Spicy Smoked Sausage Pasta

I have a lot of catching up to do on recipes!! This recipe I pulled from Kevin and Amanda's blog who got this recipe from the cookbook, The Best Simple Recipes! Smoked sausage is one of those things I love to eat, but often forget exists when I'm at the grocery store! This is an absolutely delightful, hearty dish that we had no problems polishing off in just a couple of days! Let's get started...

Ingredients

1 TB olive oil

1 lb. smoked sausage

1.5 c diced onion

2 cloves garlic-minced

2 c chicken broth

1 (10 oz) can Rotel

1/2 c heavy cream

8 oz. Penne Pasta

1/2 tsp. salt & pepper 

1 c Mont Jack shredded cheese

1/3 c thin sliced green onion

To begin, you're going to want to add your olive oil to your pan over medium/high heat! You're going to want the oil to get hot enough it's smoking before you add the sliced smoked sausage and diced onion. 

Cook these two together until slightly browned, which should take about 4-6 minutes! Add in the 2 garlic cloves, and saute about 30 seconds, or until fragrant! 

Add the chicken broth, tomatoes, heavy cream, pasta, salt and pepper and stir together!

Bring this all to boil and cover leaving the heat on medium/low and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the pasta is tender!

Stir in 1/2 of a cup of the shredded cheese and mix together well! Top it off with the remaining 1/2 cup of cheese and sliced green onion, and place under the broiler for a just a few minutes, until the cheese is bubbly and getting brown!

Ready for the broiler

Out of the broiler!

All finished and ready to eat :)

This recipe was absolutely wonderful since it's been so cold outside, it helped warm us up! I did sprinkle a little dash or two of red pepper flakes in there to spice it up a little more! 

Stay tuned for another recipe from a friend of mine!

Until then...

 

Sour Cream Enchiladas = Scrumptious

Thanks to the Pioneer Woman, and her wonderful recipes, we had a positively wonderful dinner with her sour cream enchiladas, and some chipotle pasta! You can find her recipe here, on her website! These were a little more work, and very messy (at least for me, but then again when am I not messy) but completely worth the effort! Let's get started!

Ingredients

12 Corn tortillas

Canola oil, for frying

1 can (20 oz) Enchilada Sauce

2 c Sour cream

3 c Cheddar cheese

1 c Green onion

1/2 tsp. Ground cumin

1/4 tsp Cayenne pepper

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees. 

In a bowl, you're going to to want to mix together the green onion, sour cream, 1 1/2 c cheddar cheese (THIS IS ONLY HALF OF WHAT THE RECIPE CALLS FOR), cumin and cayenne pepper! 

Heat canola oil over medium heat in a small skillet until it's beginning to smoke! In a larger skillet, pour the enchilada into another pan and heat over low/medium heat. 

Using tongs, fry the tortillas one at a time for about 5-10 seconds per side! Remove the tortilla from the oil, and place in the enchilada sauce and coat each side!

Okay, here is where it can get a bit messy. So I'll give you my step by step, which seemed to bring down the mess from 10 to a 3! 

I removed the tortilla from the sauce with the tongs and placed it on a plate. Spoon the sour cream mixture into the middle of the tortilla and roll the tortilla and place it face down in a 9x13 baking pan. 

At this point, I stopped and rinsed my hands and the tongs and dried them off on a dish towel. The first couple of times I did not rinse, I found the enchilada sauce made the oil pop in the skillet, which caused a lot of dodging of the flying hot grease! If everything is rinsed, you don't have that problem! I know it seems like a lot of work for 12 tortillas, but trust me, it's worth it! 

Once you have all 12 tortillas rolled, and face down in the pan, add the remaining 1 1/2 cups of cheddar cheese to the top of the enchiladas and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbly and golden brown! Remove from oven, top with salsa or whatever your heart desires and enjoy!! We absolutely loved this, and will for sure make it again! Plus with it just being the two of us, we had plenty of leftovers! 

Stay tuned for some great new recipes!

Until then...