The work week is winding down. Well, my Starbucks work week is. I still have work at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning and today kicked my butt. I was tempted to go out for shabu shabu with some friends, but sadly I did not have the energy for a city trek. After work and the gym, I felt the need to be somewhat healthy but with all the hours I’ve been working lately combined with my social life picking up (yay!), I haven’t had much in my fridge (very sad my fresh mini pierogis that I bought a couple of weeks ago were covered in mold…but not surprised). Luckily I keep my pantry and freezer somewhat stocked, essentially for nights like tonight.

Tired, I didn’t want to go crazy with tons of ingredients or prep time. I was thinking pasta/one dish meal. So here’s what I started with:

Whole grain bow tie pasta, frozen broccoli and cauliflower, frozen mango flavored chicken sausage.

I boiled some water for the veggies and sausages to thaw them out a bit (not crazy about thawing in the microwave when I don’t have to). I drained both and cut up the sausage.

In another pot, I boiled a serving of the pasta, as the pasta was boiling, I got my saute pan ready with a drizzle of olive oil. I also knew I wanted a bit more flavor for this dish, so I went to an old standby:

I mixed a teaspoon of the chicken base with about a third of a cup of the boiling pasta water in a little prep bowl and set it aside.

The pasta was done, so I drained that and let it sit a moment while I sauteed the sausage and vegetables. I added a few aromatics that I like and thought would go well with the sausage – oregano, herbs de provence, and cayenne pepper.

Once the sausage got a little brown, I tossed in the pasta and sauteed all the ingredients together. I then added the bit of chicken base:

I sauteed the dish about a minute, enough to mix the base with the rest of the flavors, but not long enough that the mixture would evaporate. I transferred everything to a shallow pasta bowl, sprinkled some grated parmesan cheese on top (another item that’s always in my fridge), and dinner was served!

The nerd in me had to double check how healthy my dish in fact was, so I decided to do the math, and between a serving of pasta, the vegetables, one sausage link, the base, and a bit of cheese, the dish was about 455 calories. Oh, and it only took about twenty minutes to prepare. #winning

Of course, right after I ate, I saw this post on yahoo (#fml): A Link Between Sausage and Cancer?