Italian Sausage and Rapini

I've been enamored of this dish ever since seeing Lidia Bastianich make the dish on a Public Broadcasting Service cooking show. It was pure Italian simplicity in cooking with just a couple of ingredients, Italian sausage, rapini (or broccoli rabe), fresh garlic, orecchiette pasta and grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese... So I started planting rapini in my garden (from seed) that's been growing quite well...

You simply brown the Italian sausage - I usually remove the casing then add sliced fresh garlic then add the chopped rapini. Once the rapini wilts, add the cooked orecchiette and toss with a little of the pasta cooking water for a pseudo sauce and finish with grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Simple!

However, this time I used Sfoglini Trumpet pasta instead of orecchiette and I cooked the pasta in the final dish using a can of chicken broth. Therefore, after the Italian sausage and garlic were brown, I added the chicken broth and brought it up to a simmer then added the dried pasta to cook with the sausage and garlic mixture. Just as the past got to the al dente stage, I then added the chopped rapini...

There's also an alternate version created by Chef Chris Bianco of Pizza Bianco using shishito peppers instead of rapini - since both have inherent bitterness, they both balance the fatty, rich qualities of Italian sausage. I tried my own version using one of my favorite pasta, casarecce again cooking it in the "sauce" with the Italian sausage...

Since I also grow arugula pretty well, I sometimes substitute the arugula for the rapini (or shishito peppers)...