A Runner’s Feast: Deb’s Baked Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage

When your dad makes you run a race with him, you somehow get roped into making cheesy pasta bake the night before. You also end up arriving at the race a whopping 40 minutes too early and thus leaving an extra 40 minutes to sleep in the car dreaming of carb mania dinner from last night. But hey, you ran 9 miles THUMBS UP CHICA

Deb, you were thinking of my dad when you wrote this post I think. He is ALL ABOUT baked pasta with hot Italian sausage and hearty greens. I’ve never cooked broccoli rabe before, but am a HUGE fan. It always makes me think of when I went to Philadelphia during the college tour days and told my dad I wanted to go to a REAL Italian establishment in Philly. I ordered pasta with broccoli rabe, the waiter’s name was Dominic, and the restaurant was an old converted mansion. It was awesome.

On Atlanta’s first perfect fall day, I visited the St. Phillips farmers market for the first time and bought this delicious hot Italian sausage. The rapini I found at the regular grocery store actually and used part-skim mozzarella (use the block kind not shredded!!). I couldn’t find campagnelle but am a fan of rigatoni’s ridges. I slept soooo well after this meal and used some of the broccoli rabe, cheesy goodness and sausage to make scrambled eggs after the race.

This recipe’s going on my “college guy friends come to visit need food lots of it” list. And this bechamel ohhhhh. You could honestly make this without cheese and it’d be great with the bechamel. Since it’s cooked in the hot italian sausauge drippings, it has this spicy and full flavor thats so different from any bechamel I’ve made before.

Thank you Deb for this recipe!!

Served it with a salad, homemade balsamic, honey, lemon vinaigrette and some failed homemade croutons (feelin the sistah love coffield and grubes on the burned croutons)

(I added a few mushrooms)

Chop up the broccoli rabe