Pasta & Sausage Bake

It has been a while but here is a new recipe.

Ingredients:

1 package of Italian style sausage, mine was about 20 oz
1 standard box of pasta, such as macaroni or ziti
24 oz of pasta sauce, I used my favorite mushroom tomato sauce
15 oz of ricotta cheese
2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
1 tbs olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

I started by cutting open the sausage skins and removing the meat essentially turning it into ground sausage. I like my sausage ground because it cooks faster and I like how it mixes better into the pasta. This is just my preference with this particular dish. You could cook the sausages whole and slice them up if you prefer.

Make sure if you choose the ground sausage way, mix the meat up and separate it really good before you turn on the heat to cook. This prevents it from staying together and cooking into chunks. Once the meat is all ground up, put 1 tbs of olive oil and cook the sausage until it is nice and brown. In the meantime, bring a pot of water to boil and start cooking your pasta.

Once the pasta is done, drain out the water and set aside. Gather the other ingredients.

Reuse the same pot that you cooked the pasta in to mix the sauce, because chances are its a nice big pot. Pour the pasta sauce of your choice, and all the ricotta cheese. Mix this together. If you have a hard time mixing it, turn the heat to low to help melt the ricotta cheese.

Once it is all mixed, add your cooked pasta and sausage. Mix everything together and do a final taste test to see if it needs any salt of pepper.

The final steps are not necessary because the meal is now ready to eat, it just makes it extra special. Turn the oven to 350 degrees. Pour all the pasta into a 13x9 baking dish and cover it with 2 cups of mozzarella cheese. Put the dish into the oven until the mozzarella cheese melts. This takes about 10 minutes.

This recipe yields a lot of food and is quick to make. Enjoy with a crowd.