Pat-A-Cake Sausage Bake

I have been having a lot of fun lately, making recipes which were printed in Better Homes & Gardens magazine in the 1950s and 1960s.  While some of them sound like very odd combinations, on the whole, they have actually been surprisingly good.  Before the weather gets too much warmer and I want to focus on lighter fare, I wanted to get in one last stick-to-your-ribs recipe.  Flipping through my collection, I found just the ticket – Pat-A-Cake Sausage Bake, which was printed in the August 1957 edition.

Over the years, I have learned that sometimes the most delicious dish is the sum of odd ingredient pairings.  Pat-A-Cake Sausage Bake is one of those dishes that solidly falls into that category.  With ingredients like sausage, cream of chicken soup green peppers and bleu cheese, I was prepared to pop a frozen pizza in the oven if the combination did not turn out well.  In the end, I did not need to worry.  In fact, it was so well received for dinner last night that my husband was happy to take leftovers for lunch today.  (Not to mention that we will both happily be eating leftovers for dinner tomorrow.)

Feeling bold about the green pepper after my success with Home Front Macaroni last week, I decided to use an entire diced green pepper instead of the instructed 2-tablespoons.  This more than made up for my omission of 2-tablespoons of pimentos (which seem to have been all the rage in the 1950s since they are called for in at least half of all recipes written during that era).  Additionally, I was in a bit of a rush when I was putting my Pat-A-Cake Sausage Bake together and I forgot to top it with buttered bread crumbs.  Honestly, we did not miss it since I served it with a side of leftover Spinach Provençale (also from last week) and that was topped with buttered bread crumbs. 

The directions for Pat-A-Cake Sausage Bake said to make the sausage into “marbles” then flatten them into tiny patties before browning.  I am sure that this would have been pretty but I am a little on the lazy side and I did not want to waste the time doing this with an entire pound of sausage.  Instead, I just tossed the sausage into the frying pan and chopped it up with a wooden spatula as it cooked.  This saved me quite a bit of time and enabled me to spend that extra few minutes with my sweetheart. 

Some sort of magic seemed to occur as I mixed together the ingredients for Pat-A-Cake Sausage Bake.  The result was a creamy, savory dinner with just the smallest nip from all of the green pepper.  It was so good, I can easily see myself making this again on a cold winter day.

Pat-A-Cake Sausage Bake

Serves 6

Ingredients

·        1 pound ground pork sausage (I used maple pork sausage because it was on sale)

·        4 ounces dried noodles

·        2 tablespoons chopped green pepper

·        2 tablespoons chopped pimento

·        1 10-ounce can cream of chicken soup

·        2 ounces crumbled bleu cheese

·        1/3 cup buttered bread crumbs

Directions

1.   Preheat oven to 350° F.

2.   Brown sausage in frying pan.  (I tossed the green pepper in with the sausage as it cooked but this isn’t necessary.)

3.   While the sausage is browning, cook 4 ounces of noodles according to package directions then drain.

4.   Grease a 1 ½ quart casserole dish.

5.   Combine sausage, green pepper (if you have not already done so), pimento, cream of chicken soup, and bleu cheese.  Stir until bleu cheese melts.

6.   Add pasta and carefully stir until all ingredients are combined then evenly spread mixture into casserole dish.

7.   Top with buttered bread crumbs.

8.   Bake at 350° F for 30 minutes or until bread crumbs are golden brown.

Would you make a recipe if the ingredients did not sound like a good combination to you?  Comment below and let me know!