Meatballs!

I found the easiest way ever to make meatballs.

Take one 1-lb package of Italian sausage meat (I used spicy). Add 1 egg and enough breadcrumbs to bind. (The sausage meat is already seasoned.) Bake, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, at 350 for 25-35 minutes. Remove and add to tomato sauce. Simmer for an additional few minutes.

Done!

Black bean and andouille sausage soup

Since I'm now working four doubles in a row each week (16-hour days Tuesday through Friday), naturally it's become imperative to do a bunch of cooking on my two days off. I started this week's lineup with an easy soup, using up a bag of dried beans and some leftover sausage.

1 bag of dried black beans, soaked overnight and pre-cooked in a CrockPot
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1 red pepper (or green), chopped
1 package andouille sausage, sliced
2 cups tomato sauce, or one can diced tomatoes
1 1/2 quarts broth
Seasonings to taste: salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, paprika, cayenne

In a big soup pot, add some olive oil (or bacon fat) over medium-high heat. Saute the onion, carrot, and celery until the onion is soft. Add the pepper and the sausage and saute for another couple of minutes. Add the beans, the tomatoes, and enough broth to float everything. Let cook down on medium-low heat, covered, until everything is cooked through. (If the beans are pre-cooked, 20-30 minutes; if not, 1-2 hours.) Season to taste and allow to simmer another five minutes or so.

Note: it would be very easy to add, say, a bag of frozen corn into this soup.

Baked shells with spinach and sausage

Baked pasta combinations are a great way to make a filling, delicious dinner out of pantry/freezer ingredients (box of pasta, box of frozen spinach, some sausage, some cheese). I used shells here, but really any shape will do.

3/4 lb mild Italian sausage
1 medium onion, chopped
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup pesto sauce
10 ounces pasta, cooked
1 box frozen spinach
6 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Heat heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add sausage, onion, and garlic, and saute until sausage cooked through, about 10 minutes, breaking up meat with back of spoon. Add tomatoes with juice to pan. Simmer until sauce thickens slightly, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Stir in pesto sauce. Season with salt and pepper.

Lightly oil 13 x 9 glass baking dish. Combine pasta, spinach, mozzarella, and 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese in large bowl. Stir in hot tomato sauce. Mix gently until spinach is wilted. Transfer mixture to prepared baking dish. Sprinkle remaining 2/3 cup Parmesan cheese over top. Bake until sauce bubbles and cheese melt, about 30 minutes.

Roasted eggplant and white bean soup with gruyere sausage

Not much left in the ol' cabinets. But I do have some nice sausages, bought on sale. I'm making a roasted eggplant and white bean soup, with some gruyere and roasted garlic chicken sausage added in.

I used this recipe as a starting point, without the fresh herbs or the onion, and all broth instead of broth and water. I'm out of onions, so I'll use half a head of garlic instead (at which point I'll be out of garlic, too). I'm also adding in a red pepper, and of course the package of sausage. I also won't blend it, since my blending equipment is all packed.

Red beans and grits

Like red beans and rice, only with grits instead of rice. Why? Because I don't have enough rice left for a sufficient batch. So I'm using grits instead (regular grits, not cheese grits).

Black bean soup with sausage and chard

It's that time of year again: the leaves are changing color, it's cold outside, and I just want to eat soup all the time. Are you like that, too? This is today's concoction: black beans, Italian sausage, and chard.

1 bag of dried black beans, soaked and pre-cooked
1 large onion, diced
5-6 cloves of garlic, minced
4 links sweet Italian sausage
1 head Swiss chard, stems removed, chopped
Broth
Seasonings: cumin, chili powder, oregano, bay leaf, salt and pepper
Optional: 1 jalapeno

Squeeze the sausage meat out of the casings into a large stockpot with some olive oil. Brown gently, then add the onion and garlic (and jalapeno, if using). Saute until softened. Add the beans and enough broth to float the mixture.

Cook on low for an hour or so, or until the beans are cooked through. Add the seasonings and chard, and cook until the chard is just wilted. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a sprinkle of fresh cilantro.

Pepperoni and cheese scrambled eggs

What better way to use up pepperoni, right?

1 teaspoon grapeseed oil
1/2 pound pepperoni
2 tablespoons butter
6 eggs
3/4 cup milk
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup grated white or yellow cheese
2 tablespoons scallions, white and tender green parts only, sliced on the bias

Heat grapeseed oil over medium-high heat in a large skillet. Fry pepperoni, transfer to paper towels to drain, pour off fat and wipe out pan. Melt butter in pan over medium heat. Whisk together eggs and milk, add to pan, and season with salt and pepper. Loosen edges to prevent eggs from sticking. When eggs begin to set, sprinkle with cheese and top with pepperoni and scallions. Remove from heat. Cover and let carryover cook until firm.

