Balsamic-Braised Sausages

…in the crock pot!

Remember that Williams-Sonoma crock pot cookbook I mentioned a little while ago? Well, this recipe comes from it.

I bought this cookbook because I love utilizing my crock pot. It makes it so easy, and it’s a one pot clean-up!

This recipe for braised sausages with balsamic vinegar and fennel caught my eye because I had just bought a very large bottle of balsamic vinegar at the store. Also, I’ve become obsessed recently with Shady Brook Farms’ lean sweet Italian turkey sausage. Oh, and this recipe also has fennel too. YUM!

Never used fennel? Here’s a guide how to cut it.

I also added some asparagus to the recipe because I can’t get enough of it, and I had some lying around 🙂

I served it over whole wheat egg noodles. But I’m sure it would be delicious over any grain or pasta (i.e. brown rice, quinoa, cous cous, etc). Or just omit it all together.

Balsamic-Braised Sausages
(Serves 4-6)

1 pkg. Shady Brook Farm lean Italian turkey sausage (or pork sausage if you prefer)
1 large shallot, or 1 small onion, finely chopped
1 fennel bulb, chopped or sliced
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 bunch asparagus, tough ends trimmed off and sliced into 1″ pieces
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 c. chicken stock
1/4 c. balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar or white wine
Salt and pepper

Preheat your broiler. Line a baking sheet with foil for easy clean up. Put your sausages on the baking sheet. Broil until golden brown, turning after each side browns. About 9-10 minutes total.

Put all the other ingredients in the slow cooker. Top with broiled sausages. Cover and cook on high for 2.5 hours or low for 5.5 hours. Turn the sausages halfway through if possible, if not, no big deal!

Serve over pasta or your favorite grain.

Spice Up Your Pasta Night!

This recipe is quite possibly my favorite pasta dish. My mom and I found it online a few years back when we were trying to find a new spin on pasta.

It remains one of our favorites and is constantly requested by my dad when my brother isn’t around! It’s super simple to make and has a ton of flavor. The leftovers heat up deliciously and taste just about as good as it does fresh out of the pan.

And guess what? It pretty much has all the food groups. So it’s a complete and healthy meal. Good luck eating just one bowl though 😉

Bowties with Sausage, Sundried Tomatoes and Spinach
(Serves 4-6)

1 box of bowtie pasta
1 pkg. Italian sausage links (usually comes in 5 link packages), hot or sweet (or both!)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 c. sliced sundried tomatoes
1 can of diced tomatoes
1/2 c. white or red wine
1 c. chicken stock
A pinch of dried basil and oregano
1/8 – 1/4 tsp. red pepper flake
4-5 generous handfuls of fresh baby spinach
1/4 c. parmesan or parmigiano-reggiano cheese, grated
Salt and Pepper to taste

Cook the pasta according to package directions until just before al dente.

In a large pan, heat the pan over medium-high heat. Squeeze the sausage out of the links into the pan and break up into chunks with a spoon or other cooking utensil. When the sausage just has a little pink left, add in the garlic, diced tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, wine, chicken stock and spices. Bring to a boil.

When the sauce has reduced slightly, add in your pasta and spinach. Cook all of your ingredients together until the spinach is wilted and the pasta is cooked through. At the end, add the cheese and stir to combine.

Serve in large pasta bowls and garnish with extra cheese, if desired.

First Squash Recipe of the Fall!

The weather has been turning into fall, so what does that mean for my readers? A lot more squash recipes!

When I go grocery shopping in the city, there’s a Superfresh and a Whole Foods right across the street from each other. So, me being the unemployed person I am, I start at Superfresh and finish at Whole Foods, if need be. Imagine my disappointment when I walked into Superfresh and there was NO SQUASH to be found! Nothing. No butternut, spaghetti, or acorn. What is this nonsense? I was really disappointed. I was in the market for an acorn squash that day.

So I wandered over to Whole Foods, and alas, there they were. 99 cents a pound. Seems cheap right? Yeah well, the thing with squash, is that you want to look for one that doesn’t have bruises, blemishes or soft spots and is heavy for its size. I picked out two perfect, heavy ones…. My bill was a little over $8. 4lb acorn squash?! Yeah, crazy right? But oh so delicious.

