Currently cooking from The Best Simple Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen

I have officially started divorce proceedings against Bryan so I can marry this book. Wait, I was raised Mormon, so maybe I can marry them both. What? That only works for men? Damn.

I could go on and on about this dish. It was spicy (but not burn your mouth spicy like the orange beef was) and creamy, cheesy and gooey. It easily made enough for four main courses and it was all done in one pan. Yes, you heard that right. You brown the chorizo, make the sauce and cook the pasta in the same pan. Genius.

And leftovers were just as good as it was on the first day.

The dish begins by browning a pound of chorizo and an onion. Next you stir in chicken broth, Ro-Tel tomatoes, cream and penne pasta and bring it all to a boil. Once the liquid is boiling, you simmer the dish until the pasta is tender. To finish it off, you stir in a half of a cup of pepper Jack cheese, then sprinkle more cheese over the top. This gets put under the broiler until the cheese is browned and bubbly.

My only concern with this dish is that the recipe tells you to halve and slice the chorizo sausage. In the past, when I’ve tried to do this with chorizo, I ended up with a reddish-brown sludge as the chorizo fell apart. This time, I browned the chorizo sausages first, and then cut them as directed. This way, the sausage was cooked enough to hold it’s shape when sliced. It worked perfectly.