Penne Pasta with shrimp and chicken sausage

So I was lazing around on Saturday when I was supposed to finish some work. Wasted lots of time watching tv and at around 10.30pm, I started to get the hunger pangs coz the last time I ate something was in the morning. There's so much of chaos outside my house, lots of kids running and shouting about, huge family get togethers happening on a Saturday night. Ignoring the ruckus outside I decided to fix something really fast, and walk into the kitchen to see a huge pile of dishes in the sink and on the countertop. If I had to fix anything, I had to first clear out the dishes. I quickly set myself at the task so that my hunger doesnt start to give me a headache. Almost finished, suddenly we lost power. If it goes late at night, surely its some problem and it should be back soon. I wait it out by watching the latest episode of Desperate Housewives I downloaded. Power comes back after half an hour. I pause the episode, return to the kitchen and finish the remaining dishes. I decided to do a quick one pot meal. No referring recipes, just dumping stuff I had around the kitchen to make one nice hearty meal. I saw a packet of penne pasta and put that onto boil. I check the freezer and got out one last chicken sausage lying in there. Ooh a packet of small shrimps. Thought I'll use em too and get it out to defrost. Checked the refrigerator, found one red capsicum and a packet of cherry tomatoes. I start chopping the vegetables and I lost power again. Grrrrr... I wait it out again, ignoring the hunger pangs again. Resumed my tv episode and it got over too. Just waited silently in the dark, and got it back again in another 10 minutes. I slice an onion, mince some garlic, drained the pasta, put the shrimps to boil (I cant eat it raw like some people do). And yet again, I lose power. God, this is so damn frustrating now!! I switched off the boiling shrimps coz I did not want to overcook it, wait again, and its back after 10 minutes. Thankfully, I managed to prepare the rest of the meal without losing any power. The recipe is explained below. So I plated it nicely to take a picture to post it on the blog. The first one I took is the one you saw above. The dish did look nice and colorful. But I notice that some of the penne is jutting out awkwardly on the sides and maybe I should re-arrange it a bit more to look more elegant. I focus my camera again and click. At that very second I clicked, guess what happened. Look at the shot I got and take a wild guess!! Aaarrggh!!

Ingredients:

Penne pasta - 250 grams

Cherry tomatoes - 10 pcs.

Tomato puree - 1/2 cup

Chilli-garlic sauce or any hot sauce - 1 tbsp.

Capsicum - 1/2 or 1 whole

Onion - 1

Garlic - 3 cloves

Chicken sausage - 1 large

Shrimps - 1/4 cup

Parmesan cheese - 1/4 cup, grated
Olive oil - 3 tbsp.

Black Olives - 6 or 7, pitted

Parsley - to garnish

Oregano, Italian seasoning - a pinch

Method:

Boil penne pasta as per instructions on packet, with some salt and oil. Drain and keep aside.

Chop the cherry tomatoes, capsicum, slice onions and mince garlic. Chop the chicken sausage into bite size pieces, grate the parmesan cheese. Wash and clean shrimps and boil it for about 5 minutes and drain. Slice pitted olives and chop parsley.

Take a heavy bottomed pan, heat 3 tbsp olive oil, add the minced garlic, sliced onions and capsicum. Cook until soft. Sprinkle the Italian seasoning (I added some garlic bread seasoning I had) and oregano. Add shrimp and sausages and toss to coat with oil. Add chilli-garlic sauce. Add the cherry tomatoes and tomato puree. Toss again. Lower heat, cover the pan, and simmer for about 5 mins. Open and add parmesan cheese (leave some for garnish). Add the pasta little by little, tossing at the same time to coat it with the sauce. Take off the heat. Sprinkle black olives, parsley and parmesan cheese. Serve hot.