All you regular readers know that Dan Stack, my lover, and I are continually preparing new recipes and experimenting with different techniques from different culinary regions. Well, every once in a while, I will say to Dan, “Hey, do you remember that one dish we made that tasted so good? It had … .” Gemelli with Sausage, Swiss Chard and Pine Nuts is one of those dishes. Dan got the recipe from a little Martha Stewart book, or maybe it was Cooking Light magazine. I really am not sure. This time, we found it online with no source.

The thing about this unique recipe is the fact that it’s a dry pasta, meaning there really is no “sauce.” The parmesan cheese, a bit of pasta water mixed with the chard, raisins, pine nuts, sausage and pasta make a moist, tasty combination. Each part of the dish has a little different taste. One forkful will give you pasta and raisins – a sweet and starchy taste. The next will give you chard and sausage for a savory, bitter taste. The dish is very lively without being busy on the palette. Dan and I have made this dish using turkey Italian sausage for a lower fat version and it tasted great. Just remove the sausage from the casings and separate it into little pinches.

I also like this recipe because it is a great leftover, by that I mean it: 1) reheats easily without changing the taste or texture 2) can stay in the fridge for more than three days 3) responds well to “doctoring up” when you get bored of eating it and 4) has such a great flavor profile you won’t mind eating it several times. I know cooking for two is tough, and cooking for one is even more so. So the need to make healthy food with a low burnout factor is essential. There is nothing worse than taking a lot of time to make a meal, only to have the rest of it sit in the fridge getting old, as you look at it with disdain. At that point, do us all a favor and give it to a neighbor or friend before it goes bad. The gemelli doesn’t freeze well but feeds a table of four just fine.

Pine nuts, which are harvested from pinecones, are great for gemelli. Store them in the refrigerator for up to three months; freeze them for up to nine. Swiss chard, a member of the beet family, comes in several varieties, which can be used interchangeably. Look for chard with bright green leaves and no brown spots.

In the coming weeks I promise to give you a couple of recipes that freeze well so you can have homemade foods at a moment’s notice, like the Cincinnati Chili we had a few weeks ago. Well, this concludes another week of Recipe Box. So light that burner and cook yourself up a storm this week!

Prep: 35 minutes

Total: 35 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving

Directions:

In a large skillet, toast pine nuts over medium-high heat, shaking the pan to toast evenly, three to four minutes and remove from skillet. In the same skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add sausage, and cook, breaking it up with a fork, until browned, about five minutes. Add chard, garlic, and pepper; cook, tossing, until chard wilts, for two to three minutes and cover to keep warm. In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook pasta until al dente, according to package instructions, about 12 minutes. Drain pasta, reserving 1 cup cooking water and return pasta to pot. Add sausage mixture to pasta with 1/2 cup reserved cooking water, raisins, toasted pine nuts and Parmesan; toss to combine. Add more cooking water if pasta seems dry and serve with more Parmesan.