Competent Parent: Casserole Week: Italian Easter Pie

It's hard to believe casserole week has already drawn to a close. Some may not believe that the dish below is a casserole. I've never been one for angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin philosophical discussions, so I won't feel the need to defend it as a casserole. But it has meat, squishy cheese, a green and top and bottom starch layers. That sounds like it fits somewhere in the casserole genus.

Apparently Italian Easter Pie has been a thing for years. We just found out about it through the April May 2014 issue of Cook's Country magazine. The guy at the fancy cheese section of my local grocery store knew about it. Of course, I bragged about how we planned to use the sharp provolone I was buying. Mmmmmmm, sharp provolone.

Shopping tip: some places call broccoli rabe "rapini". Also, the one time we made this (the week after Easter, it turned out), we toned down the spiciness by using sweet Italian sausage and a mix of hot and mild capicola. There's a lot of gooey cheese and starch to stand up to the spice, so we might ratchet that back up the next time out. Our friends to whom we served it mentioned a sausage that gets its kick from black pepper as a possible alternative.

This recipe might seem intimidating, but it's actually a bunch of easy steps. We created some of the filling stages - sauteeing the broccoli rabe and sausage and mixing the ricotta/pecorino mixture - the night before, baked it in the morning and served it in the evening. As the recipe says, it could be baked on Good Friday and stored until Easter in the fridge.