GMA Recipe: Annie's Favorite Pasta

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Annie's Favorite Pasta
Cartwheel Pasta with Breakfast Sausage and Creamy Tomato Sauce
From GMA's Food Editor and author, Sara Moulton
Thursday, October 20, 2005

Sara Moulton knows saving time in the kitchen is important to modern famlies. She showed this quick pasta dish that's her sister's favorite, on Good Morning America.

Annie's Favorite Pasta

Sara says: "When I told my sister Annie that I'd begun working on a new cookbook, she insisted that this time I had to include her all-time favorite pasta dish. Adapted from one of our most-loved Italian cookbooks, it is flavored with regular old breakfast sausages, tomatoes, and cream. In typical non-Italian fashion, I significantly increased the amount of sauce in the recipe, which will probably horrify all the Italian home cooks out there. But I see pasta as a vehicle for sauce, not the other way around."

Hands-on time: 10 minutes
Total preparation time: 35 minutes

Ingredients

Kosher salt

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

8 ounces frozen breakfast sausage, sliced 1/4 inch thick (Note: do not defrost sausages before cutting them)

1 garlic clove, minced (about 1 teaspoon)

1 teaspoon rinsed, dried, and chopped fresh sage or 1/4 teaspoon rubbed

1 teaspoon rinsed and dried fresh thyme or 1/3 teaspoon dried

Two 14 1/2 ounce cans chopped tomatoes

1 pound rotelle (cartwheel) or other shaped pasta

2/3 cup heavy cream

Freshly milled black pepper

1 1/2 ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, finely grated (about 1/2 cup)

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat until hot; reduce the heat to medium, add the sausage, and saute, stirring occasionally, until it is just cooked through, about 5 minutes. (Don't discard the fat released by the sausage.) Add the garlic, sage, and thyme; cook 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, reduce the heat to low, and simmer the sauce for 20 minutes.

2. During the last 10 minutes, add the pasta to the boiling water and cook until al dente, 10 to 12 minutes. Add the cream to the sauce and simmer just until the sauce has thickened slightly. Add salt and pepper to taste. Drain the pasta, reserving 2/3 cup of the cooking liquid. Stir the pasta cooking liquid into the sauce and toss with the drained pasta. Top each portion with some of the Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Makes 4 servings.

Recipe copyright © 2005, Sara Moulton from her cookbook, Sara's Secrets for Weeknight Meals.