Sausage Ragu with Pappardelle

This sounds like a fancy recipe but it's really simple. And best of all, it comes out to under $2.50 a serving! I saw this recipe in an older copy of Cook's Country Magazine, from October of 2016.

I live in a remote area and had a little trouble sourcing a fresh fennel bulb for the recipe, but it was definitely worth the effort to locate this wonderful ingredient. Fennel is the slight anise-like flavor used in Italian sausage. My picky-eater of a husband loved this, as did both my boys.

With the original recipe calling for either using 2 lb of pasta or freezing half the sauce for a later date, I decided to go ahead and pick up extra pasta. Once the sauce was finished however, I realized that I wouldn't need 2 lb of pasta since we like our pasta pretty saucy.