DESCRIPTION
This sausage pasta dinner has zucchini, summer squash, and cherry tomatoes in a light basil cream sauce. It’s a hearty but fresh, and definitely easy, summer supper. If you can’t find trotolle noodles, don’t worry. Use another robust pasta shape like rigatoni, cavatappi (corkscrews) or rotini.
Ingredients
Scale
- 340g trotolle pasta noodles
- 4 sweet Italian sausages
- 2 medium zucchini
- 2 medium summer squash
- 2 pints cherry tomatoes
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. coarse pepper
- 8 large fresh basil leaves, plus some small leaves for garnish
- 3/4 cup half and half cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F. Put water for pasta on to boil.
- Cut the sausages lengthwise in quarters and then chop into 1/4 inch pieces. Do the same with the zucchini and the summer squash. Put it all onto a large rimmed baking sheet.
- Put a few cherry tomatoes on your cutting board. Use the side of a large knife to gently squash them just so that they pop open a bit. They may squirt. Scrape popped tomatoes and their juices onto the pan. Do this with 1/2 of the tomatoes. Put the rest in whole. Drizzle with the olive oil and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Stir to coat.
- Bake until everything is hot, veggies are soft, and a few tomatoes are starting to brown, about 25 minutes.
- Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package instructions. Roughly chop the 8 large basil leaves. Put them in a small microwave-safe bowl. Add the cream. Microwave 30 seconds at a time until very hot, about 1 minute total. Add a pinch of salt. Stir.
- When the sausages and veggies are done, strain the cream overtop. Stir. Toss with the drained pasta. Serve garnished with extra basil leaves.