Penne with peppers, pesto & sausage

There are so many evenings when I find myself staring helplessly into the refrigerator at 5:00 pm, wondering if it's possible to concoct anything remotely healthy, tasty, and quick out of what's in there. Sometimes I give up, shut the door, and pray there's something in the freezer. Other times, inspiration hits and I come up with a way to transform some odds and ends...a leftover bell pepper that's starting to get wrinkly...some chicken basil sausage from the local butcher...into a meal that seems like it was well thought out and carefully planned.

That happened the other night with this dish. It's nothing fancy or super original, but it was tasty, full of veggies, and quick and easy to prepare. Best of all, it only required six ingredients.

Penne with Peppers, Pesto & Sausage

Ingredients:

extra-virgin olive oil

2 bell peppers (any combo of red, yellow and/or green works), seeded and thinly sliced

1/2 onion, thinly sliced

approx 1/2 lb of Italian-flavored sausage (I prefer chicken sausage since it's less greasy)

pesto (store bought or homemade)

penne pasta (or any other pasta of your liking)

Directions:

In a large skillet, saute the sliced onion and peppers in olive oil over medium-low heat for several minutes until tender. In the meantime, boil the water for the penne pasta. After the veggies are tender, remove the casing from the sausage and crumble the sausage into a pan; cook until no longer pink. When the pasta is done cooking, toss it with the pepper/sausage mixture. Add several healthy dollops of pesto and stir.