This is a sponsored post for #Pastapalooza – raising awareness to help fight hunger.
My wife and I are both work-at-home parents, so we both take an active part in cooking. While my wife loves to bake, I love to cook. She is a follow-the-recipe type of person, but I am a rebel. I love to just throw in whatever sounds good and see how it works.
This recipe for Fired-Up Rotini with Sweet Sausage was one of those meals! It is now a family favorite (even the kids love it) and we cook it at every family get-together, because it is a really refreshing and filling dish.
INGREDIENTS:
1 -box of Dreamfields Rotini Pasta
1 – package of Sweet Italian Sausage (1lb, 3oz)
1 – 12 oz. bottle of your favorite beer
3 – large garlic cloves-chopped
2 – Plablano Peppers, fire roasted and seeded (medium heat peppers)
3 – Chili Peppers, seeded (medium heat peppers)
1 – medium red onion
1/4 – 1/2 cup of fresh cilantro leaves
DRESSING
1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper
1/8 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice
DIRECTIONS
Pasta
Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil. Add pasta and return to a boil. Cook uncovered for 10 minutes stirring occasionally until pasta is tender. Drain and set aside.
Sausage
While the pasta is is cooking, add the bottle of beer in a seperate medium skillet. Poke holes in the sausage then place in the skillet along with the garlic and cook on medium-high heat for 15 minutes, stirring the sausage occasionally. After 15 minutes, remove the sausage from the pan and cut into 1/4 inch diameter slices. (Pour the remaining beer and garlic mixture in a blender or food processor, it will serve as the base for the dressing. and cut into 1/4 inch diameter slices.) Place the sausage back in the pan and cook for another 10 minutes stirring occasionally to ensure the sausage cooks through.
Fire Roasted Peppers
While the sausage is cooking begin to fire-roast your Poblano peppers. You can do this right over the stove on medium heat. I used a skewer and put the pepper directly on the burner. You will want to turn the peppers occasionally to make sure you get a char on all sides (the pepper will start to make a popping sound once it is cooked). Once the flesh of the pepper turns black, and the pepper is soft in texture, it is done. Remove the peppers from the heat and begin to peel away most of the charred flesh. At this time, cut the Poblano peppers, chilis, and onion into 1/4 slices.
Dressing
To finish the dressing add the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper to the beer and garlic mixture from earlier and blend on high.
To assemble the pasta, simply add the cooked pasta and the dressing to a serving bowl and mix well. Then add the sausage, peppers, onions, and fresh cilantro. Mix all the ingredients together and squeeze fresh lemon juice on top. Add a a little more cilantro on top to garnish and serve.
Place a vote in the Pastapalooza V Market Basket Challenge to Help Fight Hunger! Throughout the summer, bloggers, like myself, will be challenged to use the ingredients in the Market Baskets to create original pasta salad, side dish or summer entrée recipes.
Fans and friends will vote for their favorite recipe from each category, with the winning blogger receiving a $1,000 donation to their local food bank/pantry (We are giving ours to The Mooresville Soup Kitchen); a $200 donation will go to the food bank of choice of the remaining bloggers.
One randomly-drawn fan/participant from each challenge who voted will win a family pack of Dreamfields + a $1,000 donation to their local food bank/pantry. Find out more here.
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It was my pleasure. I had a great time and was even happier to know that a good charity was receiving a little extra. Thank You for the opportunity!