Chicken Sausage Linguine with Mushrooms

Happy Friday, friends!

As some of you may know, I am not a huge fan of sausage (pause for dirty joke…).  Chicken sausage, however, is a different story and a good compromise for when Tim wants to make a dish with sausage and I don’t.

Here’s a yummy recipe that uses chicken sausage, if anyone needs any inspiration for their weekend cooking!

Tim and I decided that it would be fun to subscribe to The Food Network magazine and actually get issues of it to our front door.  I still get excited about snail mail, ok?  Anyways, this recipe is one we adapted from a sausage recipe in their December issue.  We switched around a few other ingredients as well to “healthify.”  Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 12 ounces of whole wheat linguine
• 1 tablespoon EVOO
• 1/2 pound chicken sausage
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped
• 1 stalk celery, sliced
• 1/2 pound of sliced mushrooms
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 4 plum tomatoes, chopped
• 1/2 cup low-sodium veggie or chicken broth (or dry white wine)
• 2/3 cup milk – we used 1% here because we thought almond milk might give the dish a funny flavor
• 3 tablespoons parsley
• ground pepper to taste

Directions

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil.  Add the pasta and cook as the label directs. Reserve 1 cup of the cooking water, then drain the pasta.
2. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the chicken sausage and cook, stirring, until browned, 3 minutes.  Increase the heat to high; add the onion, celery and mushrooms and cook, stirring, until tender, 4 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook 1 minute.
3. Reduce the heat to medium high; add the tomatoes and broth and cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is reduced by half, about 5 minutes.  Add the milk and cook until slightly thickened, about 4 minutes. Stir in the parsley and reduce the heat to low.
4. Add the pasta to the skillet and cook, tossing, until it absorbs some of the sauce, 2 to 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

I don’t often have pasta dishes, but this one is a keeper.  We are probably going to put it on our weekly meal plan for a night next week.  We’ll see!

What’s everyone up to for the weekend?  I have lots of celebrating to do!  Tonight a bunch of friends are getting together for dinner to celebrate Slesh & Will’s recent engagement (you can read the proposal story here!), tomorrow the family is celebrating Papou’s 84th birthday party, and Sunday the other side of the family is celebrating my god-daughter’s 4th birthday.  Lots of things going on!

Do you like sausage or chicken sausage better?

Enjoy the weekend, and Boston readers – stay safe in the snow!