Sausage Spinach Buns

We got some awesome smoked sausage from the wicked butcher outlet store last week, but now they're hogging space in the freezer. I wanted something different other than your standard super-crisped on a bun or with sauerkraut or something else and started digging on the internet for "sausage bread". ...Not the best search in the world, lol. Reading them, they all wanted sausage out of its casing and lots of add-ons or pizza style. Considering I was just looking for whether or not you could bake a whole sausage in a piece of bread, it was odd, lol. But it gave me ideas and I came up with something that actually rocks.

Sausage Spinach Buns


makes 8 buns

1 recipe pizza dough (i'm still perfecting mine, so you can chose your fave)
1 lb smoked sausage, cut into 1/4 inch half moons
300g frozen spinach, thawed and drained
1 medium onion, minced
4 oz mushrooms, chopped
1 cup grated mozzarella
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

Preheat oven to 425 F and oil a baking sheet.
Have your dough ready to go, or ready for the final rising, divided into 8 equal balls.
Fry the sausage pieces in a frying pan until nice and crispy.
Remove from pan and drain on paper towels.
In the leftover fat, or a dash of oil, saute the mushrooms and onion until brown and soft.
Stir in the spinach and sausage.
Mix in the cheese just before you start making the buns.
Roll the dough balls into about 6 inch circles.
Put an 1/8th of the filling in the center and pull the edges around it.
Place on pan seam side down and brush tops with oil.
Bake about 15-10 minutes or until filling is hot and dough is cooked and brown.

Enjoy!

Cheeseburger Crescent Pizza

A night when I would have loved nothing more than to order in pizza rather than cook, but sadly there are absolutely no good pizza joints in town and it wasn't exactly in the budget either. Wasn't going to give up on pizza, but wasn't feeling making dough. Luckily we had some Pillsbury crescent roll dough in the fridge and some leftovers, so I got to do a minimal amount of work and still have some sort of pizza.

Cheeseburger Crescent Pizza


makes 4 pieces, serves 2 as a main or 4 with a side

1 tube Pillsbury crescents
1 1/2 cups fried ground beef crumbs
1 cup grated cheese ( I used a blend of cheddar and mozzarella since there was some leftover cheddar)
1/2 cup cooked mushroom pieces (about 100g raw)
1 med onion, chopped and par-cooked
3 Tbsp tomato paste
pinch each of garlic powder, oregano, salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 F and lightly grease a baking sheet.
Unroll dough on sheet and press together seams.
Mix spices and tomato paste together and spread over the crust.
Sprinkle with half the cheese.
Top with the burger, mushrooms and onion.
Add rest of cheese.
Bake about 12 minutes or until toppings warm and crust brown and crispy.

A new and interesting way to get rid of crescents when not craving their sickly sweet plain flakiness.

Enjoy!

Fish Chowder

So, had to come up with ideas to use up all that broth from cooking the stewing hen. Chowder time! The recipe varies depending on what we have on hand when we have broth and frozen fish at the same time, so this is really just a guideline of what happened this time, lol.

Fish Chowder


serves 6

5 cups chicken broth
400g frozen white fish, thawed (we had cod this time)
5 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
1/2 cup milk
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 13oz can of fresh corn, drained
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat.
Add the onion and carrot and cook until onion is clear.
Add the stock and potatoes and bring to a boil.
Boil the potatoes until almost tender, about 6 minutes.
Add the fish and corn and wait for it to boil again.
Stir in the milk and season with salt and pepper.
Heat until just bubbling.
Serve plain, or with bacon bits or grated cheese or slices of fresh bread,

Enjoy!

Chicken Stew

Gotta love big cooking days. Something about dancing around the kitchen and accomplishing so much just makes you feel relaxed and down to earth.

