Sausage with Peppers and Onions

Cheap, easy, and hearty fall food...this one fits all the First Apartment Food requirements, Jessie and Jenn. And if you buy a low fat sausage like a turkey or chicken sausage, this tomato-y pasta topper is nearly fat-free, also. This dinner can be on the table 30 minutes after you enter the kitchen.

First, you cut up the string of sausage. Heat up a  frying pan and when it is hot, turn it to medium heat and stir in the sausage. Brown the sausage on all sides, stirring occasionally. While the sausage is cooking, slice the peppers and onions into strips. I like to use a couple of different colored peppers because they look pretty in the finished dish, but green bell peppers are usually the cheapest and they all taste pretty similar. When I made this one, I also added some cut-up zucchini that needed to be eaten. You can put in whatever vegetables sound good to you.

Heat some oil in another pan. When it is hot, put in all the peppers, onions, and garlic and cook on medium heat until they start to soften, stirring now and then. While this is cooking, put a paper towel on a plate and then spoon off the sausage onto it. This will drain off any grease from the sausage. You're done with the sausage pan now.

Next, put the sausage into the pan with the cooked veggies and stir it up. Open up a 20 oz. jar of spaghetti sauce and pour it over the sausage and peppers. After I've poured out a jar of sauce, I like to add about 1/2 cup of water to the empty jar, swish it around to get the rest of the sauce, and then pour it all into the pan. In my opinion, there is so much flavor in this dish that it is OK to use cheap spaghetti sauce. Heat the pan until the sauce is boiling, then turn it to medium-low and put a lid on it.

Fill a large pot 2/3 full of water. Add 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil to keep the pasta from sticking. Heat it until it is boiling well. Pour in the pasta and stir it right away so the pasta is coated with water on all sides so they don't all clump together. I happen to like linguine for this recipe, but any kind of larger pasta would work well. Really thin pastas like angel hair will be too delicate for the big chunks of sausage and vegetables.

If you can afford it, buy whole wheat pasta. It has more fiber which is good for your stomach and your digestion. It's also more nutritious.Cook the pasta for as long as the package says. I recommend only cooking it to the lower end of the time range because I like my pasta a bit firm. When the time is up, pour it into a colander and let it drain for 2-3 minutes. Stir it at least once so that the pasta doesn't clump together.

Put a serving of hot pasta onto a plate and ladle some of the sauce over it. Let's eat!

If you have left-overs, I suggest storing the pasta and sauce in separate containers so the pasta doesn't absorb all the juice and get soggy.

Ingredients

1/2 pound mild or hot Italian sausage
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large red, orange, yellow, or green bell pepper
1 medium onion
1 clove of garlic, or 1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 20-oz. jar of spaghetti sauce
1 box of pasta

Directions

Cut up the sausage into 1" wide pieces and brown it in a medium saucepan on medium heat. Slice the peppers and onions into 1/4" wide strips. In a separate frying pan, heat up the oil. Add the onions and peppers and saute for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the minced garlic. Pour in the spaghetti sauce and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.

Cook the pasta according to the package directions. To serve, place a helping of pasta on a plate and top with the sauce.

Serves 4-6