ROTD - Sausage Cacciatore

See..I don't lie, I told you guys this Recipe of the "day" wouldn't necessarily be an accurate description!

On a day like today when the only word to describe the weather is miserable, the few things I crave are my warm blanket, a big glass of wine and comfort food to soothe the soul.  An obvious choice is any kind of pasta dish - its easy, you can use pretty much any ingredients and you can be pretty creative.

I came across this great recipe from Canadian Living, one of my favourite resources for recipes and tried it out tonight to warm up this cold and disgusting day.  This recipe is pretty simple and you can speed up the process of you're a good multi-tasker and can do more than one thing at a time ;)

Servings - Makes 4

1 tbsp vegetable oil or olive oil
1 onion thinly sliced
1 sweet green pepper sliced
2 cups mushrooms quartered
2 carrots sliced
4 cloves garlic minced
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 can of tomatoes
1/4 cup tomato paste
3 lean Italian sausages
4 cups rotini pasta
1/4 cup Romano cheese

Directions:
In a saucepan heat oil over medium heat and fry onion, green pepper, mushrooms, carrots, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper until mushroom liquid is evaporated - about 8 minutes.

Add tomatoes and tomato paste and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile prick the sausages all over with a fork, in a skillet, cook the sausages over medium/high heat, turning occasionally until no longer pink inside - about 10 minutes.
Drain on paper towels, slice thinly and add to tomato mixture.  Simmer until thickened and bubbly - about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile in a large pot of boiling water cook pasta until tender but firm.
Add to sauce and toss.  Serve sprinkled with  Romano cheese.

Substitutions and changes:
Instead of using a can of tomatoes I used diced tomatoes, made it less chunky.  I used Longo's HOT Italian pork sausages and actually cut them first and then fried them.   The recipe and amounts above are for four servings but I only made two and basically cut all the measurements in half which worked perfectly. 

The result?  An extremely flavourful dish with the perfect kick.  2 servings was MORE than enough.  I had plenty for dinner and enough left over for lunch.  Enjoy!