Pasta with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe

I know, I know, Ive been a bad girl. I havent posted a recipe in weeks! Ive been pretty busy with parties and showers and all kinds of things going on. All happy celebrations so I dont mind it. With all the craziness that went on I did remember to snap a photo so I could blog about this wonderful dish. I made this for Steves Aunts Baby Shower last week and everyone liked it which makes me very happy!

Before I go on to post this recipe I just want to say Congratulations Melissa and Salvatore and Congratulations to Dana and Lenny!!! Both couples will be parents for the very first time!!!

Okay so here goes...its really very easy and you can add as much or as little garlic as you like or even use hot sausage or a mixture of sweet and hot. This recipe was written to feed a crowd but you can certainly make this for one pound of pasta and use only one bunch of broccoli rabe and half the amount of sausage. I hope you like it! Id love to hear your variation on this very popular dish so feel free to comment!

Pasta with Sausage and Broccoli Rabe

Ingredients:

1 lb sweet Italian sausage (6 links)
2 bunches, broccoli rabe
4-5 cloves garlic
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Crushed red pepper, to taste
Salt and peppr
Romano cheese, to taste
2 lbs pasta

Directions:

1. Remove stems from broccoli rabe and discard. Cut into bite sized pieces.
Boil broccoli rabe in a large pot of salted water for about 8-10 minutes. Drain (reserve 2 cups of water) and put into an ice cold water bath to stop the cooking process and set aside.

2. While broccoli rabe is cooking, remove sausage from casing and crumble. Saute sausage in oil with garlic and red pepper, constantly breaking it up. Once sausage is cooked add in broccoli rabe and toss to coat with oil. Let it cook together with a few minutes so the broccoli rabe picks up the flavors. At this point you can refrigerate overnight or until ready to cook the pasta.

3. Boil pasta (chose one that won’t fall apart such as orrechiette, cellantani, cavatappi, etc.) in salted water while reheating sausage and broccoli rabe mixture. Add some reserved water from the broccoli rabe to moisten the mixture. Add cooked pasta and toss while continuing to add more water as needed. It shouldn’t be soupy but should not be dry. Toss with cheese and a little more extra virgin olive oil.

Enjoy!

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Mile High Buttermilk Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

I first made these biscuits for Thanksgiving last year and hands down they are the best biscuits ever. Gone are the days of buying tubes of preservative-laden, artificially flavored biscuit dough, though I must say I miss the entertaining “pop” of opening those cylinders. These crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside biscuits are absolutely delicious on their own or smothered in sausage gravy.

Mile High Buttermilk Biscuits
From Cook’s Illustrated

2 C flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 C buttermilk
Additional flour
2 Tbsp melted butter

Preheat oven to 500ºF. Spray a 9 in springform or cake pan with some nonstick spray.

Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt to a bowl and mix the ingredients together evenly. Using a fork or pastry blender, cut in the butter until the pieces are no bigger than a small pea. Fold in the buttermilk until everything is just blended, and there are no streaks of flour remain. Do not overmix, the mixture should still be lumpy.

Line a plate or tray with some flour and using a 1/4 C measuring cup or 1/4 C ice cream/cookie scoop, scoop out balls of the dough onto the tray of flour. Flour your hands and roll each ball around in the flour to evenly coat them in a layer of flour. The dough is very wet and very sticky. Place the dough balls into the prepared pan. Place 9 balls around in a ring and 3 balls in the center of the pan. Brush the tops of the biscuits with melted butter.

Bake for 5 minutes at 500ºF (middle rack) and then lower the temperature to 450ºF and bake for another 15 minutes.

In the past Ive always baked these in a cake pan or springform. Alternatively you can also bake them individually in a muffin pan which is what I did this time because I’m waiting for my newly ordered cake pans and springform to arrive. I baked these on the upper middle shelf and at 450ºF for the entire time of about 17 minutes.

