Saturday, March 6, 2010

Sausage, Mozzarella, and Broccoli Rabe with Shells

Sometimes the cover recipe on a magazine just draws you in and you have to make it.
That is the story with this pasta dish.
It was on the cover of Everyday Food a couple of months ago.
Something about cheesy baked pasta is really appealing. Throwing in something green makes it even better.

I used turkey sausage in this recipe because I use ground turkey and turkey sausage in place of ground beef or pork always. It is a way to cut back on calories and fat, without getting rid of the flavor.

The broccoli rabe was a little much for my kids in this one. It can be bitter, although blanching/steaming it for a few minutes is supposed to help with that.
The recipe suggested subbing in regular broccoli, if preferred, but I think spinach would also be a good alternative. You could also sub another type of cheese, since fresh mozzarella can be expensive.

This turned out to be a recipe that looked better than it tasted for us. We still liked it, but I was expecting more from it, for some reason. I would like to play around with the recipe in the future and make a few changes, to see if I could get better results. It was good, but not as amazing as the photo made me think it would be.

Recipe for Sausage, Mozzarella, and Broccoli Rabe with Shells

6 comments:

Samantha Kate said...

This looks so yummy! I love pasta dishes :)

Chef Aimee said...

I love Everyday Food and subscribe to it...wow you did this recipe justice! :)

Unknown said...

I love Everyday Food - I just watched them make this dish on the show the other day and thought it looked good too! I'll probably give it a try eventually, though I'll sub spinach for the broccoli rabe. Let us know if you try it play with the recipe to improve it!

~~louise~~ said...

It sure looks good to me, Mary Ann!!! When I was a kid, we had to eat broccoli rabe and I disliked it immensely! As an adult, I actually crave it sometimes. Thanks for sharing...

Jessica said...

This looks like such a tasty meal. I love that I could assemble it ahead of time and then pop it into the oven when I get home. I think I'll try this with spinach sometime very soon!

Cathy said...

This is my kind of dinner (funny, I seem to say that a lot when I read your dinner posts). I think I'll try this with spinach - who knows if the kids will eat it, but I know hubs and I will love it!