Comfort Food Goodness

On a chilly and wet day like this, all I want for dinner is some stick to your ribs comfort food. For me, comfort food is either Miso soup, rice and grilled fish, or good ol' pasta dish. Since I had a lot of pasta on hand, I decided to make some cheesy italian sausage pasta and sauteed cabbage & collard greens on the side.

I decided to start off the cooking process by cooking cabbage and collard greens because longer they get cooked, sweeter they get.

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons cold pressed extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium head cabbage
• 1 bunch collard greens
• kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 tablespoon chili flakes

when the greens got a little softer and cabbage more transluscent, I added some chicken stock and let it braise for about 30-45 minutes.


While the greens were cooking, I prepared the pasta sauce with first browning :

• 1/2 lb each hot italian sausage and sweet italian sausage

after the sausages were cooked, I transferred the meat to a plate with spoon, and discarded all but 2 tablespoons of the oil that came out from the sausage. Into the pan, I added:

• 1 medium chopped yellow onion
• 2 tablespoons garlic
• 2 teaspoons fennel
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper ( because I like it hot!)
• kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

and sauteed until onions were transluscent, then added:

• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 28oz can whole tomatoes with juice (tomatoes crushed with hands)
• browned sausage

After the sauce thickened a little, about 5 minutes, I added 1 1/2 cup ricotta cheese and simmered a little longer. Then, I added 1 lb cooked pasta and 1 cup chopped basil.

I also made a little salad on side for extra veggies.

Put everything I made on a plate, and serve it with red wine. I had it with Clos Du Bois, merlot. It was a good match. =)

This dinner totally hit the spot. Now I am ready to just relax in a cozy bed and listen to the rain drop.