Pasta Bake with Sausage, Spinach and Beans

I'll admit it - I was naive. Before I had my babies, I totally used to judge women who said that they didn't have time to do things once they had their babies. Women who said that they couldn't find the time to work out? "Please!" I'd think. "You can totally get up early and exercise, or do it at night after the kids go to bed." Um, yeah, right. I now know that when you spend half the night up soothing and feeding babies the last thing you want to do is get up at 5:30 am and work out. There is also no way that you have the energy for a workout at 8:00 pm once the babies are finally in bed. I also used to laugh at women who said they had no time to cook once they had their babies. "Ha!" I thought. "You can't find half an hour a day to throw dinner together?!?" Um, no, on many days, you can't. For the past few months Joe and I have been living on takeout, standby crockpot recipes, frozen salmon filets with tater tots and meals kindly provided by family members. Luckily, as the babies get a little older we have more of a routine established and I have managed to find time to cook some decent dinners recently.

The first thing that I was eager to try came from the Cook Yourself Thin cookbook. This spring while I was on bedrest, Cook Yourself Thin aired every day at 5:00 and 5:30 on Lifetime. Since I wasn't allowed to leave the couch, I watched it religiously. I always thought that the recipes looked great and I vowed that I would get the cookbook once I had the babies. The book was under the Christmas tree for me this year, and this recipe for Pasta Bake with Sausage, Spinach and Beans was the first I tried. I made a few changes - I used spinach instead of the broccoli the recipe called for because Joe dislikes spinach less than he dislikes broccoli, and I used a sun-dried tomato and mozzarella chicken sausage in place of the turkey sausage.

This pasta was really, really good! I love the addition of the beans, and it was deliciously creamy with a nice crunchy crust on top. I'm anxious to try more recipes from the cookbook as soon as I get another chance!

(Blogger hates me right now and won't let me copy the recipe to this post, so please use the direct link until I can get it pasted!

The reasons for my lack of cooking - Charlie and Lily, 7 months old!