Surprisingly, this recipe also works with the soy Italian sausages. Mmmm-mmmm-mmmm delicious.

We used home-made pasta (hurrah for little tabletop pasta machines).

But no Moxie, right?

You drink Moxie with it. From red wine glasses.

That sounds utterly mahvellous. Would leaving the onion in pick-out-able sized chunks ruin it, do you think?

One of my favorite restaurants in Omaha when I lived there used to serve something very like this, but with mushrooms and gorgonzola in it as well.

I am in the "strongly approve" camp on gorgonzola. One of my friends is not, and had never tasted it before I accidentally over-gorgonzolaed the risotto. He tasted something funny, and (being a good Wisconsin boy) he reached for the dish of cheese on the table so the cheese would make the funny taste go away. Oops.

Me, I'd do something with a pesto, or grilled summer vegetables and garlic, but that sounds nice too. Apropriate for the upcoming fall season.

Actually, one need not use a spirit of any kind to make the cream behave; turning this into a "mock carbonara" works out just fine. Modify Jim's recipe like this:

additional ingredients—one egg, lightly beaten
    1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper (white or black)
additional steps—as the cream begins to bubble evenly across its surface (instead of just little bubbles at the edge), add the egg in a thin stream, stirring constantly. Do not allow the mixture to come to a full boil; instead, stir it constantly until it suddenly thickens, which should take about 1-2 minutes. If it does not suddenly thicken, it was too hot when the egg was added; it's not ruined, but must be gently heated for about 20 minutes to thicken it instead of boiling or it will get "grainy." Either way, add the pepper just before tossing with the pasta.

Note: Unlike some stove-top yolk-thickened sauces, in this instance the egg is cooked through.

Have you met Cookin' with Google? Specifically searches recipe sites. :-)

For those who are looking for a lower fat tomato-free pasta-and-sausage experience, I've done something similar to this, but with white wine and Trader Joe's chicken sausage and lemon and a bit of olive oil in the pan to keep things from sticking. Topped off with the Trader Joe's powdered Romano -- most powdered Romano and Parmesean is crap, but the stuff Trader Joe's sells in tubs in the cheese section is recognizably Romano and doesn't require washing a grater. It worked out quite nicely. (I like tomatoes, but disapprove of nearly all tomato sauces on the grounds that they are far too sweet.)

I strongly approve of Gorgonzola, but am allergic to mold and once had an asthma attack after being exposed to it. So I try to stay away from it. When my resolve breaks and I just have to have some moldy cheese I make sure my inhaler is close to hand.

Thank you Mr. MacDonald--I know what I'll be having for dinner tonight. Those of you with a bit more time on your hands might want to give the following a shot. It's very popular at casa de H:

My Grandmother's Spaghetti Sauce Recipe that she Copped From Her Neighbor Juanita by Way of My Mom Plus a Few Tweaks of My Own.

• 4 pieces bacon.
• olive oil
• 4-5 cloves fresh garlic, smashed & chopped fine.
• 2 big fat onions, chopped into ~1/4 inch cubes.
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped ditto
• 4-6 cups mushrooms, sliced.

• 2-3 tablespoons parsley. Fresh if you've got it, dry OK if not.
• 2 tbsp. basil.

• 1-ish pounds ground beef. (very lean is OK if you're health-conscious, not quite so lean gives a better flavor)
• Around 1.5-2 liters of tomato juice.
• about ¼ cup red wine
• salt
• bay leaf

• 1.5 tbsp sugar

The idea with this sauce is to have it simmer all day, to the point where the meat liquifies. The scent fills the house; by dinnertime you're in an agony of anticipation. Think of it as foreplay.

Cook the ground beef in a frying pan. Chop it up very fine as it cooks. Drain.

Fry the bacon in a deep pot. Pluck out the bacon & chop it, but don't dump the drippings. Add some olive oil to the now-bacon-greasy pot, then dump in the garlic, onions and bell pepper. Sautee until slightly softened and liquid is released, about 3-4 minutes. Stir in mushrooms and cook for a minute or two. Add parsley & basil and cook for another minute, stirring.

