Growing up one of the quick meals that my mom used to make when I was a kid was pasta with sauted peppers and onions. This is a dish you often see served at Greek restaurants particularly if the sausage used is Loukaniko. For those of you who are not familiar with Loukaniko it is a sausage made of ground pork, and flavored with orange rind. It is one of my favorite Greek treats but it is pretty difficult to find particularly if you don’t happen to be in a city that has a Greek neighborhood. I’ve found it easily in Boston or New York, but in Houston well, good luck. If I want it I have to order it from a internet specialty shop. Because Loukaniko wasn’t handy in Maine growing up my mom would substitute sweet Italian sausage. She’d top the dish with parmesan cheese.
I could also substitute Italian sausage Loukaniko in my recipe. However, Italian sausage even sweet gives my husband serious heartburn. So my non-Loukaniko version uses applewood smoked sausage with gouda cheese. I typically serve it mixed with Farfalle pasta. The basic recipe is as follows:
2 tbs Olive oil
1 Sweet onion sliced
1 Red, green or orange pepper sliced
6 cloves or sliced garlic
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp sweet basil
Sausage
4 oz Dried Farfalle
Boil Farfalle pasta until al dente. While pasta is cooking, saute garlic, onions, and peppers lightly for 3-4 minutes. Add oregano, sweet basil, sausage and saute for 5 minutes more. Drain pasta and toss with sausage mixture.
The sausage and pepper mixture doesn’t have to be served with pasta. It can also be put into a hard roll or on pita bread. In a sandwich I like to top it with some good imported feta cheese and then melt the cheese and crisp the roll under the broiler. The result is a tasty crunchy and gooey.