Sausage Skillet Recipe (made with $2.99/lb fresh sale sausage at Whole Foods)

DISCLAIMER: This is a 20 Minute Meal (17, actually!).

As promised, I've written a recipe using the amazing sausage that's on sale at Whole Foods this week (until Tuesday). This can obviously be made with any sausage, but Whole Foods makes their's fresh, and it's just about the most beautiful sausage I've ever seen. I don't even really eat meat, but this stuff is top of the line. I always take sausage out of the casing before cooking with it, and this sausage just has huge chunks of fresh pork in it. It's actually really impressive, and I never even knew that this is what sausage is supposed to look like. Plus, they're huge. They're 6 oz. each, which is the equivalent of two normal sausages.

awesome price

awesome sausage

So, since these are such a steal, I decided to use them in 2 recipes. If you're a sausage person, I would buy a few pounds of these and freeze them. They'd be great on the grill. We chose hot, but they have sweet and herb, as well. These are originally $4.99/lb and are on sale $2.99.

The recipes I've written are Hot and Spicy Sausage Skillet and Sausage, Mushroom, and Bean Meatloaf. I will share the first recipe, but not the second one (meatloaf). The meatloaf was good, but I haven't perfected the recipe yet. The point is, you can buy a pound of these sausages, a pound of mushrooms, and a can (or 1/3 bag dried) of beans and make 2 dinners that serve a bunch of people.

Hot and Spicy Sausage Skillet
serves 5-6 hungry adults

12 oz. spicy sausage (about 2 1/2 c. for those without a scale - 2 links from WFs - $2.24)

1 c. organic red beans ($.55 - TJs)

3 1/2 c. quartered white button mushrooms ($1.50 - Haymarket)

2 T. olive oil ($.24)

2 cloves sliced garlic ($.04)

1 t. salt (<$.01)

1 t. dried parsley ($.06)

1 t. dried basil ($.06)

1 dash black pepper (<$.01)

4 c. organic whole wheat penne ($.85)

Total is $5.50 for a meal that serves at least 5. That's $1.10/person. Not bad.

1. Bring large pot of water to a boil, with 2 T. salt.
2. While that heats up, quarter a 10 oz. package of mushrooms, which will yield about 3 1/2 c. mushrooms. Quartering means cutting into 4 chunks. Not 4 slices. I should've taken a picture of that, sorry. It's like cutting a cross in the top of the mushroom. OK. It's not that difficult. Also, while the water is heating:
   Squeeze the sausage out of the casing into bite sized chunks. Also:
3. Slice 2 cloves of garlic.
4. Add 4 c. penne to boiling water and stir.
5. In a LARGE skillet, over medium high heat, add 2 T. olive oil and let it get hot for a second. Then add in the sausage chunks, salt, parsley, and basil, and brown over medium-high heat until cooked (6 minutes or so).
6. Once cooked, add mushrooms, garlic slices, and beans, along with 2 ladlefulls of pasta water. Let it simmer over medium-high heat while the penne finishes cooking.
7. Once the penne is done, add that to the skillet (about half of the pasta water should've evaporated and cooked the mushrooms) and toss (still over medium-high heat). This helps the pasta absorb the sauce.
8. Serve and enjoy.

scrimpyTips for this recipe:

- You can use chicken or turkey sausage also.

- This would be delicious with some fresh grated cheese on top.

- You can make the sausage topping ahead of time, and then just reheat it with some pasta water. Toss with fresh pasta and you're good to go.

How to make tomato sauce

Hey! Making red sauce is a great way to keep dinner costs down. I buy my organic tomatoes at Whole Foods. Their diced organic 365 brand are $1.79/can. I paid $1.67/can when I got the Muir Glen ones on sale 3/$5.00, but I'll use the $1.79 price since that's what you, the reader, can pay all the time, regardless of the sale. It's really easy to make a tasty red marinara style sauce. The sauce is so versatile. I make it, eat it over pasta once, make a lasagna or baked ziti with a little bit more of it, and then have pasta once again, or make meatball subs! You can also freeze it if you have extra, and always have an emergency dinner on hand with a little pasta, or half the recipe! My recipe makes a nice sized pot of sauce. Enough for 8 meals of spaghetti. Add in some meatballs and you've got yourself a good time (my family is from Italy, and they put raisins in the meatballs...this is delicious, try it!).

