Thursday, October 9, 2008

Penne with sausage, sun dried tomatoes and artichokes

As much as I love to cook, on weeknights I steer towards recipes that aren't very time consuming. This recipe from Giada's Family Dinners fits the bill. I always have sun dried tomatoes, pasta and frozen artichokes on hand, so this ended up being a cheap dish to make too. I browned up a few links of hot turkey italian sausage in a skillet and added in the sun dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts and some crushed garlic. I deglazed the pan with white wine and chicken stock, but I only used about half of the liquid that the recipe calls for. I used whole wheat penne to up the nutritional value of the meal and added a dash of color with purple basil from my garden. Freshly grated cheese (pecorino romano in my case) adds a bit of creaminess and salt.

This was a delicious pasta dish, and ended up being pretty healthy too with my substitutions of turkey sausage, whole wheat penne and dry packed sun dried tomatoes. I served it with a broccoli recipe from the same book.

9 comments:

La Cuisine d'Helene said...

This looks good. I'm always looking for quick, fast, healthy meals during the week also.

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

Wonderful! What a deliciously comforting dish!

Cheers and have a nice weekend,

Rosa

alexandra's kitchen said...

what a yummy combination. it's so great to have these ingredients on hand for quick weeknight meals. my pantry could use some restocking!

michael, claudia and sierra said...

oh you live in the food capitol of the country... lucky you!

grear combo of flavors - italian food is my life

well not exactly...

Karin W. said...

As much as I love too cook too, fussy, time consuming recipes, and long lists of ingredients intimidate me.

Sun dried tomatoes are awesome, and they really can beautify any dish. It's a pity they are so expensive here.

Helene said...

All you got to say is sausage!!

Annie said...

Great ideas to healthy it up a bit! Sounds delicious.

Lo said...

I keep finding reasons to buy this book. That pasta looks delicious, and is perfect for the fall weather we're getting here! Glad I stumbled in your direction.

Maris said...

This looks great! I love Giada's recipes. She has some great appetizers too, that I love to make for friends/company.