Apple Chicken Sausage with Roasted Butternut Squash and couscous

When chicken sausage goes on sale, I scoop it up.  You've seen the spicy, Italian and garlic options, but have you ever seen Al Fresco's Sweet Apple Chicken Sausage and thought to yourself, "what on earth would I do with that?!"  Cooking with apples always makes me think of fall and all its wonderful flavors -- so why not put them all into one dish?  I also had apples and a butternut squash on hand, so I took it from there.

A lot of times, when I'm roasting squash for a soup or sauce, I usually just cut it in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, rub the cut side with olive oil, salt & pepper and then put in a baking dish cut side down.  I roast it until I can pierce it easily with a fork. (400F, 35-45 minutes).  

However, with this dish, I wanted the squash in cubes. So I peeled the squash, removed the seeds, cubed it and tossed it withe olive oil, salt & pepper and roasted it at 400F convection for 35 minutes, tossing once.

While the squash is roasting, I cook up 1 cup of Bob's Red Mill whole wheat pearl couscous as per the directions.

• 1 onion, diced
• 1 rib of celery, diced
• 4 links of chicken apple sausage, sliced
• 2 apples, diced (I used Gala)
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• ~1 cup thawed frozen spinach
• 1 tbsp. dried rubbed Sage
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/4 grated Parmesan
• reduced sodium chicken broth
• salt & pepper

1. Sautee the sausage (already fully cooked according to the package), onion and celery in some olive oil over medium heat for ~5 minutes.
2. Add the apple, sage and nutmeg and sautee for another 5-8 minutes until the veggies soften. 
3. Add ~1 cup chicken broth and scrape up all the yummy bits on the bottom of the pan.  Season with salt & pepper.
4. Add the cranberries and squash and simmer for 5 minutes.
5. Add the spinach and cooked couscous to the pan.  
6. Add the parmesan cheese and add more stock if necessary -- I usually add another 1/4 cup at this point since I want the cheese to disperse evenly instead of becoming clumpy.  In the end, there should be hardly any liquid.  Season again with salt & pepper to taste.

Bon appetit!  It's autumn in a bowl!