Orecchiette Sausage Pasta in Creamy Tomato Sauce

1. Sausage - the better the sausage, the better the pasta! Avoid the very cheap sausages used for backyard BBQ's that are a uniform pink colour (pink = fillers = no good for cooking like this). Look for sausages where you can see chunks of meat and fat, like you see in the recipe video and photos.

If using link sausages (in Australia, we only get Italian sausage meat in sausage form), squeeze the meat from the casings (it's easy, demo in video).

2. Tomato passata - pureed, strained pure tomatoes, sometimes labelled Tomato Puree in the US (here's a photo of Mutti Tomato Passata sold at Walmart). Readily available in Australian supermarkets nowadays, alongside pasta sauces. If you can't find it, use crushed canned tomatoes and simmer rapidly for 5 minutes to reduce it more.

3. Italian Herbs - just use a store bought pre mix. Otherwise, make up your own with equal amounts of thyme, basil, oregano, parsley and a pinch of rosemary.

4. Pasta cooking water - the starch in the water thickens the sauce when tossed with pasta. So if the sauce needs thinning, best to use the pasta cooking water instead of just normal water. Great traditional Italian pasta cooking technique to use in every pasta recipe!

5. Nutrition per serving. Never said it was diet. I said it was DELICIOUS! Shave off 80 calories by using light cream or half and half instead of full fat cream (sauce will still be nice and thick from the tomato).