Cookin’ With Rants: Italian Awesome

Hold on to your colons, people.  I have an awesome recipe for y’all here today.  This comes to me via a good friend who wishes to remain anonymous.  Suffice it to say my paisan has direct relatives from the Old Country, and this is where this happy-stomach mess of gastronomic love comes from.

There’s some kind of actual Italian name for this dish, but even the Google vomited back every attempt I fed it to find an actual spelling, so you get ‘Italian Awesome.’  Don’t like it?  Fuck you.  The actual name started with an ‘S’ and ended in a vowel.  But enough with the elusive and clearly regional name of this dish that I predict you will not be able to get enough of.  On with the awesome…

Here are the ingredients for Italian Awesome:

Italian sausage – hot, sweet or regular.  Take your pick, I like the hot.

Garlic – about three to four cloves, smashed and diced into large bits.

Onion – completely optional, or use shallots.  Cut into large, rustic chunks.

Spinach – or any green leafy plant such as collards, mustard or dandelion greens

Olive oil – an assload of it.

Cannellini beans – just use canned, and do NOT drain the gooey juice.

How to make the Awesome happen:

Cook the garlic in the olive oil until it turns golden brown.  At this point, scoop out the garlic and set aside.  Now put the sausage in with the onion.  The onion and sausage should cook to done-ness in about the same time, but a quick slice into the sausage will tell you if they’re cooked – clear juice means you’re good.  Set the onion and sausage aside.

Add your greens to the seasoned oil, with more oil to your preference.  Wilt the greens.  At this stage, a splash of white wine adds perfect flavor.  Dump in the cannellini beans with their juice and stir until very thick.

Add back the garlic, sausage and onion long enough to warm them.

Serving:

The best way to make yourself happy-sick on this is to put a sausage into a bowl, cover it with the greeny-beany-delicious awesome, and serve with crusty Italian bread to mop up the Awesome.  Parmesan is optional and totally not required.

This is really a one-pot, one bowl dish of hearty, rustic Italian gut-bomb awesome.  Make some and be ready to slap yourself because it’s so damn good.