1 pan, 1 pot and 30 minutes

A friend of mine recently posted a yummy looking recipe on her blog and it made me want to share one of our favorites. It's very tasty, extremely quick and has several veggies mixed in. I got this recipe from my friend Marta in Louisiana, but no, it's not Cajun. We call it "noodle and sausage dinner" although I wish it had a fancy name. It take 30-35 minutes from start to finish. Measurements aren't exact because I don't enjoy cooking as much when I have to follow specific directions...just go with your gut feeling and make changes next time if you want to!

Let me know what you think of it when you try it!

Ingredients:

Approx. 1/2 box of penne noodles

1 lb Italian Sausage

olive oil

1 spoon of chopped garlic (or to your taste)

1 sweet onion-cut into wedges

2 peppers (our favs are orange and red) cut into chunks

1 bag fresh spinach

At the same time, preheat a pan for your sausage AND start your water to boil. Brown your sausage. Whenever your water boils, dump in about 1/2 the box of noodles. When your sausage is completely cooked, set it aside in a bowl. In your sausage pan, put the garlic, onions and about 4 swirls of olive oil.(use your judgement, but use enough olive oil so everything will be coated...you can always add more later) Get your onions almost brown and add the chopped peppers. Cook your peppers until you like them (a little bit soft or crunchy). Add your cooked sausage back into the pan. Add raw spinach to the pan and cook it down, use as much or little as you prefer. I usually don't even bother dirtying the colander, so I scoop the noodles from the pot into the pan using a slotted spoon. Scoop noodles in until you like the ratio of meat and veggies to noodles. Add more olive oil if you think you need it.

Also makes good leftovers.

Also try: tomatoes cooked in, and/or shredded Parmesan on top