So all 13 of you who follow me here are aware that I don’t cook so much as have regular kitchen misadventures that result in a meal. BUCKLE UP, this is the misadventure-est of them all, where an attempt to be slightly sophisticated ends with going to the urgent care and getting treatment for a second degree burn.
It all started while looking for summer recipes that didn’t require an oven or a grill, because my boycott of my oven continues and I’m not even sure we’re allowed to have a grill. I found this recipe for Turkey Sausage & Broccoli Pasta on the Food Network website and read the reviews: lukewarm.
I decided to take the mixed reviews as a challenge because for a moment, my need to do things better than someone else topped my laziness. I guess some people would call that growth but after how it ended, I’m going to veto that.
So I’m making the dinner with my slightly changed ingredients (recipe below), minding my own business. I make the rigatoni. I drain the rigatoni with a measuring cup underneath the strainer to take that one suggestion above and add pasta water to the mix to make the sauce a little more substantial.
I kept cooking. I had just put the onions into the skillet, which is literally step two. I decided to go get the pasta water to keep it handy because I would definitely forget about it if I left it in the sink and out of my line of sight (hello, ADHD!). The pasta water is still really hot. I know this because I quickly touch the cup measure to check to see if I need an oven mitt, but instead of staying still, it sloshes and tips over (we have a grate on the bottom of our sink which probably didn’t help) and proceeds to spill all over my hand.
We don’t need to go through the indignities that followed, but at some point Rob drove me to a nearby Urgent Care with my hand in a bowl of ice water because every single time I took my hand out of cold water, I was in horrific pain. I got a tetanus shot. I came home with my hand in a mitten of gauze and burn cream. Do not recommend.
However, since at first I was just under the impression it was a pesky small burn and I’d feel fine after putting my hand in ice water for a bit (fun fact: all the Googling I did about 20 minutes later said I shouldn’t have done this), I decided dinner needed to forge ahead. I narrated the instructions to Rob, who wound up making an amazing meal before packing me into the car and whisking me off for a romantic night at an Urgent Care on Northern Boulevard that was run by one very busy doctor and several nurses that looked like they were 22.
Anyway, I’m not going to say this dish was worth my dominant hand being out of commission for several days, but it was pretty tasty and a nice breakfast after a sleep sponsored by Tylenol paired with Codeine.
The lesson: be careful handling pasta water, and also don’t challenge yourself unnecessarily. One of those.
Sausage and Broccoli Rigatoni
Continue your summer boycott of your oven with a light and fresh pasta dish with vegetables and a light sauce.
Ingredients
- 8 ounces rigatoni
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 pound Italian sausage meat, sweet or spicy
- Red pepper flakes, to taste
- 1 white onion, chopped
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1 red bell pepper, halved and sliced into strips
- 1 1/2 cups broccoli florets, fresh or frozen
- Grated pecorino-romano, for serving
Instructions
- Prepare rigatoni according to package instructions.
- Remove sausage meat from casing if applicable and set aside.
- Put a small drizzle of olive oil into a skillet on medium-high. Once the oil is hot, saute the onions for a few minutes. I sauted them until they were soft but not totally see-through.
- Add pepper, crumbled sausage meat, and a crack of salt and pepper. Stir and cook over medium-high heat for 5 minutes.
- Add garlic and red pepper flakes.
- Add 3/4 of the chicken stock and bring to a simmer.
- Add florets and cover to steam. Once broccoli is tender, add rigatoni to pan.
- Stir to coat. If the liquid is insufficient to coat the pasta, add a splash more of the chicken stock and bring it to a simmer.
- Serve with Pecorino-Romano to taste (I use a lot because I’m a monster).
Notes
We used frozen broccoli for this but fresh would be fine too – just use what you have.
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