
• Before draining your pasta, reserve half a cup of pasta water (see Helpful Hint 5)

Assembly

• Once you have drained pasta, put it back in the pot, off the burner
• Add all the remaining ingredients to the pasta
• Mix ingredients, careful not to overmix and break pasta (see Helpful Hint 6) 
• Transfer to the casserole dish
• Bake uncovered for 15-20 minutes until bubbly
• Turn off oven but keep dish in the oven 
• If desired, top with a handful of mozzerella
• Get out dishes, utensils, glasses by the time you do this the cheese will have melted
• Sit down to enjoy this casserole that warms the soul and if the oven door is open, you'll be cozy too!

Chew on....

Helpful Hints to Make this Dish Even Easier

1.  If using the oven, always turn it on first to pre-heat.  Why wait until everything is assembled to turn on the oven? It's okay for the oven to be on and nothing inside it yet.  Hey and in the fall/winter it gives a little extra heat! Once the dinner is ready, keep the oven door open for the heat.
2. When making a casserole, cut the cooking time of the pasta in half. If you cook the pasta for the full time and then put it in the oven, you will have very soggy pasta! Using only half the cooking time creates perfect pasta tenderness. If you are using ravioli or tortellini, cut the time even more.  Let them sit in the boiling water for only a minute or two.
3. To prevent sticking while baking and for easy plating, grease the casserole dish lightly with either a little butter or olive oil.
4. When boiling pasta water make sure the water is salty like the sea. Even if you don't really use salt, use it for your pasta water!  Avoid putting olive oil in your pasta water, this does not help the process and ends up coating the pasta, preventing the sauce from sticking to it.
5. Just in case, always save half a cup of the pasta water once you have boiled your pasta.  If the assembled ingredients look a little dry and you are out of sauce, this water will do the trick. Don't need it?  Don't use it.
6. Use the pasta pot to assemble your ingredients. The pot is deep enough to prevent ingredients from jumping overboard plus the depth allows you to really get in there and throughly mix.

Wait, you haven't tried chicken sausage yet?       

Perhaps this will change your mind:

They are all natural and healthy for you.

They are incredibly tasty and come in a lot of flavor varieties.

They are pre-cooked making them very handy for a last minute meal.

Most markets in the area carry two brands, one happens to be local to the Capital Region, Belinskis.

They aren't cheap but they do go on sale for 2 for $5.00 or something like that. When you see this, buy some!! You'll be glad you did.