I wanted to make a really filling, healthy stuffing for these squash (my plural for squash = squeesh), so when I cut them in half and scoop out the seeds with a spoon, I can use them as bowls!

Like I’ve told you guys before, I can’t use my oven in my apartment, so I microwaved the squash. This method is perfectly fine. Actually, it’s my preferred method of making spaghetti squash.

BUT if you’d like to use your oven, maybe to warm up the house a little while the weather is getting unexpectedly chilly, feel free to chop the squash in half, hull it out, and then place it in a baking dish cut side up with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast for about 30-45 minutes at 375 until it gets soft.

The awesome parts about this recipe? It’s incredibly filling. It serves four (two of the halves went to the boy). It’s incredibly delicious. And it’s only 400 calories per half, with stuffing.

Chicken Sausage Stuffed Acorn Squash
(Serves 4)

2 acorn squash
4 links of chicken sausage (I like Al Fresco’s Sweet Apple)
1 1/2 c. cooked brown rice (you could also use Quinoa for more protein)
1 small-medium-ish onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 c. of your favorite pasta sauce (preferably something chunky with lots of spices and herbs)
1 bag of fresh baby spinach leaves
8 sun dried tomatoes, not in oil (you can usually find them in the produce section), chopped

To prepare the acorn squash:

I like to hold the squash with a dish towel (to protect my hand a little if the knife slips by accident) and stick the knife in the middle of 2 grooves, then kind of slowly work my way around the squash. They can be kind of hard to cut, so take your time and be careful! Scrape out the seeds with a spoon, and save the seeds if you want to roast them to use for salads, snacking, or a garnish for soup. (i.e. butternut squash soup I’m making this weekend)

On a microwave safe plate or dish lay the squash cut side down. (I had to do 2 halves at a time) Put in the microwave on high for 5 minutes. Test the squash. Does it give a little when you push on the skin? When the squash is done, it’s a bit soft and has gone a little more clear looking. For me, it took about 7-9 minutes in the microwave. Carefully turn over, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Repeat with the other 2 halves.

To prepare the filling:

1. Cut up the sausage. I cut it lengthwise in half, then cut those halves lengthwise in half, then chopped into about half inch pieces.
2. Put the sausage into a large pan on medium high heat with the onion.
3. Brown the sausage and onion together for a few minutes, then add the garlic and sun-dried tomatoes. Turn the heat down to medium.
4. Add in the spinach leaves, then put the tomato sauce and cooked rice on top. Let the spinach wilt down. I let the spinach wilt down a bit before I try stirring or else I’ll end up with spinach leaves everywhere on my stove! The sauce and rice on top acts as a little weight to speed the process along.
5. Stir it up. When the spinach is wilted and the rice and sauce are heated through, time to serve.
6. Take your acorn squash halves and fill with stuffing. Serve and enjoy!

Tip: I like to cheat a little as far as portions go for each acorn squash. I flatten out the mixture in the pan, then score it with my spoon to make 4 equal portions. Works every time!

One Pan. One Bowl.

So this has been a crappy week weather wise. Apparently last week was just a tease of fall! Yesterday was dreary and rainy all day, so I wanted something really hearty and comforting. But, I also wanted something that used minimal dishes because my maintenance guy STILL hasn’t come to fix my kitchen sink. I’ve been washing my dishes in my little bathroom sink for the last…oh, about 2 weeks now!

The earthquake we had dislodged my sink trap. What a fun surprise it was to find all the cans of chiles and red beans I had drained and soapy dirty dishwasher was flooding my cabinet underneath!

Anyways, I made a spin off of my favorite meal my grandmother makes me: polenta with Italian sausage and onions.  While I do love it, she uses A LOT of oil. So this is my healthier, but still super tasty, version!

Super easy & delicious. I promise.

