Some Italian Food.

Italian Sausage and Chestnut Dinner

Normally I cook things here that I've actually eaten, liked, eaten again, and then made my own version of. Very seldom do I just find a recipe and cook it for friends. On this occasion, however, I wanted to be rid of some bags of cooked-and-part-dried chestnuts that had been hanging around the kitchen since I used them for stuffing a pork loin for last Easter. The blog was posted on 7/15/2019 and called "Stuffed Pork Tenderloin".

So, I bought a 1 lb tube of sausage-meat to go with two of the packets of chestnuts, and collected all of the other ingredients from the pantry and set about cooking!

Ingredients

1 lb	Sausage meat
2/3 lb	Chestnuts, sold cooked and bagged
4 cloves	Minced Garlic
2 tbsp	Rosemary
3 tbsp	Fennel
2 tbsp	Chopped Parsley
1	large onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp	olive oil
To Taste	Salt and Pepper
Garnish	Parmesan Cheese
Paste	Fusilli. About a pound for 3 people

Method

Put the pasta on to cook in plenty of salted water, following pack instructions.

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, and fry the onion for 5 mins, until it is getting soft. Once starting to soften, add the sausage meat and chestnuts, and fry for another 10-12 mins, breaking the meat up with a wooden spatula or spoon as you fry it. Keep the heat quite high and stir often.

When the meat and chestnuts are golden brown, add the garlic, rosemary and fennel seeds, and cook for 2 mins more. Cover and simmer the sauce for 10 mins while you finish cooking the pasta.

Season to taste with parsley and parmesan cheese and, of course, salt and pepper and serve. 

Recommended: a glass of good red wine goes well with this!
Sorry that there aren't any pictures this time - it all got eaten too quickly!

Spicy Sausage Ragout


Ingredients

1 lb	Pork sausages.
1 each	Red, Yellow, Green peppers, sliced thinly
2 cloves	Minced Garlic
2 tbsp	Paprika
3 tbsp	Fennel Seeds
1/2 lb	Can of Chopped Tomatoes
1	large onion, sliced
2 tbsp	olive oil
To Taste	Salt and Pepper
Garnish	Parmesan Cheese
Paste	Fusilli. About a pound for 3 people

Method

Put the pasta on to cook in plenty of salted water, following pack instructions.
Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the sausages until well done (not burned!).

Remove the sausages; add the onion and cook until soft

Add the peppers and cook for about another 6-8 minutes. stir in all the other ingredients and let simmer - probably for at least 10 minutes.

Cut the sausages into bite-size pieces and return to the (now quite full) pan to heat up again

More description and pictures to come ....

------------------------- Eventually ! -------------------------