So mom picked up a stewing hen for an experiment and we turned it into broth yesterday. It's not a bad broth either since the hen somehow has more chicken flavour for being so much older than normal fresh chicken. The only fun thing about the stewing hen was that we wanted to see if we could save the meat, so we had to boil it around 4 hours for the meat to fall off the bones. We ended up with a butt-load of meat though, more than we were expecting from all the internet info about how the hens are scrawny. Only problem is, the meat isn't so hot when it's not in a broth or a liquid of some sort. Therefore, chicken stew!

Chicken Stew


serves 6

150g bacon
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 medium onions, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 can 796mL diced tomatoes, with juices
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp sugar (to counteract the super sourness of canned tomatoes)
pinch hot pepper flakes
3 cups cooked chicken, diced
1/3 can water (rinse out the leftover juices in the can)
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, add 1 Tbsp oil and the bacon and fry until crispy.
Stir in the rest of the oil and the onion and saute until clear and soft.
Add the garlic and hot pepper flakes and fry about 1-2 minutes, until the garlic starts to turn golden.
Mix in the tomatoes, oregano, sugar and water.
Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to low.
Simmer at least 30 minutes to infuse flavours, or until desired consistency.
Serve hot over noodles, or with bread or biscuits.

An interesting and yummy new (for me anyways) way to eat chicken.

Enjoy!

Beef Fried Rice

More Chinese, but it's one of the simplest things to do to stretch lean supplies. We had leftover roast beef for this one, but fresh beef works and is sometimes better. Any cut too, as long as you marinate the tougher ones and don't over cook them.


Beef Fried Rice


makes 5 servings

1lb beef, cut into small, thin strips
1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms
1 large carrot, chopped into half moons
2 cups dry rice, cooked as you like, fresh or day old
4 green onions, chopped
1 egg
3 Tbsp oil
3 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cayenne
1 Tbsp sesame oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet/wok heat 1 tsp of the oil.
Scramble the egg in a small bowl, season with a little salt and pepper, and fry flat in the pan with little stirring.
Remove and cut the egg into 1/2 x 1/8 inch strips.
Heat 2 tsp of oil in the pan and fry the beef pieces about a minute a side. Remove from pan.
Heat another 2 tsp of oil in the pan and fry the carrot and mushrooms for about 4 minutes, then remove.
Put the rest of the plain oil in the pan and add the rice.
Fry until nice and crispy, about 8-10 minutes depending on how damp it is.
Add 1 1/2 Tbsp of the soy sauce and stir to coat the rice evenly.
Mix the spices with the rest of the soy sauce in a small bowl.
Add everything back to the pan and pour the soy sauce mix over it, stirring well to combine with the rice.
Top with the sesame oil and green onions.
Serve hot.

Yummy!

Turkey Pot Pie I

Puff pastry and turkey; what else do you need? Well, veggies help, and these were what we had on hand. And since we didn't have any stock, homemade or canned, kicking around, I used the instant powder. The only thing to remember with that is it can be salty, so only salt at the very end, and it has a bit of sweetness, so it's not always a good addition to savory things.

Turkey Pot Pie I


serves 4

2 1/2 cups cooked turkey
2 small onions, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced
1 small head broccoli, stems sliced, 1/2 inch floret pieces
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
3 cups hot water
3 Tbsp chicken stock powder
a splash of cream
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 lb thawed puff pastry

Roll the puff pastry into a 10" by 10" square and cut into four pieces.
Cook according to package directions.
Melt the butter with the olive oil in a large pot over medium high heat.
Fry the onions and mushrooms until onions are soft and mushrooms are starting to brown, about 6 minutes.
Mix in the broccoli and garlic and cook about 2 minutes.
Stir the chicken soup powder into the water and set aside.
Evenly sprinkle the flour over the veggies in the pot and stir to get rid of any white spots.
Gradually stir in the chicken stock mix and cream and cook until it coats the back of a spoon.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Pour into four over-proof ramekins and put a piece of pastry on top of each.
Lower the oven temp to 350 F and put the pies into the oven for about 15 minutes or up to an hour.
Serve after cooling slightly and with pot holders and trivets if vessels are still really hot.

