I have no time for a lengthy post today, so I’ll let the picture speak for itself. (Hello delicious melty cheese!) Basically, this dish is polenta (that’s corn grits to you Southern Folk) that’s been left to cool, then cut into pieces and layered with a spicy sausage and eggplant tomato sauce and ricotta and mozzarella cheese. It’s creamy and spicy and corn-y and delicious!
Go make it now!
I am a very bad blogger. I’ve abandoned my website for what seems to be months. Years. First, I was on vacation in Chile (highly recommended for food and wine lovers!). Then I was severely ill and avoiding anything to do with the kitchen altogether. Then we adopted the cutest little mutt I’ve ever seen. (Her name is Mussels – isn’t she just precious?)
Not that I’m making excuses or anything. I just haven’t stepped foot in the kitchen. Until now.
This Eggplant and Sausage Casserole is kind of a mutt itself – a mix between Eggplant Parmesan, Lasagna and Strata. It’s warm and cheesy and perfect for winter. The bottom layer is a kind of sausage bread pudding covered by a thin layer of eggplant. That’s topped with some marinara sauce, then more eggplant. As with any casserole, the crowning glory is a layer of shredded cheese and breadcrumbs. Pop in the oven until it smells delicious and dinner is ready.
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much from this recipe. Sure, I thought it would make a good weeknight meal, but I was surprised by how much I really liked it. It gave me a homey, pajamas on a Sunday afternoon kind of feeling. Like Chile, it’s highly recommended.
Whew! It’s been a really hectic couple of weeks traveling for work and leisure. Tom turned 30 and we had a weekend-long celebration in Las Vegas. For the record, Burger Bar might just be my favorite place on earth. They let you add jalapeno bacon to your burger. Have you ever even heard of jalapeño bacon? It was astounding. Wonderful. Magnificent. Almost brought tears to my eyes. I’m already planning my trip back just so I can have another taste of that jalapeño bacon.
But, moving on… Since I’ve had zero time to cook, I had a really bizarre assortment of ingredients in the fridge. Turkey kielbasa, one egg, savoy cabbage, some onions, peanut butter, piquillo peppers, condiments galore and way too much beer. But don’t worry – I didn’t just combine everything for this dish. Instead, I translated German Currywurst into a noodle dish.
I sauteed some onions, turkey kielbasa and thinly sliced cabbage, then made a simple sauce with some white wine, deli mustard, tomato paste and hot curry powder. The result was a really comforting bowl of noodles. Reminiscent of German street food, but not so much that it was weird. One of those pantry meals that ends up being a total winner and something I’ll actually make again. At least, my husband hopes I will.
Before I begin waxing poetic about soup, a story. Every year at Thanksgiving, I roast garlic. Usually for my famous Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes. This year, for a too-greasy Roasted Garlic Manchego Gratin from Food & WIne. The process is always the same — place garlic cloves in a shallow baking dish, drown them in olive oil, cover with foil, spill oil in the hot oven, smell smoke, then run around with paper towels trying to mop up burning, smoking oil from the bottom of the oven while trying not to burn myself or set anything on fire. Sounds fun no? It’s awesome.
Since this happens every year in my mom’s usually-clean oven, she bought me a teeny, tiny Le Creuset dutch oven that’s just the right size for roasting garlic. And as a bonus, it comes with a snug-fitting top so I won’t spill hot oil all over the place. Sometimes traditions must come to an end. This cute little pot is also useful for blog photos. See how pretty my soup looks?
Moving on, this soup is thick and hearty, really flavorful, super simple. Start with a couple of very spicy sausages, add butternut squash, pearled farro, chicken stock and curry powder…maybe a few handfuls of baby spinach for color, and you’ve got a delicious little lunch that’s satisfying and warm on a cold day. It also sets off my new Le Creuset mini-pot nicely!
Broccoli, black olives and goat cheese. Do these things go together? Why, yes they do. I’ve always found that fancy, oil-cured black olives lend a nice salty brininess to broccoli. Goat cheese and olive oil give this sauce a sumptuous creaminess to balance out the saltiness.
I was tempted to call this a pesto, but I thought that wouldn’t go over too well with pesto purists. That said, the method is very similar. Steam the broccoli, then blend it with olive oil, black olives, goat cheese and a pinch of salt. What you get looks more like a dip than a sauce, but mixed with some pasta water, you get a velvety, creamy sauce flecked with bright green broccoli that’s a little tangy and really delicious.
I tossed the sauce with whole wheat pasta and some browned Italian Sausage for a wholesome and filling lunch. Serve this with a big, green side salad and you’ve got a delicious weeknight meal. Just make sure your dishwasher’s empty — this bad boy makes loads of dishes. Thank God I’ve got a wonderful hub to take care of those pots and pans for me!
