Creationism

Went for a lunch out with some of the gals from work on the first real nice day of the year. Had an impressively inexpensive and tasty meal: a bowl of penne with mussels and tomato sauce with herbs. Decided to try it myself:

Ingredients:

- two pounds of mussels

- several cloves of garlic (I think I used three, maybe four)

- two cans of diced tomatoes (plain; no spices or basil. I'm not sure what the spices in the original recipe were)

- some chicken and red pepper sausage from Trader Joe's (bought it because they gave out samples of it)

- white wine (I used leftover sauvignon blanc)

- olive oil, fresh-ground black pepper, kosher salt, dried oregano or anything else you have that you like in sauce

Heat olive oil in heavy-bottomed pot. Add sausage, cook till it gets nice and brown. Add garlic, cook it up briefly. Add mussels. Pour in a bunch of white wine (maybe 3/4 cup?) Put the lid on the pot and let the mussels cook till they open. Take out any that didn't open up all the way. Add the cans of tomatoes and the juice. Also add some kosher salt, fresh-ground black pepper, and dried oregano. Put lid back on for a little while and let it all cook. Decide it's too watery, take lid off to let it cook down a bit. It's ready when the tomatoes are cooked through and you're too hungry to wait anymore (about 15 minutes after adding the tomatoes). Oh yeah, you should have had some pasta cooking in a separate pot while you were doing all this. Serve mussels and tomato mixture over pasta. Enjoy.