Timberlake Tales: Leftovers Dinner: Sausage & Baby Tomato Penne

I decided to link up with Daniel and Lyndsie over at A Love Worth Waiting For, with their "Monday's Meals"

Yes I know that it's Tuesday when I posted but that's just because it's Tuesday where I live by the time they posted Monday's meals!

So here is my "Leftovers Dinner"

So what do you do when your refrigerator is full of food items that need to be used up before they expire in the next few days?

Get creative in the kitchen that’s what!

Over the weekend we had a massive garden overhaul, and we thought we would be nice and feed our lovely parents since they had given up their Saturday to come and help us.

Well Monday night rolled around and we had a heap of food left over that needed to be used up, so I decided to come up with my own little pasta dish, and I have to say it turned out really good!

So here is the list of leftovers that I started with:
Baby tomatoes

Gluten free sausages

Red onion

To that I added:

Ridiculous amounts of garlic

Tinned tomatoes

Tomato paste (with garlic, onion and herbs)

I started by halving the baby tomatoes and sprinkling (read dousing) them with garlic. I then slowly roasted them in the oven until they were bubbling and juicy.

While they were baking away, I took the outer skin, thing off the sausages and then broke them into little bite size pieces.

I added them to sliced red onion and even more garlic in my big fry pan and cooked it all up good until the sausage bits had browned slightly.

Note: I found that if I stirred to vigorously the sausage got a little mushy so I did a lot of pan shaking to stir them all around. Once they go brown it’s easier to stir!

Then add to the sausage mix a tin of chopped tomatoes and a good dollop of tomato paste.

Let this all bubble away on the stove top for as long as you like. I left it there for about a half hour or maybe even more. But you can make it as quickly as you want to really!

Cook up your favourite pasta (we used penne, but I think anything a bit chunky would work – probably not spaghetti or fettuccini, but spirals would be great!), and when it’s how you like it, drain and add to your sausage sauce. Give it a good stir and then don’t forget to add the gorgeous roasted baby tomatoes!

We had our pasta with salad, which I think it totally needed – the sauce was sooo rich! Unfortunately we ate the last of our garlic bread over the weekend, but that would have just rocked our dinner even more!