Pickles are done – sort of! I emptied the fridge and made 19 jars of pickles. I went out to the garage and there was a basket full of them that hadn’t made their way into the house yet UGH! Not entirely sure we need more pickles but looks like I might have some Christmas gifts started wink wink!
My daughter is a cookbook collector and she doesn’t just collect any and ALL of them she likes the ones that tell a story along with the recipes and it must have a picture of the food. At least those seem to be the ones she is drawn too most. For Christmas I bought her Bringing it home by Gail Simmons. I had a feeling she would like it; she wasn’t so sure so she never even opened it until a week or so ago. And um yup she likes it; she has 6 or so pages marked for things she wants to make and there was a page marked for either of us to make and use up some of the Swiss chard from the garden since that is growing like a weed.


After pickling I decided to make the recipe to use up the Swiss chard she picked, washed and left in the sink. I started it around 8-8:30 and I think we were sitting down to eat around 9:30. Which we never usually eat that late but sometimes you get busy and can’t help it.

Pasta Swiss Chard and Sausage

Donna Clark - Cooking at Clark Towers

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Servings 6

Ingredients

  

• 1 pound orecchietta pasta or similar
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 4 garlic cloves sliced very thin
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 pound Swiss chard stems removed and leaves chopped into medium size pieces
• 2 lemons zested juice from 1
• 3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 12 ounces buratta cheese
• 2 sweet Italian sausage links opt casing removed

Instructions

 

• cook pasta according to package directions - reserve 1 cup of the pasta water.
• In a medium skillet heat a little olive oil; crumble and brown the sausage and set aside.
• In a large skillet add the butter and olive oil, add the garlic, pepper flakes, and a little salt. Cook,stirring occasionally, until the garlic is slightly golden brown, not burned about 2-3 minutes.
• add half the Swiss chard and cook down till the leaves are wilted. Add the remaining Swiss chard. the lemon zest and the lemon juice until the leaves are wilted. Remove from the heat.
• drain the pasta reserving a cup of the liquid.
• Add the pasta and the reserved water, to the Swiss chard,sausage mixture and cook over medium heat for a minute.
• Add the grated cheese. Season to taste
• spoon into individual bowls. Slice the burrata into cubes. Top pasta with cheese and serve.

Notes

You can find buratta near the mozzarella and feta cheese usually in the specialty cheese section
If you like mozzarella you should try it.

Adapted from Bringing it home - Gail Simmons