Add the cooked ground beef, the tomato juice, the wine, the salt, the cooked bacon and the bay leaf. DONT add the sugar yet. Bring to a boil over, mmm, medium heat. When bubbling nicely, reduce the heat to the minimum point at which the mixture still bubbles gently.

Go do something else. Every half hour or so, check on the sauce & give it a stir. If you cover it, leave enough of a gap that steam can escape. The idea is to slowly boil the mixture down. When it gets boiled down by about 1/3 and / or gets thick, add 1 cup water. Repeat the boil-down-then-add-water process a couple of times—seriously. This should take around, I dunno, 3-4 hours.

About 10minutes before serving, add the sugar to the meat sauce. The sugar cuts the acid from the tomatoes and provides a general flavor boost, BUT you don't want to throw it in until the last minute as it will ruin your pot if cooked too long.

Serve over angel hair pasta with shredded parmesan. Serves 4.

Sadly, the nearest Trader Joe's to me is over 600 miles away; they sound like fun.

Scott, wasn't the whole point to avoid tomato based sauces?

It should be noted that the pasta with sausage recipe is going to look, when you're finished, like nothing so much as Hamburger Helper. Do not be discouraged; it tastes like what Hamburger Helper wants to be after it grows up and goes to a good college.

I tried it, and it was nice; but then, having satisfactorily concluded the experiment, I added basil, oregano, a tich of nutmeg, and a fair amount of freshly grated romano, to taste.

I assume everybody already knows the pasta with Campbells (or substitute brand) mushroom soup trick?

(Cook pasta, heat soup but do not add water; stir soup through pasta after pasta is ready; eat)

What if the problem is not tomatoes but onions (or even both)?

I do something very similar to the recipe at the the top, but I use chopped-up ham instead of sausage and throw in some really fresh and skinny asparagus snapped to 1" long when I'm sauteeing the ham and onions. Like Teresa's experience with the sausage version, I found it needed some basil, oregano, and parmesan the first time I made it. Nutmeg sounds like a nice touch. And ziti is more aesthetically pleasing with the asparagus than shells. Yummy and simple! (Low-carbers out there, google Dreamfields Pasta -- it's the only low-carb pasta I've found that is close in taste and texture to the real thing.)

Hey, don't forget pasta aglio e olio. It's practically ingredient-free: You can skip the parsley and even the parmesan if necessary, and if you don't have olive oil and garlic in your kitchen, why talk of cooking at all?

Simple fresh tomato sauce which does not contain onions: Take an appropriate quantity of fresh tomatoes, somewhere around three per person, because you'll want leftovers. (Ideally they're from your garden; if not, look for ripe tomatoes rather than pretty ones.) Chop into medium-to-small pieces. Throw into a bowl, including the tomato guts. Add chopped fresh basil, at least three handfulls (again, ideally from your garden). Mix and cover with a mixture of good balsamic vinegar, olive oil, minced garlic, salt, and pepper to taste. Let sit for at least two hours before serving over pasta, crostini, or flatbread. Combines well with goat cheese.

Minus tomato, so simple yet so brilliant. I can't believe I never thought of that. Thanks so much, we have a strong Anti-Tomato brigade in my family.

Martin we have made our tuna mac that way for years, Colby cheese, tuna, shells, cream of mushroom soup, garlic, sometimes the kids like to experiment with adding nutmeg or dill or for awhile they were on a kick to see how many things tasted better with a little cinnamon. Last week Cullen, my middle son, added some sauteed mushrooms with great success.

s an Italian restaraunt chain called Biagi's has a sausage, gemelli and green peas dish that's excellent. it's also pretty easy to mimic:

1/2 cup chopped onion
dash of rosemary
cup of Newman's marniara
cup of Newman's vodka sauce
3 mild italian sausages, de-cased (turkey sausage works fine)
1/2 cup frozen baby green peas
1/2 box of gemelli

crumble sausage. cook it over medium heat with onions and rosemary in a bit of olive oil until sausage is cooked-through. add sauces and peas. simmer on low. cook the gemelli. add cooked, drained gemelli to the sauce (or vice versa - whichever pot is bigger, i guess). toss. serve.

you can adjust the amount of sauce, and the vodka/marinara ratio, to taste. i like a little less vodka sauce; my wife likes a little more.