Chicken and sausage with olive and anchovy sauce

1 1/2 lbs sweet or hot Italian sausage
3 lbs chicken, diced
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced
8 flat anchovy fillets
1/2 cup black olives
1 tablespoon drained capers
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup tomato sauce

Chop sausage and brown; drain. Brown chicken with olive oil. Add to sausage. Boil and simmer celery in water and salt for 5 minutes; remove celery and reserve liquid. To the fat in skillet (from browning sausage and chicken), add onion and mushroom. Add the rest, and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the chicken and sausage back in, cover and simmer 30 minutes. Use celery liquid if it starts to dry out.

Knockwurst from Hewtin's Food Truck, Providence, RI

While walking around with my parents yesterday, showing them the city, we happened upon Hewtin's Food Truck, run by Chez Pascal.

These guys make their own sausages and charcuterie, so naturally I had to get something. We pooled our meager cash and collectively bought a knockwurst, topped with baked beans, cole slaw, and a strip of bacon.

Naturally, it was delicious. The crunch of the cole slaw and the tang of the baked beans went really well with the sausage, and of course, you can't complain about anything topped with bacon.

So, A+, Hewtin's and Chez Pascal.

Whole baked tilapia with potatoes, fennel, and sausage

The centerpiece of Saturday's dinner party was whole baked tilapia with potatoes, fennel, and two kinds of sausage. One whole fish per person, plus wine. Not including the wine, here's what I spent:

One package of 8 frozen whole tilapia at Sam's Club: $12.78
One bulb of fennel: $2.34
Several potatoes, from a 10-lb bag (cost of 10 lbs: $3 at Aldi): 50 cents?
One package of alligator sausage, the last from our New Orleans trip: $4.99
One package of andouille sausage: $3.99
One 2-lb block of feta at Sam's Club, for the appetizer: $8.79, and I used half, so let's say 4.79
Part of a jar of roasted red peppers: maybe 50 cents
One duck breast, for duck proscuitto, for appetizer: $4.79
Ingredients for dried apricot and pistachio ice cream, for dessert: less than $5, including cream

For a grand total of $39.68. Less than $40, to feed 8 people. Awesome.

Now, on to the fish recipe:

I used this recipe from Saveur as a starting point. I substituted tilapia for the red snapper, and used the same amount of stuff (potatoes, fennel, sausage), only for 8 fish instead of one. I lined two roasting pans with foil, laid four tilapia in each one, and scattered potatoes, fennel, uncooked sausage, and a few lemon slices for good measure around each pan. I threw in a couple of cans of canned clams, with juice, instead of the whole clams. Generous sprinkling of salt, and a drizzle of dry vermouth (since I didn't have any white wine). I roasted for 45 minutes (since there were 8 fish instead of 1).


1 large bulb fennel

Kosher salt, to taste
1 lb.  potatoes, in chunks
7 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 lb. fresh linguiça or kielbasa, cut into 1⁄4"-thick slices (I added another 1 lb of alligator sausage)8 cleaned whole tilapia2 lemons, sliced 1⁄2 cup white wine or dry vermouth
2 cans of clams, with juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Boil potatoes until half-cooked and drain.  Heat oven to 475˚.  Line a baking sheet  (or two) with an 18" x 24" sheet of heavy-duty foil. Transfer fish to foil. Stuff cavities of fish with fennel fronds. Roughly slice fennel bulb, and arrange fennel, potatoes, sausages, and clams around fish; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Drizzle with wine. Put an 18" x 24" piece of foil over top. Crimp edges together to form a packet. 

Roast for 35–40 minutes. Cut into foil; carefully pull back edges.  Serve.

Duck prosciutto

I made my own duck prosciutto!

Duck prosciutto is like regular prosciutto, made from duck breast. (Duck ham, in other words.) It is the easiest thing in the world to do.

First, wait for your local supermarket to run a sale on duck breasts. I got mine for $4 each.

Rinse and completely pat them dry with paper towels. Place a thick layer of kosher salt in a Pyrex casserole dish; nestle the dried-off duck breasts in the salt, so that they aren't touching each other. Cover completely with more salt. Wrap this in plastic wrap, and leave in the fridge for 24 hours.

In 24 hours, take them out of the salt and brush them off. The color and texture will already have changed (darker and firmer, respectively). Wrap each one in cheesecloth, tie with twine, and hang in your refrigerator for two weeks.

