Apples and Sausage; Apple, Pear, Sausage Pancake

Posted: 2011/10/28 | Author: Lola | Filed under: Cooking | Tags: Apple, Bisquick, Bob Evans, Breakfast, Brown sugar, Cooking, Dinner, Fuji, Granny Smith, Pancake, Sausage | Leave a comment

Apple, Pear, Sausage Pancake

This cooking post covers two meals I made in the last couple of weeks. We have been really busy both at work and home so Brinner aka Breakfast for Dinner has made a reappearance in our menu planning. By menu planning I mean what do I make when I am standing in the kitchen at 5:30 or 6:30 or 7:30 trying to decide what we are having for dinner.

Apples and Sausage is a meal from my childhood. It is just that, Apples and Sausage!

1 pound roll of Sausage, we use spicy.

Let’s talk about the Sausage. You MUST USE BOB EVANS! You must use Bob Evans because throughout the years The Husband and I have made a lot of things with rolled sausage. And Bob Evans not only tastes the best, especially if you like spicy, but it is the leanest. You can cook an entire 1 pound roll of Bob Evans Sausage in your pan and not have an ungodly greasy mess to deal with after. You will also have just enough sausage grease left over for frying your apples. If you have a brand you are loyal to, by all means don’t let me sway you. But Bob Evans in the best.

When we were growing up, my Mom sliced the sausage into patties and fried it that way. So for this meal that is what I did. Plus I didn’t know how down MiniMe and the Destroyer were going to be about this. They miss out on so much good food because of their nasty kiddie attitudes about it and some nights I am just not up to fighting the battle.

Brown on medium to medium low until just about done on both sides. I usually not only press them down with my spatula when flipping, but also end up cutting them in half before they come out. Hi, my name is Lola and I am OCD about underdone sausage. I like my sausage quite brown. Remove all of it from a pan and set aside on paper towels to drain.

2-6 apples of your choice. We like Gala, Granny Smith, Fuji, whatever really.

This is really a matter of your preference on amount and serving sizes. I core them and cut them medium thin. But you could dice them, or slice them really thin.

I dump them into the sausage grease and use a tiny bit of cider vinegar to deglaze the pan. You could also use water, but not too much unless you are going for mushy applesauce. You could also stir in a bit of butter. As they start to heat up and sweat, sprinkle on the brown sugar and cinnamon. I used roughly 2-4 TBS of brown sugar and just dusted the cinnamon to taste. Stir well to incorporate. You can add more water if you need to, but I try to keep it to a minimum so I can get to the glazed syrupy sauce before the apples get too mushy. Let them simmer on medium low to low for about 10-15 minutes or until at your desired apple tenderness and sauce thickness.

Brinner for the winner

Growing up my mom put the sausage back in the pan to get coated by the mixture and served it all together. Since the kids were being served this we ate it side by side with the rest of our Brinner that night. It was leftover B’s&G’s, the rest of the hash browns in the freezer, scrambled eggs and cheese, Sausage and Apples, and biscuits. No one went hungry but not everyone ate the same thing. And the kitchen was a freaking mess.

Apple, Pear, Sausage Pancake

OK first of all this was a fluke. I just kind of came up with it on the fly to use the leftover sausage for the next Brinner meal.

I diced up the remaining sausage patties and set them aside. I cut up apples and pears in a big dice and put them in the pan with enough water to cover the bottom of the pan. I was in a hurry and didn’t have 20 minutes to cut them bigger or simmer them like above. I threw in teh brown sugar and cinnamon right at the beginning, set it on medium high and kept an eye on it while I cooked batch after batch of pancakes. Near the end I tossed in the small diced sausage and let it hit in the mixture and the flavors blend. I was making the kids pancakes using Bisquick mix and I mixed up a double serving. When you do this the batter starts to thicken, because it was a double batch by the end the batter was really gooey. As the Apple, Pear, Sausage mixture got done and I neared the end of the pancake batter, I became inspired.

What if I made one big fluffy apple, pear sausage pancake??

