Sometimes when a recipe is found, I immediately know it will be a winner. Fusilli with Spicy Sausage and Swiss Chard was one of those recipes.
Modifications Made:
Two links of sweet and three links of regular italian sausage were used instead of spicy sausage. One small onion, cut in half, then finely sliced into long thin slivers was cooked until soft in remaining sausage grease along with three teaspoons of minced garlic and one teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Frozen chard and one cup of reduced salt beef broth was added to onions and garlic mixture along with returned sausage crumbles and. Mixture was cooked until chard was soft and tender adding water as necessary. Al dente cooked noodles were added, seasoning was adjusted, and noodles finished cooking in mixture. Feta , oregano, and parsley were omitted.
Scaled for Likability: Great
Oh, this recipe would have been wonderful with feta crumbled atop. The saltiness of the feta to accent the sweet chard and sweet sausage. If not feta, then thick parm flakes. However, the pasta dish was fabulous without any cheese or milk or flour. Of course, half spicy sausage and half sweet sausage would have been great, too.
This was a simple meal providing plenty of room of modifications such as cheese, mushrooms, sweet onions, fennel (mmm), or mustard greens. What I would not change would be to switch out greens for spinach as the leaves are too tender, spiral pasta for thin noodles as the sauce needs the spirals to adhere into, or sausage exchanged for chicken or ground pork. Stick with the heavy greens and italian sausage but play with the rest.