This recipe comes to you from my daughter Lauren. She is an amazing and innovative cook. The original recipe she sent me used chicken as the base protein. However, the day I made it for the website, I didn’t HAVE chicken (I know, how do you run out of chicken?). What I had was hand-made sausage links from a friend. These sausages were about 2/3 the size of an Italian sausage. If you choose to make this, I would use about 6 Italian sausages (plain). This is enough for 4 people.
Ingredients: (makes about 4 servings)
3/4 to 1 pound Italian Sausage (not sweet) about 6 links
1 small can (15ish ounces) quartered artichoke hearts (marinated, liquid drained, tough leaves cut off)
1 small can (15ish ounces) fire-roasted diced tomatoes
8oz. fresh mozzarella, sliced
1 teaspoon oregano (fresh or dried)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/ teaspoon salt
1.2 teaspoon pepper
3-4 tablespoons parmesan (dig in your wallet and buy a good hunk of Parmesan, it makes a difference)
4 strips bacon
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Spray a 13 x 9 casserole dish with cooking spray.
Drain the artickoke hearts and trim away any tough outer leaves. Place them in a single layer in the bottom of the baking dish.
Top the artichokes with about 1/3 of the fire-roasted tomatoes. This makes a nice bed for the sausages to rest upon.
Place the sausages in a single layer on top of the artichokes and fire-roasted tomatoes.
Top with the remaining tomatoes.
Cut the mozzarella into slices. Arrange the slices on top of the sausages.
Combine the parmesan, oregano, salt and pepper. Sprinkle over the mozzarella.
Bake 40 minutes or more, depending upon how crispy you want your bacon to be.
Enjoy!
