the only ingredient i had on hand for this recipe was the italian chicken sausage. i bought corn and mushrooms at the farmers market, since fresh corn is still in season and i figured why not? i used farfalle pasta since jewel didn't have casarecce and a quick google search in the pasta aisle said that farfalle could be an acceptable substitute.
i used 5 ears of corn since the vendor i bought them from was running a "buy 4, get 1 free" type of special. i also added garlic powder at some point because i realized that this recipe didn't call for any type of garlic and i wasn't willing to rely on the sausage alone to provide garlic flavor. farfalle takes a bit longer to cook than casarecce, so i adjusted the pasta cooking time accordingly.
i'm of the opinion that the "active time" in this recipe assumes that you've already prepped the corn, mushrooms, and leeks. i'm sure the cleaning and chopping of those ingredients took 20 minutes on their own. also, the recipe isn't really clear about when to add the cooked pasta - i added the pasta and then stirred in the butter, lemon zest, and reserved pasta water.
i'd probably make this again with frozen corn and possibly fresh garlic instead of garlic powder. garlic makes almost everything better. i could probably use italian pork or turkey sausages as well, as long as they're cooked in advance so i don't add to the total recipe time.
