Good morning and welcome back everyone.

In what is now becoming standard operating procedure, I’m banging this shit out at work on a Friday just before post time on Sunday.

The horses are on the track!

There are no more easy days at the old job site any more and I think that trend is here to stay.

Fuck me.

Well we’ve got every NFL team in training camp and that’s something. Once again this is the time of year when you don’t want ANY news coming out of your team’s camp because that shit is never good news this time of year. 

Another season approaches and I’ve got zero expectations. We finally dumped our idiot quarterback so the team finally realized going 9-8 every year wasn’t a true winning formula. 

To be determined.

Anyway.

Can’t really explain why the sudden craving for anything and everything Italian food related came over me. It just did and I’m here to heed its siren call.

Trust me, it has NOT been a hardship

This one could be the final Italian inspired meal for the season but I’m not betting against that.

I know where some of my sources of inspiration come from but not all of them. There could be something hiding in my id just waiting to bust out and start singing Puccini, who fucking knows.

If you good folks hearken back to about a year ago, I also made a ragu. That was densely saturated with porcini mushrooms and it was indeed, fucking delicious.

This meal right here is pretty fucking far from vegetarian however.

This baby has ALL of the motherfucking sausage in it. Scads of it. Wads of sausage. A goddamn plethora of Italian sausage. This is one packed plate of porcine perfection coming your way and I do indeed think you’re going to love this shit right here.

We begin.

Sausage ragu with homemade pasta!

recipe inspired by recipetineats.com

2 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, finely minced

1 carrot, peeled and minced

2 celery stalks, chopped fine

1 tsp fennel seeds – I chose to pulse these a couple of times in my spice grinder

16 oz bulk Italian pork sausage

2-3 additional sausages, meat removed from casings

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 cup pinot noir red wine

1 cup chicken stock/broth

14 oz can crushed tomato

3 thyme sprigs (or 1/2 tsp dried)

2 bay leaves

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp chili flakes (red pepper flakes)

Let’s get to work on the ragu because it’s even better after refrigerating overnight. I mean a whole different flavor profile the next day so use all of your patience dammit.

You sure as shit could break out your knife handling and your “Yan Can Cook” skills here but fuck that. I’m putting my mire poix in a food processor. Give this a spin. I ain’t finely mincing that shit using just a knife.

We’ve got kitchen toys for a goddamn reason!

See? Now wasn’t that much easier?

Now it’s time to get meaty up in here. This is sausage ragu after all.

I used two of the cased sausages, the entire pound of the bulk sausage and froze the rest knowing that them sausages will be used in a delicious way down the road a piece.

We start the prep by cooking the mire poix in olive oil along with the fennel seed.

Yes, this smells insane with the fennel added. Cook for about 5-6 minutes then add in the garlic just until fragrant.

This recipe also features a healthy 1 cup pour of pinot noir.

I like this one a lot, and it’s excellent value for the price paid.

I was NOT going to use my top shelf bougie Saturday night red for a food dish

Of course you’ll be drinking the rest.

Back to the recipe. Next we add the tomato paste to the saute scene.

Next in goes the sausage.

Next we will add the wine, stock and tomatoes along with the herbage.

After a couple of hours cooking on a low simmer you can bag it, toe-tag it and cold slab it overnight.

Y’all know what’s coming next right?

I took the night off after this because I knew I was going to be busy with the finish of this bastard.

Next day?

Bet your ass.

Break out the rest of the kitchen toys!

Set it up for execution!

Grab a bowl and your semolina.

[sighs]

Here are the ingredients. Again.

1 1/2 cups Semolina flour

2 Eggs beaten

2 Tbsp Water

2 Tbsp Olive Oil

Mix your wet ingredients and your dry ingredients.

Now we get to knead this dense motherfucker for 10 whole minutes by hand, which in turn yields this…

Let rest for 30 minutes and get ready to roll.

You are going to roll through the “1” setting on the pasta roller attachment, then the “2” setting. If you want your pasta thin go ahead and roll on “3” to get this.

One more time.

Roll out all of the pasta sheets.

Cut that shit up and hang it out to dry.

Dry it out for about 20-30 minutes or so. That’s more than enough time to produce these.

Yep. I still love the shit out of that shot.

Our side dish this evening? Spinach salad of course! Strawberries are fucking delicious right now.

The reason I cooked the ragu a day ahead is because it is even better after resting overnight plus I knew my ass was going to be doing some labor working with the pasta.

Hell, now we just got to reheat the sauce.

Cook the pasta. No shit folks, 90 seconds to two minutes tops is all you need.

What we are NOT going to do is dump the plain pasta on a plate and dump a big ladle of sauce on top.

Fuck that.

Toss the pasta with the sauce while warming. Fully coat those noodles, your ass worked hard on them.

Plate that shit up already!

Is that all you’re going to have is the ragu and the pasta? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

There you go. Now that IS my favorite bougie California pinot noir saved for just this occasion plus the salad and the last of my loaf of bread once again turned into garlic toast.

Zoom in on that pasta why don’tcha?

Holy shit. Now I’m fucking hungry again.

Profile-wise there are a lot of similarities to my Mother Sauce going on. That would be the onion, garlic red wine and sausage at work but this one is a bit denser in texture. Not quite as “saucy” as the mother sauce.

It’s fantastic!

Every time I make the pasta I say the same fucking thing.

There is no comparison to store bought pasta.

None. Zero. Nada. You will NEVER get the same chew out of store bought dried pasta. It’s impossible.

And this is so worth the extra effort.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and get some rest, because the work shit starts all over again tomorrow.

See you next week.

PEACE!