Sausage and Pasta Bake

Once again, a shout-out to the people at Jennie-O Turkey for the hot Italian sausage. I love this stuff! I was stranded at home since our truck was in the shop so I had to come up with something using stuff we already had. I thought it turned out pretty yummy!

I used a packaged Alfredo sauce, but I probably could have just as easily made a bechamel sauce. Maybe next time. I also thought that the one package wasn't enough sauce, but Jim loved it. You could also use a jarred Alfredo sauce as well.

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 package hot Italian turkey sausage - of course regular Italian sausage will work as well
1 (16 ounce) package mini bow-tie pasta (farfalle)
1-2 cups fresh spinach
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 package Alfredo sauce, prepared
salt and black pepper to taste

Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. In the meantime, heat the oil in a medium skillet on medium-high heat, remove the casings from the sausage and add it to the skillet. With a few minutes of cooking time left, add the chopped garlic and continue to cook the sausage until there is no more pink. Add the bow-tie pasta to the water and cook approximately 7 minutes for the mini-version. Drain and return to the pot adding the spinach so it begins to wilt. Once the sausage is cooked, add it to the pot with the pasta and spinach. Stir in the Alfredo sauce, salt and pepper. Transfer the mixture to a 13x9 baking dish and top with grated Parmesan cheese. Cover with foil. At this point I stuck it in the fridge since I wasn't actually cooking it until later. Either way, bake in oven for 30 minutes. Enjoy!