A Life, Lived: Dracula's Revenge

A month has flown by and it is time for another Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club - a great opportunity to get together with a wonderful group of folks and enjoy good food and fun. This month's theme has us thinking about Hallowe'en - everyone is either bringing something Halowe'en-ie or orange/black to the party. I found this recipe on the CL site and thought - BINGO!

Now lest you think I am off exploring some bad horror genre let me assure you that this is a casserole with plenty of roasted garlic - hence the name. Mind you, I know enough about the horror genre to know that garlic wouldn't be the revenge of Dracula but the end. Regardless this post is about a casserole and if you've googled and popped here expecting to find a tale of lusty, blood sucking vampires you best click on for you shall be disappointed.

This is a tale of a delicious casserole. 2 heads (yes, heads) of garlic are roasted first - a step I did some days before assembling the casserole. Then 1 lb of turkey sausage is cooked and mixed with fresh rosemary and sage. All that is left to do is to whip up a low-fat cheese sauce, mix it with 8 cups of cooked penne, the sausage, and the roasted garlic and voila - you have a delicious casserole ready for the oven.

When I made this casserole I was getting ready to travel to Italy (we leave tomorrow) so I was trying to not buy many groceries and things. This turned out to bea good thing since I only had 5 cups of milk. The recipe calls for 6, I only had 5 so this is what I used. Later I read reviews from others online who complained about the sauce being soupy. HA There are times when not having enough ingredients can be a stroke of good fortune. The sauce was just fine with 5 cups.

Now about that garlic. We love garlic and my cloves were GIANT cloves fresh from a local Ontario farm. I always get annoyed when a recipe says something like a head of garlic as a head can be giant or tiny. If you're a titch garlic phobic and you have giant garlic heads laying about you may only want to roast one. We used two and it was tasty but if you weren't a fan of the garlic you might be put off.

All in all this was a great casserole. I bet no one will know that it is low-fat . . .shhhhhh

Dracula's Revenge (Baked Penne with Sausage and Garlic)

2 whole garlic heads
1 pound sweet turkey Italian sausage
1 teaspoon chopped fresh or 1/4 teaspoon dried sage
1 teaspoon chopped fresh or 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary
2 tablespoons butter or stick margarine
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
6 cups 1% low-fat milk
1 cup (4 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese
2/3 cup (about 2 1/2 ounces) shredded Gruyère or Swiss cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
8 cups hot cooked penne (about 1 pound uncooked tube-shaped pasta) or rigatoni
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350°.

Remove white papery skin from garlic heads (do not peel or separate the cloves). Wrap each head separately in foil. Bake at 350° for 1 hour; cool 10 minutes. Separate cloves; squeeze to extract garlic pulp. Discard skins. Set garlic aside.

Increase oven temperature to 400°.

Remove casings from sausage. Cook sausage in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until browned, stirring to crumble. Remove from pan with a slotted spoon. Place sausage in a large bowl; stir in sage and rosemary.

Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Add the flour to melted butter, stirring with a whisk. Gradually add the milk; cook until slightly thick, stirring constantly with a whisk (about 10 minutes). Stir in roasted garlic, cheeses, salt, and pepper. Remove mixture from heat. Add 5 1/2 cups cheese sauce and cooked pasta to sausage, stirring to coat. Spoon pasta mixture in a 13 x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Top with remaining sauce. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until thoroughly heated.

Be sure to pop on over and see what the lovely ladies I have the pleasure of 'meeting' with each month have brought to the party:

Sandi of The Whistlestop Cafe starts us off with Devilish Eggs.

Mary Ann of Meet Me in the Kitchen brings along Sweet Potato and Black Bean Empanadas.

Val contributed this delicious looking Roasted Squash Soup with Turkey Croquettes.

Roz of La Bella Vita ends our meal on a sweet note with Chocolate Spiderweb Cookies.

Jamie of Mom's Cooking Club made one of the recipes featured in the latest Cooking Light article on that hi-lighted Adult Hallowe'en treats . . . Devilishly Divine Peanut Butter Caramel Corn.

Good times folks, good times!