I thought there were going to be 6 pies until I portioned it out, so I cut the puff pastry into sixes, and hence it's a little smaller than I wanted. Probably could have made 6 but I had no idea where the mini-bowls were and since there were no potatoes in the mix, it wasn't hearty enough to be smaller.

Enjoy!

Spaghetti Carbonara

A slightly carb-y week, but there's nothing wrong with yummy pasta. Again, it's a regular dish in the house and it's gotten even better now that we use real bacon and not that stuff maple leaf calls bacon. The yummy smokiness, the subtly salty flavour and the pieces that turn into part pork-rind are a truly indulgent addition to what we call carbonara. I was watching a show the other day and the chef was like "it's not the dish if you add cream, true stuff lets the eggs make the silky sauce", but in lieu of Parmesan, whipping cream makes a luxurious sauce.

Spaghetti Carbonara

serves 4

350g spaghetti, cooked
3 eggs
2 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp bacon grease
1 lb bacon, diced and cooked
2 Tbsp whip cream
salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter with the bacon grease in a large saucepan.
Beat the eggs and cream together.
Add the pasta to the pan and toss to coat with the butter.
Reduce the heat and pour the egg mix over, stirring well to prevent scrambling.
Season with salt and pepper and toss well.
With the heat off, stir in the bacon.
Serve.

 Enjoy!

Turkey Tetrazzini

Leftover turkey is yummy, but you can get sick of it after a couple days. That's okay, because the meat takes to freezing pretty well. Of course, it's a little gummy when thawed, which might make something like a turkey salad sandwich not that appealing, but it's perfect in pies and casseroles.

So we had leftover turkey in the freezer and wanted something simple: turkey tetrazzini came to mind. It's been one of those things we discovered a few years ago when we wanted something different with our turkey leftovers. The veggies vary (mushrooms work quite well, the peas, broccoli or something different) but the cream sauce remains the same. Of course, you don't have to leftovers to do this. If you score turkey parts on sale and just cook them to put in the casserole, that would work too.

Turkey Tetrazzini


serves 4

350g pasta, went with spaghetti noodles snapped in half this year
2 1/2 cups cooked turkey, in 1/2 inch chunks
1 large onion, diced
14oz can of peas, drained
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
a splash of sherry
1 can condensed mushroom soup
4 cans of milk
1/4 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

Start prepping the pasta.
In a large saucepan (big enough to combine everything), heat the butter and oil over medium-high heat.
Add the onion and cook until soft, but not brown.
Add the turkey and cook about 1-2 minutes to start warming it up.
Sprinkle the flour over the turkey and onion and stir to get everything wet.
Add the mushroom soup and splash of sherry and combine. Cook a minute to burn off the alcohol.
Mix in the milk and spices and bring to a boil.
Add the peas and drained pasta and stir to coat.
Serve (or bake in a 350 F oven for 30 minutes up to an hour)

Filling and creamy, a nice alternative to a weekday default meal.

Enjoy!

Purist Beef Stew and Cinnamon Puff Pretzels

Another lazy day, but there's nothing wrong with that. With winter back again, a beef stew seemed like a good idea to warm the soul. And we're eating through the freezer again, so there was some thawed puff pastry in the fridge. I was thinking of something to do with apples, but mom wants to be in charge of those, since she thinks they're skeazy, so I went with a straight-up cinnamon sugar thing.

Purist Beef Stew


serves 3

2 lb eye of round beef, chunked
2 medium onions, diced
1/2 packet onion soup powder
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup flour
1 Tbsp sherry
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 cups water

Put a large pot over medium heat and add the oil.
Add the onions and cook until translucent, about 4 minutes.
Add the onion soup powder, flour and pepper and mix until everything looks wet.
Add the sherry and cook off the alcohol smell, about 1-2 minutes.
Stir in the water gradually until all the lumps are gone.
Turn down to really low and add the beef chunks.
Even though the meat is sticking out of the liquid, DON'T add more water, since the meat will give off its own.
Simmer about 2 hours, until meat is soft, stirring occasionally. If it starts to boil, just turn it off for a while and let it sit on the stove.

