Turkey Italian Sausage Pasta

This is what I call a weekend meal. It's not super difficult, but time consuming. It requires too much work to put together at the end of a work day for me, but for some people it might work. Again it's a recipe I found online and then tweaked to my taste. I found some great turkey italian sausage at the store one day and started googling for ideas on how to cook it and came up with a combo of ideas. Turkey sausage is obviously healthier than normal italian sausage and I find it has just as much flavor. My only issue is that my grocery store only sporadically carries it, so I sometimes substitute chicken italian sausage, and have made it with good old-fashioned regular italian sausage too. I don't use red peppers hardly ever in my cooking because they cause heart-burn issues in my family, but feel free to use that instead of, or along with, the other peppers. 

Turkey Italian Sausage with Peppers and Whole-Wheat Penne

• 1 package Turkey Italian Sausage
• 2 tablespoons Olive Oil
• 1 orange bell pepper, sliced into strips
• 1 yellow bell pepper, sliced into strips
• 1 green bell pepper, sliced into strips
• 1 yellow onion chopped
• 3 garlic gloves minced
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 4 fresh basil leaves
• 1 teaspoon italian seasoning
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 cup of your favorite pasta sauce - I like the Classico Spicy Tomato and Basil Sauce (I save the rest of the jar to help stretch the leftovers)
• A splash of red wine if you have some open
• Salt and pepper
• 1 package of whole-wheat penne (use whatever pasta you like, but this one is my fav)

1. Heat one tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, cook until soft. Add peppers, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper, Italian seasoning. Continue cooking on medium until peppers start to soften. Drop the heat to low when they get soft while you finish the other steps.
2. Heat the other tablespoon of oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Prick sausage links with a fork so the fat can get out, then put in the pan to get cooking. To me - this is the hardest part of the recipe: getting the sausage cooked all the way, keeping the oil from burning me, and tending to the peppers on the other burner to keep them good. I like to start out with the sausages whole, leaving them on each side until they have a good brown color. Then I cut them in half in the pan, with the spatula - or pull them out for a second and cut in half with a knife. This is my trick to see if they are done in the middle, and if they aren't this helps it cook faster when you put it back in the pan. This takes about 15 to 20 minutes depending on your stove. I like them with a nice crispy brown color.
3. When the sausage is cooked, add the vinegar in that pan to deglaze. Then add the can of tomatoes, the sauce, and the splash of wine if you have it. Bring to a simmer. 
4. Now combine your sausage pan with your veggies pan in whichever pan can hold it all. 
5. Add Basil. 
6. Bring to boil, then knock down to a simmer. 
7. Cover and cook 20 minutes
8. While the sauce is simmering, cook your pasta.
9. To serve - top pasta with the sausage mixture.

*Notes- normally with tomato pastas I love topping with fresh Parmesan or Pecorino - but this has so much flavor I leave it out. It's great with a good crusty bread. 

*This makes 6ish servings. In other words it makes plenty for the hubby and I for dinner, and depending on how hungry we are that night- or if we have a salad, we either have 3 or 4 servings for leftovers.

*On the Bryce dish scale this one is a 5 (reminder the scale is 1-5, 5 being worst). Another reason we don't make it a weekend night meal. I use the normal cutting board and knife, sometimes bowls to throw in the veggies as I chop, two skillets and the pasta pan. It's a whole lotta dishes, but so worth it!