So I put a little oil in my pan and dumped the rest of the batter in to coat the whole pan. It was thick and slow moving batter…perfect! I waited a few seconds for the bottom to set up a smidge then spooned a ton of the mixture, sauce ( but not too much) and all on to the uncooked top. I then waited for the big pancake to set all the way up on the bottom and somehow managed to flip it without breaking the whole thing. hearing the sizzle on the flip side was mouth watering. I wondered if I’d get any crispy caramelly apple bits on the bottom side. It was super close to nirvana but I will have to tinker with the recipe to get it just where I’d like it.

It made a huge plate size pancake that The Husband and I split. Both kids tried it and The Destroyer even liked it.

Pics of both are below. I hope you enjoy my recipes, such as they are!

: Sausage patties browning

: Apples cut up

: Apples ready for spices

: Apples with Cinnamon and Brown Sugar

: Apples simmering

: Almost perfect, but could go longer if you like them really mushy

: Sausage patties cut in half and apples

: Brinner for the winner

: Pancake with Apple, Pear, Sausage mixture on top

: Apple, Pear, Sausage mixture in the pan

: Pancake Flipped

: Apple, Pear, Sausage Pancake

Chicken Marsala; Spinach Salad, home made Croutons

Posted: 2011/10/07 | Author: Lola | Filed under: Cooking | Tags: Broth, Butter, Chicken marsala, Cooking, Garlic, home made croutons, Marsala, Sauce | 1 Comment

Dinner

My Husband says my chicken Marsala is the best he’s ever had. with one minor exception for a local restaurant. I’ve talked before about how I am a recipe fiddler. Basically by the time I’ve made something more than a few times I pretty much just keep it in my head and then whip it out via memory when the time comes. Now that being said, I haven’t made this dish in a long while. But I was feeling cocky and I was also short on time and attention span. I made this dinner Tuesday night for my husband and SIL while trying to supervise home work and get the kids fed a snack. It’s been better, but it was still good. The pics below will show you what it all look like, but the recipe basically goes like this.

Chicken Marsala

Boneless skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin. anywhere from 2-4, anymore and your pan size could end up being an issue, but you could always cook them in batches.

Lightly dredge in flour, you can add salt and pepper to taste, I do not.

Cook them in a large flat bottom skillet in a little olive oil until they are browned on both sides and you have a nice pan full of cooked brown bits. Take them out and set them to the side.

White or yellow onion, diced fine, about a half an onion, you don’t want a ton of it because the focus is the shrooms.

Couple cloves of garlic, smash with a knife and peel. Then I run them through a garlic press and dump right on top on the diced onion pile.

This time I deglazed the pan with red wine, you could use white whine, Marsala, beef or chicken broth. Heck you can even use water if you need to, but you MUST deglaze the pan before you put in the onions and garlic. You want to cool the pan down a smidge and also get all the flavor up form the bottom to go into the sauce. Then I added a little butter and olive oil and sauteed the onions and garlic until soft. The red wine made it a bit difficult to keep an eye on heat and make sure the garlic did not burn, if you ever burn garlic in a dish you should probably just throw it out and start fresh, there is no rescue from burnt garlic.

80z or more of mushrooms, I hoped to use the rest of the Criminis we got locally, but they were dry moldy yuck. I just used sliced button mushrooms, about 12 oz, and gave them a rough chop to break them down to something with a little smaller/better mouth feel.

Toss mushrooms into onions and garlic and saute until tender and clear, but not caramelized ( though that might be yum)

You sauce is basically some ratio of butter, Marsala ( buy a good one) and broth. I prefer beef broth because I like the darker color. Now thickness can be an issue here. Butter wise I try not to use more than 2-3 TBs in the sauce itself. Too much fat and sauces are harder to keep together and do not reheat well, think Alfredo…

I also don’t prefer to use corn starch when thickening sauces. I am a make a roux girl. And you kind of already have roux in your pan because the chicken had flour on it, and you have cooked those meaty floury bits in olive oil and butter (fats). Then deglazed and incorporated them into the sauce. Got it? So you can a- be bold and trust your skills ( what I did this time) b-make some more roux paste in your pan. If I had done it this time it would of been 1-2 TBs of flour and butter. Be sure to cook until paste is brownish, not raw and yellowish white. You will need a cup of liquid for each tablespoon of flour you used in your roux. ish… Sauces are so fun!

c- just use corn starch . If you do, use 1 tsp corn starch in a cold cup of broth and shake it well. I think I usually temper the broth/starch with some warm broth from the pan as well before putting it in the pan.

