Skip to main content

Pasta with sausage and greens

It's a rush blog this week, so you get a recipe.  Because that's quick and easy.  And so is cooking this.

Pasta is a problem in our house.  Well, not so much the pasta, as what to put on it.  Graham doesn't like creamy sauces, and Toby isn't that keen on tomato ones, so that kind of leaves... pesto.  Or recipes like this where you just stir all the bits into the pasta, and it somehow has enough flavour and juiciness not to need a sauce.



Pasta with sausage and greens
200g pasta
1 lb sausages
1 onion, sliced
50-100g spring greens / kale / whatever, sliced
1/4 tsp dried thyme
6-8 cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered, depending on size
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Cook pasta and drain, reserving a little of the cooking water.
In a large pan, fry the sausages.  When cooked, remove from the pan and slice on the diagonal.
In fat from sausages, fry the onion until soft, about 5 minutes.
Add the greens and thyme and cook 3-4 minutes more.
Add the tomatoes and sausage to the pan, and just let warm through.  You don't really want the tomatoes cooked, just not stone cold.

at which point it looks like this
 Stir in the cooked pasta and vinegar, with a splash of pasta water to moisten it all up.
As usual with my recipes, this serves two hungry adults plus a couple of small boys, but it's the kind of thing that is nice for lunch the next day too.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

One hundred churches

About the middle of January, I was walking to school one afternoon when it occurred to me that I must have visited quite a few churches on my explorations. I started counting them. But I quickly ran out of fingers, so when I got home I plotted them on Google Maps. Not only was the number much higher than I was expecting, it was also tantalisingly close to one hundred. Only a few dozen to go. So of course, every walk since then has had to include at least one church! Last Monday I visited my hundredth church: St John the Baptist, Dethick. It was a beautiful little 13-century building with an unusual tower - I was glad it had claimed the 100 spot. I haven't been inside every church. Sometimes they were locked; sometimes I was in a hurry and didn't try the door. St Leonard's Church in Alton had bellringers practicing, and I almost interrupted a funeral when I stuck my head through the door of St Mary's, Marston-on-Dove. A few, such as St Oswald's, Ashbourne, and St Wys...

Derwent Valley Heritage Way: Steep drops ahead

It's been a long time since I fitted that much up and down into an eight-mile walk! 740m of steep climbs and steps. My legs were not very happy with me the next day. Between Matlock and Cromford, the Derwent River runs through a deep valley, with Matlock Bath - a landlocked town which pretends to be a seaside resort - down at the bottom. The ridge of high ground used to run all the way round to Scarthin Rock, cutting off Cromford from the rest of the valley, until somebody blasted a hole through it to build the A6. Matlock Bath: pavilion and amusement park I started in Cromford and climbed over the ridge at Harp Edge, then followed a path along through the woods, with the ground dropping sharply away to my right. There were a few small caves among the trees. At Upperwood someone had thoughtfully provided a bench. I wasn't in need of a rest just yet, though. In fact, I was feeling so bouncy that I went down an entirely unnecessary flight of steps, instead of staying on the reaso...

The Churnet Way: a wonderful walk

The loop from Oakamoor to Froghall and back was one of the most enjoyable walks I've done in a long time. It had a bit of everything: woods, ponds, rivers and railways; steep climbs and sweeping views; an unusual church, an ex-industrial wharf, and, as a final bonus, car parks with toilets. Of course, the sunny weather helped too. I parked in Oakamoor and set off along a quiet lane called Stoney Dale. This is the route of the Churnet Way, which deviates away from the river for a couple of miles. After a while I turned right and climbed up through the woods on a gravelly path, then dropped down to the B5417. a spring in Oakamoor   Crossing the road, I entered Hawksmoor Nature Reserve. It has some fine gateposts commemorating John Richard Beech Masefield, "a great naturalist". I found a photo of the opening of the gateway in 1933; unsurprisingly, the trees have grown a lot since then! A track took me down through the woods to East Wall Farm. Lovely view! Nice duck pond as ...