“By posting this recipe I am entering a recipe contest sponsored by the National Pasta Association and am eligible to win prizes associated with the contest. I was not compensated for my time.”
Today I am doing something a little different. I am super excited about it! This post is my first EVER recipe contest submission! Eek! I came across this cool contest sponsored by the National Pasta Association, through my (new and exciting) membership in Recipe Redux (more about this later 🙂 ) . When I saw the contest I thought, “I would love to do that! My family and I love all things pasta and am a proficient pasta cooker. In my personal and profession opinion whole wheat and whole grain pasta are a great foundation for a meal, especially for busy peeps, who what to prepare healthy, budget friendly and most of all tasty meals for their families! When choosing pasta, I focus my pasta purchasing on whole grains pasta. Whole grains are a corner for a healthy diet because they are high in fiber, antioxidants, B vitamins, iron, copper, Zinc and Magnesium (and you know how I love Mg!) Pasta dishes are also a great delivery system for dishes heavy in vegetables, which is also a cornerstone of my cooking and nutrition philosophy!
This was a super fun recipe to create, I used one of my favorite and most simple sauces, a Scampi base and jazzed it up a bit! So now to the fun part, cooking!
Ok, for this recipe I am using sweet Italian Sausage. While I enjoy Sausage, I don’t use very much with my daily cooking because of it’s high fat content and (often) high preservative content, but since I am a “everything in moderation” kinda girl, we are having sausage today! Another reason why I don’t use very much sausage in cooking, is because I loath having to take it out of the casing…icky stuff if you ask me…but I can tough it out for this meal! 😉
So remove the casing and toss the sausage in a large dutch oven or pot with 1 cup diced onion, a 1ish Tbsp of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and pinch of salt and ground or two of pepper. Let this sauté and brown.
When cooking with Kale, I like to use Tuscan kale because I think it has a softer, sweeter flavor and texture than the Curly Kale variety.
So while your sausage is browning, prepare your kale. Always remove the tough middle vein and roughly chop into pieces. These will be blanched and then cooked, so not need to go super small because they will cook down.
Bring your water to a boil, throw in a pinch of salt and toss your cut kale in to the water to blanch. Keep an eye on the timer because you only want to cook it for about 5 mins.
Remove it from the water with a removable colander or slotted spoon and set aside. Keep the water to boil the pasta in.
Next add the pasta to your already boiling water. For this I choose a broad penne pasta to hold this lighter weight sauce.
Now back to the Sausage…once it is browned, take time to drain the oil because sausage renders a lot of fat and you will have a yucky oily dish is you don’t. Ok, once the drained the fat, add 1 cup chicken broth, 5-6cloves of minced garlic and 1/4tsp of Anise (makes this recipe, IMO!)
Next add your other key ingredient, Lemons! I actually zested it first then squeezed in all the juice. If you don’t have fresh lemons you can add about 1/4 cup of bottled stuff. But get the real stuff if you can, because it really does make a difference. That being said, I always have lemon and lime bottled juice in my fridge because I use them a lot, but can’t always have the fresh stuff…gotta do what you gotta do, right? 😉
Now add your blanched Kale to the sauce.
Ok, this next step is key for this pasta to be a success. Remove the pasta from the cooking water before it is fully Al dente and add it to the sauce. I want to cook the pasta in the sauce a bit to give the sauce some of the pasta starch to thicken it up, without having to add any additional thickener (like flour or corn starch). Also, cooking the pasta in the sauce imparts a great flavor to the pasta!
Add 1-2cups of pasta water, depending on how much further the pasta needs to cook. Allow this to cook for an additional 10-15mins until the water is absorbed and the sauce is thick. Occasionally stir to make sure the pasta cooks evenly.
This is what the sauce will look like when it is fully cooked. Oh man…
Last but not least, add 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese and quickly stir to incorporate.
Sprinkle with a little Parmesean cheese on top and Enjoy! Also, don’t forget your side of veggie! 🙂
Bellissimo!
- 1 lb Sweet Italian Sausage
- 1 lb Pasta (I used penne, but you can use what ever is your favorite)
- ½ bunch Tuscan Kale, deveined and roughly chopped
- 1 cup onions, diced
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 5-6 cloves garlic minced
- ¼ tsp Anise
- 1 Lemon, zested and juiced (or ¼cup bottle lemon juice)
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- ¼ cup fresh parmesan cheese to mix in + some for sprinkling on top
- Put a Large pot with water on the stove to boil.
- REmove sausage from casing and add to (different) large pot or dutch oven. Add Olive oil and onions. Saute and brown.
- When water is fully boiling, salt and add chopped Kale. Blanch for 5 min and remove from water with removable colander or slotted spoon and Set aside.
- Add Pasta to already boiling water.
- Once Sausage is browned, drain all excess fat.
- Add Minced garlic, chicken broth and anise. Add Zest and juice of one Lemon.
- Add blanched Kale to sauce and stir to combine.
- When pasta a little under cooked, less than Al' Dente add to the pasta sauce to complete its cooking process. Add 1-2cups of pasta water to sauce, depending on how much further the pasta needs to cook (add less to start, you can always add more but can't take remove it) about 10-15min.
- Once pasta is Al Dente and sauce has thickened up. Remove from heat and stir in ¼ cup of fresh Parmesan.
- Enjoy!
