Sometimes it sticks

The creative cooking process is not unlike throwing spaghetti at a wall. Sometimes, ideas stick. They become those golden recipes you make over and over without thought, those dishes you bring to Christmas party after Christmas party, the Reeses Peanut Butter Cups of ideas.

And sometimes an improvisation bounces off the wall onto the floor where it immediately interests your cats and becomes coated in dust. Cleaning up after this failure deflates your delicate heart. You consider in the future baking only what you can procure from a box and nothing else.

I file the following fruit of hunger-driven delirium under the first category: spaghetti that sticks to the wall.

It's a recipe that came together quickly - in as long as it took the pasta to boil - and with no lengthy, fussy ingredients, unlike other creamy sauces. Kefir lifts the sauce beyond just a creamy feeling on the tongue; its tartness livens up the peas and tomatoes without a sour aftertaste in a way that complements the basil's green taste. I added a pinch of sea salt to the finished dish to round out the creaminess, but it's easy to omit.

Vegetarians can easily make the dish meatless by substituting some leftover chickpea salad or by using a 1/2 cup of cooked chickpeas instead of the sausage below.

This pasta turned out so beautifully that the sting of using a cup of baking soda instead of 1 tsp in a cake when I was 13 years old may have finally been erased.

A version with both sausage and chickpeas

Kefir pasta with sausages
serves 2-3

Pasta and sauce

• 3 handfulls of farfalle pasta
• 1/2 cup Greek-style kefir or yogurt
• 1/3 cup basil pesto
• 1/4 cup half-and-half (or substitute milk, just not skim please)
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 1 cup peas
• 1 cup quartered grape tomatoes
• 1/4 cup Romano cheese (optional)
  

Sausage topping

• 2 all-beef hot dogs or sausage links
  
• 2 tsp. honey
• 3 tb. finely chopped fresh or frozen Anaheim pepper
• 
  

Fill a medium-sized pot with water and bring it to a boil. Drop farfalle in the pot, give it a stir to separate the pasta, and let it cook while you prepare the sauce.

Next, place the tomatoes and peas in a large serving bowl and set aside. Combine pesto, milk, and kefir in a saucepan and stir over medium-low heat until the sauce bubbles (but does not boil.) Cover the saucepan, turn off the heat, and keep the sauce warm until the pasta is finished.

Drain the pasta in a colander, then and pour it over the peas and tomatoes. Forget about them.

Next, heat the hot dogs/sausage links in a skillet over medium-high heat with a splash of water. Cook them all the way through before stirring in the honey and peppers. Cover the skillet and sear the links for another 3-5 minutes. The dogs/links should be browned evenly and have a light glaze of sweet/hot goodness. As soon as they are seared to perfection, remove them from the pan and slice them into 1/2-inch pieces.

Finally, pour the cream sauce over the pasta, peas, and tomatoes, coating everything well. Sprinkle the pasta with a pinch of sea salt, pepper, and Romano cheese. Arrange the sausage links (and pepper pieces!) on top of the pasta, and serve with a green salad on the side.