LESLIE BUDEWITZ: Who doesn’t love a hearty pasta made in one pot? This recipe is perfect for a weeknight dinner. It’s flexible, too – choose hot, mild, or unseasoned sausage, and hot or sweet peppers, as you prefer.
The anise-y taste of fennel is a terrific compliment to the sausage and peppers.
The method of cooking the chunk of sausage in one piece, rather than broken and stirred, is unusual, but it works. It can spatter, so keep the pot lid or a spatter shield handy.
Buon appetivo!
PS: I finally figured out how to embed a PDF of the recipe for easy printing.
Scroll down to the 💕 for the link.
Pasta with Fennel, Sausage, and Sweet Pepper Ragu
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound bulk hot or sweet Italian sausage
1 medium fennel bulb (8 ounces), trimmed, halved, cored, and diced
4 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons tomato paste
4 cups water
1 pound short pasta – we used penne, but farfalle (bows) or another small pasta will work beautifully
1/4 cup pickled cherry peppers, hot or sweet, finely chopped, along with 2 tablespoons of their liquid
1/2 cup heavy cream
Pecorino Romano or Parmesan, grated, for serving
In a heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven, over medium, heat the oil until shimmering. Add the sausage and cook until deep brown, 5 to 7 minutes; you may want to break it up a bit while cooking to reduce spatter. When browned, break into bite-size pieces.
Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the fennel, garlic, and salt, and cook until golden, about 8-10 minutes.
Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring occasionally, until it darkens slightly, about 2 minutes.
Add the water, using your spoon to stir any sausage, vegetables, or paste stuck to the bottom of the pot. Bring to a simmer. Add the pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente, typically about 10 minutes. Taste and adust seasonings, as you’d like. Turn off the heat and cover the pot. Let the covered pot sit about 5 minutes, to allow the pasta to fully absorb the liquid.
Stir in the peppers, pepper liquid, and cream, until thoroughly combined.
Serve with a bowl of grated cheese for topping.
Serves 4.
If this is for dinner at your house, I'll be right over!
At Seattle Spice Shop, owner Pepper Reece has whipped up the perfect blend of food, friends, and flavor. But the sweet smell of success can be hazardous . . .
Spring is in full bloom in Pike Place Market, where Pepper is celebrating lavender’s culinary uses and planning a festival she hopes will become an annual event. When her friend Lavender Liz offers to share tips for promoting the much-loved—and occasionally maligned—herb, Pepper makes a trek to the charming town of Salmon Falls. But someone has badly damaged Liz’s greenhouse, throwing a wrench in the feisty grower’s plans for expansion. Suspicions quickly focus on an employee who’s taken to the hills.
Then Liz is found dead among her precious plants, stabbed by a pruning knife. In Salmon Falls, there’s one in every pocket.
Pepper digs in, untangling the tensions between Liz and a local restaurateur with eyes on a picturesque but neglected farm, a jealous ex-boyfriend determined to profit from Liz’s success, and a local growers’ cooperative. She’s also hot on the scent of a trail of her own, sniffing out the history of her sweet dog, Arf.
As Pepper’s questions threaten to unearth secrets others desperately want to keep buried, danger creeps closer to her and those she loves. Can Pepper root out the killer, before someone nips her in the bud?
ALL GOD'S SPARROWS AND OTHER STORIES: A STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS COLLECTION, now available in in paperback and ebook
Take a step back in time with All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection of historical short mysteries, featuring the Agatha-Award winning "All God's Sparrows" and other stories imagining the life of real-life historical figure Mary Fields, born into slavery in 1832, during the last thirty years of her life, in Montana. Out September 17, 2024 from Beyond the Page Publishing.
“Finely researched and richly detailed, All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories is a wonderful collection. I loved learning about this fascinating woman . . . and what a character she is! Kudos to Leslie Budewitz for bringing her to life so vividly.” —Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of Crow Mary
Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!
Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently
Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest books are
To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery and
All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024. Watch for
Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th Spice Shop Mystery, on July 15, 2025.
A past president of Sisters in Crime and former national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.
Swing by Leslie's website and join the mailing list for her seasonal newsletter. And join her on Facebook where she shares book news and giveaways from her writer friends, and talks about food, mysteries, and the things that inspire her.
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