Orecchiette with Sausage and Cherry Tomatoes

Growing up my mom raised tomatoes. Every other vegetable she tried growing failed miserably, but her tomatoes were always beautiful. I absolutely loved the taste of the fresh cherry tomatoes right off the vine. When I moved out and started buying tomatoes from the grocery store I quickly discovered that not all tomatoes are created equal. The grocery store tomatoes were often mealy or lacking flavor. When I met my husband he would take any fresh tomato off of whatever sandwich or burger he was eating. He is not a fan of fresh tomatoes. Since he wasn't a fan I pretty much stopped using fresh tomatoes until I had kids. My kids love tomatoes! When I buy cherry or grape tomatoes for a recipe I literally have to hide them or my two boys will eat the whole container before I can make dinner. Luckily my husband has come around to eating fresh tomatoes when they are in season and we eat them regularly. Given my kids love of cherry tomatoes I was pleased when the November issue of Food and Wine magazine had a recipe for Orecchiette with Sausage and Cherry Tomatoes.

This recipe has 7 ingredients. It takes 30 minutes of total time, all of which is active and makes 4 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store and made no ingredient modifications. I allowed my tomatoes to cook until they were completely broken down since my husband isn't a fan of raw tomatoes. Additionally, I did not add the last tablespoon of olive oil when tossing the pasta. I found it unnecessary and the pasta already had sufficient olive oil in the tomato mixture. Honestly, I was in a hurry when making this dish and while I normally measure out exactly 2 ounces of cheese with my food scale when I made this recipe I just made an educated guess. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

I love easy recipes in the summer when my time seems to be limited and this recipe is beyond easy. The prep is minimal and my oldest son was able to help me put everything together. Both my husband and I felt that there needed to be more sausage for the amount of pasta. I suggest using a full pound of sausage and you could honestly even increase the amount of tomatoes. It seemed that there was far more pasta than tomatoes or sausage. The actual taste of the recipe though was delicious and the leftovers re-heated very well for lunch the next day. The recipe states it makes 4 servings, but with a pound of pasta I would say that is closer to 8 servings (at least for my family). Overall a very easy pasta recipe with great flavor from the cherry tomatoes.

For the recipe go to Oreccheitte with Sausage and Cherry Tomatoes.