Only One Pan and One Bowl (Hot Sausage in Cream Sauce)

I got into a discussion at work yesterday with a colleague who works from home (in New Jersey) several days a week. It seems that he is totally not into cooking and so every day, he leaves his house to get lunch. Now, if you’re in NY, this is fine, you walk downstairs and within one block have a bunch of options (though, of course, people like me are particular enough that we have to walk blocks away to get the specific thing at the specific place, etc.). Lunch can be great and quick. But he needs to drive 10 miles to get anywhere – and even then there aren’t that many options. And yet he’s totally unwilling to consider cooking. It is absolutely not interesting to him. And don’t even get him started on doing dishes.

For me that’s practically inconceivable (and that does mean what I think it means). There are times I don’t feel like cooking or don’t feel like going out, but in fact, both are pretty much always an option (oh, the horror of an empty fridge).

One of the perks for me of working from home is that I can do a little bit of cooking – which actually takes less time out of my work day than his 20 mile (round trip) trek for mediocre food. In 10 minutes, I can throw things into a pan and let them simmer away. After 20-30 minutes I've got a great lunch (with minimal clean-up, don't get me started on doing dishes either).

I’m on a big kick right now of doing one pan sausage meals. Today’s was

Hot Sausage in Cream Sauce
Serves 1

1 onion
2-3 cloves of garlic
2 Hot Italian sausages
¾ cup heavy cream
¾ cup baby peas (this is to taste (or whatever you have in the freezer))

Salt
Pepper
Hot pepper flakes (cream doesn’t cut the heat quite as much as I would have thought - so you might want to be a little less aggressive than I was, but I do like a nice bit of heat)

1. Sauté onions and garlic. Add salt, pepper and hot pepper as desired.
2. Brown the sliced sausages.
3. When everything is cooked, add the cream and let simmer down for a while.
4. Add peas a few minutes before it is done
5. Serve (I served mine with quinoa, though pasta would probably be ‘normal’ – I wasn’t sure how it would be, but I really liked it, the quinoa actually soaked up some of the cream, really good!)
6. Enjoy!

I was very much looking forward to this dish as I bought the cream last night. And it was even better than I had imagined (and I've got a good imagination).