Pasta with Hot Italian Sausage, Kale, Garlic, and Red Pepper Flakes

Ingredients

• 3 links hot Italian sausage
• 8 oz. kale leaves, thinly sliced
• 6 large garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
• 3 T + 1-2 tsp. olive oil
• 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
• 2 cups homemade chicken stock or 1 can chicken broth
• 1 pkg. Dreamfields Rotini pasta
• Salt for pasta cooking water
• 1/2 cup coarsely grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving

Directions

1. Warm the 1 or 2 tsp. olive oil in a small skillet. Remove the sausage from its casings, add it to the pan, and cook until well browned, using a turner to break it into pieces as it cooks. If you’re using hot turkey Italian sausage, use 2 tsp. of olive oil; a fattier sausage will need less.
2. As the sausage cooks, rinse the kale and shake off the excess water. It does not have to be completely dry. Stack the leaves, cut them into thin crosswise strips, and keep going until you have about 12 cups of sliced kale.
3. Cut the garlic into slices, then chop it roughly.
4. In a large, heavy skillet that will have room for the finished pasta, combine the 3 T olive oil, garlic, and hot pepper flakes.
5. Set the pan over medium heat and cook just until the garlic begins to smell fragrant, then stir in the sliced kale. Do not let the garlic brown. Cook the kale with the garlic for 2-3 minutes, turning it a few times, until all the kale has wilted.
6. Stir the chicken stock or broth and the cooked sausage into the kale, then reduce the heat so the mixture simmers gently. Leave it at that low simmer while the pasta cooks.
7. Fill a medium-large pot halfway with water, season it generously with salt, and bring it to a boil.
8. Add the pasta, stir, reduce the heat, and cook until it is just barely al dente, using the package timing as your guide. The Dreamfields Rotini was cooked for exactly 9 minutes. Scoop out 1/2 cup of the pasta water, then drain the pasta.
9. Fold the drained pasta gently into the sausage and kale mixture, adding as much of the reserved pasta water as needed to make it nicely moist. About half the water was used.
10. Stir in the Parmesan cheese, then serve the pasta hot, with more Parmesan cheese for adding at the table.