Thursday, May 26, 2011

Easiest Cold Salad Ever!

 My husband and I always have dinner parties at our house, it is always a hard decision what to serve, specially since we have only one oven and we like to make sure we an appetizer/salad dish, an entree with some side dishes and a dessert.. So it is nice to be able to put together some simple dishes that you can prepare ahead of time and save in the fridge until dinner! This is one of my favorites:

Bowtie pasta with Italian Sausage and Spinach; ingredients:
(serves 6)

1 box of bowtie pasta
5 mild italian sausages (you can also mix hot italian sausages to add a little kick to the salad)
2 bundles of fresh spinach
1 medium white onion
2 garlic cloves
salt and pepper
parmesan cheese




 In a medium size skillet cook the chopped onion and garlic for a couple of minutes, then peel the sausages and add to the mix, cook for around 10 - 15 minutes or until you see the sausage turn brownish instead of red, make sure you cook the sausage all the way. Don't forget to break the sausage in big chunks, so you can have some meat on every bite!


In a separate deep skillet bring water to a boil and cook the spinach, just for a couple of minutes, until it becomes soft and with a bright green color. Remove from the water and put it in a bowl filled with iced water, this makes the spinach maintain it's vivid color until serving!



Chop the spinach into big pieces, you don't want it to be too stringy once people are eating it.

Cook the pasta and mix it with the sausage, you do not have to use the whole box of pasta, it depends of how meaty you want the salad to be, we like to use the whole box an make sure people can have seconds!

After you make sure the stir well the pasta with the sausage add the spinach, making sure you mix it well so you can get everything on each bite, add parmessan cheese to taste.
Cheers!