Pasta for the campground hosts

I’m in the midst of planning my next camping trip to the Hiawatha National Forest. I don’t know if we’ll ever develop a time machine, but if scientists are actually looking for a breakthrough, they have to look at how time speeds up, when you’re on vacation. I swear, when I’m camping, a week goes by in the span of a few minutes!

I’ve become friends with the campground hosts at the National Forest campground I heading to.  They are a couple, about my age, who campground host full time, sort of a working retirement. I usually have them over to my campsite for dinner, at least once while I’m there. Last year, I made this pasta sauce for them, and they really seemed to like it. Here’s what I did.

1 lb. hot Italian sausage

Olive oil

5 cloves of garlic, smashed and minced

1 shallot, sliced razor thin

1 tsp. basil

1/2 tsp. oregano

1 tsp. marjoram

Cajun seasoning

1 can of tomato paste

1 cup of red wine

1 28 oz. can of San Marzano tomatoes

1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese

1 lb. corkscrew pasta, cooked and drained

Preparation

Heat a medium sized dutch oven and add enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Add the sausage and break it up. Let that cook until it starts to loose it’s pink color. Add the garlic and the shallots and continue to cook until the sausage starts to brown. Stir in the basil, oregano, marjoram and sprinkle on a little cajun seasoning.

Add the tomato paste and the wine. Stir until the paste is worked evenly into the sausage. Add the canned tomatoes and break them up with a knife and fork. Let the sauce simmer gently, for about ten minutes, stirring often. Turn off the heat and stir in the grated parmesan.

Serving

Serve big piles of the pasta and bury them in this sauce. Add a fresh heirloom tomato salad (tomato wedges with olive oil, salt, pepper and basil) and set out a bowl of Italian olives.

I opened a bottle of Zinfandel, while the hosts brought over another bottle of red wine and some crystal wine glasses, for us to use during dinner. The pasta must have been ok, because they went back for seconds. (I did too, but we’ve come to expect that by now.)