Baked Chicken & Apple Sausage Penne

I saw these chicken & apple sausages on sale at the grocery store the other day and picked up a package. This is pretty huge for me! I've hated sausage all my life (the fennel seeds found in most sausage reminds me of the spider teeth in the old Ewok movie). I'm married to a sausage lover! So, I knew it would be a good idea to deal with my hatred and find a way to like sausage.

After my baby boy, Kru, was born a fried of mine brought me a baked casserole, just like the one I made the other night, with chicken & apple sausage, it may have even been the same sausage. And, I liked it! So, when I saw this, I knew I could do it!! I could cook sausage.

Here is the sausage I bought:

And these are all of the ingredients (except I decided at the last minute to throw in a can of diced tomatoes, I'm glad I did, they were a good addition):

It was super simple. I cooked the pasta (1/2 the box. Oh, and next time I'll buy whole wheat pasta! Thats what I normally buy but the kids were fussing when I was in the pasta isle, this was on sale and somehow it ended up in the cart. I didn't think about it until I got home. Switching to whole wheat pasta is an easy switch, we can't even tell the difference). Cut up the sausage. Drained the pasta, put the noodles back into my big pot and added the sausage, spaghetti sauce and tomatoes. I dumped all of that into my baking dish, sprinkled some cheese on top and baked it at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.

It was SO GOOD! I was actually surprised how much I liked it. My girls liked it, too. Sometimes they had a hard time chewing up the sausage and spit it back out. But they did like it. I think the thick outer stuff is what they had a hard time with (I know thats called "casing" but that word kinda grosses me out and I didn't even want to type it but I also didn't want to sound like I didn't know what I was talking bout, Ha!).

David was out of town. Can you believe it?!? I finally make a sausage meal -- FOR MY HUSBAND!! -- and prepare it when he's out of town. Oh, well. I have more sausage in the freezer and will make it for him soon (he did get some of the leftovers and loved it!). My dad came over for dinner one night and ate 2 full bowls of leftovers, so I guess he liked it. Yea!!

This is a keeper, I'll make this again and again. Especially considering how easy it was. Since the sausage is precooked, it couldn't have been easier.