Sausage-Kale Pasta

My brother-in-law in L.A. recently started a garden that he is rightfully very proud of. And I hear from my sister that he even cooks these days for the family! Mind you, this was a guy who not too long ago could barely boil water without a recipe (I say this with utmost affection), so we are all very impressed and proud of him- me most of all! So I checked out his garden. I'm no garden expert (I just like to show up at the farm and be told what to do with no thinking required on my part), but his garden needed some serious cleaning up. Understandable since they just had a baby.

Before

After

After I trimmed the garden, I noticed some lovely kale and swiss chard. I had to do some convincing to get my brother-in-law to let me have some to make a simple supper with (he likes to use the kale for a rather interesting looking daily breakfast smoothie). 

This pasta dish is really fast and easy with minimal ingredients and fuss. I washed and chopped up kale and swiss chard as well as some garlic and onions. I removed the skin from uncooked hot italian sausages (you can use sliced up cooked sausages). 

 

I sautéed the onions and garlic until soft, added the sausages (if using cooked sausages, let onions and garlic cook longer and then add just to warm them up) and after the sausages were completely cooked, I added the greens until they were wilted and salt and pepper. In the meantime, I boiled the pasta until al dente- I like to use orecchiette (little ears) but you can use penne or other such shapes. I drained and added the pasta to the sausage/kale mixture.

With uncooked sausage

With cooked sausage (on a different day)

Finally I topped it with a generous amount of grated fresh parmesan or pecorino romano. You can of course make it entirely vegetarian, which is equally delicious. You can also use just kale or swiss chard, which ever you have on hand.

In L.A. using uncooked sausage

At home using cooked sausages