Ken's Pistachio Pasta

My husband loves to cook.  I'm always surprised at how creative he is in the kitchen.  He can open the pantry or fridge and come up with an amazing dish no matter what is in there.  

A few weeks ago I entered a contest that I needed to use pistachio's in the recipe.  Ken made a recipe too.  I was very impressed.  He literally went to the grocery store and thought this up off the top of his head.  I really wish I could be as quick in the kitchen as he is.  One of the categories was "kid friendly."  He actually made this with the kids in mind.      

Ingredients
1 lb tricolor rotini
.5 cup shelled pistachios
3 beer brawts
1 (16 oz) jar garden vegetable pasta sauce
.5 onion, diced

Directions

1. Cook rotini according to package directions
2. Crush pistachios and set aside
3. Heat pan over med-high
4. Remove casing from sausages and crumble the meat.  Cook until meat is done 
5. Drain the sausage fat from pan, add in onion and saute until translucent
6. Pour in pasta sauce and heat 
7. When pasta is done, drain, put into a bowl and sprinkle 1/4 of the crushed pistachios on top
8. Top pasta with sauce mixture and then top with remaining pistachios 

The kids really liked the pasta.  I love getting them to describe food to me.  The words that they gave me were "creamy", "a pleasant saltiness", "rich" and various other words you don't expect from a kid.  I am totally raising a clan of foodies and I love it.  

Sometimes I look at my relationship with my kids and think about how the relationship with my parents has changed over the last almost 30 years.  I can honestly say I never had a bad relationship with my parents.  As a teenager I thought we actually had a good relationship.  I wasn't a perfect kid but, I still loved my parents {98% of the time}  

As I grew older and had kids I started to appreciate my parents alot more.  Being an adult and raising kids is HARD!  You never realize how easy your parents make it look until you have kids of your own and have to do it all.  My parents helped me out alot when Kaylee and Mo were younger.  I will never be able to even begin to repay them for everything they've done for me.  {But that is another story, for another time}

I really hope that my girls' and I have just as good of a relationship over the next 70 years as I have had with my parents.  

How has YOUR relationship with your parents changed over the years?