Quick and Tasty Dinner

I thought I would share what I made for dinner on Thursday night but first here's a tip. If you shop at Hy-vee (or probably any grocery store chain) you can sign up to receive weekly ads by e-mail as well as their weekly newsletter.

I learned from Iowa Girl Eats that Hy-vee also posts weekly menus. In fact I believe they post at least 5 weekly menus: Regular, Budget-Friendly, Heart Healthy, Weight Control, and Diabetic Friendly. If I can't come up with anything to make then I'll look at these menus for ideas. They also have a ton of recipes on their website including a function where you can add the ingredients you need to your grocery list and print it. I noticed turkey sausage was on sale so I searched Hy-vee's online recipes for "sausage." I found this Rigatoni Sausage Toss recipe.

I made a few variations by using turkey Italian sausage instead of pork. I also only had fusilli pasta on hand. It was a quick and tasty dinner and made enough for three leftover servings. My only complaint (which is pretty common) was that the turkey sausage (or maybe the jarred sauce) tasted salty. However, I've found that most people like a lot more salt than I do. Besides the ease of the recipe I also enjoyed the combination of sauce with fresh vegetables.

Here's my version of the recipe:

Put the water on to boil and remove the turkey sausage from casings (if applicable). Crumble into skillet. Brown sausage.

Prepare the fusilli according to package directions. Use the boil time to rinse/spin your spinach, halve the grape tomatoes, and warm the jar of sauce. (I used Classico Sweet Basil and Tomato.)

Drain the pasta.

Place spinach in a large bowl. Top with tomatoes, hot cooked sausage, and hot pasta.

Stir in pasta sauce and sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese (the recipe calls for a lot more than I used).
Bon Appetit!