Chicken Sausage with Spinach, Feta and pignoli

I've wanted to try these sausages since I saw them at Whole Foods - Chicken Sausage with Spinach, Feta and pignloi. I finally picked some up last weekend and popped them into the freezer for safe keeping. I pulled them out yesterday and tonight came up with this recipe. I will definitely be making this again. be warned, though, most of the amounts of ingredients were just eyeballed as I made this up as went along, so use your best judgement - more of what you like, less of what you don't...

The eggplant, tomato and basil came fresh out of my garden. It was a pretty good year back there.

Chicken Sausage with other stuff...
Ingredients:
3 fresh Chicken sausage with spinach, feta and pignoli, about 1 pound
Roasted eggplant, about 1 pound
1 can of cannellini or great northern beans, rinsed.
Roasted red pepper, cut ½" by ½"
Fresh tomato, chopped
Gemelli pasta, about ½ pound
Paranno cheese, shredded
Fresh basil, cut chiffonade
½ cup chicken broth/stock
Olive oil

Method:
Set oven to 350°.
Prick the eggplant all over and put in a baking dish (foil lined) and roast for about 45 minutes.
Cook the pasta per package directions.
When the eggplant is done, remove the peel and cut into bite sized pieces.
Slice the sausage into about ½ inch slices.
Heat a large pan, add olive oil, brown the sausage on both sides in batches. Remove to a plate, keep warm.
Deglaze the pan with the chicken broth.
Add the beans, red pepper, tomatoes, eggplant, and sausage, and stir gently (don't break the beans!) to heat through.
Serve over a small bed of gemelli, top with shredded parrano cheese and some of the sliced basil.

some notes:
Slicing sausage was made easy as thy were still partially Frozen. I would recommend removing the casing first, too.
When browning the sausage, between each batch try to scrape out some of the looser browned bits and pignoli that may escape from the slices and put them with the cooked slices.

Since I was pretty much just winging it, I'll make a couple of changes next time:
I'll I think I'll saute some garlic, probably sliced, before the sausage, then use some white wine to deglaze.

The Parrano cheese was a great find. Boogie and I tated it on a trip to Whole foods about a month ago, and I picked up a wedge this past week when I bought the sausage. I thought it tatsted like a combination of parmesan and gouda - turns out I hit the nail right on the head. From their web page:

It has the alluring nutty flavor of a fine-aged Parmesan with the versatility of a young Dutch Gouda.

It's great right out of the package and with apple slices, too.

UPDATE: 2200, 09/28/08: I was poking around my favorite sites and I remembered what really inspired me to get these great sausages:Sausage, greens and beans on Dave's Beer. Good stuff.

Enjoy,
Lorence