I’m just going to say it. There’s nothing that I hate more than starting to cook a recipe and realizing that the recipe lies to you.

Well, maybe “lies” is an extreme word, but I’ve been frustrated while cooking lots of recipes lately.

I have cooked a lot of recipes that say they only take 30 minutes when they actually take 45 minutes. I have cooked others that say they are quick and easy, but in the end, you’re left with a charred mess and a disaster zone in your kitchen. This week, I ran into another way that recipes “lie.” They hide steps in the ingredient list.

I was attempting to cook a Baked Rigatoni with Sausage and Ricotta recipe for the first time, on a special request from my husband. He doesn’t ask for specific meals often, but he found the recipe online and sent it to me, asking if I could try to make it for the food column this week.

I read it over and saw the beautiful pictures and the five easy steps to bake this mouthwatering meal. I could already imagine the melt-in-your mouth cheesy goodness and imagined getting to serve this perfect pasta to him.

But then I got into the kitchen and — mostly based on my own inexperience when it comes to cooking — I hopped into the recipe too fast without doing all of the ingredient-list preparation work first.

My pasta was overboiled because I hadn’t already removed the sausage casings while it was cooking. I had huge chunks of broccoli mixed in with my sauce because I hadn’t prepared it in advance. Even my sauce ended up too thin, though I have no earthly idea how that happened.

I weep for my husband, being forced to eat the first version I made of this recipe. He was a real trooper. But as we ate it, I thought of all the ways this pasta could be improved. Practice makes perfect, after all.

So, I tried again, subjecting my husband to Baked Rigatoni with Sausage and Ricotta for the second time in a week. But this time, I followed my own edited, tweaked and revised version of the recipe, where I had written out every single step in order, and miraculously, the pasta improved.

More advanced cooks may be frustrated with how detailed this gets, but I really want everyone, no matter how inexperienced, to get to enjoy this pasta. So, here is the most honest version I could write of this recipe, with all of the changes I made along the way.

I hope you appreciate my failures, because it led to a really tasty dinner (the second time around).

BAKED RIGATONI WITH SAUSAGE AND RICOTTA

Ingredients
Filling:
1 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Pasta:
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for the pasta
1 pound rigatoni pasta
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound sweet Italian sausage
2 small heads broccoli
1 tablespoon of minced garlic
One 25-ounce jar marinara sauce (with additional seasonings, to taste)
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions
■ Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
■ Dice basil into small, uniform pieces. The smaller, the better.
■ Add the ricotta, basil and salt to a small bowl. Stir together with a rubber spatula until it forms the filling. Set aside.
■ Bring a large pot of water to boil. Season well with salt and cook the rigatoni for 5 minutes. Drain well, reserving 1/4 cup pasta water.
■ Meanwhile, slice sausages lengthwise and remove casings. Chop broccoli into small pieces, smaller than normal florets.
■ Heat a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil and sausage to the pan.
■ Cook the sausage, stirring often and breaking apart the meat with a spatula, until beginning to brown and form bite-sized chunks, about 7 minutes.
■ Add the broccoli and garlic and cook until flavors combine, about 3 minutes.
■ Stir in the marinara and 1/4 teaspoon salt until fully combined. Taste, and add additional seasonings as needed based on sauce (I added less than 1/2 teaspoon of salt, pepper, garlic powder and oregano, to taste).
■ Add the pasta to the pan and sprinkle with 1/2 cup of the Parmesan cheese. Toss well to coat. Add the reserved pasta water to thin the sauce slightly.
■ Dollop the ricotta cheese in the center of the pan. Nestle the ricotta mixture into the pasta and cover with some of the pasta.
■ Sprinkle the mozzarella and remaining 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese on top and bake until golden brown and bubbly, about 20 minutes. Allow to sit for 5 minutes before serving.