Mostaccioli al Forno con Salsiccia e Piselli

This is from last week, but i'm just not getting around to posting about it.  I'm sorry I didn't get a good picture,  but this dish really hit the spot for me.  A creamy tomato sauce, baked in with mostaccioli noodles, homemade spicy Italian sausage (tvp) and peas.   And fresh, home-made super crusty french bread. 

I made a creamy sauce because (once again) i needed to use up some silken tofu, so I blended that up to make vegan "sour cream" and mixed that in with a somewhat stereotypical tomato sauce.  I had precooked my mostaccioli noodles, so then i mixed 

the noodles, sausage and frozen peas in a casserole type dish, mixed in the noodles and added some cheese on top.  Oh, and also I sliced some garlic to go on the top (mostly because it makes the whole house smell so good).  Then I baked it till it was warm all the way through and some of the cheese had begun to brown (less than half an hour at 350).  

I love peas.  They're great.  Peas peas peas.  If you don't, substitute you're favorite green veggies.  This dish was lacking in color variety, maybe some big broccoli florets in there would have been good.  Or maybe do the broccoli on the side, steamed with browned butter and garlic.  That'd add a nice complimentary flavor, and some good color to the plate.  

French Bread

For the french bread, i used what i could remember of my friend paul's directions.  It's basic bread; 2 cups of water, tablespoon yeast, a hefty pinch of sugar, same amount of salt, and flour till it's the right consistency, with no oil.  

After the kneading it had three risings.  After it double once,  punch and need and let rise some more.  Then after it almost doubles again, I separated it into three pieces (though in hind-sight, with this much dough, I should have made four),  and rolled out each of those into about a 30cm by 40 cm rectangle.  Then I rolled those up into baguette shapes.  I let them rise again for maybe 20 mins, till it looked like a size I liked.  

Meanwhile, i preheated the oven to 450, along with a cookie sheet on the bottom rack of the oven.  I had all three baguettes on another cookie sheet, so when it was hot, and the bread had risen enough, i put that second cookie sheet with the bread on the middle rack.  

This next part is important,  as soon as I put the dough in the oven,  i used a spray bottle (a mister) filled with warm water, and sprayed the cookie sheet on the bottom rack,  this all of course turned to steam immediately on hitting the hot metal.  This (along with the super hot oven) gives the bread it's very hard, yet very thin crust.   Professional bakers have misters built in their oven,  this is an ok substitute for the rest of us.  I sprayed inside the oven several times,  giving the pan a chance to reheat up between each squirt.  This also gives the bread's crust a sort of sheen to it, better than an egg wash.  After about 10 minutes I turned the heat down to a little under four hundred, so the inside would cook through without the crust burning.  My all-too-french friend Heather says if the crust feels just hard enough to be inedible, then it's almost hard enough.  This is of course balanced by the crust being very thin, and the inside being somewhat airy, and a lightly chewy.  

This was a super easy pasta dish to make,  I'll probably use it for large groups often.  And it's important to have recipes which are flexible enough to use with whatever veggies are in season.  (Or whatever you've preserved from the summer if it's freezing outside and the middle of December).  This could have also worked with summer squash, some winter squashes, eggplant, asparagus, bell peppers,  spinach or mushrooms.  And if you get your vegetables in season and fresh, each will give the pasta dish different, and distinct flavors.