Cozy Sausage Pasta

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I know I've been telling you that on Labor Day weekend we went to the mountains and ate here and also made this for breakfast and it was wonderful and fabulous.

I haven't shown you any pictures, and I'm super sorry about that.

I will soon, though!

Anyway. Also while we were in the mountains, we ate THIS. OMG it was good, and cozy, and delicious, and spicy, and wonderful.

It's great for this time of year when it's just starting to get cold and you've about had it with pasta primavera.

Well, I never have had it with pasta primavera, but you get the point.

Here's what you need for this lovely, simple dish. It makes a lot, but that's a good thing!

6 servings long pasta, cooked to al dente when you're ready to serve
1 lb sausage, flavor your choice
3 medium bell peppers
½ large onion
4 cloves garlic
crushed red pepper
1 cup dry red wine
1 large can crushed tomatoes
1 cup water or chicken stock
¼ cup heavy cream
½ cup shredded parmesan cheese
½ cup fresh parsley, coarsley chopped or leaves torn
salt and pepper
garlic bread

This is pretty standard, and of course you could add the browned sausage, peppers, onions, and wine to storebought or premade marinara sauce, but this is easy and lovely!

Now, you can make this sauce a few days in advance and keep it in the fridge, or you can make it a few hours in advance and leave it on the stove (turned off), or you can make it WHILE you cook the pasta and eat it right away. Whatever you do, you'll need to cook the pasta 15 minutes before you want to eat. Duh. Use a clock.

For the sauce, preheat a large pan to medium heat. Squish the sausage out of the casings into the pan with a drizzle of olive oil and LET IT SIT.

When the sausage has been sizzling for a few minutes, start to crumble it with a plastic or wooden spoon - the cooked sausage crumbles more easily than if it's raw and sticky.

While the sausage is cooking, dice the onion, and cut the peppers into big chunks. To do that, I cut the pepper in half...

...then scoop out the seeds and ribs and stem.

Then, I cut each pepper half into thick sections...

....and cut the sections into thick strips that are a little over 1 inch long and ½ inch wide.

Yum!

Cook the sausage for 10 minutes or so until it's all cooked, crisp, and crumbly. And alliterative. Remove it to a plate, and reduce the heat on the pan a little bit if the bottom is getting black.

To the sausage drippings, add a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of crushed red pepper, and the peppers and onions. Stir them around to start to lift the sausage bits from the bottom of the pan. Let the peppers and onions cook for 4 minutes.

While they're cooking, peel and mince the garlic.

Throw the garlic into the peppers, and stir for one more minute.

Then dump in the wine!

Stir the wine for 3 minutes until it's reduced by half - scrap the bottom of the pan to "clean" it. That's deglaze, for you big-kid cooks out there. I'm not one.

Now, dump in the tomatoes and stir everything around. Taste, and add a sprinkle of salt if you'd like!

Now, add the sausage back to the pot....

...and the heavy cream.

Now, this is where you stop if you're going to wait awhile to eat.

When you're ready to serve, add stock or water a little at a time to bring the sauce to a mix-able consistency - we don't want it to be too thick!

When the sauce is bubbly and tastes just like you'd like it to, add the noodles, half the sauce, and half the parmesan and parsley to a large bowl and toss everything together.