Serve immediately or fridge and reheat the next day (it's always better the next day if you can plan it that way)

If you couldn't tell, I nicknamed it "purist" since it only has beef and onions, none of this potato, carrot, pea and what-not stuff you find in canned stew, lol.

Cinnamon Puff Pretzels

makes 24 mini pretzels

1/2 package puff pastry (about 227g), thawed

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 Tbsp butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 425 F

Sprinkle a little of the sugar on a clean work surface and put the puff pastry on it.

Roll it out to a 10 inch by 12 inch rectangle.

Brush the butter over the whole area of dough.

Mix the remaining sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and sprinkle evenly over the dough.

Semi-tightly roll the dough to the middle from both sides, to make a pretzel-shaped log.

Cut into 24 even pieces and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Bake about 8 minutes and then flip the pastries and bake another 5 minutes, or until brown on both sides. Careful, it can burn quite easily.

Serve warm or cooled. both make a yummy, sweet treat.

Enjoy!

Shrimp Fried Rice

So, first post of the new year. Hope everyone enjoyed their holidays!

Keeping it simple after all the holiday cooking, I went with a simple fried rice. Well, it was supposed to be simple, but the shrimp were old-school in not being zipper-backed and deveined, so that took longer than I thought. I ran a paring knife along the back, and it worked, but then mom comes home and tells me that you can just open the shell from the leg side of the shrimp, lol. Oh wells, shrimp got prepped and into the rice!

Shrimp Fried Rice


serves 4

1 1/2 cups dry converted rice, cooked following directions
1 lb shrimp, cut into pieces
2 medium carrots, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, sliced into medium pieces
2 Tbsp oil
3 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground fenugreek
1 tsp honey
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 eggs, lightly beaten
sesame oil to garnish

In a large wok, heat a tsp of the oil and add the eggs.
Keep the eggs flat and flip after 30-45 seconds. Cook until done and removed from the pan.
Cut the egg into thin strips about an inch long by 1/4 inch wide.
Add 2 tsp of oil to the wok and stir fry the onion and carrots about 2 minutes then add the garlic and shrimp pieces and cook about a minute.
Add a tablespoon of soy sauce, the spices and honey and cook until the shrimp is just ready.
Put into a large bowl and wipe out the pan.
Add the rest of the oil to the pan and add the rice
Cook the prepared rice until it's dry and toasty.
Stir in the remaining soy sauce and coat the rice evenly.
Add the shrimp and veggie mix back to the pan and combine well.
Heat everything back up and then kill the heat and add the egg.
Garnish with the sesame oil, give it a quick stir and serve.

No picture today since everyone was so hungry it was on plates and in bellies before I remembered I needed one. It's a yummy mix with a sweet and spicy taste that's definitely not your take-out or frozen meal dish.

Enjoy!

Baked Macaroni and Cheese I

Yesterday for supper, I was feeling like something uncomplicated and one of the standard "don't think about it" meals is mac'n'cheese. But I didn't know when mom was going to be back from work, so it got some baking time.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese I


serves 4 or 5

400g elbow pasta
250g old cheddar cheese, grated
100g ricotta, extra firm
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1/4 tsp mustard powder
pinch of garlic
2 cups of milk (or more, for a creamier sauce)
salt and pepper to taste
1 large tomato, seeded and cut into slices

In a large pot, cook pasta according to directions and drain.
Preheat oven to 350 F and oil a 9" x 13" baking dish.
In empty pot, melt butter and then sprinkle in flour and spices. Whisk and cook about 1 minute.
Slowly add milk, making sure to whisk out the lumps.
Bring to a boil and add the cheeses.
Stir macaroni back into the sauce and check seasoning.
Pour into baking dish and put tomato slices on top.
Bake at least 20 minutes or up to an hour.

