Orecchiette con Broccoli di Rape and Sausages, recipe from Lidia Bastianich

The other day I happened to see this recipe demonstrated on the PBS series Julia Child: Lessons with Master Chefs. The chef put this together with little effort and it just looked good and tasty. Coincidentally, I had never tried/cooked broccoli rabe or orecchiette so this recipe seemed like a good one to try as it has a simple, non-tomato based sauce plus it features Italian sausage as the main protein.

I guessed correctly that Whole Paycheck would have both the veggie (about $10 per pound) and pasta but decided that every store would have the pasta. Well it turns out that I finally found a box of orecchiette reasonably priced at WalMart ($1.96 for 10 oz.) after three other nonproductive stops.

I cut the recipe in half for this experiment and used half sweet/half spicy sausage. I also added a squeeze of fresh lemon juice before it was served. It turned out to be a definite keeper - very tasty!

Check out this delightfully written recipe: http://www.pbs.org/juliachild/free/pasta.html