G. Jules @10: Here's my non-sweet tomato-based sauce: canned tomatoes, garlic, onions or not, meat of choice, spices of choice, and the key: red wine vinegar until it's tart enough.

I just made soysage in a spicy* cheddar-cream sauce the other day. It was yummy. (I didn't put it on pasta though, since I'm low-carb.)

I didn't know that heavy cream would never curdle! This is VERY USEFUL information to me. Thanks!

One other thing: people, especially male people, who Don't Like Tomato should take lycopene. The low incidence of prostate cancer among Italian-Americans is NOT genetic.

*I think I put habanero oil in it, but I'm not sure.

You drink Moxie with it. From red wine glasses.

Stemless red wine glasses? Cut crystal red wine glasses? Or can I serve it with Jolt Cola in brandy snifters?

I expect that the need to add more spices depends on exactly how the local Italian sausage is spiced.

Hey, don't forget pasta aglio e olio.

That's what's on the menu for tonight (AKA Pasta with Crunchy Garlic).

Moxie has the advantage of preventing (or curing, if you already have 'em) parasitic worms. Ah, Moxie!

Contains not a drop of Medicine, Poison, Stimulant, or Alcohol. But it is a simple sugarcane-like plant grown near the equator and farther south, was lately accidentally discovered by Lieut. Moxie and has proved itself to be the only harmless nerve food known that can recover brain and nervous exhaustion; loss of manhood, imbecility, and helplessness.

It has recovered paralysis, softening of the brain, locomotor ataxia, and insanity when caused by nervous exhaustion. It gives a durable solid strength, makes you eat voraciously; takes away the tired, sleepy, listless feeling like magic, removes fatigue from mental and physical overwork at once, will not interfere with action of vegetable medicines.

Here we see a typical glass of Moxie.

I've had (once) a pasta with andouille sausage and mushroom (oyster, I think, at least something without dark spores) in a cream sauce with assorted N.O. style spice.

I've tried to replicate it. Haven't quite succeeded yet. Veggie Sausage just doesn't do it justice.

Speaking of which. Our standard sauce is 5-7 cloves garlic, slowly cooked in olive oil, then a can of tomatoes and some Morningstar Farms Breakfast Sausage, cayenne and salt. Cooked high enough to evaporate off most of the liquid. Maybe basil too. Can be done in a little more time than it takes to cook the pasta. Cayenne, salt and oil are all important here, they all are flavor enhancers.

Moxie? What on earth is Moxie? Sounds like Snibbo.

Dear Sir -- For many years I thought there was a little Persian milkman in iron trousers riding a zebra round my room. Then I was recommended to take Snibbo, and I have not seen that little Persian milkman since. (Signed) F. Toggleton.

[If you suffer from little Persian milkmen, mice in tartan overcoats, yellow gasworks with bristles all over them, neuralgia, depression or boils, write for the free Snibbo Booklet, recommended by 123,784 doctors.]

Hey, don't forget pasta aglio e olio.

Who could possibly?

One thing I do is remove the garlic from the oil, pick up the heat a bit and briefly sautee some blanched (or microwave defrosted frozen) broccoli. Fresh broccoli rabe is better, but that requires planning.

Once the broccoli is hot (or the leaves of the rabe just start to wilt) add the cooked garlic and the pasta to the pan and serve with fresly grated Peccorino Romano or Parmagiano Reggiano.

I haven't made this in ages since I've been avoiding carb-centered meals.

#9 Janni Cookin' with Google

Thanks, I've wanted somethng like that every Tuesday (grocery night) for years.

