Orecchiette with Sausage, Broccoli & Caramelized Garlic

After a week of lots of tex-mex, Mike was begging for pasta. I'm kind of tired of the marinara/spaghetti sauce routine so I chose this sauceless pasta (and new recipe for us) from Serious Eats. I made some recipe changes...

1. I increased the ingredients to accommodate a full pound of pasta (which is the full box in most cases; I didn't see the need to leave 4 ounces of pasta in the box).


2. I also think I was short on the amount of broccoli once I cut the majority of the stems off... I'm still learning to like broccoli and just avoid the stems altogether. Bonus point - broccoli was in season (aka better quality/taste) in Texas in March! (We made this just in the nick of time during the first days of April.) Instead of preparing the broccoli as written, I tossed the florets with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted it in a 325 degree oven for about 14 minutes.


3. I also substituted spicy Italian turkey sausage


4. And omitted the thyme.

The only other "change" was that I actually cleaned out the fat rendered from the turkey sausage before proceeding with the rest of the cooking process. It just looked to fatty and not appetizing. If you encounter this, just pour out the fat you don't want in the pan and start with fresh olive oil.
Pretty good! Its a nice method of cooking things too... probably would be easy to use whatever ground meat you have on hand (or go meatless and add some crushed red pepper for spice) and a nice spring vegetable like broccoli, broccolini, asparagus... you get the idea.