Sausage Pasta Casserole

Once in a while we go back to an old recipe from years ago. In this case, it was from a book given to SO by her aunt, called "The Best of Bridge". It says they sold a million copies. Made in Canada, it contains old fashioned meat and potato staples passed down by Moms and Grandmas for years. This recipe is your basic pasta casserole. I "adapted" it slightly, I can't believe they would really suggest adding 3 cups sour cream and a full pound of cheese. Talk about the Paula Deen school of cooking. SO has a good butcher near her work downtown, and brought home some nice sausage on Friday. So we'll use that instead of ground beef. The rest is pretty straight forward. I made extra to ensure lots of leftovers for lunches.

Sausage Pasta Casserole - ready to go in the oven

Was pretty awesome in the end. Glad I cut back on the cheese and sour cream. A good spicy sausage really makes it I think.

The leftovers - 7 lunches ready to go

Next Time: More sausage, and maybe more mushrooms

Me: 8/10
SO: 10/10
SSO: 5/10

Sausage Pasta Casserole
Enough for a family of 4 plus leftovers - makes quite a bit, reduce quantities as desired
Ingredients

• 6-8 sausages, casings removed
• 2 or 3 onions, chopped
• a couple garlic cloves (pressed or finely diced)
• 3 cups spaghetti sauce, home made or can/jar
• large can of diced tomatoes
• salt
• 2 tsp dried basil
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• several handfuls of chopped mushrooms
• 3 cups dried macaroni
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella
• 1 cup shredded gouda

Method

1. Start a large pot of water heating to cook the pasta.
2. In a browning pan (or dutch oven, or large pot) brown the sausage. When it is half-way to browned, add the onion. Near the end, add the garlic. Once all is cooked, add some of the spaghetti sauce to deglaze.
3. Transfer to a large pot if you used a pan to brown the sausage. Add the spaghetti sauce, tomatoes, salt, basil and oregano. Simmer it. Once the water is ready, add the pasta.
4. When the pasta is almost done, add the mushrooms to the sauce and stir.
5. When the pasta is done, drain, and add to a large casserole dish. Taste the sauce, add salt if needed. 
6. Pour the sauce over the pasta. Mix in the sour cream, and a majority of the cheese. Sprinkle the remainder of the cheese over the top.
7. Cover, and pop in the oven at 350 (or higher if in a hurry) for at least 20 minutes or until thoroughly heated.