Curly Italian Pasta

We had our Webster girl's Weekend this last weekend and had a blast. There are enough of us that go so we split up meal preparations. I like doing it this way because we get to try something new to add to our recipes. For dinner Friday night, Laura made this Curly Italian Pasta from a new blog she found, Missygrub.blogspot.com. It was so yummy and I liked all the tasty extras in it. It looked pretty easy and made PLENTY for all 11 of us.

Cavatappi pasta (I usually cook half the box for my family of 5)
1 package Italian Ground Sausage
1/3 cup diced green bell pepper
1/3 cup diced onion
1-2 cloves garlic
1 can of Italian diced tomatoes
1-1 1/2 cups of Heavy Whipping Cream
Salt and Pepper to taste
Fresh grated Parmesan and Romano Cheese (I use Sargentos shredded cheese)

Bring water to boil for noodles. Cook sausage until cooked through, drain, return to pan and add green bell pepper, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Continue browning meat, and cooking veggies. Add Pasta to water, and cook according to package. Add tomatoes to meat mixture, continue cooking for 5 more minutes. Then add Heavy Whipping Cream to meat mixture, low-mid heat. Drain pasta, return to pan. Add about a cup of cheese in the meat mixture and stir till combined, then add to pasta. Top with more cheese.

Ravioli Bake

I was in the mood for something easy tonight since I knew I would be working and it also served as a pretty good Super Bowl dinner (with the breadsticks). I adapted it a little from this recipe with the stuff I had on hand. I liked the sausage as opposed to the ground beef I normally use in recipes like this because it gave it a little more flavor.

1/2 lb turkey sausage

1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes

1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh basil

1/8 c heavy cream

salt and ground black pepper

1 (9 ounce) package fresh cheese ravioli

1/2 c shredded mozzarella cheese

Instructions

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 475 degrees. Bring 2 quarts water to boil in large pot.

Cook sausage in 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, breaking meat up with wooden spoon until lightly browned and no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Drain meat and set aside.

Add oil and garlic to skillet and return to medium heat until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in tomatoes and reserved sausage and cook until slightly thickened, 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in basil and cream and continue to simmer until slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Remove skillet from heat, cover, and set aside.

Add 1 T salt and ravioli to boiling water and cook, stirring often, until tender. Drain ravioli and return to pot.

Stir sauce into ravioli and season with salt and pepper to taste. Spread mixture into 8 x 8-inch baking dish and sprinkle evenly with mozzarella. Bake until cheese is melted and lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Serve warm with breadsticks.