Sausage, Sundried Tomato and Spinach Pasta Stack-Ups

Hi Everyone!  Just got back from a visit to Madison where I finally got a chance to celebrate Valentine’s Day.  We opted to stay in and cook rather than eating out because we wanted to have some fun leisurely cooking, eating and drinking wine.  For the candlelit dinner we enjoyed a cheese course (cave aged cardona, brie and Ader Kase blue cheese) served with a warmed crusty baguette, followed by sausage, sundried tomato and spinach pasta stack ups and roasted asparagus for the entrée and finished with apple cinnamon clafouti.  To go with dinner we had some Warres Otima 20 year-old tawny port and Wollershiem’s white port.  While the other one is in love with the Warres port, I was super excited for the Wollershiem port because only a limited quantity is made each year.  This year since I have been in Madison, I hadn’t been able to track any down.  Now the hard part will be to actually bring myself to drink it, rather than stash it away for safe keeping.

While this dinner sounds incredibly time consuming, it the opposite!  I will definitely be posting the different parts of our dinner, for today I wanted to share with you the pasta stack ups.  I can not emphasize how simple, quick AND delicious these were.  The sweet tanginess from the sundried tomatoes complements the spices in the sausage and garlic.  The next time you want to try out a new recipe this is one you should reach for.  The only tricky part may be locating the sun dried tomatoes that are not packed in oil.  As luck would have it, we stumbled upon some at a gourmet food store.  However, I found out today that you can get at least three different varieties at Whole Foods.

Sausage, Sun dried Tomato and Spinach Pasta Stack-Ups

Ingredients

6 lasagna noodles
1 cup sun dried tomatoes, not packed in oil, roughly chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup pasta water
1 lb ground Italian sausage
5 oz (half a bag) baby spinach, triply washed
shaved Parmesan cheese, optional

Makes 4 servings

1. Cook the lasagna noodles and set aside.  Reserved one cup of the pasta water for later.  Normally the pasta should not be cooked before the sauce but this is a little different.
2. Mix the tomato, garlic and water together and set aside.  Personally, I think the longer the tomatoes and the garlic sit the better the flavor gets…however the leftovers were eaten the next day for lunch.  Who knows the sauce could have gotten even better.
3. Sautee the sausage and break it apart in little chunks.  Once the sausage is completely cooked and browned, incorporated the tomato mixture.
4. Gently add in the spinach and cook down until the leaves are wilted.
5. Cut the lasagna noodles in thirds and you are ready to assemble the stack ups.
6. Alternate between layers of noodles and the sausage mixture and finish with a little bit of Parmeasan cheese.

If the stacks get a little wobbly that is fine.  The following day we didn’t even make stacks.  Instead we just laid out the lasagna noodles and poured the remaining sauce on top. Another idea is that the sauce would make a great filling and you could stuff or roll up the lasagna noodles with it and top with cheese before baking.  Either preparation, the pasta is tasty and certainly makes a memorable meal.  Whether you need something quick or something special give this recipe a try!