Here’s weeknight #2 of budget meals, plus a prompt on my wisest decision of the year.

Smallbox has started ThinkKit, a daily subscription that emails you blog prompts with an intention of sparking your creative juices. I just found out about this yesterday, so I’m already a few days behind – but I’m just going to jump in. I figured it would add something different to my food writing, and I’ll keep these ramblings to the point. I get it – you’re here for the food.

Moving on.

Today’s ThinkKit was to describe the wisest decision I’ve made this year. Well, duh, that has to be this blog!

Things really didn’t get going until June, when I decided to just dive head first into blogging and start writing without really telling anybody about it. Not sure what I was doing, and unable to find my niche or a name that really meant “me,” I just did what I knew best – writing blogs.

My job has required me to blog almost from day 1, and, through my career journey, was never NOT a weekly or even daily task. I could say, with confidence, that I’ve written near 1,000 blogs in culmination with my fulltime job, freelance writing and now food blog.

I remember when I used my writing experience of my art history degree (meaning, having written dozens of 10-, 20-, 30-pagers on the Soviet empire, WWI and II, the beginning of art as we know it to Jackson Pollock and Keith Haring and other topics that I can’t remember) as a selling point in an interview. I think it worked. Credit is really due here, because without a strong writing background and a feeling of confidence, writing about a subject you know very little about can be extremely frustrating. When you can focus solely on the content and not on the structure of your words, everything just flows better. That philosophy works itself out in life in many ways.

Add that up with my experience out of college and I start to feel more comfortable in calling myself a blogger, or….gasp….a writer. And maybe in a few years I’ll feel like a food writer. Who knows.

So until then, I’ll just keep cooking, eating, blogging, reading, and listening.

(Not my favorite picture, but you get the point)

Penne with sausage and escarole

Makes 4-5 servings

Ingredients:

• 3/4 box of penne pasta (I used a full 1lb box but thought it was a little pasta heavy) – $1.29
• 1 tbsp olive oil (pantry item)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced (pantry item)
• Quarter of a yellow onion, diced – $0.22
• 1 bell pepper, diced (used leftover orange bell pepper) – $1.12
• 1 lb hot ground italian sausage – $2.39
• 1 bunch of escarole, stemmed and roughly chopped – $1.27

Grab a large stock pot, fill with water and bring to a boil.

While the water heats up, add the olive oil to a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the diced onion, garlic and bell pepper and saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the sausage and cook until browned, about 10 minutes. When your water boils, drop the pasta, salt the water, and cook to package directions.

Reserving 1 cup of the pasta water, drain the pasta and return the pasta back to the pot. Add the sausage, onion and pepper mixture, along with the reserved pasta water and the escarole. Stir until incorporated, keeping the pot hot over medium high heat.

Garnish with some shredded parmesan or mozzarella cheese. There’s no real sauce, but I find that with the seasoning of the sausage, onions, peppers, this dish doesn’t really need one. One bowl was enough to fill me up. This tastes great the next day for leftovers, too.

TOTAL = $6.29, divided by two is $3.14 per person.