Food Glorious Food

I have been eating out a lot. I am not complaining, except shockingly to me I am. I was feeling gross Saturday. Brunch had been a burger, with cheese and fries. While definitely tasty and I have been on a total burger bender and the thrill was gone. I lie. I might eat a burger tomorrow but not with fries. I blame years and year of veggie burgers on this late in life discovery and love affair with burgers. Anyway, lately I have been meeting people, getting drinks with people, and just generally eating a lot more meals not at home. I wanted to cook. Make whole foods, clean, control what went in it, and know what I was eating.  Sunday my friend Meggie came over and I was thrilled to catch up with her and have her cooking confidence with me. She is an amazing cook and lucky for me she was game to grocery shop and cook with me.

I love Joy the Baker, and have been reading her blog forever but had yet to make anything. This one recipe for lemon pasta kept nudging me. The change in temps have me leaning heavier, richer and starch. The more the better. So I quit ignoring it, and decided I was making this dish but with some modifications. It needed protein, and I could make the olive oil and portion what worked for me. We changed the recipe adding in chicken sausage we crumbled in. You have to just wing it, and when that's lemon, parsley and parmesan, you can measure and put in whatever works for your tastes and calorie counts. I put down what I used, and it was delicious.

The recipe : http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2011/08/easy-sunday-lemon-pasta/

I used:

1 cup vegetable broth, I added this in because I made it earlier and then reheated later.
Juice of 3 lemons, this is to your lemon taste. I am currently in a lemon juice love affair.
large handful chopped parsley. I am seeing parsley on the side so I added a lot.
1 teaspoon olive oil, because I purposefully did not want it to be oily. I like my fat more hidden.
I was liberal with the cheese. I used low fat so I was cheese slutty.
1 cup peas
1/2 box penne makes 4 large servings.
2 chicken sausages. I went with garlicky ones. It was a nice touch with the lemon.