Garlic sausage penne.

And the delicious sausages from Earlidale Meats come into use! Boy do they pack a garlic punch! They do a half garlic one too which was really good, we ate them with oven chips and peas a while ago!

I decided to make penne with sausage chunks, zucchini, mushrooms and onions in a tomato based sauce that had some cream cheese in it to lighten it up a bit. Light cream cheese too!

I started by frying the sausages on a low heat until they were done, then slicing them diagonally once they were cool and setting them aside. There were 4 sausages in a packet.

I cut the zucchini in my favourite way since learning it from Jamie Oliver. You quarter them lengthways, then cut out the spongy middle bit. It makes them less 'slimy' and 'watery' if that makes sense. Leaves you with the nice solid part of the flesh for cooking. I used 2 zucchini here.

I fried up the cut zucchini and sliced mushrooms with a roughly chopped onion in a large wok.

When they were on the verge of being done I removed them from the heat and added them to the sausage chunks. I then made a sauce in the wok. My husband came home in the middle of the sauce making and I got so carried away chatting and tasting that I forgot to photograph the sauce on it's own! Ooopps! Oh well, it would happen on one of the days that I am trying to be more particular with documenting!

So the sauce is based on a can of tomato sauce, basically crushed tomatoes but smoother. Or like a watered down version of tomato paste. Any of those will do. I probably started with 2 cups of it. To this I added some left over sun dried tomato pesto, about 2 tbsp. This is not a must, I am purely in the process of clearing out our fridge because we are going away for a while. You may notice recently that I substitute certain things because I don't have them, again, purely not wanting to buy more stuff right before we leave so making do with what we have. If you have the pesto, go for it, if not, no worries. I also added about 1/4 cup of fresh chopped parsley, some chilli flakes, garlic powder (amount depending on how much you like it really), a few shakes of Worcestershire sauce, one finely chopped chipotle (still using up the can of them I bought for Mexican night!) and then about 1/3 cup cream cheese. Which you stir in gently. Salt and pepper to taste. The sauce still packs all the punch of tomato but has a nice light edge to it from the cream cheese. I preferred using this to using cream because it is not as rich and gives it a thicker texture. You could use whatever you had, yoghurt, sour cream. However you come to the end result, you want a fairy thick, richly flavoured sauce so that it coats the pasta well rather than running of it if it is too thin.

I then added the sausages and veg into the sauce and mixed it all around, then left it covered while we went for a walk to buy Guinness for the pie I am making today! 

When we were ready to eat it was literally a matter of boiling up the penne, draining it, tossing it into the sauce and mixing it all around for a good coating. 

My final picture was not very flattering but I assure you it tasted great! Lovely el dente penne coated in a cream cheesy sauce interrupted by either moist, garlic sausage chunks or crunchy zucchini, it worked a treat! There was a lot left over which is great for lunches for a couple days, I already had some for lunch and it heated up great.

The house is full of the aromas of the beef in Guinness that is slowly cooking in the oven. It smells amazing! Once it is ready I am going to set it aside to cool and then put it in the fridge overnight to mature and taste even better, and then make pie out of it tomorrow! Mmmmmmm!