Continue reading ‘Broccoli, Black Olive & Goat Cheese Pasta Sauce’
Thanksgiving is just days away! I’ve tested everything and finalized the menu. I’ve also given myself a little bit of a break from the kitchen over the weekend. The most complicated thing I made was tomato soup (from a carton) and hot dogs loaded with kraut, grainy mustard and pickled jalapenos! Lame, I know.
This recipe is left over from last week and I never got around to posting it. It’s a simple weeknight meal you can prep in the morning or on the weekend and pop in the oven when you get home from work. It doesn’t sound like much, but the cheese bakes and browns and bubbles in the oven, taking this casserole from plain to super delicious.
More casserole fun tomorrow, then I’m kind of on a break for the rest of the week, pigging out and eating leftovers!
Continue reading ‘Cheesy Sausage, Broccoli & Brown Rice Casserole’
Beer is fun. And so it goes without saying that cooking with beer is also fun. Since the brew brings the flavor, you can lay off the spice drawer for a night. You can also experiment with different varieties based on season — a Corona and lime marinated skirt steak in the summer, Pumpkin ale and short ribs for Autumn (this recipe coming soon). And of course there’s the sampling while you cook…
Since it’s Fall, I went with a nice, coffee-flavored Stout, whose name I cannot recall at the moment, but you can substitute your favorite Mocha Porter (Rogue makes a good one), brown ale or a time-tested Guiness. The recipe starts with sauteed onions and browned sausages in a rather large pot. Add some sliced apples, pears, whole cranberries and a bottle of stout and pop it in the oven for an hour and a half and you’ve got a delicious Sunday supper.
Make sure you’ve got some crusty bread to mop up the beer-y juices, or serve with roasted or mashed potatoes. Either way, you’ve got a hearty, healthy and really tasty meal.
Continue reading ‘Stout-Braised Sausages with Apples, Pears & Cranberries’
Photo Credit: Agustin Sanchez
It’s been 2 months since our big trip out to the Pacific Northwest and I’m still trying to recreate some of the dishes we had out there. One of my favorite meals was at Higgins in Portland. We weren’t really in the mood for a fancy place, so we sat at the bar and ordered from the “bistro” menu. Of course, the Mussels with chorizo and polenta caught our eye right away. So did the house-cured charcuterie plate, the local beers and the shortbread cookie with basil ice cream and nectarine syrup (which reminds me…I have to make this!).
So, back to the mussels. I finally made them over the weekend and they were every bit as magical as I remember them from Portland. The broth was bright and flavorful and spicy from the chorizo, the polenta added a nice heft to the broth, and the mussels were the perfect briny contrast to the chorizo. I ate until I was too full and washed it all down with a cold, bitter beer.
Honestly, this might just be the perfect recipe for mussels. But if mussels aren’t your thing, this “broth” would be perfect for shrimp, lobster or even chunks of fresh fish. In fact, you can even skip the seafood and substitute chicken or omit the extra protein altogether and think of it as a thin chorizo polenta soup. Just delicious!
I see on the news that it’s starting to cool down in some places. Not here. It’s still getting up to 90° most days, but the humidity is starting to let up. And so, it’s time for soup. Warm and hearty soups full of beans and grains and vegetables. Yummy soup that fills you up and comforts you on a bad day.
I love soup. It’s so good for you, comes together in just a few minutes and you’ve only got one pot to wash when you’re done. A few years ago, when I still lived in a place where it snows in winter, I discovered bean and barley soup. It sounds so simple, I know, but there’s something about red kidney beans and barley that taste amazing together.
For this soup, I added in some hot Italian chicken sausage to really make it a meal and some smoked paprika and lime to perk it up. It’s the kind of soup I’ll make on a Monday morning and eat for lunch the rest of the week with some whole grain bread or crackers. It’s thick and flavorful, stick-to-your-ribs goodness.
Related: Simple Sausage & Red Lentil Soup
p.s. See if you can spot me in the spoon. Hi guys!
Continue reading ’stick-to-your-ribs sausage, bean & barley soup’
Pasta’s easy. It’s usually the first food you learn to cook, and the food that sustains you throughout your penniless college days. It’s good, fast and cheap, and there’s nothing to not love about that!
So, when I need to make a quick lunch before work it’s often pasta that’s my first thought. The hard part is figuring out how to make a healthy, well-rounded meal with it. As with most things carb, I find that I can sit down and eat at least a 1/2 pound of simple, buttery pasta on my own. But me and my bikini know that it’s probably not a good idea.
So, I try to have as much “stuff” in my bowl as I do pasta. This week, that stuff happened to be spicy Italian sausage, broccoli, rainbow chard, goat cheese and walnuts. A well-rounded meal chock-full of vegetables, protein and those venerated Omega 3’s. Best of all, it traveled well, filled me up and made a very delicious little lunch.
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