I'd gussied up the little grilled shrimp last night by putting them on a bed of buttered orzo with some locally-made tabooleh on the side, so I thought I'd use shrimp and orzo as my test ingredients for the site. *Lots* of things that look great and I wouldn't have thought of.

#18 Hey, don't forget pasta aglio e olio. It's practically ingredient-free: You can skip the parsley and even the parmesan if necessary, and if you don't have olive oil and garlic in your kitchen, why talk of cooking at all?

We've gotten a fair bit of mileage out of "Pasta With Butter, Sage, and Parmesan"-- melt a bunch of butter over low heat, stir in chopped fresh sage, cook until the butter starts to darken slightly, and pour over pasta with a bunch of Parmesan. Dead simple, and really tasty.

Peeve: I've been having horrible heartburn/ reflux problems for the last, oh, seven months, and both oil and garlic are on the proscribed list. I miss garlic, damn it.

I've heard of butternut squash pasta, which sounds yummie, but has anyone ever made pasta out of lentil flour (besam)? I wonder if the consistency would be too runny...
If you didn't know already, the yellow swirly sticks and balls you find in the best Indian trail mix are made out of besam.

Oh, yeah, another really simple tasty pasta dish. Dice up a small zucchini and/or yellow squash fairly fine (1/4" to 1/2"). Saute in butter with some basil, oregano, salt, pepper. Take it off the heat and stir in a cup of plain yogurt -- you want it to heat up but not separate. Toss with your pasta and top with lots of parmesan. A nice tangy summery sort of thing.

Another practically-no-ingredient pasta side dish -- just toss your hot pasta with a pat of butter and a good squeeze of anchovy paste and a few grindings of fresh pepper. Maybe some parmesan -- can't hurt. Mmm. Even with the low-carb pasta I can't have it too often, but I'm making myself really hungry here...

www.epicurious.com also has an excellent recipe search function--lets you indicate desired and undesired ingredients, type of meal (breakfast/lunch dinner/low-fat/quick to make), type of cuisine, and preparation method.

2 favorite fast pasta dishes, one with tomato, one without:

My own: Cook pasta, toss with storebought pesto, pine nuts and a good handful of julienned sundried tomatoes. (Optional addition: Put 1/2 c. frozen peas in a non-shattery bowl, pour boiling water over them, stir, wait 1 minute, drain, and add peas to pasta. Yum.)

From Deborah Madison's The Savory Way: Start a pot of water heating to cook your pasta. As the water is heating, put a large metal bowl on top of the pasta pot. Into that bowl put 4-8 oz. crumbled gorgonzola cheese and 1-2 finely chopped or sliced cloves of garlic.

The heat from the water will partially melt the cheese. When the water boils, move the bowl to another location and cook the pasta. Drain it and add it to the cheese/garlic mixture. The hot pasta will finish melting the cheese. Toss and eat.

You can, if you like, add cream to the cheese, but it's not really necessary.

My occasional lunch, described as "inedible by vampires, jews, moslems, GI fanatics, stone age people, people following the Stewardess Diet, Atkins, and dieters in general":
* Bacon, package, one (around a quarter pound).
* Garlic, cloves, as many as you feel a need for.
* Pasta (I use spagetthi), one serving.

Cut bacon crosswise into narrow strips. Fry together with the chopped garlic. Serve with the pasta. Yummy and quick to cook.

Oh, and a cookbook (series) recommendation: Next time you're at the library, go to the kids' section and look for the "Easy Menu Ethnic Cookbooks" series with titles like "Cooking the ____ Way" (Italian, Hungarian, Vietnamese, Vegetarian, Korean, Indian, etc. etc. etc.). They are terrific. The Hungarian one has a bean-and-sausage soup (with paprika, sour cream and carrots) that's to DIE for.

There's a Greek/Turkish pasta dish that's basically bowtie pasta with yogurt and a couple of cloves of garlic (mashed), sauteed diced mushrooms optional. Stirring a little cornstarch into the yogurt before it's added will cut down on the curdling. Can't recall the name, and the recipe in a box, somewhere in storage.

