Home Made Love: Basil Sausage Peppery Pasta

By MARI and LILA CHILES

We have some pretty busy days around here, and some evenings, when soccer and Mandarin lessons and Environmental Club, and Math Enrichment clog up our schedule, we help Mommy hook up something quick and healthy and delicious so that we can make it to our activities on time or we don't have a lot to fuss with if we eat dinner afterward. The best part about this dish is that we get to make the sauce from scratch, and peel the sausage all by ourselves. (Who knew you could peel sausage?!) And considering how easy it is to make, it sure tastes yummy!

Ingredients
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 onion, diced
6 plum tomatoes, diced
6 basil leaves, chopped into strips
2 tbsp olive oil
1 package of sweet sausage (we use Johnsonville), cases removed
½ tsp red pepper flakes
½ tsp fennel seeds
½ tsp garlic powder
1 cup white cooking wine
½ cup heavy whipping cream
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
1. Brown the sausage bits and fennel seeds in a large sauté pan with the olive oil; set aside.
2. Sauté garlic, onion, and red pepper flakes in the pan drippings until translucent, about 5 minutes.
3. Gently add in tomatoes, garlic powder, salt and pepper, and sauté.
4. Add sausage back to the pan; pour in white wine and heavy whipping cream; gently stir all ingredients until incorporated.
5. Add in basil; let sauce simmer for about 10 minutes, until tomatoes break down into sauce.

Serve on top of penne; garnish with fresh basil leaves. Pair with a nice crusty, buttery bread. Mommy makes us eat this with salad. We’re okay with this. Well, kinda. We like the sausage sauce and bread much better.

Serves 6.

This recipe is from the MyBrownBaby series, “Home Made Love: From The Chiles Girls’ Kitchen To Yours,” the cookbook in which Mari and Lila share special memories behind the beloved dishes they create in our house.

This Home Made Love series is sponsored by The Young Chef’s Academy of Sandy Springs, GA, a cooking school for children. Learning food preparation skills is the main ingredient at YCA, and each class adds a heap of kitchen safety, a scoop of etiquette, a handful of table setting, a pinch of menu planning, and laughter to taste. To find out about classes, summer camps, and more at The Young Chef’s Academy of Sandy Springs, click HERE.