Gemelli with Spicy Sausage and Spinach

I had a super busy weekend and didn't get a chance to blog.  This was Friday night's dinner.  Saturday I took a break and we had QDoba and Sunday we went to a BBQ for my Mom's group.  I've felt like a slacker for not blogging all weekend.  I'll feel better after this post since I'll be all caught up.  :)

Gemelli with Spicy Sausage and Spinach is hands down my favorite pasta dish.  That's saying a lot.  I love pasta and I make ton of different pasta dishes.  While I like, sometimes really like, my pasta dishes, I love this one.

What's gemelli you're asking? Why it's a type of pasta, in fact it's this pasta:

It took me awhile to find this pasta.  I finally found it at Costco in a variety pack of  3 different pastas.  The shape works great for this dish, if you can't find gemelli you can use small penne instead.

Good ol' Woman's Day magazine gave me this recipe.  Here's the link to the original recipe and below is how I make it.  The only change I make is to add more chicken broth and heavy cream.  I like the dish to have more sauce to help the leftovers not dry out when they're reheated.

One quick note, please use spicy sausage (I didn't say hot, just spicy) this dish tastes so much better with spicy sausage.  I tired it once with Italian sausage (not spicy) and it wasn't nearly as good.

"Don't forget me!  You'll be sorry if you do!"

Gemelli with Spicy Sausage and Spinach

Prep time 5 mins

Cook time 20 mins

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 lb gemelli pasta
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 lb spicy Italian sausages, casings removed
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 bags (5 to 6 oz each) baby spinach
Grated Parmesan

1. Bring a 5- to 6-qt pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta; cook as package directs.

2. Meanwhile,  heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion; saute 2 minutes or until just beginning to brown.

3. Add sausage and cook, crumbling with a spoon, until browned, about 10 minutes.

4. Add chicken broth, stirring to dissolve any browned bits. Stir in cream and nutmeg; simmer 1 minute. Remove from heat.
5. Place spinach in colander; drain pasta over the spinach (spinach will wilt).
6. Return pasta and spinach to pot; add sausage mixture.  Stir well.
7. Serve with grated Parmesan.

I love the trick of wilting the spinach with the pasta and pasta water.  It always amazes me how much spinach wilts.

Please excuse the foggy effect from the steam.

Best pasta EVER.

We're having brats (bratwurst), hot dogs, french fries and peas for dinner tonight.  I'm not really making anything so I'm not sure what I'll be blogging about.  Maybe a tip, maybe a favorite tool, maybe I'll just forget.  Who knows!  What I do know is that you need to make this pasta dish very, very soon!

Pasta is heaven

I'm addicted to pasta and I'm ok with my addiction. Pasta is one of the few things that I never grow tired of. This post is for Tuesday's night dinner. I didn't feel like blogging yesterday, sorry if I let you all down by skipping a day. ;)

Here's the link the original recipe. And below is how I make it.  It's another Woman's Day recipe.  I get so many recipes from that magazine.  It's the only reason I have a subscription.  I don't even read the rest of the magazine, I've tried, but it just annoys me.  For $5.00 a year I get my money's worth.

Creamy Pasta with Leeks, Peas & Parmesan

Active Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Serves: 6

1 Package orecchiette pasta (16 ounces)
1 Package frozen peas (16 ounces)
1 lemon
2 Tbsp olive oil
4 leeks (white and light green parts only), sliced into half-moons
Kosher salt and pepper
1 Pint heavy cream
1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 cup grated Parmesan

1.  Cook the pasta according to package directions, adding the peas during the last 2 minutes of cooking; save a cup of the pasta water, then drain.
2.  Zest the lemon. 
3.  Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the leeks, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 6 to 8 minutes.
4.  Add the cream, lemon zest and nutmeg and simmer until slightly thickened, 2 to 3 minutes.
5.  Add the pasta and peas to the skillet and toss to combine. Sprinkle with the Parmesan before serving.

Yum.  I served ours with grilled sweet Italian sausage and lazy garlic toast.  (Lazy garlic toast = toast some bread, butter it and sprinkle with garlic salt.)

A few tips for this dish:

1. Always save some of the pasta water, you should really do this with any pasta dish that will have a cream based sauce.  Pasta water is truly amazing.  It helps the sauce coat the pasta without the sauce tasting watered down.  This time I used about half a cup of pasta water, but you should always save around a cup.  Once you dump that heavenly water, you can't get it back.

2.  Every recipe I've seen that calls for leeks talks about cleaning the leeks.  I've only had to clean my leeks once.  Basically, if you see dirt in the middle of the leeks, then clean them.  If not, don't worry about the extra step.

3. I use more peas, cream and pasta.  I don't like when recipes call for weird amounts.  I'd rather use a whole package of peas then leave 4 ounces just hanging around.  (Not that we wouldn't eat them, we love peas in our house. That's another reason I add the extra peas.)  Also, the recipe calls for 12 ounces of pasta, where in the world would you find a 12 ounce bag of pasta?

4.  Don't throw away the lemon after zesting it, save it for another dish.  I put mine in a Ziploc bag and put it in the fridge, I'll be using it on Friday in my green beans.

5.  I don't use the tarragon it calls for because I don't like tarragon.  If you like tarragon go ahead and add it.  I don't know how it will taste though.


Since I used nutmeg two nights in a row I decided I should show you the "real" stuff.  Here is nutmeg whole:

Here's nutmeg after a few trips across the micro plane:

I always get a kick out of the inside of the nutmeg.  Don't ask my why, I'm weird, it makes me happy.