Baked Ziti & Sausage

Today, I just want to talk about how helpful it can be to look on the labels of the foods you buy for delicious (and easy!) recipes.

This recipe for baked ziti comes right off of the box of Prince pasta, but it's really simple to make and tastes delicious.  It's also pretty basic, so if I want to add more or less stuff, I can easily do that without messing up the whole thing.

This time around, I added a couple of diced tomatoes, but in the past I've also added some diced up onions.  I think it would be really good with some peppers, too, and you can easily swap out the pork sausage for hamburger or turkey or chicken sausage if you want something a little healthier.  I just thought of this now, but with some cut up breaded chicken, this would taste just like chicken parm.  Mmmmmm.

It's so good, in fact, that it's become one of our "go to" dinners.  We have it probably about once a month, and it makes enough for my lunch the next day plus dinner for the following day (or sometimes two days, depending on how much we eat to start with).  The pasta and cheesy goodness is a little heavy for this time of year, but it's perfect during the fall and winter months when you want a warm, satisfying meal, but also don't want to spend all day in the kitchen.

I normally don't pay attention to the recipes that are on the labels of foods that we buy, but every once in awhile, they have a really good one that either seems to be worth trying or that sparks an idea to try something else.  What's your favorite recipe like this?