Now you add your broth and Marsala and simmer and stir until your sauce is right where you want it. This is TRULY a taste issue. Husband made it last week with an online recipe that called for no broth and 1.5 cups of Marsala. When he cooked it down the sauce was very light brown and very thick, Marsalaly. It as good, it wasn’t mine. This time I used about 1.5 cups of the broth and maybe 1/4 cup Marsala. At the end 2 Tablespoons of butter was stirred in and it turned out great. Next time I’m trying, white wine, chicken broth and more Marsala..maybe…

When you are comfortable that your sauce is together and the taste you’d like place your breasts back into the pan and simmer for a bit until you are happy with it and serve over Gemelli.

Now the croutons.

I use my big white bowl I use to make dressing for Thanksgiving or pasta salads for pitch-ins. Though lately it has become the defacto Spinach Salad bowl.

In the bottom of the bowl warm butter and olive oil and then add your spices. I use a crap load of dill and something called Garlic Garlic sold by Tastefully Simple. You want a lot of spice in your oil/butter and you can spice it however you want. You do NOT want too much butter/oil so error on the less side until you learn what works for you.

Cut your french baguettes into cubes and then take off your rings and toss the cubes with the oil/butter/spice mixture. Leave it sit for a little bit and make sure you have tossed well.

Dump them in a single layer on a cookie sheet

DON’T wash the bowl, put your salad directly in it and it will pick up the spices left behind on the sides.

Bake them in a 325 oven until they are “done”. I do this by watch and feel alone. Start with 10 minutes and then check about every 5. You can also pull them out and turn them all, I usually just shake the pan a few times. You want them dried out, but not so hard they rip your mouth up and not so soft it is like eating bread cubes. If you get them a little too hard don’t worry ( mine went a tad too far) just make a wetter salad, think juicy tomatoes and toss the croutons in with the whole thing. They will pick up the salad juices and get very very yummy. What you don’t use, store in a plastic baggie in your pantry. You may be able to freeze them too, but I’ve never tried. They don’t last that long.

: Could even be pounded thinner

: Pounded breasts

: Crouton Ingredients

: Olive Oil, Butter, Spices

: French Baguette

: Cubes in bowl

: Bread cubes

: Crouton spices left behind on bowl

: Deglaze

: Browned breasts set aside

: Diced Onion, pressed garlic

: Onion, garlic, deglaze sauce

: Croutons

: Chicken in the sauce

: Heirloom tomatoe , for juiciness

: Spinach Salad

: Finished Croutons

: Chicken in the sauce

: Gimelli

: This was the deglazing and drinking wine.

: Final plate

: Smore’s smash cream. Chocolate bars, Graham Crackers, Mini Marshmallows

: S’more’s ice cream

Chicken Marsala (bewitchingkitchen.com)
Marsala Sauce Recipe (mademan.com)

Steak and grilled potatoes; Home Made Green Sauce

Posted: 2011/08/31 | Author: Lola | Filed under: Cooking | Tags: Cooking, Green Sauce, Onion, T-bones, Tomatillo | Leave a comment

Last Thursday while I was taking a mental health day from blogging I decided I would use the extra few hours gained from not having to write a post to channel my inner domestic goddess for a little while. I had ordered locally grown tomatillos and peppers from the produce delivery place with the intention of making a batch of my home made green sauce. That recipe involves roasting things, so I decided to use the grill to make dinner AND green sauce. Hubby gets a steak he didn’t have to cook and I get to make a dinner. Everybody wins.

Dinner was as follows:

T-bones with Chicago Steak rub, marinated with the rub on for a few hours, then grilled for about 8 minutes a side for medium well.

Locally grown mushrooms, sauteed with onion and reduced with Red Wine Vinegar and beef broth.

Potatoes also done on the grill. They were locally grown and from the produce delivery place as well. I cut them in halfish, gave them a light coating of olive oil and some seasoning, I think I used a Chipotle rub. I started these beofre anything else, along with the onions. They were probably on for at least 10 minutes before I turned them to the other side. They turned out great, almost like crispy on the outside steak fries.

Locally grown corn and a salad with garden tomatoes and locally grown lettuce. Thinking of the lettuce reminds me that I need to get my fall crop of spinach and lettuce in, though it’s probably way too late, never hurts to try right?

