Whole-Wheat Penne with Sausage, Chard, & Artichoke Hearts

It was my turn to pick what we all were going to make for Martha Mondays. This is always a dilemma for me, because I want to choose something different, yet something that people will like, something with some different or new ingredients, yet in season and ingredients that everyone will be able to find, something not too expensive, yet festive....you know what I'm getting at.

So I thought I would search for Martha Stewart's healthy Spring recipes, and found quite a few that I would like to go back and try. I narrowed it down to two and Brette wouldn't let me do this again, as I was forced to choose one. So I chose this one because I had whole-wheat penne already and wanted to find something to use it in. I was a little hesitant of using the whole-wheat pasta because I've had it before and really didn't care for it. But in this dish it turned out great, very tasty. My pick: Whole-Wheat Penne with Sausage, Chard and Artichoke Hearts.

I use greens a lot and try to add them to noodles, rice, mashed potatoes...it's a great way to sneak in those veggies when you can. Swiss Chard is treated like two separate vegetables, the stem is sliced and cooked until tender first, the green leafy parts is added later and cooked less time.

I couldn't find frozen artichoke hearts so I used tinned, but not marinated so they weren't vinegary.

I also used grape tomatoes in place of sun-dried tomatoes...just because my husband doesn't care for the sun dried ones. I think the sun dried tomatoes would of worked better.

I went to my favorite meat market, Geier's Sausage Kitchen for the chicken sausage. I really didn't know where else to get fresh chicken sausage that you can take out of the casing to fry up. I'm sure you can use different sausage if you can't find chicken sausage. I cooked up the sausage first, then set it aside in the frige so we could catch the sunset....

When we got back I started the pasta and sauteed the chard stem, garlic, hearts...if using grape tomatoes toss them in near the end with the parmesan and chard leaves, I added them too soon.

oops I almost forgot the leaves,....

I didn't use red pepper flakes but a teaspoon of spicy garlic-chili sauce with the tomato paste, which gave it the same little heat now and then but it was not too hot at all. I added a splash of cream to cut the heat for Maranda. I used about a half cup pre-grated parmesan and then added some fresh grated on top!

It was good and everybody liked it. For lunch today it heated up well and tasted just as good!

The weather has been fantastic and we have to get out and enjoy it, even though it's still a little bit busy with spring break and tourists

Don't worry he's not starving! But he did have to stay home this time when we went to the beach for sunset.

Ingredients:

Coarse salt and black pepper

12 ounces whole-wheat penne

2 tablespoons olive oil

3/4 pound chicken sausage, removed from casing

1 bunch Swiss chard (about 1 pound) cleaned, stems and leaves separated and chopped

1 (9-ounce) box frozen artichoke hearts, thawed

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes, sliced

1 tablespoon tomato paste

3/4 cup grated Parmesan (about 2 ounces), plus more for serving

1/3 cup chopped fresh basil leaves

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Directions:

1.Set a large pot of salted water to boil for pasta. Meanwhile, in a large nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium. Add sausage and cook, stirring occasionally and breaking sausage into pieces, until cooked through and lightly browned, 10 to 12 minutes.

2.Add remaining oil, chard stems, artichoke hearts, and garlic; season with salt and pepper. Cook until chard stems soften slightly, 3 to 5 minutes. Add chard leaves and cook, stirring, until wilted, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

3.Add pasta to boiling water; cook until 2 minutes short of al dente. Add sun-dried tomatoes and cook 2 minutes. Reserve 1 cup pasta water and drain pasta; return to pot.

4.Pour half of reserved pasta water into a small bowl. Add tomato paste and whisk to combine. Add tomato paste mixture, sausage mixture, Parmesan, basil, and red pepper flakes to pasta in pot. Toss to combine, adding reserved pasta water if necessary. Season with salt and pepper. . Read more at Wholeliving.com: Whole-Wheat Penne with Sausage, Chard, and Artichoke Hearts

Happy Monday! Please visit some other who joined us this week:

Megan at Megan's Cookin

Brette at Martha and Me

I'll add more when they post their version! Thanks for stopping by...