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what’s for dinner: peas and carrots

 peas and carrots

Image by VirtualErn

My husband was not home for dinner last night and so I wanted to make something quick and easy. Lucie asked for pasta and meatballs, which I did not feel like having, so I settled on pasta and sausage instead.

There is a dish I make fairly regularly that basically consists of Farfalle (bowtie) pasta, chicken sausage, peas and mushrooms. When I went to the store for the sausage, they did not have any mushrooms, so I decided (in the interest of time and convenience) I would leave them out. When I got home, I realized that my last onion had gone bad and my neighbor wasn’t home to lend me one, so I had to ditch that part of the recipe as well. This was turning into a pretty boring pasta dish!

I rummaged through my fridge to see what else I had and found some organic baby carrots. I decided I would add those. What I ended up with was pasta with chicken sausage, peas and carrots…and it was actually pretty tasty. I have to admit though, seeing the peas and carrots mixed together made me feel like I had been transported back to the 1950’s.

Here’s the recipe:

  • 1/2 lb. Farfalle pasta
  • 3/4 lb. of chicken sausage, cooked and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
  • 1/2 bag of frozen peas
  • 1 cup of organic baby carrots, cut into small pieces
  • 8 oz. of chicken broth*
  • Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • Freshly grated parmesan cheese, to taste

Put water on for pasta. While water is beginning to boil, cook the chicken sausage in a little olive oil on the stovetop until cooked through and set aside. Put the carrots in the pan and saute until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, cut sausage into 1/2 inch pieces. Put sausage back into the pan with the carrots and add the chicken broth. Keep the sausage, carrots and broth on simmer while pasta is cooking. When pasta has about 5 minutes left, add the frozen peas to the broth mixture and continue to simmer until pasta is cooked. Drain pasta and add all ingredients together.

Serve in shallow bowls with freshly grated parmesan and black pepper on top.

Very kid-friendly and fast dinner!

*I buy Pacific Natural Foods Organic Free Range Chicken Broth in 8-ounce packages and use one of those when I make a recipe like this.

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