That's your basic sausage and white sauce, but...

Needs a little prosciutto, and maybe a couple cloves of garlic.

Some fresh fennel might be a nice addition too. Or maybe some sauteed white (or oriental) eggplant. mmmm, sauteed white eggplant.

My variant on zucchini w/ yogurt is smoked salmon. Cut it up in bits, add lemon juice to the yogurt, and toss w/ fettucine. You can add cooked or raw onion, and the recipe I adapted (in the NYT a couple of months back) thought dill would be good.

Top with what Mario Batali always calls "king of cheeses".

I suppose that if you were feeling fancy, adding some salmon roe, or if you'd just won the lottery, a little caviar, would be great.

A couple of lunch standbys involve 1.5 oz pasta, and either 1/2 can of sardines in oil with hot pepper, or a small can of Progresso tuna in oil and some chopped tomato, fresh or tinned. Either way, top with cheese.

(I'm in the early stages of roasting a chicken as prescribed by _Cook's Illustrated_, so I'm definitely in the mood for food discussion.)

Top with what Mario Batali always calls "king of cheeses".

Wholesome Velveeta(tm) American cheese food product?

Stefan #40 -- no, decidedly not Velveeta. Try Parmesano-Reggiano.

P J Evans, #37: That would be yogurtlu makarna, literally "pasta with yogurt." At least that's what my family calls it; maybe if there's a special name, I don't know it. The pasta can be tossed with a little butter before you add yogurt. The consistency of the yogurt is made more liquid by beating it first---mixing with crushed garlic takes care of that automatically.

Also, you can melt tablespoons of butter, mixing in really spicy ground red pepper and crushed dry mint while it's melting. Then heap pasta on plate, pour yogurt (with or without, but preferably with) over, and finish with a tablespoonful of spicy butter which will sizzle when it hits.

Variant: "MantI" (The i is not supposed to have a dot, hence the capitalization; it's a different vowel), which is a kind of handmade ravioli with ground beef and spices inside hand-wrapped bite-size or smaller dumplings. Boil in water much like ordinary pasta; sauce as above.

...and guess who's hungry now, too.

Uptopic, someone asked if the onions could be removed.

If I was going to try an onion-free version, I think I'd try substituting chopped fennel bulb for the onions.

(Incidentally, roast fennel = yummy.)

Hi, Zeynep. Yeah, the version I got was named 'manti', but it isn't the little stuffed dumplings. (My synapses connected while I was leaving work... great timing!) I suspect the recipe was filtered through Greeks. It is very tasty, and now that you emntion it, it was supposed to get melted butter before the yogurt went in. Tasty, yes!

And I need to find the box with the big pan for doing pasta, too. Somewhere in storage....

#30, Chad Orzel;
Peeve: I've been having horrible heartburn/ reflux problems for the last, oh, seven months, and both oil and garlic are on the proscribed list. I miss garlic, damn it.

Speaking of that and yogurt, I've been having 1/2 cup of organic plain yogurt* (the kind with a half dozen or so active cultures) for breakfast for the last six weeks, and I've had much much less trouble with heartburn/reflux. That, and I'm, er, regular. By much less, I mean, only twice in six weeks, down from six times a week.

I still eat peppery and garlicky stuff, though I have pretty much cut out the deep fried hot peppery stuff. That may make more of a difference.

-r.

*okay, I add honey. Sometimes strawberries.

Lately I've been cooking up all kinds of this & that to freeze for lunches at work. I'm still waiting on my cookbooks to be shipped over from Canbrrra, so I'm currently doing recipes from memory. Thus the mixture in the freezer at the moment consists of Chicken Satay, Apricot Chicken, Tomato Noodle Mince (Spag Bol. as a one pot, substitute macaroni for spaghetti), Kedgeree, and Pasta Putanesca.

