Pork Sausage in an Apple and Mustard Sauce over Pasta #ImprovCookingChallenge

This month's ingredients for Improv Cooking Challenge are Mustard and Sausages.  The possibilites are endless and I was very excited to partake in this challenge.  Oh, I'm sorry.....Let me explain....The Improv Challenge is a monthly event where we bloggers are given two ingredients and then sent on our way to create a wonderful dish containing said ingredients.  Then we all get together on the third Thursday of the month and share our recipes.

It's fun, it has you think outside the box a bit and it helps me in my meal planning.  This month it helped me to use up some leftovers.  We had company over the weekend and Frank made breakfast which included a pound each of bacon and pork sausage...there were only 5 of us....LOL.  I used the leftover bacon in these tasty little BLT Bites but I still had half a pound of pork sausages sitting in the refrigerator.

We had one of those days when nothing seemed to go right and we got all off schedule.  I was planning on beer butt chicken for dinner but got sidetracked and before I knew it we were hungry and wanted to eat now.  I went into the refrigerator thinking that I would just cut the chicken up and use the breasts for the meal, perhaps a chicken pasta.  That's when I spied the pork sausages that needed to be used up.  So what did I do?  I improvised which is what this challenge is all about.

I pulled out an onion and an apple because pork, apples and onions!!  Oh yeah....

I sauteed up the onions and apples, added a little thyme and sage to the mixture and seasoned it with salt and pepper.  While they were cooking I cut up the sausages and then added them to the mixture along with some vegetable broth and some champagne honey mustard.  I let this mixture simmer until the apples started to fall apart.  I mushed the apples to thicken the sauce and mixed in some cooked pasta.  It was absolutely, mouthwateringly delicous.  The apples gave the sauce a creamy consistency and their sweetness combined with the tanginess of the mustard was perfect with the spiciness of the pork sausage.  The pasta was a perfect foil for this sauce but it would have been equally good over mashed potatoes.

Had I used chicken sausage instead of pork sausage this dish would have been completely Phase 1 friendly under the Fast Metabolism Diet that I have been following.  I made this prior to starting up the second round of the eating plan so my leftover sausage was made from pork.  

Pork Sausage in Apple Mustard Sauce over Pasta

2 servings

6-8 leftover breakfast links (pork or chicken) or fresh links browned and cooked through

1 apple, peeled, cored and diced

1 small sweet onion, diced

1/4 t. thyme

1/4 t. rubbed sage

salt and pepper to taste

1 T. Champagne Honey Mustard or Mustard of your choice

2 c. vegetable broth plus a little for sauteing

8 oz Brown Rice pasta or pasta of your choice cooked per package directions

Heat a skillet over med high heat, add 2 tablespoons of broth to the skillet along with the onions and apple.  Saute until the onion is translucent.  Cut the sausage links into thirds and add to the apples and onions along with the thyme, sage, salt, pepper and 2 c. of vegetable broth.  Bring to a boil. Add the mustard and stir to incorporate. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer until the apples start to soften and fall apart, about 15-20 minutes.  Sauce will reduce and the apples will start thickening the sauce, press the apples with the back of a wooden spoon to help the incorporate into the sauce.  Add the pasta to the pan and toss to coat and warm through.  Print Recipe

Let's take a look at some more fantastic Sausage and Mustard Creations

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