Penne with Spicy Sausage, Roasted Peppers and Sun Dried Tomatoes in a Goat Cheese Balsamic Sauce

I decided that I would really like a sophisticated dish with sausage, pasta, balsamic vinegar and peas.  The idea just kept getting larger and larger and by the time we sat down to dinner it was a feast!  Seriously, one medium sized bowl of this was so satisfying that we had tons left over. In the end, I would have used less goat cheese but you can follow along in the notes.

We roast our own peppers very often, but I’ve never done it with the mini peppers.  How hard could it be, right? heh.

• 5 links of Spicy Italian Sausage
• Couple of handfuls of mini peppers, roasted (instructions below)
• vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup of balsamic vinegar
• 2 cups broth (vegetable, chicken or beef – your choice)
• 2 pints sliced baby portabello mushrooms
• 1/2 cup or so, sun dried tomatoes (packed in oil, drained and chopped)
• 1 large shallot, chopped
• 3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 10-16 oz. goat cheese (see notes)
• salt and pepper
• small bag of frozen peas (microwaved 1 minute less than package directions, drained and set aside)
• 2 lbs. whole wheat penne

So, we all know how to roast our own peppers, right? it’s so simple that I decided to do it with a big bag of mini peppers that was on sale at Publix.

Cut your peppers in half, remove seeds, ribs and stems.  Put the peppers in a large bowl, drizzle enough vegetable oil to coat without excess, add some salt and pepper and toss to coat.

Admire my spoonula from the Giada DeLaurentis collection at Target (more on that next week!).

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place the peppers, skin side up onto the pan.

Preheat your broiler and when it’s hot enough, place the sheet 4 inches (or so) from the heat and broil for about 10 minutes.  Start checking at 5 – mine took exactly 10 till the skin was blistered and black, but yours may vary.  Check and turn the pan as needed to insure even cooking.

Quickly transfer to a large container and cover.  I used a stoneware baking dish and foil to steam.

When the peppers are cool enough to handle, start to peel the blistered skins off… This was way more of a pain than I expected.  I suspect that was due to a combination of the smaller peppers as well as letting them sit till they were very cool.  You should try to start peeling them after 20 minutes of sitting.  I waited for.ev.er.  It was a pain.

At this point, I remembered that I have a teenager who’s interested in cooking.  I called him over and gave him the very important job of pepper peeling.

He did it for a while and then when he was done, we called Haley over to finish.  She, however, wouldn’t let me post her picture.  Boo, Haley!

Transfer the peppers to a jar or a zip loc bag and set aside.

Put a slit in your sausages, length wise  and heat a frying pan to med. heat, add some vegetable oil and when it ribbons put the sausage in, slit side down.  Brown on all sides, then remove from heat and slice into coins.  Add back to the pan and continue cooking till the sausage is cooked through and nicely browned.

Meanwhile, get the garlic and shallots ready and put up the pot of water for the pasta.

Remove the sausage from the pan, and set aside. Add the shallot and garlic and stir to brown.  After about 2 minutes, add the balsamic vinegar and scrape the bottom of the pan while it reduces.  (I just found out that the browned bits from the protein is called “sucs” pronounced like “flukes”).  Add the mushrooms and stir to cook.

After about 3-5 minutes, add the broth or stock and allow to cook. The picture below has the sausage back in – but I wound up taking it back out because the pan was too full.  Add 8 oz. of the goat cheese and allow to melt. Cook the pasta according to package directions.

When the pasta is done, drain and put the pasta pot on a cool burner and add the contents of the saute pan to the pasta pot.  Add the sausage back and at this point, play with the amount of goat cheese in the sauce. I used about 16 oz., but when I make this again, I suspect I’ll use about 12 oz. total. There was just a touch too much goat cheese.  Raise the heat and let the sausage come back up to temperature.

Add the pasta and peas and gently toss to coat. Plate and salt and pepper to taste.  (I found that it was plenty salty, but a couple of grinds of black pepper were perfect)

This was so good!  Creamy, rich, sweet, savory, salty, spicy.  Everything you’re looking for. I would definitely rethink the amount of goat cheese as 16 oz. gave it a slightly chalky texture that comes from too much goat cheese.  Make sure you don’t overcook the peas as the pop from them is a great accompaniment to the sausage and creamy sauce.  Yum.

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