That's it. Very little effort for a huge reward--duck prosciutto that would cost you upwards of probably $15 a pound at the store.

Now, you may wonder how you hang something in a fridge, when refrigerators don't come with hooks in the top. I tied my two duck breasts together and draped the twine around a mustard bottle in the door of the fridge, allowing the duck to hang into the door shelf below. That worked pretty well for me.

The best thing to do with duck prosciutto is, of course, eat it all by itself. You can also eat it with cheese, or substitute it in recipes that call for prosciutto. I'll post some ways to use this magical stuff in the next few days.

White bean soup with crawfish sausage and mustard greens

It's essentially a variation on white bean, sausage and spinach soup, but I really like the tang of the mustard greens. It offsets the creaminess of the beans very nicely. Of course you can use regular sausage, I used the last of the crawfish sausage from Louisiana (which, incidentally, also went very nicely with the mustard greens).

I was on a beans kick there for a while, but I think I'm over it.

The equivalent of four cans of white beans
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 lb sausage, sliced
Broth
6-7 leaves of mustard greens, sliced

Saute the onion, carrots and celery in olive oil or bacon fat until soft. Add the sausage and cook until it's a little browned. (Here, you can deglaze with a little white wine, if you have any.) Add enough broth to float everything, and let cook on medium-low for 30 minutes or so. Add the mustard greens and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

White bean, sausage and spinach soup

We got our first real snowfall in New England yesterday, three inches or so. Which I guess officially makes it soup weather.

The equivalent of four cans of white beans, drained (dried, soaked and pre-cooked if possible)
3 links of Italian sausage, squeezed out
1 diced onion
4 diced carrots
4 diced celery stalks
Vegetable or chicken broth
1 box of frozen spinach
Italian seasoning, salt and pepper to taste

Brown the Italian sausage in olive oil. Add the onion, carrots and celery and cook until soft. Add the beans, and enough broth to float everything. Add the box of frozen spinach and let simmer on medium-low until the flavors are melded (30-45 minutes). Season to taste, and serve.

Chili with Italian sausage

Everybody has their own chili recipe. Mine is less a recipe and more of a general guideline. I take "chili" to mean "spicy bean and tomato soup," in which the beans can be any color, there may or may not be meat involved, and sometimes I even leave out the tomato.

But whatever. This week it's red beans and meat chili, and since I don't have any ground beef or ground turkey, I'm using Italian sausage instead. It tastes good and it's already spicy.

Red beans, pre-soaked
Tomato sauce
3-4 links Italian sausage, squeezed out of their casings and broken up
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
Broth
Seasonings: chili powder, cayenne, cumin, salt and pepper

Saute the onion and pepper in a little olive oil until soft. Add the sausage meat and cook until browned. Add the red beans and tomato sauce and a little broth to make it more liquid. Cover and cook on low until the beans are done. About halfway through the cooking process, add the seasonings to taste. Adjust seasonings again at the end and serve hot.

You can use hot peppers in addition to the green pepper if you want; you can serve with cheese and/or sour cream; you can substitute ground beef or turkey for the sausage; the possibilities are endless here.

Portuguese kale soup

I was suspicious of a soup that only had four ingredients, none of which were the standard onion/garlic saute to start it off.

But I did have two heads of kale that needed to be used up.

1 lb chorizo or hot Italian sausage, squeezed out of the casing
6-7 small potatoes, peeled and diced
2 heads of kale, chopped
Chicken broth
Salt and pepper

Boil the potatoes in water until tender. Drain and roughly mash. In a separate large stockpot, brown the sausage. Add a little broth to that, along with the potato mash. Add the chopped kale, and enough broth to float the whole thing. Stir well and let cook until the kale is tender, 15 minutes or so. Season well and serve hot.

Notes: Be sure to remove the kale stems and chop finely. A rough chop, like I did, is too much for this. Also, you can't have too many potatoes. The potato mash essentially disappears into the soup, thickening it up, so if you want a strong potato taste, add more.

I have no idea if this is the traditional Portuguese recipe or not (caldo verde, or green soup), but it still makes a pretty tasty kale soup.

Boudin-stuffed cabbage rolls

I can't believe no one's ever done this before.

Traditional stuffed cabbage rolls (a Jewish staple) are stuffed with a mixture of ground beef, rice and veggies (onion, carrot, celery, maybe a parsnip) and slow-cooked in a tomato sauce. Hearty, filling, real winter fare. I was poking around in my fridge the other day and realized I had a head of cabbage that needed to be used up. But I wasn't in the mood for either slaw or soup.

