First recipe with N and I working together! We were both excited about this comfort food recipe, and it did not disappoint.

This dish pushed me slightly outside of my comfort zone in the cooking world: I have never cooked sausage. As the smells of sizzling meat filled our kitchen, I remarked how unfamiliar and exciting it felt to be trying something new. The goal of this resolution is to push me to explore new recipes and improve my techniques, and this meal felt like my first true venture from the familiar. The resolution is already paying off.

While I can see this dish coming back into our repertoire, without optimizing some of the steps that took us a while to get through, it might have to be a weekend-only option. If it were a weeknight, I would get too hungry before all of the steps were completed.

ORECCHIETTE WITH SPICY SAUSAGE AND PARMESAN

From SMALL VICTORIES by Julia Turshen

Ingredients were all delicious, but I didn’t have much of them handy in my kitchen. Overall, pretty easy to gather and I happily put them in my shopping cart.

Start by getting the sausage out of the casing. N took the lead here, and he found it easiest to cut the sausage in half and separate the insides from the casing that way. The crumbled sausage interiors go into a pan with olive oil and get cooked through.

N: I’m sure there’s a better way to get rid of the casing and accomplish the same thing. Maybe getting a larger Jimmy Dean sausage would have been better.

While he was working with the sausages, I started cutting the onions (and crying). They need to be sliced thin, but I decided to cut them even smaller (more crying).

A benefit of having both of us working on this recipe: While he was minding the cooking, I was able to grate the lemon zest and clean up behind us, which made the final clean up much easier. It’s always a good idea to clean up as you go.

Once the sausage is cooked, it is set aside until assembly. Next up is the onions. This takes the longest time here, but the more correctly the onions are cooked, the more delicious the final product is. I recommend sticking with the 30 minute recommendation. Cook and cook and cook these onions, and they become sweet and soft and perfect.

While this is all happening, you should start boiling the pasta. We waited too long to get the pasta water started, so we were twiddling our thumbs once the onions were done and were still waiting on the pasta to finish cooking.

Once the pasta is almost cooked, grab some pasta water and dump the rest out. Put the drained pasta back in the pot and combine with the cooked ingredients and a ton of spinach. We didn’t use all of the spinach that was called for here, but it still used an entire package and made for a very green dish.

After the spinach melts into the pasta, add cream, lemon zest, Parmesan cheese, and a bit of the leftover pasta water. Stir the pasta goodness to marry all of the flavors and serve.

It. Was. So. Good. Comfort food to the max. We both thought the only thing we would swap would be the spinach. Both of us thought that peas would be a great replacement for the greenery, which would also add a fun texture.

Overall review: We loved it. So excited to eat the leftovers!

N: Yeah! Not too bad!