Sausage, Peppers and Onions

I have a confession to make: I may be developing a girl crush on Giada De Laurentiis. This is despite all the times I’ve expressed slight fear of her huge, toothy grin and the times I’ve mused over how large her head seems to be on her tiny body.  Those elements aside (it also helps that I read about how her big grin is partially a byproduct of her stage fright), she is a darn good cook and every recipe of hers that I’ve tried has been fantastic.  Also, I’m really enjoying episodes of Giada At Home, especially the ones involving chocolate.  Anyway, yesterday Ryan and I tried out this sausage, peppers, and onions recipe for dinner and it blew our minds.  

You’ll need:

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 pound sweet Italian turkey sausage **See below for notes on sausage
• 2 red bell peppers, sliced ** I used one red, one yellow for variety and colorfulness
• 2 yellow onions, sliced ** Only used half of one large yellow onion and it was plenty
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 cup Marsala wine
• 1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, optional

Below is my own rendition of the instructions!

A note on sausages: I imagine you can use most kinds of sausages in this recipe, though I would advise trying turkey or chicken because I think the lighter taste helps really balance out all the other flavors in the dish. You can use raw or precooked – I used the aidells brand of precooked chicken sausages, sun-dried tomato flavor.  Ryan was raving about the aidells sausages, and I have to agree that they are very tasty.  If you use precooked sausages, I also recommend browning them in the pan for the first step anyway so you can use a bit of the grease that runs out of them to sautee the peppers and onions in.

First, heat some oil in a big skillet and cook the sausages over medium heat until browned. Drain out most of the grease, but leave in a bit for the veggies!

Throw in the chopped peppers and onions! I like to pump up the heat to medium-high initially to get a good saute going.  Salt and pepper them to taste, though don’t overdo it because there are many other savory and sweet flavors coming in later.

One the onions are looking translucent and a bit browned, throw in the chopped garlic, dried oregano, and basil. Revel in the sudden complexity of the smell! At this point I turned the heat back down to medium.

After a couple minutes, add the tomato paste and diced tomatoes (after draining them) and the marsala. Stir well, then simmer.

It might look something like this at this point:

Cut the sausages up – Giada recommends 1-inch cubes but I like to go smaller because my jaw is gimpy and I think it works better to have smaller bits when you put it in sandwich form. Throw the sausage into the pan, stir it around a bit, and let it simmer until the sauce is thickened (it says 20 minutes on the recipe but mine took about half that long).  As long as the marsala is cooked off and the sauce looks decently thick you’re good.

Now you have a couple choices when serving this dish  – we took a fresh white baguette and hollowed out the innards a little and just scooped the mixture into them to make subs. It was amazing.  You can also serve bread on the side or eat it straight – I would however definitely go with bread in some form because the taste is pretty intense.