Creamy Sausage and Tomato Pasta

 Here's an amazingly quick pasta for a week night.  It's a creamy sausage and tomato recipe.  I had most of the ingredients in the house, although I did have to get the sausage (which Thomas made as I was putting everything else together).

Mix the sauce ingredients together, and simmer for the pasta cooking time, if you'd like a thicker sauce.

 Mix your sauce in with your pasta and toss in the cooked and sliced Italian sausage.

I added about one half cup of Parmesan shreds to the top of the pasta before serving.  It helps to thicken the sauce just a bit.

Thomas liked this recipe since it wasn't overtly tomato based, and it wasn't so saucy that you missed the flavors in the pasta.  Fair play.  I'll definitely make this one again!

Zuppa Toscana, just like the Olive Garden's!

 Making soup in the middle of a SoCal 75 degree winter isn't always the favorable option.  However, I was itching to try this recipe, and the temperature kept rising all week.  Finally, I had to cook the ingredients before worrying about freezing the meats and losing out on my momentum, so I finally broke down and made my Zuppa Toscana.

This is a copycat recipe from Olive Garden.  It was pretty simple to make, super filling, and pretty much spot on.  The only difference I made was using 1 qt. of broth and 2 c of water, and not vice versa.  I would have used all low sodium broth, but ran out!   Oh, also?  I threw the bacon back in at the end.  The recipe didn't call for you to do anything with it other than make grease, but I thought "why waste it?"

Sorry, not much to say about this one except for try it, because it's yummy.