Italian Sausage Pasta

I have to thank a great local butcher, John Brash for this one.  I love going into the butchers and just choosing from all the lovely meats available.  There was a great selection of sausages when I was in the other day and I could not resist these beautiful, plump Italian babies.  When I asked for them the butcher enquired how I was going to cook them....'grill them' was my response, imagining them grilled in a roll with butter, the fat dripping down onto the plate when I bit into them.  To my surprise the butcher suggested that grilling would dry out these sausages and I would lose some of the flavour so he recommended trying them with pasta and talked me through this recipe.  To my delight I was able to remember the recipe the following night and tried it out, to my further delight it was absolutely divine and gave me a little lesson in buying good quality ingredients and treating them with the respect they deserve!

4 good quality Italian sausages
200 grams of pasta (vary quantity depending on hunger!)
1 carton of passata
3 mushrooms
1 onion
1 pepper
1 handful of sun dried tomatoes
1 teaspoon of honey
salt and pepper

Put the sausages in a pan, cover with water and bring to the boil.  Once it is at the boil, turn the heat off, pop a lid on and leave the sausages in the water for about 10 minutes.

Chop and fry the vegetables in a little bit of oil until softened.

Pour the passata into a large frying pan, bring to the boil then turn down to a simmer and add the honey and all the vegetables.

Add the sausages (reserve the water in the pan) to the sauce and simmer for about 30 minutes.

Cook the pasta in the water the sausages were done in with a pinch of salt until al dente.

Add the pasta to the sauce and mix, coating the pasta with the sauce.