Sausage Tomato Sauce

The weather has been brutal for the last several weeks. I am sitting in my office listening to the wind smash on the side of my house. Now I understand why the sandstone around those windows is so worn! My home was built in 1892 and we live 5 blocks from the sea…

I have been impatiently waiting for the rain to stop long enough for me to get the soil ready for my new vegetable garden. Fantasies of herbs, leeks, garlic, heirloom tomatoes, swiss chard, radicchio, beet greens, peas, beans, carrots, potatoes, squash, pumpkin, zucchini, corn, cukes, asparagus…as you can see I am doing a lot of dreaming and this miserable rain is preventing me from playing in the dirt!

Bad weather makes me blue. When I am blue, I crave comfort food and this recipe is one of my favorite’s.

Last night, I used sausage that I had made this past winter and had frozen but commercial sausage will work just fine!

FUSILLI WITH SAUSAGE AND LEEK IN A TOMATO CREAM

serves 4

4 mild Italian sausage links

2 leek, cleaned and sliced into 1/4 inch discs

3 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

1 fresh red chilli, chopped

1 bay leaf

3 tablespoons olive oil

1/3 cup dry white wine I use a Chardonnay

28 ounce tin of best quality diced Italian plum tomatoes

1/4 cup of heavy cream

1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Place a large skillet over medium high heat and add oil.

When oil is hot, add the leeks and saute for 5 minutes…stirring occassionally.

While leeks are cooking, put the sausages on a microwavable dish and place in microwave for 2 minutes. Just long enough to firm them up!

Slice the sausages into 1/4 inch discs and set aside you can also omit the microwaving step and remove the sausage meat from the casing and add directly to the skillet

Add garlic, bay leaf and chilli to the leeks…saute another 2 minutes then add sausage

Saute mixture until sausage is browned.

Add white wine to sausage mixture and reduce liquid to half

Add tomatoes and reduce heat to a simmer…cook for 1/2 hour

Add cream and freshly grated parmesan cheese.

While sauce is simmering, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add 1 lb of dried pasta I like fusilli for this sauce

When pasta is al dente lift it from the cooking water directly to the sauce pot. This will allow you to get a little of the starchy cooking water into your sauce which will add a nice consistency.

Toss the pasta well in the sauce and plate.

Serve this dish with lots of freshly grated parmesan.

Serve with a lovely glass of your favorite red wine and you will feel your spirits lift!

Thanks for reading