Last week, or maybe two weeks ago, I went up to Sacramento to buy books for the new semester and cried over how much wine I could have bought for the price of three of my textbooks. You don’t even want to know my pain and suffering. Lets just say I could have bought about 19 cases of Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joe’s or about 6 cases of my favorite White Zinn from a winery out in Amador County.
Then I thought of how many pairs of shoes I could have purchased. Then I went to happy hour with my friends Alaina and Erin to erase the pain. Oh, and my most expensive book? My accounting textbook that was like $300? The professor had us buy the wrong copy. Yup. Dandy. So now I have to take it back and exchange it. Oh, so much fun. Wake me up when I’m graduating, please.
Anyway, sorry, I had to tell one more person about my textbook cost and drama. It makes me feel better. But let me back up to where this recipe came from. I decided to visit my friends Jacque and Jordann the day before to do a tradition of sorts of dinner and booze and Gilmore Girls. It was one of only warm days this summer, but we decided to do a hot pasta dish anyway. Because we like to be contrary like that.
Northern California has had perpetual spring this year. I’m not a amused Mother Nature.
Jacque had recently bought the new Giada de Laurentiis book so I brought up my GdL book and David Lebovitz’s book. We ended up not making anything from either of the GdL books, but we did drool over the pictures and then picked a recipe from Food Network. We made the Chocolate Orbitz cake from David Lebovitz, but that deserves a post to itself.
We settled on this pasta dish that had dried tomatoes, italian sausage, and artichoke hearts with bowtie pasta. The sauce was made from chicken stock, the oil from the dried tomatoes, Parmesan and white wine. With some basil and parsley thrown in at the end.
We did run into a few snags. We didn’t have the sausage or the artichoke hearts or the mozzarella…and we were out of wine. So Jordann and I went to the store to pick up the things we needed. Well Jordann and I did well on the foraging of wine, mozzarella, and sausage department and totally forgot about the artichoke hearts. So when we got back to the house Jacque mocked us (and noted that we bought the wrong kind of mozzarella. go figure.) and sent us on our merry way to get the artichoke hearts and return the mozzarella since it was wrong AND moldy. Ew.
Well the store didn’t have frozen artichoke hearts, so we bought a can of artichoke hearts which worked well but we didn’t have the same amount that recipe called for. Oh well. No big deal.Oh, and we used a different shape of pasta. Also, not a big deal.
In the end the dish was simply amazing and delicious and somewhat spicy. It will definitely be making a come back. And as usual, I think I’d change it a little bit. I’d add more veggies to it so it’d go farther and I’d feel less guilty about eating all the sausage with my pasta and cheese. But really, that’s the only change I’d do to this meal. Very easy, quick and delicious.
Bowties with Italian Sausage, Dried Tomatoes and Artichoke Hearts
Ever so slightly adapted from Giada de Laurentiis
- 3/4 cup drained oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, sliced, 2 tablespoons of oil reserved
- 1 pound Italian hot sausages, casings removed
- 2 (8-ounce) packages frozen artichoke hearts we used 1 can of artichoke hearts
- 2 large cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 3/4 cups chicken broth
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 16 ounces fusilli pasta we used bowtie pasta
- 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan, plus additional for garnish
- 1/3 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves
- 8 ounces water-packed fresh mozzarella, drained and cubed, optional we omitted this
- Salt and freshly ground pepper
Directions
Heat oil from the tomatoes in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Once warmed, cook the sausages until brown breaking it up into bite sized pieces, about 8 minutes. Remove from pan and put into a bowl. Add the artichokes and garlic to the pan and saute over medium heat for about 2 minutes. Add the broth, wine, and sun-dried tomatoes, bring to a boil over medium-high heat for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Bring a large pot of salted water (if you wish) to boil. Add in bowties and cook according to directions. Drain, but do not rinse pasta and add the pasta and sausage back to the pan. Add the parmesan, basil and parsley to the pan. Toss until the pasta absorbs the sauce. If using, add in the mozzarella. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
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Gorgeous! I love Giada’s recipes- simple and tasty!! Books for school are ridiculous expensive.
In terms of your elliptical treadmill questions. YES- the elliptical can be just as beneficial as the treadmill. It all depends on the intensity and duration of your workout.