When my son E was in high school, I would make Pad Thai every few days for his volleyball team.  His friends would drive him home and then back to school again for practice, so I would make homemade meals for them to thank them.  Since I had never included this recipe on my blog, I thought I would post it now.

Ingredients:

• Sweet sausage (about 1 cup)
• Broccolini (sliced into 1 cup of small pieces)
• Thin Spaghetti (approximately 6 oz)
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1T sugar
• 1T soy sauce
• 2T white wine + enough to deglaze pan
• crushed garlic (about 1 thumb-worth)
• 2T sesame oil
• 1 large shallot (thinly sliced)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2T sliced almonds (lightly toasted for better flavor)

Directions:

1. Heat 1T sesame oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat.  Sear sausage until cooked through, deglazing pan with wine, then add broccolini and saute until both are cooked and toasty.  Remove until ready to toss meal together for serving.
2. In separate pan, cook spaghetti until al dente.
3. In small bowl, mix ketchup, sugar, soy sauce, wine, and garlic.  Set sauce aside until ready to toss with meal.
4. Heat remaining 1T sesame oil in large saute pan over medium-high heat.  Saute shallot until softened, then add garlic cloves to pan.  Once both are lightly cooked, add the cooked sausage and broccolini to pan and bring to temperature.
5. Add cooked spaghetti to pan and toss with reserved sauce.  Saute until everything is thoroughly coated and heated through.  Divide among two plates and sprinkle with toasted almonds to serve.

This post is my own interpretation of a favorite Weight Watchers’ recipe that I used years ago.  That recipe used shredded chicken and had a few other tweaks, like using rice noodles and peanuts.

Suffice it to say that I love to play with recipes to create new versions that use wine and work with ingredients or flavors that are favorites of my family members.  I hope you enjoy coming up with new ways to change recipes of your own!