Sausage and Ricotta Giardiniera

Ingredients:

Olive Oil cooking spray
1/2 lb Italian style hot or sweet lean turkey sausages, removed from casing
1/2 cup onion, coursely chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 lb fresh white mushrooms, cut into eighths
1 cup (1 small) zucchini, cut in course cubes
1 cup (1 small) bell pepper, seeded and cut up coursely
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 Tblsp fresh basil or 1 1/2 teast dried basil
1 tsp hot pepper flakes
1/2 cup fat free ricotta cheese
1/4 cup part skim mozzarella cheese, minced or shredded
salt and pepper to taste


1. In a large 4-5 quart cooking pot, heat cooking spray until hot but not smoking. Saute sausage meat for 5 minutes, stirring to break up lumps. Remove from pot with slotted spoon and pour off fat.

2. Add onion, garlic and mushrooms and cook for about 3 minutes until onion and garlic are just translucent.

3. Stir in sausage, zucchinni, bell pepper, tomatoes, wine and spices. Cover pot and cook over low heat for 1 1/2 hours.

4. Stir in ricotta and mozzarella cheeses; cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

Makes 8 1 cup servings

 Found this recipe in the cookbook "Eating Well after Weight loss Surgery"  even my super picky husband raved about this dish!!  It smelled wonderful cooking and tasted wonderful!! Enjoy!

This sounds amazing. Do you think you could sub beef broth for the wine? Thanks in advance :)

You probably could use the broth instead.  I used a cooking sherry that I already had in the cabinet and it worked out great! 

Awesome, thank you so much. I will be making this.

...MMMM  im saving this one! Thank you.
Vicki