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Italian Sausage and Mozzarella Pasta Bake

This photo has been sitting in my Flickr for a while now so its about time I post the recipe. I have a weak spot for extra cheesy dishes and this one has a whopping 1:1 ratio of pasta to mozzarella. The best part is how each scoop pulls away never-ending tendrils of gooey, melty cheese.

A note:
Leave the pasta boil the pasta two minutes short of al dente because it will finish cooking in the oven. If you boil it to al dente, it will overcook in the oven.

Italian Sausage and Mozzarella Pasta Bake
serves 3 - 4

8 oz. pasta (penne, cellantani, farfalle, campanelle)
2 Italian sausages, removed from casings
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1/4 C red wine
1 14oz. can diced tomatoes, drained
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
1 tsp Italian herb mix
1/8 tsp sugar
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp olive oil
8 oz. mozzarella, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (preferably fresh mozzarella)
1/4 C grated Parmesan


Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil and boil the pasta to 2 minutes short of the recommended time.

Meanwhile, heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a large saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the Italian sausage and break into bite size pieces. When the sausage has browned, remove and set aside. Add the onion and some salt and pepper, and cook over medium heat until the onions have softened, then add the Italian sausage back in. Add the minced garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add 1/4 C red wine and cook until almost evaporated. Add the drained diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and herbs, and a little sugar to taste. Simmer until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the pasta to the sauce and toss to combine. Add half of the mozzarella and mix it into the pasta. Transfer to a 2 quart baking dish. Top with the remaining half of mozzerella cubes and grated Parmesan. Bake until bubbly and lightly browned, about 10 to 15 minutes.

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Lifrarpylsa Liver Sausage Icelandic “Haggis”

I made some liver sausage with a friend of mine yesterday. This is a popular Þorri food that is available year round in Iceland. It is the season for making liver and blood sausages right now.

There are many ways of preparing liver, and the following is one method of preparing a good, nutritious meal from lambs liver. This delicacy has relatives in various other countries. The most famous is do doubt the Scottish Haggis. This is an original traditional recipe. Below the instructions you will find a tip on how to make it lighter and healthier. Pork liver can be substituted for lambs liver, and beef suet for the mutton suet, but for genuineness, you need lambs liver and suet.

1 kg lambs liver
50-100 g flour
approx. 450 g rye flour
750 ml milk
150 g oatmeal
30 g salt
1 kg sheep suet
Sheeps stomachs/tripe (optional), large sausage skins, or cooking bags

Wash and clean the liver and remove all blood vessels and membranes. Mince the liver thoroughly into a paste. Mix with milk and salt and then rye flour, oatmeal and flour (best done using one’s hands). The mixture should be thick. Chop the suet, finely or coarsely, depending on your tastes, and mix with the liver paste. This mixture is traditionally sewn up into sheeps stomachs that have been cut down to size, but sausage skins or plastic bags that are suitable for cooking in can be substituted, and are much quicker. Fill the bags and close them well. One lifrarpylsa should be about the size of a mans clenched fist. They can be made larger or smaller, but the cooking time given is for this size.

Drop the sausages into boiling salted water and cook for 2-2 1/2 hours. Right after the sausages are dropped into the water, it is a good idea to prick them few times with a pin to prevent them from bursting. Turn over occasionally.

Health tip:
To make this healthier, halve the amount of suet you use in the recipe. To keep the paste thick, use 1/3 less milk to begin with, and if it needs more, add a little at a time until you reach the desired thickness.

Serving:
Eat hot with boiled or mashed potatoes, cold with porridge or skyr, or use as topping for bread.
Frying is a good way to use up leftover sausage. You can either brown slices of it in a frying pan with some sugar, or sprinkle some sugar on it before eating. Serve with mashed potatoes.

Liver sausage is often preserved in skyr-whey, along with other traditional foods, such as blood sausage, sheeps head jam and whale blubber. This pickling produces a sour flavour that is definitely an acquired taste. Food preserved in this way is traditionally eaten during the old month of Þorri, at festivals called Þorrablót.

convert measures from metric to your preferred system

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