Pasta Putanesca:

Take a few anchovy fillets and a clove or two of garlic. Saute together in hot olive oil until the anchovies break up. Add in either two - three chopped fresh tomatoes, or a tin of chopped tomatoes[1], plus a large pinch of chilli powder or hot paprika. Simmer all of these together for about 5 minutes. Toss in a couple of teaspoons of capers, and a dozen sliced olives (or equivalent), plus a palmful of dried basil (or equivalent fresh). Bring to the boil again, then serve with any sort of pasta.

My number one tip: use dried pasta, and start making the sauce the minute you've put it on to boil. The two will be ready at the same time.

Does have tomato, doesn't have onion, does have a rather interesting history (apparently the name translates to "Prostitute's Pasta Sauce", and is the type of dish the lady of the night would whip up either between clients, or to attract clients to her doorway).

[1] Standard tin size here in Australia is about 400g.

Re: Chad in 30 and rhandir in 45:
If you regularly eat (or plan to eat) plain yogurt, I suggest getting the Fage Total brand of yogurt. Trader Joe's and Whole Foods stock it, as well as some local markets. Or at least this seems to be so in WA, CA and NJ.

The 2% is way, way better than the Brown Cow cream top, and the whole milk version is almost too rich to eat. The nutrition is very compelling too. Imagine that, a delicious food that's good for you too.

Oh, and they make an outstanding sheep & goat's milk blend yogurt - I guess the sheep's milk brings down the goatiness.

Lots of people have suggested yogurt as a low-tech heartburn cure. Sadly, this runs aground on the fact that I find the stuff disgusting...

(Well, to be fair, it's been years since I've attempted to eat yogurt, but it was vile enough that I'm not in a hurry to try it again...)

Wholesome Velveeta(tm) American cheese food product?

Stefan, you've been watching Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee again. (Yes, this woman has actually advocated using the packet of powdered-cheese-stuff from a Kraft macaroni and cheese box in one of her "recipes." She's a drunken, crazy idiot and I CAN'T STOP WATCHING.)

Lurker here. Chad Orzel #48: you can buy acidophilus and other yogurt bacterias in liquid forms, flavored, and also in chewable tablets, also flavored, in most organic food stores like Mrs. Green's. You can also get tablets in the vitamin sections of most stores but I don't really trust them. Hope this helps.

Bruce Arthurs #43: Thanks. My wife cannot abide onions, and, thus, I seek recipes that don't contain them. But what if fennel bulbs aren't available?

Skipper's Linguini, aka The World's Most Unkosher Food:

Fry one package bacon. Remove the bacon, but not the fat, from the pan and have someone tear it into small pieces when it's cool enough to handle. Meanwhile, add to the fat 2 small or one large cans of tuna (in water), a can of baby or minced clams, and a can of sliced black olives. (Be sure to do this when the fat has cooled down some, lest the clams jump right back out of the pan.) Cook the fish and olives till the bacon is torn up, and put the pieces in the pan for a few more seconds. Serve over pasta with parmesan cheese. Technically serves six but two hungry people can finish it off if they don't load up on pasta.

I'm pretty sure the only way that could be less kosher is if you served it with leavened bread during Passover.

Lila (#34):

Or you could put the frozen peas into the colander you use to drain the pasta. Between the boiling pasta water and the hot noodles, the peas thaw almost instantly.

My favorite pasta-sausage-no tomatoes combo, which has an exceedingly short season (at least here in Boston):

You need a nice roomy skillet (I actually use a one-handled stovetop wok.)
Remove one lb of sweet Italian sausage from its casing, and brown it until it’s mostly cooked.
Add 1 pint of beautifully-ripe fresh figs, cut into quarters or halves, plus several cloves of rough-chopped garlic and a couple of handfuls of torn fresh basil. Pour in a good measure of olive oil and let the whole thing carmelize. When your pasta is ready (fusilli is best), just drain it and throw it in the pan with everything else. Mix well, and serve with parmesan and fresh ground black pepper.

I believe my mom first saw this in the Wednesday food section of the Globe a few years ago, and it’s glorious (and easy!!)

