Pesto Pasta with Country Sausage

Pesto is one of those ingredients that can be really healthful and flavorful - and - if you do not use it in moderation, it might end up overpowering your entire meal, so if you have not tried it yet, do keep an eye on the amount you use.
For those of you who might not know, pesto in general and especially in this particular case is made of 5 ingredients: basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil and salt.
There might be slight variations in the recipe, but that's what it mainly is made of.

That being said, let's get to the recipe part where I will tell you about one of the easiest meals possible.
Tastiest too.
It's basically comprised of cook the pasta, cook the sausage, combine, add pesto, plate and serve.
We had salad to go along, just because we like salads so much, but the dinner is very hearty and filling even without the salad.

Ingredients (for 2 people):

5 to 6 inches of sausage, preferable country sausage that you need to slice

1 TBSP oil (canola or sun flower oil - olive oil will burn and so will butter)

1 cup Rotelle ( which means mini wheels) pasta per person or some other fun shaped pasta you like



1 dash of salt for the pasta water
6 cups water to boil the pasta
2 teaspoons Italian pesto (purchased or homemade if you have all the ingredients)

Directions:

Begin by bringing the 6 cups of water to a boil in a pot.

While the water comes to a boil, slice the sausage and fry it lightly in the 1 TBSP oil in a skillet, then set aside.

Salt the water lightly and boil the pasta until al dente or until it reaches or desired softness level.
Drain.
Return back to the pot and add the sausage slices and the pesto.
Stir and plate.
Serve as is or accompanied by a serving of salad of your choice.

This might not look extremely appealing, but once you have your first bite, you will see that this is not like the regular pasta with tomato sauce - not by far.
We wanted to have spinach


in our salads, so we used that, lettuce,


shredded mozzarella and the dressing : Sun Dried Tomato for hubby


and Ranch Dressing for me.