Sausage Polenta Casserole with Mozzarella

First off this is not my own recipe, but one that I found at Simply Recipes which is run by Elise. It's a great food blog and has a lot of good things to try. I highly recommend it. I did alter the recipe a little because I prefer different spices. Now this all started because for Christmas family friends gave my Dad a gift of different kinds of sausage and mustard. This gift stemmed from a Columbus Day Weekend trip to Maine. Anyways, I was looking for recipes to use the sausages with and knew that sausage and polenta often went together. So I started searching and found this recipe by Elise. She mentions in her blog post how her father had found the recipe in an old Sunset Magazine, which is run by the same company as Cooking Light, Southern Living and Heath magazine.
You can find Elise's original recipe here and her recipe for polenta here.

Sausage Polenta Casserole with Mozarella

olive oil
1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
a few shakes of dried basil
1 onion, minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
Salt and pepper
1 pound Sweet Italian sausage
2 pounds prepared polenta or one recipe for Elise's polenta
1/2 pound of fresh mozzarella

Heat some olive oil in a large, heavy pot (2-3 qt) on medium heat. Add the onion and sausage and cook, stirring frequently until the sausage begins to brown. Add garlic, season with salt and pepper. Cook for 2 more minutes, stirring. Add the tomatoes and lower the heat to a simmer and let it cook for 20 minutes or so.
While the sausage is cooking, make the polenta. If you are preparing the polenta from scratch, follow the recipe that Elise provided in her recipe, but as she mentions, leave out the cream cheese. When I made it the polenta ended up sticking to the bottom of the pot, so I would stir frequently. When it is cooked, pour it into a pan or casserole dish that can withstand the heat of the oven broiler.
Cut the polenta into squares (like brownies in a glass pan) and brush the top of the squares with olive oil. Broil the polenta for 10-15 minutes or until they begin to brown on the top. The pan should be about 4 inches from the heating element. When the polenta has finished broiling, pour the sausage and sauce over the polenta and top with mozarella. Return the pan to the oven for 2 minutes until the cheese has browned. Remove from oven and let stand a few minutes since it will be PIPING hot.
Serve6
I made the two parts, polenta and sausage, separate and ahead of time. I just reheated the sausage a bit before I broiled the polenta. I left out the oregano that Elise called for and added basil instead because I prefer it. It turned out really good and delicious!