Had an urge for sausage and peppers, so I whipped up some that was pretty good. Most restaurants serve it in fra diavolo or arrabiatta marinara so it's pretty spicy sometimes, but you can use a milder sauce to flavor it and spice it to your liking. There really is no limit to the creativity you can put into making this dish or how you choose to serve it. It's easy and fairly fast, and VERY tasty!
Ingredients:
3 large bell peppers
1 large sweet onion
6-7 cloves of garlic
1tsp basil
1tsp oregano
1tsp rosemary
1tsp thyme
1-2tsp fennel seeds
3 bay leaves
2 jars pasta sauce (your choosing)
1lb Italian sausage (your choosing)
1-2tbsp tomato paste
Start with a 1lb pack of Italian sausage of your choice, hot, sweet, or mild, start these boiling in a 3 qt. pot about half full of water. Once they firm up, prick them with a fork a few times on both sides to let the fat cook out. Boil for about 30 mins.
While the sausages are boiling, coarse chop 3 large bell peppers and one large sweet onion, crush and chop 6-7 cloves of garlic. Saute these in a little olive oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium to low heat, the skillet I am using is a Lodge size 10 from wallyworld.. As they saute, stir often and add roughly a heaping teaspoon each of basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano, fennel seeds, and 3 bay leaves. You can double the fennel seeds if you like that licorice sweet flavor fennel lends to Italian cooking. Salt and Pepper to your liking.
Once peppers have reduced down some and softened, the onion is clear, and the peppers are fork tender, add in 2 large jars of pasta sauce of your choice. I used Puttanesca which is less tomato-ey tasting because it has kalmata olives, capers, and anchovies in the sauce. WONDERFUL stuff I might add!! You could use Arrabiatta which is spicy marinara, you can use Roasted Garlic, any flavor you like.
Once the sauce is cooking down and simmering, here is where to add tomato paste if you want a more tomato flavored sauce. I added a tbsp of Cento tomato paste from the squeeze tube (like toothpaste). Now drain the sausages and brown them a little in a cast iron skillet or griddle, then add them to the sauce.
Serve over spaghetti noodles or rice, this makes 5 large servings and freezes quite well.