Cosmopolitans and Turkey Sausage Penne Alla Vodka

Last night I looked in my freezer and all I had left was three one pound packages of Verde Farms Organic ground beef, a huge Costco pork loin and a package of turkey sausage. I guess the turkey sausage was the only thing that looked reasonable to me so I had to figure out something to do with it.

I was craving a little vodka sauce, but we'd run out of vodka after the last batch...okay, and there were maybe a couple of dirty martinis involved one evening during a sunset on the beach. I hadn't been out of the house all day because I am still working on my video, and so I decided that maybe going to the liquor store was just the outing I needed! I put Baz in the stroller and off we went.

It was worth it. I plopped the sausages into a frying pan and browned them in a couple drops of oil olive. I took them out of the pan and sliced them before returning to the pan so that they would cook faster. At this point Damien came home, noticed the fresh bottle of vodka and asked me if I knew how to make Cosmopolitans. I didn't, but I sure wouldn't mind finding out!

This is what we discovered:

Cosmopolitans alla Damien (makes 2 servings)
3 ounces vodka
1 ounce Cointreau or Triple Sec (we used Cointreau)
2 ounce cranberry juice
1 lime

Pour all liquid ingredients in a martini shaker with ice and shake. Squeeze the juice of 1/2 of the lime into each of two chilled martini glasses. Pour contents of the shaker over the lime juice. Garnish with a wedge of lime.

You can adjust the ingredients to your taste. Apparently, there really isn't a right or wrong way to do it.

Now armed with my pre-dinner cocktail, I continued making my vodka sauce. I put the pasta in to boil and removed the sausages from the frying pan, cleaned it out and continued to make the vodka sauce like I did in my post a here.

This recipe is becoming a real favorite around here, and the sausage added a new twist. It was really tasty.

Today, I am getting ready to go on my first trip sans baby. While I am very excited for the reunion with some of my dearest friends in Denver, CO, I am also very nervous about leaving Baz behind. I know he's in good hands -- in fact, Damien has his two brothers coming in this weekend so he'll have reinforcements (even though I was sort of looking forward to him experiencing a full two days alone with the baby.) But I've never been away from him for more than a few hours. And to make matters more difficult, he has started saying "Mama" this week. Way to break my heart, baby.