Grilled Chicken Sausage with Asparagus and Whole Wheat Penne

Pretty easy stuff tonight. I took a precooked, packaged (but high-quality) sausage--Aidell's Chicken with Apple--and grilled it over the gas grill til it got some beautiful color. Then I tossed on some asparagus--I must admit I'm always sad when the thick asparagus starts arriving in the store. I don't have the space to grow it myself, so I'm at the mercy of the grocer--and I just adore the pencil-thin ones we get around January and February and into early Spring. I could eat them every night, roasted, grilled or sauteed. (NEVER boiled. Ever. Ever. That's the meanest thing you can do to asparagus.)
Anyway, I added this to some pasta I'd cooked up inside, and tossed it around with a little reserved pasta water and a few tablespoons of leftover red sauce I had in the fridge. Voila, dinner all three of my boys would eat with no complaints.
But...I'm not a big sausage fan. I'm just not crazy about it, even the chicken kind. So I improvised for myself--I just started a 6-month long fitness plan of increasingly harder workouts, and it emphasizes a higher-protein diet than I'm used to. (Look to the Amazon widget to get the book. It's wonderful.) I had some leftover salad from going out to Applebee's last night--I highly recommend the green apple and candied walnut chicken salad. All I did was added some freshly cut strawberries and my favorite pear dressing from Trader Joe's, and I had a brand-new dinner. It's not an ideal situation, making two separate meals, but sometimes it just works out that way. My husband is such a carnivore, and I really don't care much for red meat, so we'll do this sometimes. It seems to make everyone happy--even if I do have a sinkful of dishes with my name on it!
I also wanted to add to this post that it's starting to warm up here, and my plants are beginning to bear fruit...which means that the bugs and birds and whatever stray rodent happens by are getting a free buffet. My strawberries are being consistently eaten, I actually had to cover them completely with a trash bag today...and my cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen and are already under siege! What kind of bug eats the entire center out of a tomato?! I'm going to research this a bit...I refuse to do down without a fight !