Pasta at its best! As my beach trip quickly approaches, I’ve been letting the food run out in the house and only buying things that Loren will eat while I’m away (so my house is seriously lacking in my fruits and veggies). This dinner started with some salted boiling water for the noodles and then started building itself as I ventured through my cabinets and fridge.

Bring 3 T extra virgin olive oil, minced garlic (1 large clove) and chunks of red onion (about 1 cup) to medium heat in a large skillet. Keep this moving so you don’t burn the garlic (very important in making sauce…if the oil is too hot and the garlic turns brown, you’ve burnt it).  After you’ve cooked this for about 4 minutes (you’ll smell the onions and garlic) add the broccoli (I used a bag of fresh broccoli).  Let this cook for about 5 minutes (you may need to pour some more oil on top of the broccoli so they cook down a little) but while it’s cooking,  add 2 cups of halved grape tomatoes, 1 cup of raw sun dried tomatoes (not in water or oil…just dried in the sun) and 1 cup of tomato sauce.  Once the tomatoes have heated through, they will begin popping (or breaking)….you can speed up this process by squishing them with a fork into the skillet.  I then added some Morningstar Farm veggie Italian Sausage crumbles, some fresh rosemary from my garden and turned the heat down to low and covered (stirring occasionally).  Once the veggie sausage heats through, your sauce is done.  I poured the sauce over my cooked noodles, mixed and added some freshly grated parmigiano reggiano cheese.  Once plated I topped it off with some fresh basil leaves.

This is one of my newest favorite pasta dishes! It goes very well with some Cabernet.