Italian Sausage And Vegetables With Gorgonzola Cream Sauce

Total Time: 1 hr 20 mins Preparation Time: 45 mins Cook Time: 35 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 6
• 1/2 cup butter
• 8 tablespoons flour
• 4 cups milk (skim is ok)
• 1 pint cream (light cream or half and half is ok)
• 8 ounces gorgonzola, crumbled
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• salt & fresh ground pepper
• 6 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2 medium sweet onions, coarsely chopped
• 3 medium bell peppers, julienned (green, red, and yellow or any combination you prefer)
• 1 1/2-2 lbs italian sausages, cooked and cut in 1 inch pieces on the bias.
• 1 lb asparagus, cooked al dente (optional)
• 1 lb portabella mushroom, sliced and pre-sauteed (optional)
• 1 1/2 lbs penne pasta, cooked per direction on package (mini-penne's are a good choice)
• extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon italian seasoning (or substitute basil and oregano)
• salt and pepper

Recipe

• 1 in a large sauce pan melt butter over medium heat.
• 2 add minced garlic to sauce pan cook for a few minutes but do not brown.
• 3 whisk in the flour to make reux- cook for 3 to 5 minutes whisking constantly- do not let it brown.
• 4 whisk in milk and heat until boiling- whisk often, add some fresh ground pepper.
• 5 once sauce is thickened remove from heat and set aside (well get back to the this later).
• 6 in a large frying pan over medium-high heat add 3 tbs olive oil add onions and slice the remaining garlic into pan sautee for 3 minutes until onion starts to soften.
• 7 add peppers, italian seasoning cook for 5 minutes until peppers begin to soften.
• 8 add cooked sausage and warm through.
• 9 just before vegetable and meat mixture is finished- heat sauce and stir in the cream, bring up to almost a boil and stir in parmesean and gorgonzola.
• 10 stir sauce until most of the gorgonzola is incorportated (lumps of cheese left in the sauce is a good thing!).
• 11 check cream sauce for salt add if necessary.
• 12 in pasta bowls place penne followed by pepper onion meat mixture, then spoon on the gorgonzola sauce, arrange mushrooms and asparagas on top.