Dukan Diet

(For Friday Flashbacks I feature favorite recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites, and recipe for Sausage and Lentils with Fried Sage qualifies for Phase One Fridays as well.  My love for lentils is pretty obvious, and this is definitely something I'd enjoy eating any time of year.  And this year I have sage growing in my windowsill over the winter, score!)

This recipe for Sausage and Lentils with Fried Sage was inspired by one in The Silver Spoon, a classic Italian cookbook that I think every serious cook should own.  The addition of fried sage was my idea after seeing it on restaurant menus, and the fried sage was a wonderful addition to this dish, if I do say so myself.  Sage is something I have growing abundantly for most of the year, and when you fry it the sage flavor intensifies just a bit as the leaves are transformed into crispy morsels of sage-flavored goodness.  But if you like Italian Sausage and Lentils but don't have fresh sage, this dish would still be very good without the sage. 

I love this Penne Pasta with Spicy Italian Sausage, Mushrooms, and Spinach. (You can make this or any pasta dish lower in carbs by using less pasta and more vegetables and meat.)

(Updated with better photos and thoughts about Dreamfields Pasta, May 2014.)   I first made this Penne Pasta with Spicy Italian Sausage, Mushrooms, and Spinach back in 2010, and when I found out it was World Pasta Day I posted the recipe right away, even though I didn't like the original photos much at all.  Now my photo skills have definitely improved and it wasn't a hardship at all to make this again to get better photos.  Scroll down to the bottom of the step-by-step pictures to see the original photo that still makes me wince a bit when I think about it being on the blog all those years. 

I'd probably never heard of Whole Wheat Orzo Pasta in 2010 when I first made this Italian Sausage and Kale Soup using broken pieces of whole wheat spaghetti, but orzo is such a perfect soup ingredient that when I decided to update the recipe with better photos, it seemed like a perfect switch.  So now I have to rename the recipe to Italian Sausage and Kale Soup with Whole Wheat Orzo, don't I?  But no worries if you don't have orzo (or don't want to buy it), go ahead and break up some spaghetti into short pieces to add to the soup.  You could also make a delicious lower-carb soup using this recipe by leaving out the pasta completely.  

Sausage, kale, tomatoes, and whole wheat orzo or spaghetti; doesn't that sound like a combination that could inspire a lot of good recipes?  When I updated the photos for this soup, I increased the amount of kale so the soup is even more nutritious, but no matter how you make it, this soup is definitely a winner.  (Updated January 2015 with better photos and instructions.)