The star of my evening was the green sauce. There is probably an exact recipe for this stuff floating around my house somewhere. This is a recipe The Husband got and tried first, then I stole the making of it and started experimenting. By this point it’s make from memory and turns out differently every time. This is part of why I love cooking but hate baking, I screw with recipes. I manipulate them based on what I have on hand or what sounds good or what worked best last time. To me cooking is playing and Baking is an exact-ish science. Though I am still working on making the perfect cobbler, I mostly avoid baking.

This is the basic gist of the green sauce.

Tomatillos, peel papery skins, wash, cut in half. I roasted them on a baking sheet with a lip to hold the juices they release. I turn them cut side down and put the broiler on high. Keep an eye on them, about 15-20 minutes, until the skins get bubbly and brown or black and the pan is full of tomatillo juice. I also throw the few cloves of garlic on the same pan and roast them in the juices at the same time. This batch I got busy and turned the oven off, but didn’t take the pan out. This caused me to lose a lot of my juice to oven evaporation and make my sauce extra thick. It was a happy mistake I think, but one I won’t be repeating on purpose.

Onions, peel, cut in big chunks. You can put them on a pan with the tomatillos in the oven but I put them on the grill with the potatoes to get them semi-cooked and roasted.

Garlic, smash and peel a few cloves, see above.

Peppers, I prefer pabloanos, but I have used all kinds of peppers for this. This batch was billed as a pablano/banana mix. You can either cut the tops off and roast that way or roast whole and deal with the seeds later while you are peeling the stems and skins off. Either way works, but the cut off in advance method may be a little less messy. Roast in oven under broiler or on grill on bottom close to the fire until the skins are charred and black. Then let them rest and peel off as much skin as is fit. There is a picture of the skin carcases somewhere here.

Cilantro, I used two full bunches or more this time, but you should aim for at least 1-2 cups of the stuff. I love it so we use way more than that, see bowl full.

I usually try to keep my ratio of tomatillos to peppers to onions about 1;1;1/2 or so. But honestly it doesn’t matter that much as long as you like the taste so don’t stress over it.

So when you have your veggies roasted and peeled you have a pile of mushy stuff. Shove it all in your blender or food processor and let it go until its whatever consistency you like. Then start working in the washed cilantro until you have the taste and consistency and color you want. I’m lazy and don’t cut it, I just kind of tear it or shove it in there in small batches until it all gets worked in. I did this over the weekend when I had time.

We enjoy this usually slow cooked with pork and some chicken broth added. But you could use it for anything.

Your batch will be as big or small as your volume of ingredients. This batch made about 4+ cups for me.

Last Night’s Dinner- Finally a cooking post!

Posted: 2011/07/31 | Author: Lola | Filed under: Cooking | Tags: Alkaline Trio, Basil, Cooking, Garlic, Mozzarella, Olive oil, Shallot | Leave a comment

In the next 48 hours I will see not one but two Alkaline Trio live shows. For the next 3 days, The Husband and I will be ALONE and FAR AWAY from MiniMe and The Destroyer. Before I get to take advantage of all that time away I had to make sure the house, and kids and etc was taken care of. So last night I totally sent The Husband to Sam’s Club and stole making dinner from him. I am a fabulous cook. But ever since the reconciliation I have found myself relegated to sous chef in my house. One of the ways The Husband coped and relaxed during the almost divorce was to cook. Before we split up we used to both cook fairly evenly. There is debate on who is the better cook. He is by far the better baker, I am better at sauces. He is an amazing smoker chef as well. The place where I excel though is taking what’s left in the house that seems like nothing and making an amazing meal with it. That’s because of the way my mind works when I cook. When I’m deciding what to make for dinner this is what I do.

I take a look at what we have in the fridge or what I need need to use up, and then I just start thinking about what sounds good with it. It’s pretty simple really. Just add some flavor you are craving and voila dinner. Sorry if the pics line up wonky, but I’m done messing with it.

Last night’s dinner started with the Italian marinade chicken, fresh local green beans, beets, garden slicing tomatoes, and spicy field greens. Even better, other than the salad and corn, everything was being grilled. Chicken was simply done in a an Italian marinade of The Husbands concoction and grilled for about 8-10 min per side.