When I was home my brother gave me a bunch of stuff out of the garden. A big bag of tomatoes, kale, and parsley. I just kind of made this up on the spot and it came out fantastic. I had to buy some things to supplement what he gave me, but not much.
This is so good that I have to assume there’s a name for whatever the hell it is I just did, but I have no idea what it might be.
Note that while I stewed down my tomatoes since I had fresh ones and some time to kill, if you were looking to save time you could absolutely skip ahead and use any old tomato sauce you have laying around.
Ingredients:
for the sauce:
olive oil
I large onion, chopped
8 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 pounds tomatoes, tops removed, roughly chopped
1 small can tomato paste
sugar and salt to taste
water as needed to keep it from burning
For the rest:
1 head of kale, chopped
1 bunch parsley, chopped
1 head broccoli, just the florets, discard the stems
1 package basil, chopped
1 1/2 pounds italian sausages
1 cup heavy cream
pasta for serving
Directions:
For the sauce, add some oil to your pot and fry the garlic and onions until they are golden. Maybe 5 minutes on medium high heat. Add the tomatoes and tomato paste and reduce heat to medium low until they start to break down and form a sauce. Reduce heat to low and keep at a simmer, adding water as needed (if you scrape the bottom of the pot and you feel it sticking, add a cup of water). It depends on the tomatoes, but it will take at least an hour to turn in to a proper sauce. Could be two.
Once you have the sauce where you like it, add salt and pepper to taste. If your tomatoes are too acidic, add a teaspoon of sugar at a time, cooking it out, until the acidity is mellowed.
Now that you have your sauce, drop the sausages in and bring the heat up to medium high, adding maybe another half cup of water. Simmer for 15 minutes in the sauce. At the half way mark, turn them over (in my pot, they weren’t completely submerged) and pierce the skins with a fork to let the juices out in to the sauce. Once they’re cooked, remove them from the sauce and place to the side.
Now would be a good time to put water on to boil for your pasta.
Add the broccoli, kale, parsley, and basil to the sauce and reduce heat to medium low. Stir frequently until the kale and parsley wilt in the sauce. Add the cream, stir, and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to very low (you just need a gentle simmer here). After a few minutes, taste it again to see if it needs salt. Return the sausages to the pot and keep it on very low until the pasta is ready.
When you go to serve, spoon a sausage and sauce to taste over a bowl of pasta. Garnish with parmesan cheese. Enjoy!
eatbensmeat 