VODKA sauce!

I made the Baked Pasta with Chicken Sausage I wrote about earlier - FANTASTIC!!! And it is pasta, sausage, and VODKA SAUCE!! Creamy, lovely, yumminess. The fontina cheese cost about $9 - a little spendy, but stretched out over 4-6 meals, not THAT bad. You could probably substitute mozzarella as a cheaper alternative, but it wouldn't have the amazing smoothness. The amount of sausage is perfect for the needed texture, and you can't even taste the spinach (I'm not a fan). I'm dying to read the book Are You There Vodka? It's Me Chelsea Hell, I'm dying to drink VODKA again - this is cooked down, but I got to smell it as it did.

I doubled the recipe so I could stock our freezer a little, too. For some reason, I am ALWAYS using the wrong size pans. This time I used the biggest ones I had, and I was still overflowing. I ended up having to combine all of the ingredients in one giant bowl and the pasta pot in two sessions. The spinach has some trouble distributing, it kept clumping into big green balls, but cooking it in the pasta water is pretty genius, I think. I took one dish to my new parent friends, we had one for dinner, and I have 3 more in my freezer for non cooking nights!

My kids even gobbled it up. Well, Miss Mae gobbled it up, Henry wasn't quite as excited, but he did eat the noodles, and FINALLY tried a piece of sausage after which he screamed "that was a HOT DOG!!!! Why didn't you tell my they were HOT DOGS!?!?!?" I guess I didn't make the connection. Then he filled himself up with fruit and cheese....

A good crusty bread would go great with this one, too. A great dinner to take to someone would be a dish of this, a loaf of bread, and a salad.

So, my summation:

• Great dinner - yummy, creamy, goodness


• Kid friendly


• Good iron and roughage with spinach


• Can make with little effort


• Great freezing dish


• Used quite a few dishes, so cleanup wasn't GREAT (and what is it with washing melty cheese?? sheesh, it was EVERYWHERE in my sink)


• Lots of cheese if giving to a brand new mom - better for a "couple of weeks down the road" dish


• Most likely quite high in fat and calories with all of the cream, cheese, and sausage.