Weekend Cooking: Fusion Sausage and Noodles

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A while back, I signed up at site called Influenster, which is place for bloggers and social media users to rate products, offer advice, and even try products out at home.

This month I was lucky enough to get a coupon for a free Premio product, which just happens to be a sausage brand that we buy regularly anyway. So great deal for us!

In honor of being given a chance to use a Premio product, I decided to make up recipe. I didn't know what to name this delicious dish of many inspirations. I started out thinking of making a goulash, but suddenly I was using jalapenos and smoked paprika instead of bell peppers and sweet paprika. Oops! The good news is that the dinner turned out to be really, really good.

As I said, we are familiar with Premio sausages and have bought their hot Italian sausages many times. The sausages are great in dishes like this and on the grill. Even if I hadn't gotten the coupon for the free product, I'd still be recommending Premio.

Fusion Sausages and Noodles
Original recipe
Serves 6

• 12 ounces wide egg noodles
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pound hot Italian sausages (from Premio), sliced*
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
• 2 jalapeno peppers, chopped fine
• 2 carrots, sliced
• 2 celery ribs, sliced
• 1/4 pound mushrooms, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 (14-ounce) cans diced tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon caraway seeds
• 1 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1 small head of cabbage, sliced
• 2/3 cup sour cream

Bring a large pot of water to boiling and cook the egg noodles according to the package instructions, reserving the cooking liquid.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sausages and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. Add the onion, jalapenos, carrots, and celery, and cook, stirring occasionally until softened. Add the mushrooms and garlic, and cook, stirring, about 2 minutes, just to soften a bit. Add the tomatoes and their juice, paprika, salt, pepper, caraway, marjoram, and cabbage. Bring to boil, reduce the heat, and simmer until the cabbage is tender.

Add water from cooking the noodles if the sausage mixture looks too dry. When the cabbage is tender (which depends on the type of cabbage you use and how thick you sliced it), add the sour cream and mix well. Then stir in the noodles. Do not let the sauce come to a boil. Add more noodle-cooking water, if you think the sauce is too thick. Remove from the heat and serve.

*Note: when you slice the raw sausages, the meat may come out of the casing. That's okay, just keep the meat in chunks.