"Stuffed cabbage rolls!" says I.

"But I don't have any ground beef," I told myself.

"Pshaw," I scoffed, "I have this boudin right here. All thawed out even."

And boudin, as we all know now, is a loose pork-and-rice sausage. All I had to do was add the veggies, and voila! Instant cabbage roll filling! With pork, and spices, and yumminess!

For those of you without boudin, any other kind of ground meat is just as good.

1 head of cabbage
1 carrot, diced
1 stalk of celery, diced
1 small onion, diced
1 lb ground meat (or pork, or boudin filling, or whatever)
1/2 cup uncooked rice
2 tablespoons tomato paste
salt and pepper
tomato sauce or juice

Core the cabbage by cutting out the core from the bottom, leaving the head intact. Put the head in a bowl and pour a pan of boiling water over it. Let sit.

Meanwhile, saute the carrot, celery and onion in a little olive oil until soft. Transfer to a bowl. Add the meat, rice and tomato paste and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.

Fill each cabbage leaf with a 1/4 cup or so of the mixture (you may need to cut out the bottom inch or two of the center vein) and wrap into a small roll. Fill a pan with the rolls. Add enough tomato sauce to just cover the rolls, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer 45 minutes. Serve immediately.

Freezes beautifully.

Sausage n' grits

This is essentially shrimp n' grits, without the shrimp. Cheese grits, plus a mixture of andouille sausage and tomatoes.

For the sausage mixture:
1 package andouille sausage (I used chicken andouille), sliced
1 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 28-oz can tomatoes, with juice
Seasonings (I used Italian seasoning; fresh thyme and oregano would work well too; plus salt and pepper, and maybe a little paprika and/or cayenne)

Saute the onion, garlic and pepper in olive oil until soft. Add the sausage, and cook over medium a few minutes more. Add the tomatoes and seasonings and simmer down over medium-low until all the flavors are well-blended (maybe 15 minutes).

Meanwhile, cook up a big batch of cheese grits. Quick grits are okay--follow the directions, and when it's done, add in a big handful of shredded cheese (I used manchego; but plain old cheddar is just fine).

Serve by adding the sausage/tomato mixture on top of the cheese grits; garnish with fresh parsley.

Black-eyed pea soup with collard greens and andouille sausage

One of the things I got in my veggie CSA last week was a big head of organic collard greens. A quick scan of my pantry confirmed a bag of dried black-eyed peas, so this soup was a no-brainer.

One bag of dried black-eyed peas, soaked and pre-cooked in your CrockPot
One onion, chopped
A few cloves of garlic, chopped
One bell pepper, chopped
One package of andouille sausage (or other spicy sausage; kielbasa would work, too), sliced
One 28-oz can whole tomatoes
One bunch of collard greens
Seasonings: Italian, cumin, chili powder, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper
Several cups of broth (I used a combination of veggie and chicken)

Saute the onion, garlic and pepper in olive oil until soft. Add the sausage and cook for a few more minutes. Deglaze with a splash of white wine, if you have it, and add the tomatoes. Squeeze them in your hand as you add them, to break them up. Add the black-eyed peas and seasonings, and add enough broth to float the whole thing. Let that cook down for about 20 minutes or so, then add the chopped collard greens. Cook for another 10 minutes, and serve.

Cost: bag of dried beans, $1. Andouille sausage, $4.99. Can of tomatoes, $1.59 on sale. Collard greens, let's say $2, and 75 cents for the onion, garlic and pepper. The broth I made myself. Total cost: around $10 for a big vat of soup, at least eight adult servings, around $1.25 per serving. If you left the andouille sausage out, or substituted a cheaper kind of meat, you could cut the cost substantially.

Lentil and andouille stew

This is a variation on the lentil and sausage stew recipe I posted last February. I used andouille sausage, and left out the swiss chard. I also added a bell pepper, deglazed with white wine, and used chicken broth instead of water. Also I threw in a handful of Italian seasoning. Good stuff.

Sausage and potato hash

This is more appetizing than it sounds. It's basically crispy fried potatoes, with chunks of sausage throughout.

Dice and boil a few potatoes (you can leave the skins on, that's where all the vitamins are) until almost but not quite done. Saute a diced onion in some bacon fat or duck fat. You could also add a green bell pepper, if you wanted. Drain the potatoes, and add to the onion. Fry until crispy and nearly done. Take out the thawed links of andouille sausage in your refrigerator you're trying to use up before moving, dice and add. Swirl the whole thing around until the sausage is done, add salt and pepper, and eat.

For a total and delicious gut bomb, add a fried egg on top and wait for the food coma to commence.