Pasta with Chicken Sausage, Tomatoes, Olives, and Other Good Stuff
I reckon if you list ingredients and directions, then you've given a recipe, right? I'm sure this is a bona fide recipe published somewhere, but it was another of those accidentally delicious occurrences that I made just on the fly. I feel like I've seen it on just about every Food Network show ever made. It's not rocket science, it's just a common sense combination of ingredients. Also, I think one of the celebrity chefs featured on Oprah recently made a version of this, too. Did everybody check out Oprah's show on cheap easy meals to make during the bad economy? See all the recipes listed by chef's name here. Tyler Florence called the slow cooker today's "Recession Buster." Guess you'll want to re-visit KitchenMaus's recent slow-cooker entries, plus the slow-cooker reader recipes that were sent in. I don't own one yet, but I am this close | | to buying one. What's not to like about throwing everything in a pot in the morning and then BOOM, come dinnertime it's all done? And what's not to like about saving money?
Anyway, here's a delicious pasta that worked for my kids, because they just got a big bowl of it and ate what they wanted out of it with their fingers and left the rest. They both went for the sausage and noodles, but my squashy older one went for the cherry tomatoes while the squishy younger one ate all his and everyone else's olives. I ate my and everyone else's mushrooms. Here's something I did that I think made a big difference. I noticed that almost every ingredient was salty due to my recent salt cravings, so I sprinkled a couple big fingerfulls of natural sugar over the sausage mixture before adding the pasta and I think that really brightened the whole thing and reduced the salt tang. It was delicious in the end. Plus, it's fast and easy. A total working mom weeknight meal.
Pasta with Chicken Sausage, Tomatoes, Olives, Mushrooms, Capers, and Parmesan Cheese
Ingredients:
2 long, fat links of Chicken Basil Sundried Tomato Sausage (or any kind)
2 large, fat cloves of garlic, minced
10 or so cherry tomatoes, halved
20 or so pitted Kalamata olives, halved
5 or 6 mushrooms sliced thick
1 bent palm-ful of capers
fresh Parmiggiano Reggiano, grated
1-1/2 cups or so of Fusilli pasta (or any other kind, really)
sprinkle of sugar
Directions:
1. Set water to boil for the pasta and throw pasta in whenever it starts boiling. Meanwhile:
2. Cut sausage into bite-sized chunk balls and put in skillet on medium heat with a drizzle of olive oil.
3. Mince garlic, halve tomatoes and olives, and slice the mushrooms and add them to skillet when the sausage is about half done. The goal is to keep your tomatoes and mushrooms from cooking all the way down to mush, but if they do, then so what? They'll still add good flavor.
4. When sausage is done and tomatoes are softening, but still holding their shape, turn off heat until pasta is done.
5. Add capers and sprinkle some sugar over the skillet goods to reduce the salt tang.
5. If/When pasta is done, then drain it, setting aside some of the cooking water, and add pasta on top of the sausage mixture in the skillet.
6. Grate some Parmiggiano Reggiano (a slab about 2 inches long and 3/4 inches thick) over the hot pasta, then stir it all together in the hot skillet. Add some pasta cooking water to achieve a wetter, creamier texture. Let everybody top off his/her own bowlful with some more freshly grated cheese at the table. Add lots of good fresh cheese!
My kids really enjoy grating fresh parmesan cheese with our rotary grater. Only problem is, it's too much fun and they end up with mounds of cheese.
--Sweet B
Maria on March 19, 2009 at 09:24 AM
Lots of good stuff in this one!
monique on July 29, 2009 at 09:44 AM
With a delicious pasta recipe like this and a blog name like aldenteblog.com, I think it's most appropriate that you try the recipe with Al Dente (the brand!) Pasta. It cooks in just 3 minutes, tastes exactly like fresh, is available at fine stores all around the country but on Amazon as well.