I generally get my ideas for meals by browsing actual recipes, and tweaking a bit. I usually choose what I browse for based, frankly, on what I have on the fridge. Last week, M, for some absurd reason, came home with 10 bell peppers (mixed red, yellow, and orange). While gorgeous, I am unsure as to why he decided to take that admiration further and bring home the entire lot, but he tends to do that. We ate some raw with dip, I used about 5 and made roasted peppers (simply brushed with oil, roasted till charred, then peeled off skin and sliced thin), despite that, I had some that needed to be used. Also, we had some chorizo sausage in the freezer, and while making room for new concoctions, I was forced to finally defrost it. And thus was born, my sausage and peppers rotini.
I am a major preparer, I don’t chop vegetables while I’m cooking my meat, or any sort of multi-task. Inefficient? Perhaps… but my mind gets scrambled when I’m doing too many things at once in terms of cooking (oddly enough, for other things, I’m fine), so slow and steady is how I go. I began by preparing my vegetables. I cut 2 bell peppers (mine were red and yellow, but the picture is pretty) and a medium sized white onion into thin slices. I also roughly chopped 2 medium size tomatoes.
I set everything aside, and unlinked and removed the one pound chorizo from the paper (6 links)… an unpleasant job for someone who’s not a huge fan of getting her hands messy (in terms of grease, etc.) but M wasn’t home… so I did it :) .
I took out my handy, dandy wok (honestly, I use my wok for everything… from pasta, to Indian food, to stirfry, and tacos… love!). I cooked the sausage for about 7 minutes and drained the excess oils. Afterwards, I added in the onions and bell peppers and cooked until al dente-ish. At this point, I felt a very distinct smell of pizza- what with the onions, peppers, and sausage and whatnot. Should have probably been less amused than I was.
I then added a teaspoon of fennel (I tried to look up why, but couldn’t find anything—but it seems fennel is always a good compliment to sausage… strange), and a dash of chili flakes, and on a last minute whim threw in about a cup of frozen spinach. I covered and let the spinach thaw out for about a minute, stirred, and added in the tomatoes, about a cup of jarred tomato sauce, and 2 ounces of tomato paste. I stirred and let the whole thing simmer for maybe 3 minutes. At this point the pasta was looking very hearty and yummy… but was still missing something. I wanted to add cream cheese, but only had about a 2 teaspoons full, so I added that and about 3 ounces of sour cream, reduced the heat and just stirred it in. Voila, the sauce is done!
It’s tonight’s dinner, so the pasta hasn’t been made yet, but that’s simply box directions. The sauce is quite good, creamy and plentiful. Fingers crossed that M is as pleased as I am!
That was quite fun… I may do this again!
