Sausage, Mozzarella, and Broccoli Rabe with Shells

Sometimes the cover recipe on a magazine just draws you in and you have to make it.
That is the story with this pasta dish.
It was on the cover of Everyday Food a couple of months ago.
Something about cheesy baked pasta is really appealing. Throwing in something green makes it even better.

I used turkey sausage in this recipe because I use ground turkey and turkey sausage in place of ground beef or pork always. It is a way to cut back on calories and fat, without getting rid of the flavor.

The broccoli rabe was a little much for my kids in this one. It can be bitter, although blanching/steaming it for a few minutes is supposed to help with that.
The recipe suggested subbing in regular broccoli, if preferred, but I think spinach would also be a good alternative. You could also sub another type of cheese, since fresh mozzarella can be expensive.

This turned out to be a recipe that looked better than it tasted for us. We still liked it, but I was expecting more from it, for some reason. I would like to play around with the recipe in the future and make a few changes, to see if I could get better results. It was good, but not as amazing as the photo made me think it would be.

Recipe for Sausage, Mozzarella, and Broccoli Rabe with Shells