A hotdish that tastes a lot more exotic than it really is

Yesterday, January 17th, marked 125 years exactly from the day that a bunch of German immigrant farmers formed our church, which is now St. Peter's Christian Community Church. And of course we celebrated with a potluck. That's what we do. Our church definitely has the spiritual gift of potlucks.

In a crock pot was the most delicious-looking pasta dish. It looked like it might be sausage and pesto sauce. I had a serving of it, then went back and had more, and then so did everybody else because it was DELICIOUS! It's only fair for the church ladies to put their names on their crock pots in freezer tape so you can identify the maker. I mean, it's just good form, right? This crock pot was brand new and had no freezer tape on it. We were all asking each other whose it was, because we all wanted the recipe for this wonderful dish.

Finally Karen Leppert, one of our organists, casually walked over and picked up her now empty crock pot, and we all pounced. She was surprised that we loved her hotdish so! But she agreed to share the recipe.

Here it is as she gave it to me. It doesn't look like much, but trust me, it is. Use the spinach. She used penne for the pasta. I think when I make this at home I am going to try it with ground turkey and ground turkey sausage rather than beef for lightness.

By the way, I'm trying out a new recipes widget from keyingredient.com. What do you think?