The Haute Kitchen

We’ve probably made a thousand variations of this awesome sauce. This sauce is ridiculously easy to make and usually we just enjoy the vegetarian version with heavy doses of Parmesan Cheese. This time, however, we thought the addition of some richly flavorful Italian Sausage would make it nice and hearty and the Whole Wheat Pasta gave it a nice ‘bite’.

The base of this sauce generally remains the same: Muir Glen Canned Diced Tomatoes, Diced Onion, Minced Garlic, Olive Oil, Whole Fennel Seed, Crushed Red Pepper, Salt & Pepper, and Fresh Basil. We mix it up when we need to by adding other ingredients to suit the meal or just because a mood strikes us. For pizza we’d add some oregano and a little extra cracked black pepper. For Seafood Pasta we omit the Fennel Seed and add a pinch of Saffron. Red Wine is always great in it and goes with anything.

For this batch we used:

• 1 12 oz. package of Whole Wheat Penne pasta
• 2 14 oz. cans diced tomatoes
• 3 Sweet Italian Sausages, casings removed
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped or pressed
• A handful of fresh Basil leaves, torn into small pieces
• 1 Tbsp fennel seed
• Olive oil
• Salt & Pepper
• A pinch (or more) of crushed red pepper

How To:

• Cook the pasta in boiling generously salted water until Al Dente and drain, reserving some of the cooking water
• Meanwhile in another pan saute the onion in a little olive oil until it’s clearish, about 5 minutes
• Add the sausage, break it up with a spoon, and stir it a bit
• When the sausage is about half cooked through add the fennel seed, garlic, and crushed red pepper and cook it for about a minute
• Add the canned diced tomatoes and give it a stir
• let the whole thing simmer for 15 minutes or so (longer is better but 15 minutes is enough)
• Add the Basil and season with salt & pepper to taste
• Spoon the pasta into a bowl and top it with the sauce, or add the pasta to the sauce and toss the whole mess together adding some of the reserved pasta cooking water if it looks a little dry
• garnish with freshly grated parmesan cheese

Now then, following the addition of the sausage you could drain off a little of the fat, but there’s really only a tablespoon or two and we think it adds a nice sheen and some rich flavor to the sauce…and why would you want to mess with that?  Not only that, but we’ve offset that teensy smidge of extra fat a bit by using the Whole Wheat Pasta, right? It’s health food, really it is…

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