I’m not doing a whole lot of cooking these days y’all and I’m not happy about that at all. Between some work travel with a bit of pleasure mixed in I’ve been on the road quite a bit over the last couple of months. Throw in selling our house (downsizing!) and looking, buying and fixin up a new condo, I’ve been eating on the fly. Now that summer has started (kids out of school), things are slowing down for me and I look forward to getting back into the kitchen. In fact, I have to! I will be teaching cooking classes (Eeeeeeeee!) this summer at the Ozark Natural Foods and there is a lot of planning and prepping to be done. Stay tuned for a post with the dates, classes, etc. that I will be teaching and hope to see ya there.
Despite all of the recent madness, I’ve been able to create a few new and easy recipes with the help of the arrival of spring/summer vegetables. There is absolutely nothing fancy or complicated about this dish but it is loaded with freshness, nutrients and gives a good dose of energy to tackle any project on your list. The vegetable broth, seasoning on the sausage and nutritional yeast provide enough flavor without added sauce. Give it a try, mix it up, add some spice and let me know how y’all like it.
Summer Italian Sausage Pasta
Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 bunch of Kale
1 bunch of Asparagus
1 package of Field Roast Italian flavored “Sausage”
1 package of gluten-free pasta, quinoa pasta or rice pasta
1/2 cup Vegatable Broth
Nutritional Yeast
Salt & Pepper
*Red Pepper Flakes (optional)
To make:
Preheat oven to 350. Meanwhile rinse and dry kale and asparagus, snap hard ends off of asparagus. Toss asparagus in olive oil, s&p to coat and place on a baking pan; put in oven for 20 minutes. Make pasta according to package directions. While pasta is cooking, preheat a saute pan on medium high. Cut sausage in one-inch pieces and place in the saute pan with a 1/4 cup of vegetable broth. Once browned, lower the heat to medium low, add the kale and another 1/4 cup of vegetable broth. Place lid on top of pan and let the kale steam until wilted, approximately 5 or so minutes. Remove from stove and set aside.
Drain the pasta, remove asparagus from oven. Add the sausage and kale mixture to the pasta, add s&p and toss. Place in serving bowls, top with nutritional yeast and add a serving of asparagus on the side (you could also cut the asparagus in to bite size pieces and toss in to the pasta but hey, I was lazy).
Wine is optional but was in order with this pasta dish along with the view from my porch. Cheers!