Inventing a recipe...

I had a quick look at the recipes on the Barilla pasta site from yesterdays post. I think there was one there for Sausage and Fennell spaghetti. I thought, I can probably whip up a sausage pasta of some sort. We have had roasted cherry tomato and balsamic pasta before so I just combined that with the sausages and added the old chestnut - basil - and 'voila'!
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These cherry tomatoes are not the best, sweetest or ripest for the job but it was all I could get. Imagine home grown, ripe, red ones! I oven roasted them for about 40 minutes at 200C. I also added a couple of cloves of garlic, sliced and drizzled the tomatoes with a little olive oil.
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This basil was a joke also! Just have a look at the huge, over grown leaf, compared to the size of the spice jar! Ridiculous! Basil should have young, small, glossy and tender leaves. Here comes a rant! We have a herb farm about 15kms from our town. They grow all manner of hydroponic herbs and sell to Woolworths. Our Woolworths does not get HollaFresh herbs - ours come from Sydney or Melbourne! How crazy is that???
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Anyhoo - I bought some 'cracked pepper and garlic' beef sausages (gourmet?) and snipped them up and tossed them in the fry pan.
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I got my pasta on boiling at this stage because it will come together quickly. Fry off the sausages with 2 shallots added.
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Quick and easy meatballs. When they are cooked, drain any excess fat from the pan.
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The tomatoes shrivel up but retain their juices.
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This is my favourite balsamic vinegar - I use it on any cold meat like most people use tomato sauce. I love the stuff!

Okay - drain the pasta - add it to the sausages, add in the tomatoes and garlic, toss in the torn basil leaves.
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Drizzle with a little olive oil, add cracked pepper and salt to taste and 1-2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar.
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Serve it up and grate some good parmesan cheese over the top (you could put a little bit through the pasta too). All in all, a very nice dish. I will hunt around for some tastier sausages next time but it's in my recipe file as a keeper. Cheap too!
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Cheers - Joolz