So, I am going step by step here so you can see what I really do. To test it out, I'm going to have Mike try to make it based on the blog. I will update you on how that goes!

First I cut up an onion. Here I used red, but I really prefer yellow. This was just what I had. It happened to be a cup. Most baseball sized onions will produce a cup. I chopped it like so:


I then add these to the pot along with:
2T sugar
2T olive oil
1 t salt
1 t dried basil
1 t dried parsley
1 dash black pepper

Like so:


I then pop the top on these bad boys and let them cook until they begin to become translucent. The top helps keep the moisture in. Once they become see through, you can take the top off and continue to cook everything. The liquid will evaporate, and the onions will soften and brown a bit, and that's what you want!

By the end of this step, your sauce will look like this:


At this point, you add two 28 oz. cans of tomatoes and then fill the cans up with water and add that. For a total of 2 cans of tomatoes and 2 tomato cans of water. That's confusing. But it's not. Your pot will look like this (but a little fuller because this is only with one can of water added):


(You may say, "my pot looks nothing like this". And I will tell you that we are talking about two very different types of pot, my friend).

At this point, you crank the heat up to high and put a top on it to get it up to a boil nice and quickly. Once it's boiling, take the top off, lower the heat, and allow it to simmer and reduce to the thickness you'd like. You simmer it longer for a thicker sauce, shorter for a thinner sauce.

At the end, if it is too "tomatoey", I like to add a tablespoon of butter, which isn't traditional and kind of a cheat, but whatever. Oh, yeah, and P.S. this has no garlic in it. I never liked making it with garlic, and my 94-year-old Grandma from Italy was watching me make it...I told her that I didn't put garlic in it, and she exclaimed she didn't in hers, either! Wow!

This whole process takes about 2 hours I'd say.

So the ingredient list is:
2 cans tomatoes, organic ($3.58)
1 c. onions ($.07 - Haymarket)
2 T. extra virgin olive oil (doesn't have to be extra virgin...$.24)
2 T. sugar ($.04)
1 t. salt ($.01)
1 t. dried parsley ($.01)
1 t. dried basil ($.01)
1 dash black pepper (<$.01) 1 T butter, optional a couple shakes of red pepper flakes (for spicy heat - to be added to onions and oil in the beginning of cooking - optional) Grand Total: $4.06 (with the butter), $6.04 with 2 pounds of spaghetti ($.99 at both TJs and WF). That would serve about 4 hungry people twice (or 8 hungry people once). That means that it's actually $.76/serving. Wow! I will come back to share my Italian bread recipe with you, too!

scrimpySauceTips:
- You can half this recipe to make enough sauce for 1 box of pasta.
- You can use this sauce for so many things: Chicken parmesan, Eggplant parmesan, Baked ziti, Lasagna, Stuffed shells, Calzones, etc...
- This makes a great freezer meal. Just freeze half for a quick weeknight dinner,
- You could use this for pizza, I'd just add an extra T, of sugar, and reduce it until it's thicker.
- I like this sauce thin and smooth. To get it thin and smooth, I use an immersion stick Braun hand mixer. You can also put it in a blender. Just be sure it's cooled off because the heat could blow the top off.
- If you like it thick and chunky, use diced tomatoes and just serve it as is. And if you only have whole tomatoes, just crush them in your hand before you add them to the pot.
- You can use any type of canned tomato: seasoned, crushed, pureed, whole, you name it!
- I have heard that all soups and sauces are better if given some time to rest. So usually, I'll make this at 3 pm, let it sit on the stove off the heat once it's done cooking, and then heat it up while I cook the pasta around 7 for dinner.
- It's good with a sprinkle of grated Parmesan or Romano. I use Romano because it's so much cheaper and serves the same purpose. Again, when I have money, it'll be Parmesan. And it'll be the expensive Parmesan.