Country Style Rigatoni

Since cooking has become a sort of obsession for me, I have been spending hours in the kitchen. After a long weekend of trying out several new dishes, and as Monday afternoon rolled around
I was feeling a bit burnt out, so I decided to take a night off and take my little assistant (my 6 year old daughter Nia) to Olive Garden for dinner. We had Chicken & Gnocchi soup and Chicken Scampi. We could not make it halfway through our meal, so we requested doggy bags and wah lah, I had an instant lunch for the next day.

Needless to say, we love love love Italian foods, so when I came across this recipe, I gazed at it for two or three days memorizing the ingredients and envisioning the taste. My mouth watered. So I headed to the grocery store and gathered my ingredients. Unfortunately, I went to Wal-Mart and their deli didn't have any prosciutto ham and I could not find cannellini beans (later found out that cannellini is just white kidney beans). Fortunately, this dish calls for such rich and naturally flavoring ingredients that I don't think these two ingredients were missed. As a matter of fact, I have never bothered to get those two missing ingredients any of the subsequent 7 or 8 times I have prepared this dish. Shhh...Don't tell Marie.

As soon as I heated the oil and added the garlic and basil, my kitchen lit up. My ladybug (Nia) ran to the kitchen and stood up on her stool so she could see over the pot. 'O.M.Geee mommy, that smells soooo good! I think this will be the best recipe you have ever made.' Well turns out, ladybug was right. Hot off the stove, we dug in and 'O.M.G' I said to her, 'this is so good!' We ate to our hearts content and smiled at this winner of a recipe. I took some to share with my bff at work the next day and she raved about it. 'Can you send me the recipe' she asked. She liked it so much, for her birthday about a month later, I made her a dish just for her and she said her family 'kilt' it.

Thank you Marie for this great recipe. Everything I have made from her site has been to die for. You can find the recipe below and here to see it all dolled up with the ham and beans.


Adapted from Carmine's Family Cookbook
Ingredients:
1/4 cup of Olive Oil (I start out with half of this amount & add more as needed, I found that 1/4 a cup was too much)
4 or 5 Cloves of Coarsely Chopped Garlic
1/2 of a Thinly Sliced White Onion
1/2 to 3/4 lb. of Italian Sausage, casings removed
8 large Basil Leaves, chopped
1/4 cup chopped Flat Leaf Parsley
One can of Cannellini Beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups of Chicken Stock
3 tbsp of Butter
1 cup of grated Romano Cheese (I used an Italian cheese blend, couldnt find Romano)
3 slices of Prosciutto rolled up and thinly sliced
12 ounces of Dried Rigatoni
10 Broccoli Spears, 3" long
Salt and Pepper to taste

Preparation
1. Heat olive oil in a large saute pan, add the onions and garlic.
2. Add sausage, basil and parsley, cook till sausage is nice and brown. Raise heat, add stock and butter, bring to a boil, then simmer for about 5 minutes till sauce thickens a little.
3. Stir in half of the grated cheese and cook for about 3 more minutes till sauce thickens. Add beans, sliced prosciutto, season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat.
4. Meanwhile, cook your pasta in salted boiling water for only 4 minutes. Add broccoli and cook another 3-4 more minutes. Pasta will be nicely al dente. ( I had to boil mine longer, it was still rock hard after 8-10 minutes, may be the brand) don't worry, it will cook more in the sauce so don't worry!
5. Drain pasta and broccoli, add to sauce, now add more cheese!




The sauce in this recipe is what sets it off. The basil and garlic infused in the oil and the chicken stock is just awesome. Oh and to top it all off, it's another one pot/one skillet meal. Lovvvveee it! I have also made this dish with shrimp instead of sausage and talk about 'slap yo momma good!' Cheers!