Corn Fusilli with Vegan Apple-Sage Sausage and Chunky Vegetables

Tonight, I stopped by Trader Joe's and found a new kind of pasta made from corn. I picked up the fusilli corkscrew-shaped pasta and made a simple pasta dinner.

I sauteed over medium heat in a stainless steel stock pan with a little olive oil, two cloves (not bulbs!) of garlic for a minute or so, then added two Field Roast Grain Meat Company apple-sage artisanal vegan sausages that I had chopped into 3/4" lengths or so. As the sausage pieces started to brown a few minutes later, I added maybe a fifth of a medium onion and most of a small bell pepper, both of which I had coarsely chopped into maybe 1/2" cubes. As the onion clarified, after maybe a minute and a half, I added 1/8 teaspoon or so of dried oregano and organic marinara sauce, and simmered on low for a half hour (I would have liked to also have added crushed red pepper, but did it on the plate at serving time, as my daughter might not have eaten it otherwise; I forgot, but 1/8 cup or so of red wine would also have been nice to have added at this point).

The corn pasta was easy - I just had to cook it for about nine minutes. When I was about to serve, I mixed into the simmering sauce maybe 2 or 3 tablespoonfuls of nutritional yeast, then served it atop the pasta. An avocado half and carrot completed dinner.

We loved the corn pasta! It just has corn flour and water as its two ingredients, and, naturally, has a nice corn taste. I'd like to try serving it plain with some "butter" (i.e., Earth Balance non-hydrogenated vegan margarine), fresh herbs, and a pinch of salt. As much as we like it, I think we'll use it only on occasion - its a novelty and I get the sense that I may tire of it if we ate it regularly.