White Sauce Pasta Bake with Italian Turkey Sausage

I'm SO excited because I made this recipe up myself, and it turned out SO well! I wanted a pasta bake, but all I could find were pasta bakes for red sauce. I am a huge fan of white sauce pastas, so I was looking for a white sauce pasta bake. When I couldn't find one, I made my own!

1 lb. Campanelle pasta
1 lb. sweet Italian sausage (taken out of its casing)
3 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
3 diced bell peppers of various colors
1 medium, diced yellow onion
1 Tbs. minced garlic
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/4 tsp. salt
cracked pepper to taste
1 Tbs. Italian seasoning
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese - grated
8 oz. mozzarella cheese - shredded

Cook pasta in salted, boiling water for 10-12 minutes. Drain pasta, rinse with cold water, transfer to large bowl and set aside. On top of cold pasta, pour 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese and 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, but don't mix yet.
Cook sausage over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking and burning. Break up the large pieces of sausage and brown until no longer pink. Transfer sausage to a bowl, leaving behind the fat in the skillet.
Add olive oil to the already existing fat in the skillet. Saute garlic, onion, peppers, and mushrooms ~ 5-7 minutes until tender. Add sausage, cream, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. Boil over medium-high heat until thickened, ~ 5-6 minutes.
Pour over pasta, Parmesan cheese, and mozzarella cheese. Gently blend until everything is well-coated. Gently fold into a casserole dish, cover with remaining mozzarella cheese. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes.

This makes a LOT of pasta! It will feed eight people, EASY. It's so creamy and good and makes a great left-over dish! YUM!

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