Chicken Sausage with Peppers and Onions Over Polenta
(Serves 1 or 2 … depending if you want leftovers)

Sausage & Goodies:

4 links of your favorite sausage (I used a Sweet Apple Chicken Sausage), sliced on a bias
1 medium onion, sliced
1 red pepper, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
Sprinkle of red pepper flake, optional
Salt & pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese, optional

Polenta:

¼ c. dried polenta per serving (Bob’s Red Mill “Corn Grits” aka Polenta is good)
1 c. water
1 handful fresh spinach, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Splash of extra virgin olive oil

1. Heat up olive oil on medium high in a medium sized frying pan. Toss in the sliced sausage, peppers and onions. Cook until they start to brown, then turn the heat to medium and toss in the garlic.
2. In your microwave safe bowl that you are going to eat out of, put in ¼ c. dried polenta and 1 c. water. Put in the microwave and cook on 1 minute intervals until the mixture is thick and creamy (usually about 2.5 minutes), stirring after each minute.
3. Toss the fresh spinach into the polenta and season with salt, pepper, and a splash of olive oil. Mix to combine until the spinach is wilted. Let cool for about 3-5 minutes. This stuff really holds onto the heat!!
4. Top with a spoonful of the sausage, onion and pepper mixture. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, if desired. Serve!

PS – I’m planning on making the leftover sausage mixture tonight by mixing it with pasta sauce and some shredded mozzarella and putting it over pasta! It would also be great over brown rice.

Homemade Pizza Dough + Stromboli

I’ve always wanted to play around with making my own pizza dough, but there is something about all of that white flour that makes me cringe a little. Even though I love food, I do TRY to keep things a little on the healthier side when I can, which is why I’m doing a lot with whole wheat flour.

Whole wheat flour has the reputation of being tough and dense when used exclusively in doughs. A lot of recipes you see now have some white and some wheat mixed in to fix this problem. BUT I stumbled across a great recipe for pizza dough using all whole wheat flour. While it looks a little intense to make, I promise you it’s not (and I even did it completely by hand). The results were fantastic! The dough was soft and a bit chewy and tasted delicious.

The recipe for the dough is found at Deliciously Organic and she does a great job of explaining what to do, so I’ll leave it to her!

Last week, I used the dough to make a spinach, mozzarella, and sweet Italian sausage stromboli. In the process, taking my boyfriend’s beautiful new stainless steel stove for a test drive!

You will not regret this.

Spinach & Sausage Stromboli
(Serves 4-6)

2 dough balls from the Deliciously Organic pizza crust recipe
1 pkg. of Italian sweet sausage (comes in 5 links usually)
2 boxes of frozen spinach, thawed
4 cloves of garlic, 2 minced, 2 sliced
1 bag of shredded mozzarella, or your favorite shredded Italian cheese
1 egg, beaten
Red pepper flake, optional

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. To prepare the dough, lay a ball out on a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough out into a rectangle until the dough is about 1/8” thick. Place on parchment lined baking sheet. Prepare the second ball of dough. Let the dough rest while you complete the rest of the steps.
3. Place the spinach in a fine mesh strainer and squeeze out the excess liquid by pressing the back of a spoon on the spinach, or just use your hands! The more liquid you can get out the better.
4. Take the sausage out of their casings and put into a medium size frying pan, on medium-high heat. Break the sausage into small pieces. Add 2 minced cloves of garlic. Cook the sausage until browned.
5. Time to start putting it all together! Layer about half of the cheese on each dough sheet, leaving a 1-inch border all around the edge, reserving about a ¼ cup of cheese. Then, spread out the spinach and sausage on each. Top with slices of garlic clove, one whole clove on each stromboli. Sprinkle each with red pepper flake if you want an extra kick!
6. Brush all of the exposed edges of the dough with the beaten egg to help seal the stromboli.
7. Grabbing one edge of the stromboli, roll the stromboli over (it will end up being like a trifold). Lay the stromboli seam side down. Seal the edges and fold under the stomboli.
8. Brush the top of the strombolis with more egg and sprinkle each with the leftover mozzarella.
9. Place the stromboli in the oven and cook until golden brown and crispy, about 30 minutes.
10. Cool for about 10-15 minutes before eating. Cut into pieces, and enjoy!