dinner from the cupboard: polenta with sausage and spinach

My bank account is a little tight right now and so I'm trying to clean out my cupboards when I don't have meals planned instead grabbing dinner out. Tonight I was really down to almost nothing- no fresh veggies, almost no protein, lots of carbs. I'm defrosting some meatballs I made a while ago so didn't want pasta since I'm having spaghetti 'n meatballs tomorrow. So I whipped this together.

Sausage and spinach over polenta

Made with just these ingredients.

I took two sausages and cut them in half, just slightly still connected, and sauteed them in a pan.


Problem is my spinach was super freezer burned. I boiled it and then put in the pan the sausages had been cooked in to soak up their flavor. I tossed in some red pepper flakes too.


Sausages and spinach keeping warm while I cook the polenta.

I sliced it into rounds.


Pan fried, it had an amazing texture to play with in the pan. It took a while to warm through and I should have done this step first so it could crisp more.


The end result.
The spinach was actually really bad. I wish I had some fresh vegetables and will be keeping frozen veggies for stews and casseroles only. But the polenta and the sausage were great and super simple. It definitely felt better to have a dinner where I tried something new then just the same pasta and butter.

pasta with asparagus and sausage

Also found on my incredible vegetable buying extravaganza was a thick bunch of thin little asparagus. I came home from dance class last night craving comfort food but wanting to stay on the healthy side too. I decided to whip up an easy pasta dish. I've made something similar, from a recipe, so if this look familiar to you, please let me know what I first found the recipe. I've reconstructed below.

What I did:

Pasta with Asparagus and Sausage in a Lemon-Parmesan sauce
1 lb pasta
1 bundle of asparagus
4 sausages, cooked and chopped
1 lemon
3-4 tbs Parmesan cheese grated

Boil pasta. Add asparagus when you have ~3 minutes left to cook pasta and asparagus together. Drain, reserving 1 cup pasta water. Put pasta back in pot. Add cheese, squeeze lemon on top, add small amounts of pasta water until pasta is coated with lemony-cheesey goodness.

Simple? Yes. Delicious? Fairly.

I regret that I didn't start the sausages when I was boiling the water (instead I was doing yesterday's dishes.) So I just microwaved them, which really didn't do them justice. I loved it for dinner, the lemon made it so bright and fresh and that fact that there wasn't much sauce was refreshing. The next day for lunch, it was not so great. I should have added olive oil all over it, grated lemon peel on top and eaten it cold. I have some more leftovers and I hope that helps them. I could have added more cheese too but I was using up what I had.

Alternatives:
- Add spinach or other vegetables you love.
- Use chicken instead of sausage. Or try it meatless.