Dinner tonight... Pasta with Tomatoes, Sausage and White Wine

I'm continuing my quest to feed Mr. Fritz anything but Asian food this week, since he had his fill for awhile while on his business trip. So, tonight, I turned to another Real Simple recipe: Pasta with Tomatoes, Sausage and White Wine. It's from a story in their January issue called "18 Easy Upgrades for Your Favorite Convenience Foods." In this case, the convenience food is jarred marinara sauce. I picked up a 24 ounce jar of Mezzetta Roasted Garlic marinara sauce because I wanted to start with a decent base and thought the product could do the work for me of layering in a roasted garlic taste. (I used half of it tonight for this dish.)


To make this for two people, boil an appropriate amount of pasta (I used angel hair) and as that's cooking, follow these directions: "Heat 1 Tb olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add 1/2 a pound of sweet Italian sausage (removed from casings) and cook, breaking it up with a spoon, until browned, 6 to 8 minutes. Add 1/2 cup dry white wine and cook for 3 minutes. Add the sauce and cook until heated through, 2 to 3 minutes. Serve over the pasta." To make it for six people, follow the same directions, just use the whole jar of sauce.

Mr. Fritz and I both really liked this: it was flavorful and filling, and it took only about 10-15 minutes to pull together, which is perfect for a weeknight. In addition to using nice jarred sauce, I also picked up some good quality, house-made Italian sausage from the grocery store instead of going with a mass-produced variety. And it was another chance to use a mini-bottle of white wine, which I happily cracked open in lieu of using a full-sized bottle and having tons left over. I'll definitely make this again. It reminded me a little bit of the seriously tasty Italian-sausage laden risotto I made a few weeks ago, but with much less effort required.