Spicy Sausage Sauce

So this is something I worked on yesterday (the sauce). I'm thinking it's pretty much where I want it to be. The only thing I might change next time is to boost the sausage to get a higher percentage of protein. I was making something else with wine, and thought about adding some, but I'm not sure it needs it. It divided up into 9 portions (approx 8oz by weight). They were probably also close to 1 cup in volume as well.

1 tbsp oil
16 oz mushrooms, sliced
8 oz onions, sliced
1-1/2 cups beef stock
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp basil leaves, dried
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 x 28 oz cans diced tomatoes
2 tbsp ketchup
1 lb hot italian turkey sausage, removed from casing

Heat oil in sauce pot and start browning the onions and mushrooms. Use the beef stock (adding slowly) when the mixture starts to stick. Once browned add in the seasonings and tomatoes. Bring to a boil and boil rapidly until sauce thickens and tomatoes break up a little. Add the rest of the stock, ketchup, and water if needed. Once mixture is at desired consistency take sausage and drop into sauce in small pieces. Continue cooking until sausage is heated through. Serve with pasta of your choice.

Makes: 9 servings

Calories: 173 (12g protein, 8g fat, 15g carbs)

Notes: The sausage was actually a 500g package (454g = 1lb) with total calories of 840 (78g protein, 54g fat, 6g carbs). You could also cook it longer and slower and not need to add the ketchup at all. I'd boiled it quite fast, so there wasn't that nice caramelized sweet taste, so I cheated and added the ketchup. From start to finish (including chopping) it was well under an hour. Usually I'll cook sauce slower (hours), but just didn't have the time. You do need to add the sausage at the end as the tomatoes will take some of the heat out of the sausage. I make up for this by adding hot pepper flakes, although now that I'm thinking about it this would be better done after the freezing point.

Oh, the picture was one serving of sauce, 1.5 oz of rotini (pasta plus), 2Tb parmesan, and 6oz of green beans roasted. Total for plate - 453 cals.