Rice and Sausage, or is that Hamburger, Bake

(Sorry, the pics didn't go where I wanted them to and they are backward... oops, but at least they are there)

I have made this meal many times, most of the time I make it just the way the recipe calls for, other times, I use hamburger rather than the Hot Italian Sausage cuz it's all I have. That is what I did tonight. The only other time that I have used hamburger rather than the sausage was ok, but not great. I did hamburger and salsa rather than the spaghetti sauce, trying to create the missing zip that hot sausage gives with the salsa. It came out watery and I don't think I liked the rice either as I believe I used brown rice which I dislike but it also didn't taste right in this bake.

Tonight, though, I tried a different approach with the hamburger. I seasoned it with cajon seasing. I'm not sure of how much I put in there, so I'll just say what I hate other recipe people saying... "season to taste". This turned out much better. One of my sisters said it was too hot, another said it was just right... I liked it, and I think that the meat in this recipe needs to lean towards the hot side. The following is the link to the recipe. http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1942,157172-236205,00.html

I like this recipe because after preparation, it only takes 20 minutes to bake. This is because eveything is already cooked, it just all needs to get heated. I would think you would even be able to prepare this in the morning or the night before and then put it in the oven when you got home.

Ingredients:

1 pound hot italian sausage or 1 pound ground beef (seasoned heavily)

Spaghetti sauce

Rice (I use two cups)

Mozzarella

Brown beef and prepare rice. Grease pan (to be perfectly honest, I know not the size of the pan I use... it's at least 1/2 the size of a 9x13 if not more). After the beef and rice are ready, put sauce at the bottom of the pan then rice, then sauce and beef and cheese. Add one more layer of rice then beef and top it off with cheese. (I normally put tin foil on mine so it doesn't burn) Then put in preheated 400 oven for approximately 20 minutes or until it reaches the heat you desire. The way I layered mine is no exact to the link, but it all basically turns out the same.