Fettuccine with Sausage, Basil, and Sun Dried Tomatoes

I love pasta!  I'm always looking for fast, simple recipes with only a few ingredients for when I don't feel like spending a long time cooking.  I figured Mario Batali's book, Molto Italiano, would have some good stuff.  The snobby part of me internally scoffed at the idea of buying a book from a celebrity chef.  But, I got over myself and ordered it.  I'm glad I did!  A lot of the recipes look very tasty and easily doable on a work night.

I already had all the ingredients for this recipe in my kitchen except for sausage. I don't know if you have this problem, but I make a lot of recipes that call for 1 tablespoon of tomato paste, leaving me with the rest of the can, even when I buy the small one.  It gets put in some tupperware and then it goes into the fridge until it achieves consciousness. It's not pretty.  This recipe is a great way to use up leftover tomato paste!  If you make the full recipe, it needs 5 tablespoons.

I made 2 servings of pasta but the full recipe of sauce. I suspect that if I'd halved the sauce, the dish would have been maybe little bland.  I used fresh garlic from my husband's grandmother's garden.  Soooo good. The recipe calls for fresh tagliatelle but I didn't have any, so I used some dried fettuccine and it was fine.  If fresh pasta is easily accessible to you, go for it!

Tagliatelle with Sausage, Basil, and Sun Dried Tomatoes
Serves 2
from Molto Italiano

Ingredients:
1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil
6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
8 ounces sweet Italian sausage, casings removed and crumbled
6 sun dried tomatoes, thinly sliced
5 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 servings of dried or fresh pasta 
12 fresh basil leaves
Parmesan 

Method:
1) Bring large pot of water to boil and then add a few shakes of salt.

2) In a large 10″ or 12″ pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat until hot. Add the garlic and cook until lightly golden brown, about 2 minutes. Add the sausage and sun dried tomatoes and cook, stirring, until the sausage is cooked through, 5-7 minutes. 

3) If using dried pasta, cook it while you are cooking the sausage.  My fettuccine needed 10 minutes to cook. 

4) Drain the fat from the pan, leaving about 2 tablespoons, then stir in the tomato paste and wine and cook 5 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. 

5) If using fresh tagliatelle, put it into the boiling water and cook until done, about 2 or 3 minutes. Drain the pasta and add to the pan with the sun dried tomato and sausage mixture. Return to the heat, toss in the basil, stir gently for about 30 seconds. Serve immediately with grated Parmesan.