Cheesy, creamy and with a hint of freshness from the tomato on top. Yummy!

Enjoy!

Jazzed Tuna Casserole

Felt lazy today, and I got my early Christmas present of Sims 3 for Wii, so really didn't want to put too much effort into my supper. Kept saying for ages that I wanted tuna casserole, but it always turns into mac'n'cheese weekends instead, so I put my lazy butt in gear and did it.

Jazzed Tuna Casserole


makes 4-6 servings depending on the appetite

400g pasta, usually go with elbows
2 cans tuna. drained (if you use raw tuna, you are nuts, cuz this sooo ain't worth it)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
3 1/2 soup cans of milk (more or less depending on how creamy you like it)
2 shots Worcestershire sauce
diced green pepper
chopped mushroom pieces
salt and pepper to taste

Boil the pasta according to directions/preference, but in a large pot is a must, for easier stirring.
Drain.
Melt butter in pot and sweat veggies for a couple minutes.
Mix in flour, salt and pepper.
Stir in the mushroom soup.
Gradually add the milk to lessen the amount of lumps.
Add the tuna and pasta back in.
Heat through.
Serve with favourite toppings.

It's fine on its own, but extra shots of Worcestershire sauce and plain chips add to the yumminess if you want it richer. Can be heated in the oven for up to an hour, but I'd add extra milk to the recipe since it could dry out. Greasing whatever baking dish you put it in would also be a good idea, since it can stick fierce.

Enjoy!

Turmeric "Chicken"

So, we haven't had a chest freezer for over a year, not since it just died randomly one day...around the same time the fridge died. Now we just have the freezer over the new fridge, so we have to go through periods of eating through the freezer and just pulling things out to thaw if we need to put other stuff in (...like a bunch of on-sale ice cream, lol). So we had chicken drums in the fridge and I had to come up with a way to cook them.

We also have turmeric and fenugreek kicking around in our spice cupboard, so I went for an Indian themed supper. A brief internet search and I came up with another recipe to tweak.

Turmeric "Chicken"

serves 4 supposedly, lol

2 Tbsp oil
8 chicken drums
1 chopped onion
2 c basmati rice (or jasmine, which is what we had on hand)
2 cloves garlic, crushed (or chopped, depending on how you like your seasoning)
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger (or fresh if you have it)
1 Tbsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp fenugreek
1/4 tsp cayenne powder (or if you have it, powdered chili)
4 c chicken stock
3 Tbsp tomato passata (or 1 Tbsp paste or original recipe called for a chopped tomato finish)
salt! to taste (not in the original and I totally forgot to add it...so my rice wasn't over-salted as it can be, but the dish needed it)

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
Season chicken with whatever you want (I used a buffalo chicken spice blend) and fry until golden on all sides.
While chicken is cooking, preheat oven to 350 F and lightly warm stock and passata.
Remove chicken from pan and saute the onion until light brown.
Mix all the spices in a small bowl so it evenly distributes when adding to the pan. (Don't want a lump of cayenne now, do you?)
Add the rice, garlic and spices and lightly toast.
Transfer to a large oven dish. (Original recipe said 4 L casserole, I went with a high 9" x 13" dish).
Put the chicken on top of dry rice.
Pour stock/tomato mix over the dish and put in oven for about 40 minutes or until the rice has absorbed all the liquid and the chicken is cooked, but not dry.

Luckily, there was some leftover rice for me to remember to photograph, lol. The nuttiness from the browning of the rice and the browned onion and garlic made it awesome, along with mixing my own curry powder essentially. The chicken had some seasoning from the spice on the underside (I didn't flip it, just set and forget) and it was a good idea to season before browning.

Enjoy!