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Slightly Creamy Sausage Pasta


It's been two weeks since I started the "lets clean out the pantry" kick and it doesn't even look like a dent has been made. The freezer is still full and the pantry almost full. The only thing that has been cleared out is the fridge as dinners created have not been making much for leftovers. Tonight's dinner was Creamy Italian Sausage Pasta and it did not require one additional purchase from the store and was made as a last minute plan.

Modifications Made: 
Oh, there were so many. All minor and mostly in cooking order and started right from the get go.

Stated more times than I can remember now, every time a dish calls for Italian sausage, the amount requested is divided between half regular or sweet and half spicy for a more full flavor. Since sausage links comes in packages of five, it means one dish will be slightly hotter than the other.  The leftover sausage tonight was two links of regular and three links of hot.  Sausage links were striped of their casings and the meat was browned then removed to drain off excess fat.

In remaining sausage fat, the onions were cooked till translucent and tender.  To the onions, the meat was returned and the garlic, red pepper, salt, pepper were added.  Not wanting a heavy cream based dish as hot milk on a hot summer night did not sound appealing, one cup of milk and one cup of low sodium chicken broth was used instead and allowed to simmer on low for 15 minutes. 

While meat simmered, one pound veggie rotini was cooked to extra al dente. While noodles cooked, two tablespoons of flour were mixed into half cup of water and set aside. Once pasta was cooked and thoroughly drained, the pasta and flour water was added to the meat and allowed to cook for a further two or three more minutes until pasta reached desired texture.  Salt, pepper, and red pepper were adjusted as needed.

Scaled for Likeness: Great
Veggie pasta has come such a long way over the last few years.  Before it was grainy in texture and had a chewier consistency than regular white pasta.  Now the texture is the same and if it weren't for the color skeptics wouldn't even know they were eating veggie pasta.

Switching out the cream for milk made this a little thin in sauce coverage as compared to something heavy like alfredo.  However, the sauce covered the sausage and the pasta well.

Next time this is made I would like to use chard instead of spinach and add mushrooms or artichokes to compliment the milk.
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