Dangerously Delicious Pasta Bake

I love pasta. I love cheese. I love tomatoes. I love garlic bread. I love lamp. (JK) Well I guess with my mixture of Italian and Japanese background it would be only right to share with you this pasta bake right after we had an Asian dish! It was delicious!! Each bite was full of flavor and definitely made enough to go around!! I found this recipe on Tracey's Culinary Adventure (still absolutely LOVING all her recipes)!  So let's stop the chit chat and get right down to it!!

Ingredients
1 (28 oz) can whole peeled tomatoes
1 lb. Italian sausage (Casing removed) hot or sweet
6 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp salt
3 C water
12 oz Ziti
1/2 c heavy cream
1 oz Parmesan cheese
Dash or two or three of parsley (flavor according to your liking)
4 oz Mozzarella cheese

Pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees.

Add your can of tomatoes to a food processor and pulse about 10-12 times until all the large pieces are broken down and you have "tomato sauce".

Set a LARGE skillet on the stove over medium heat. Add the sausage (casings removed) and cook until no longer pink. All the while take a wooden fork or spatula and break up the sausage as you cook. 

The casings are still on in this picture. The easiest way to remove them (if you never have) is to take a small knife and slide it under the casing the whole length of the sausage. If you try and peel it off it can get messy and squishy (couldn't think of a better word lol). This way once you have a slit the entire length of the sausage you can just peel it back and it comes right off! 

Once the sausage is cooked, go ahead and add in the garlic and red pepper. Cook about 30 seconds to 1 minute, or until it gets fragrant (I promise this won't take very long)! 

Garlic-I can smell it cooking just looking at it

Stir in your tomato blend and salt. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes. 

I threw in some green onion at the last minute! Added color and little pop of flavor! 

Once you have simmered this mixture on the stove, add the 3 cups of water and pasta to the skillet (I told you that you would need a BIG skillet)!! Cover and turn up the heat back medium and cook about 15 minutes! You are going to want to stir this frequently or else it will all start to stick together and to the pan!!

After about 15 minutes (I checked the pasta to see if was soft) you're going to want to add the heavy cream, Parmesan cheese, and parsley. Stir this all together and season with salt and pepper. 

Heavy cream to help thicken the sauce

Okay, now if you have a skillet that is oven safe, you're going to want to top the pasta with Mozzarella cheese and place it in the oven for 10 minutes to bake. My skillet is NOT oven safe so I transferred mine to a baking dish, topped it with cheese and baked for 10 minutes! Threw in a couple slices of bread (in the toaster) to make garlic bread slices while the pasta was cooking! After the 10 minutes of cooking, your cheese should be melted and slightly browned on top! WARNING: this is a heavy dish and will make plenty! So, pace yourself!! I wanted to eat it ALL but also didn't want to wake up the next morning and only be able to fit in stretchy pants for the next few days! Moral of the story here: A small helping with go a long way because it's rich with flavor and the sausage adds some "meat" to any helping! (Sorry, no pun was intended there! That was cheesy (again sorry))!! Sheesh!! 

Pre-Bake

Right out of the oven

Ready to eat!

A good indication that it was delicious! 

Wiped the plate down with my last bite of bread (just in case you were thinking, Did she lick the plate clean?)

So, there you have it! A delicious weeknight meal that will last you and yours a couple of days!! Check back soon for a pork tenderloin recipe!! Until then...

~Happy Eating~