Luscious Lumaconi! (You do, and you'll clean it up.)

It's not that my roommate CAN'T cook...it's that she mostly chooses not to. So imagine my surprise when I come home from work at the end of a long day, and she has found a special recipe, shopped for the ingredients, and prepared the most DELICIOUS pasta dish EVER! This one is a winner, and is definitely going into the rotation around here.

*The original recipe used a snail-shaped pasta called lumaconi, but anything that would hold the creamy sauce would work.

Creamy Lumaconi with Italian Sausage and Spinach
(Source: Bev Cooks)

1 head garlic, end sliced off
1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups lumaconi (or any similar pasta--Cyd used large ribbed shells)
2 Italian sausage links, casings removed
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1 thyme sprig, leaves removed
1 oregano sprig, leaves removed
2 cups chopped spinach
coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat oven to 400. Place the garlic head in a small piece of aluminum foil, drizzle with oil, seal and roast for 35 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a small sauce pot, melt the butter. When the foaming subsides, add the flour. Whisk constantly for one minute, and then slowly add the milk, continuing to whisk another five minutes or so until the sauce gets thick and creamy. Add in the herbs, a pinch of salt and pepper and whisk a little more. Transfer cream sauce to a small food processor, add the roasted garlic cloves and pulse until very smooth. Cover to keep warm.

In the meantime, heat a medium skillet over medium high. Add the sausage and break up with a wooden spoon, cooking until browned all over, six minutes. Also, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and boil until al dente. Just taste it to test it. Drain and return to the pot.

Pour the cream sauce over the pasta, along with the chopped fresh spinach and the cooked sausage. Toss to coat and combine everything. Serve with good parmesan cheese or a chiffonade of basil...or both.