Pink Sauce With Sausage and Pine Nuts over Penne

Susie D's Note:

This recipe was submitted for RSC 2003 -- I found it in the recipes needing a home and adopted it because it was an entry in RSC #3. The chef who created the recipe wrote... "A fabulous Italian recipe I invented for "Ready Set Cook". The Pine Nuts are a great addition. This is perfect for a weekend dinner when you feel like cooking a good part of the day."

• Total Time: 2 hrs
• Prep Time: 1 hrs
• Cook Time: 1 hrs

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

• 1 lb penne pasta, barilla brand
• 1 1/3 lbs pork sausage
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 ounces pine nuts, toasted (directions below)
• 1 (29 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 2 red bell peppers, roasted and chopped
• 6 plum tomatoes, diced
• 1/4 dry red wine
• 1/8 cup sun-dried tomato, chopped (about 9 pieces)
• 1 cup light cream
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped (ONLY USE FRESH!!!)

Directions:

1. In a large deep fry/saute pan, add 1/4 cup water and sausage.
2. Cook till just cooked through.
3. Water will start to evaporate.
4. When cooked through, remove from pan one at a time and cut into bite sized pieces.
5. Return sausage to pan to brown them.
6. When sausage AND pan are brown, move sausage to paper towels and set aside.
7. Add 1/4 cup more water to pan and stir up all the brown.
8. Simmer sauce on low from now on.
9. While doing that, in a small saute pan, heat oil and saute garlic for about 3 minutes, add to browned water.
10. Add also sausage, wine, tomato sauce, chopped tomatoes, salt and pepper.
11. While this is simmering roast the peppers: Pre heat oven to BROIL.
12. Cut each pepper in half longways, scoop out middle, place on olive oil coated cookie sheet face down and brush skins with olive oil.
13. Broil for 10 minutes or until skin is black.
14. Remove, cool, peel skin, chop them up.
15. Add peppers to sauce.
16. Start boiling water for Penne.
17. Chop up sun dried tomatoes and add to sauce.
18. Now start chopping basil.
19. I find it easiest to use kitchen shears.
20. Set basil aside.
21. Toast pine nuts: In a small DRY fry pan, add pine nuts, toast on medium heat till browned.
22. Remove from pan, put in small bowl for serving.
23. Add Penne to water, hopefully it is boiling now.
24. 5 minutes after adding Penne to water, add basil and cream to sauce, stirring constantly.
25. Heat only for 5 more minutes.
26. Penne and sauce will be done at the same time.
27. Spoon sauce& sausage over Penne and sprinkle pine nuts on top.
28. Serve with garlic bread and salad.

Reviews

[~In*Memory*of*Brats~]

OH MY GOD! This was soooooo good! I didn't change anything in the recipe so that I could give a true rating. This was very easy to prepare. I love trying (and creating)new pasta dishes and this one is one of the best new dishes I've tried in a long time! I did serve with a salad as suggested and sprinkled pine nuts in there too with a balsamic dressing. Thanks for a fresh new pasta recipe and good luck!

[Gerry]

It's been some time since I made this - and still the memory of the lovely aroma and the beautiful presentation of this dish has me wanting to go to the kitchen and get to another making! It's soo good! Other than being a touch short on the sausage and only had 1/8 cup of fresh basil leaves I made as posted and loved every bite! Thank you for a great recipe Susie D!

[RedVinoGirl]

This was a very nice and elegant tasting meal. To me, it was kind of like a quality Vodka sauce, without the vodka! I used hot chicken italian sausage and only used about 1 pound. I increased the garlic and used diced tomatoes instead of tomato sauce (didn't have any!). I upped the fresh tomatoes and followed the rest as stated. This was a bit of work with the toasting of the pine nuts and the roasting of the bell peppers, but if you get the toasting and roasting out of the way before you start the recipe, this comes together easily and has a beautiful presentation. Made this for the "Pink" tag game in honor of breast cancer awareness. Thank you for a winner!