I'm pretty sure the only way that could be less kosher is if you served it with leavened bread during Passover.

Bleed into it. Or you could boil the bacon in milk from the pig's mother instead of frying it.

Also, that's about on a par with Shaker Ham and Oyster Pie, which is a savory custard (egg and heavy cream).

Bleed into it.

Since I assume the pig was not killed in a kosher fashion, we've already got the blood. The bacon's both "has blood" and "non-kosher animal"; adding human blood is superfluous.

Or you could boil the bacon in milk from the pig's mother instead of frying it.

That's where the Parmesan comes in, since "seethe in its mother's milk" was generalized to "no milk and meat at the same meal".

Out of curiosity, how long does one have to wait after eating one to eat the other? That is, how long after my hamburger must I wait before I can have a milkshake, and vice-versa?

Yeah, but if we're talking about degrees of treyfness, we're already out of the realm of how kasherut is actually done. So actually seething it in its own mother's milk will be even TREYFER than just combining milk and meat.

(I've been told by Folks Who Outta Know that something is either kosher or treyf, and that e.g. wrapping oysters in bacon slices with cheese is no "more" treyf than the oysters themselves. But it sure is fun to figure out how many possible ways there are to make something treyf, isn't it?)

I'm not sure how long you have to wait. I bet that's one of those things that vary by degree of orthodoxy and by individual household.

Xopher, #57: Not that I have any authority to say, but I also recall that at least in some cases, the time is different for milk after meat and for meat after milk. Shorter for the latter, I believe because milk is thought to be fully digested faster.

From the back of a package of kluski noodles about 30 years ago:

Brown 1 lb bulk sausage in the largest lidded saucepan you've got. Don't drain the fat. Add a small-to-medium head of green cabbage, sliced roughly the same size as cooked kluski noodles. Salt and pepper, add a bit of water, and put a lid on it to steam. Meanwhile, cook some big, fat kluski noodles. When the cabbage is limp and translucent, add the drained noodles and toss thoroughly. It should be slightly glossy.

Three ingredients; one pan. And some kind of crazy Polish magic that makes it far more delicious than it ought to be.

I've tried with all kinds of different fresh sausage -- American breakfast sausage, Italian, bratwurst -- and it always tastes good. I bet there's a fresh Polish sausage that's just not available where I live that would be perfect.

I wonder if that would work with soymilk? It's possible to find kosher Italian sausage, but not meatless sausage without gluten. (And if anyone can prove me wrong on that, please please tell me!)

Aha! Kluski is egg noodles. I already have those in the pantry. So I just need sausage and cabbage.

Returning to this thread, I suddenly realize why a craving for orecchiette with rapini and sausage manifested itself while I was at Whole Foods today.

Off the top of my head (not something that I have a recipe for, but this is pretty much what I'll do tomorrow night):

a couple of Italian sausages, casing removed
few cloves of garlic, chopped
bunch rapini (broccoli rabe), washed and chopped
couple of glugs of white wine
salt, pepper
grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
bonus addition: toasted fresh breadcrumbs

Saute together the garlic and the sausage until the sausage is mostly cooked through. Add the rapini, with the water clinging to its leaves, and saute until limp. Pour in the white wine, cover, and steam briefly to continue cooking the rapini until it is tender. Uncover, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix with cooked pasta and serve with the cheese. If you are using breadcrumbs, toast them up in olive oil in a separate pan and toss with the sausage and rapini when you add the salt and pepper.

Like all my favourite pasta sauces, this takes less time to cook than the pasta does.

Warning: this is pretty assertively flavoured, and is definitely not for timid palates.

A sufficiently timid palate may flee into a maxillary sinus and hide. Though, due to recent developments, if there is even a slight scent of Mentos and Diet Coke about, the sinuses will refuse to admit anyone.

Fortunately, chocolate often will persuade the palate to return to its usual haunts.

A bit late of a return to the party, perhaps, but Lisa, #54 sounds positively drool-inducing. Definitely going on my "Must Try" list!