Recipe Weekend: Johnsonville Sausage House Party and Giveaway!

 Have you had a House Party at your house? 

House Party lets people who really love something host a special event featuring a fun, free, exclusive experience sponsored by the world's leading brands. A House Party is thousands of parties happening across the country on a single day, hosted by people just like you (and me!). Each event is sponsored by a leading brand and focuses on something cool–like a new product, hit TV show, or great cause–that the sponsor wants its best fans to experience firsthand and share with their friends. Each event has a unique Party Pack filled with all kinds of free stuff to make your party a success.

If you recall we participated in the Digiorno Game Day (football) House Party last year! And we were delighted to participate in the Johnsonville Italian Sausage party this weekend!

Our party pack included: coupons for FREE Johnsonville Italian Sausage, Prego Veggie Smart Marinara, 2 Johnsonville Summer Sausages, 2 packs of Johnsonville Deli Snackers, a super pasta server, a great apron and LARGE oven mitt, paper plates and matching napkins, plus a great recipe booklet with super ideas for meals to make for the party, and FREE Johnsonville Chicken Sausage coupons and $1.00 off coupons for the Italian Sausages for the guests! Pretty Cool!

We decided on using the sausages, along with some Monterey Jack cheese sliced with Mom's delectable spiced saltines (I know, I know, I have yet to give you the recipe, I promise I will soon, as soon as I can get her to write it down!) as out appetizer- YUMMY

(seriously? I could eat half the crackers here- they are ADDICTING)!

Then we went with 2 of the dishes from recipe booklet sent by Johnsonville!

First up was Italian Sausage and Pepper Medley

Ingredients:

1 pkg. Johnsonville Italian Mild Sausage Links

1/4 cup olive oil

2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 small red pepper, julienne stripped

1 small green pepper, julienne stripped 1 small yellow pepper, julienne stripped

1/2 medium onion, julienne stripped

1/2 tsp. ground basil

1 can (14.5 oz.) Italian diced tomatoes

salt and pepper to taste

Note: we altered a bit- instead of the garlic and basil, we sauted about 1/2 cp of holy trinity (red and green pepper and white onion) in some butter, as our base for seasoning.

Preparation

1. Us: Sautéd holy trinity and then removed from dutch oven pot, set aside.

2. Prepare package according to package directions. Bias-slice (the casing is too hard to cut,m  you will need to cut AFTER you cook sausage). Us: Add to sautéd holy trinity and set aside.

3. In a dutch pan, add olive oil and garlic; sauté for about 30 seconds (us: we skipped this step, pan was already well seasoned).

4. Add peppers and onion to oil and sauté for about 2 minutes or until crisp and tender.

5. Add chopped Italian tomatoes (INCLUDING juice) and sliced Italian Sausage/holy trinity mix, then sauté for another 5 more minutes.

6. Ready to serve!

Then we also selected: Italian Sausage Rigatoni 

Ingredients: 

1 pkg. Johnsonville Italian Mild Sausage Links

1 pkg. (1 lb.) rigatoni pasta

3 Tbsp. olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 lg. sweet red pepper, chopped

2 Tbsp. Italian parsley, chopped

1 jar (26 oz.) of your favorite pasta sauce 

Note: again we skipped garlic and used holy trinity

Preparation: 

1. Cook sausage links according to package directions.Us; We then opened the casings and crumbled the sausage, ala ground pork

2. Us: Sauté 1/4 cp holy trinity in pan, remove, add sausage back to pan and sauté briefly.

3. Cook rigatoni according to package directions; drain and set aside.

4. In a large skillet, heat olive oil until hot.Add garlic; sauté for 30 seconds or until golden. 

    Us: skip to next step

5. Add red peppers; sauté for 2 minutes or until crisp-tender.Us: add holy trinity and sausage back to pan. Then:  Cut sausage into 1/4-inch coin slices; add to skillet. 

6. Stir in marinara sauce; toss all together, heat through. 

7. Add pasta; toss to combine. Sprinkle with parsley, if desired. Serve.

So the table pretty much looked like this:

Added to the menu was a mixed salad and Italian Parmessan Crescents (so so so simple- I promise I will give you the recipe when I give you the Saltines recipe!), some great wine (it was an Italian family meal after all!, some German beer (cause, you know, it's beer...) and non-alcoholic drinks!

Looks good huh????

We had alot of fun being together. our little extended mixed family and we had fun reminiscing and sharing tales about the Ponchatoula St. Patrick's Day parade the girls all went to in the morning (hence the Mardi Gras beads on the table-in honor of the upcoming Italian-Irish parade in New Orleans! And no, we really can;t just let parades and bead catching go that easily! Shared stories earned recipients some $1 off Italian sausage coupons and funny ones earned some FREE chicken sausage coupons!

And because YOU our little blog family could not be there, I wanted to share the love and yummy Johnsonville Italian sausages with you! SO, we're having a giveaway!

Giveaway:

One Lucky reader will get the great Johnsonville apron from the house party pack (I only wore it for photos, then took off, I forgot about it while cooking!), PLUS TWO free Johnsonville Chicken sausage coupons (coming out in April everywhere!) and a $1.00 off Johnsonville Italian Sausage coupon. And there just might be something extra in there for ya too!

PS: we had about 2 servings of each dish leftover, so we combined the 2 dishes. It sort of made a sausage minestrone, but with large pasta. VERY good! So if you made extra (like one and a half times) of each dish, you'd have enough for soup/dinner the next day!

Entries:

Make sure I have an email address, with your comment, so I can contact you,
if you win!   
If I don't have a way to contact you, you will forfeit your win!

USA only (sorry, limited by coupons)

3 day winner's rule : Winner has 3 days to acknowledge they won prize,

and confirm address, if no contact, then new winner will be picked in their place. 

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Contest will end on March 30th, at midnight. Winner will be picked by Random Number (random.org) on April 1st, and emailed. As soon as winner's info is received, I will mail the set to the winner, during the next mail run!

Disclosure: I received this house party kit from Johnsonville, via House Party, free of charge, for me to review, and to host my party with. I was NOT  told how to review, or how I had to do the party, however.Nor was there any other form of compensation.