Kale and Sausage Pasta

Kale is definitely one of those trendy vegetables of the moment. I’ve seen this sturdy green stuff in smoothies, on top of macaroni and cheese, and dehydrated into chips, but I’d never given it any thought until my intern friend Peggy told me she makes a kale smoothie every morning for breakfast. Now Peggy’s a pretty sensible girl. She eats well, but she doesn’t follow all those crazy health kicks. She makes cookies with Rice Krispies and rolls drumsticks in evaporated milk and corn flakes. So what I’m getting at is we are cut from the same cookie dough and I trust her food sense.

Kale is super good for you. Think of the structure of this plant and you get a pretty good idea of what it can do for your body. Kale has big, thick ribs like a collard green and its leaves are curly and sturdy. Similarly, it helps promote strong bones and eyes. Because it’s a cousin to the cabbage, it’s a good source of folate, which often gets depleted from our RA medications. It’s also packed with antioxidants, which reduce inflammation. While it’s resilient to most cooking processes, you can best access it’s nutrients in raw form. Heating doesn’t render it useless, but some of its nutrients like vitamin C and the B-complex are water-soluable and can be lessen in cooked form (borrowed from Livestrong. So to get the most out of your kale, eat it as raw as you can take it.

Peggy is crazy about kale, so I thought I would give it a try. After seeing a recipe for kale smoothies in Bon Appétit, I picked up a big bag at Trader Joe’s. I was little disappointed by the result. Granted I put this all together in my mini Cuisinart food processor, but the kale didn’t break down as much as I had hoped. While it was liquidy, I felt compelled to chew it. It was good though. There is plenty of kale left and I am committed to perfecting my kale smoothie technique. (More on that for another post.)

Which brings me to this post. My tasty smoothie used a mere two cups of my kale and I have practically a pillow’s worth remaining. I’ve been craving pasta like no other so I thought I would find some kind of pasta-kale concoction for my dinner tonight. Here is what I found and here’s how I adapted it for the elimination diet.

Kale and Sausage Pasta adapted from Oranges and Avocados



½ red onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 carrot, chopped
Extra virgin coconut oil
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt, ground black pepper, red pepper flake
2 links of fresh Italian sausage, casing removed
3 large handfuls of kale
¼ cups white cooking wine
½ cup vegetable stock
12 oz. of Brown Rice Fusilli Pasta (I used Trader Joe’s)

Sweat the onions, garlic, and carrots in a large pan with salt and pepper and a little coconut oil. When the onions look translucent, crumble the fresh sausage into small chunks with your fingers and add to the pan for browning. Fill a one-quart pan with salted water (for pasta) and bring to boil. After about five minutes, or when the sausage looks golden brown, add cooking wine to the pan and pile the kale on top. Add salt, pepper flake, and vegetable stock and cover. Add pasta to the boiling water and cook for the recommended time or until the noodles have a little bit of a bite to them. Reserve a little pasta water. Stir up the kale in the other pan until it looks wilted but not mushy. Once the pasta is cooked, incorporate the noodles and the pasta water into the sausage and kale mixture and cover with the juices. Serve with more red pepper flake and dried basil.

Normally I would cover this sort of dish in grated parmesan cheese, but this dish has so much wonderful texture from the kale that I didn’t miss it. Also in mine I used a combination of sweet and hot sausage so there would be a little additional flavor. This was my first time using a brown rice pasta, and it didn’t disappoint. It wasn’t gummy and it held together really well even after being squished around with the other ingredients. If you’re worried about sticking, add a little olive oil and toss it around after you strain the pasta.