Fusilli with Chicken Sausage, Artichokes & Sun Dried Tomatoes

My Very First Recipe Post! Let's Start with some Wine, Herb Salami & Ricotta Salata

This is a "recipe" I have been cooking for years now. It originally started from a recipe I got from foodnetwork.com and belong to Giada De Laurentiis (one of my food idols). Since then I have transformed this recipe a zillion times cooking it over and over again, because of this I felt safe enough to make it my first recipe post! I love cooking and I always have, I taught myself how to cook watching the food network and have used my family as guinea pigs ever since. They seem to enjoy everything I cook and ask me to cook for them often (so I know they can’t be lying!)

What you will need: 

1 box (16 oz.) Fusilli pasta - I prefer wheat

1 pound sausage - today I used a combination of chicken links 2 mild, 1 spicy. (I have also used ground turkey breast in the past.)

6 oz. Artichoke Hearts in oil

6 oz. Sun Dried Tomatoes in oil

4 oz. (about- it’s really to taste) ricotta cheese - I use part skim

3 cloves (to taste) of garlic

Shredded pecorino romano cheese (to taste)

Place a pot of water on the stove top at high and begin to boil

While water is coming to a boil, on a large cooking pan slide out the chicken sausage from the casing and sear on medium heat. (I don’t use any butter or oil, the sausage has natural oil that will release while cooking, and in the next step I use some of the oil marinade from the artichoke hearts)

Separate the chicken sausage using a wooden spoon. While sausage is cooking, chop the artichoke hearts, and once the chicken sausage is seared through add chopped artichokes to pan. Also add some of the oil from the artichoke's can to the mixture. At this point also add the chopped garlic.

 

Chop the sun dried tomatoes and add to the mixture, also adding some of the oil marinade from the can. 

(all to taste)

At this point the pasta water should be boiling, add to taste the amount of salt you would like, and then add the pasta. I normally throw in about the entire box and then visually add as much as would like to the mixture after boiled. (Really depends if you want more pasta than mixture or more mixture than pasta)

While pasta is boiling add roughly (to taste) 4 large tablespoon of ricotta cheese to the mixture of chicken sausage, artichoke hearts, and sun dried tomatoes, mix in allowing the ricotta to blend.

Once pasta has boiled add to the large pan and mix everything together. At this point I normally taste to make sure there is enough of each ingredient. Today I added a little more ricotta and mixed again.

 

Place in a large serving bowl, add the pecorino romano cheese and enjoy!

I hope you all enjoyed my first recipe post. I will be trying to do as many as I can from now. Remember cooking should be fun. Allow yourself to experiment. I follow recipes as a template to my final dish and always play around with the ingredients to add or take away what I like and enjoy eating. Don’t be scared of the kitchen! Always start with a good glass of wine it makes the whole experience much more relaxing and fun. My mom and I took all the pictures while we enjoyed one of my favorite Cabernet Sauvingnons from Robert Modavi. Maybe you can try this over the long week. Happy Labor Day!