Cooking Thursday: Pesto Sausage & Orzo Skillet

 

Hello Friends!

I hope you're having a wonderful Friday Eve! Yay for the weekend ahead. I think the weather is supposed to be pretty decent here in the northwoods too. I sure hope so for the sake of a lovely Mother's Day. 

And I'm so excited as our dear Annie is supposed to roll in from college today. Yippeee!! My momma heart is doing a jig of joy. 😊💗

Today I thought I'd share this skillet I kind of made up after seeing some things that were similar on different places in social media. 

It's a pretty straight forward dish and has pesto and some caprese flavors involved. 

Here are the ingredients I used:

1 pack of caprese flavor chicken sausages

a handful of cherry tomatoes (sliced in half)

half of an onion

3 garlic cloves

a carton of chicken stock

1/2 of a small box of orzo (although next time I'd use only about 1/4 of the box or so)

3 big TBSP of pesto

parmesan cheese to taste

I think this is really more of a method and feel free to use the ingredients you prefer (Italian sausage, chicken, different veggies etc) But I started by heating up a big skillet to medium high with some olive oil. I added onion, and the sausages and sauteed a few minutes. Then I added in the garlic and tomatoes and cooked until the tomatoes started to soften up. While you're getting this going fill up a sauce pan with chicken stock and bring to a boil. Then throw in your orzo and cook to package instructions and when done drain and set aside as you continue cooking.

Once everything was getting nice and browned I deglazed the pan with just a little bit of chicken stock. Feel free to do a little wine here instead - whatever you like. I think cooking should be open too interpretation and it should be fun to experiment and play around. 

Once that had reduced a bit and all the flavors were melding I threw in some pesto and some sprinkle parm cheese and mixed it all together.

Then I took the cooked orzo that was set aside and stirred it into the skillet.

 

I drizzled ours with some balsamic glaze and then sprinkled on a bit more parm. We had it with a nice green salad and it was delish! 

Have a wonderful weekend ahead dear Friends. For those Moms that will be celebrating - Happy Mother's Day blessings to you. And for those that struggle with that day, please know you are seen and loved. 😍

It's going to be a busy one once Annie rolls in. I will make the visits to you all as soon as i'm able. 

Enjoy!

xoxo