Sunday Night Dinner

After consumption of alcoholic beverages from our Nation's Birthday, a few friends and I decided to take it easy today and watch some really bad television. We settled on Independence Day while recovering and recuperating from the long night before. Towards dinner time we started looking through my friend's kitchen to see what we could make for dinner. We had made some spicy mango sausages from a dinner a few nights ago, along with some sauteed peppers and onions. There was some whole wheat pasta that we cooked up and threw in some sun-dried tomato pesto along with some cheese for good measure. It turned out really well.

Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto and Spicy Mango Sausage

1 lb of whole wheat pasta
1/2 cup of sun-dried tomato pesto (recipe below)
3 spicy mango sausages (or any other sausage you want)
1/2 - 1 cup of sauteed peppers and onions
S + P
3/4 cup of shredded cheese such as white cheddar, Gruyere, or pepper jack
Parmesan cheese for sprinkling
2 scallions chopped

Pesto:
1 small jar of sun dried tomatoes, in oil, drained (found at TJ's)
1 bunch of basil
1/2 cup of parsley
4 garlic cloves
1/2 cup of toasted pine nuts
1 tsp salt
extra virgin olive oil

Combine garlic, salt and pine nuts in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add tomatoes, basil, parsley and pulse again. Stream in enough olive oil to make a nice paste. Taste for seasoning.

Boil pasta in salty water till al dente, reserve a 1/2 cup of the starchy cooking liquid. Drain pasta, add back to pot and add pesto, sausages, peppers and onions, salt and pepper. Add enough of the cooking liquid to make a nice sauce. Add cheese and scallions and serve, garnish with Parmesan cheese and parsley if desired.