Fire Roasted Red Pepper Sausages with Orzo and Veggies

So I was trying to figure out what to do with my raab and spinach I got in my last organic produce delivery (pioneerorganics.com), so I starting digging in the cupboards and fridge. I found chicken/turkey fire roasted red pepper sausages from Applegate Farms. They are raised with no antibiotics, check out their website where you can track where you meat comes from. Found some cherry tomatoes that needed to be eaten and spiced it up with garlic, onions, and red pepper flakes. The recipe that follows has no measurements since I didn't measure anything. It made enough for 3 servings.

Ingredients/Recipe:
2 chicken/turkey fire roasted red pepper sausages (Applegate Farms) http://www.applegatefarms.com/Products/Details.aspx?ProductID=118
chopped onion
garlic
red pepper flakes
raab
spinach
orzo
cherry tomatoes
grated Romano cheese or Parmesan
evoo

Start pasta. While pasta is cooking prep veggies and sausage.
Saute onion, garlic, and raab in evoo till the raab is about half done. Add sausage and put lid on to steam while you drain the pasta. Add tomatoes and spinach, replace lid until spinach is done. Serve and sprinkle grated cheese. Delicious and simple.

Notes and Next Time:
I thought that it was fantastic. The only thing i would change for next time is to make that none of the cherry tomatoes were put into the leftovers and reheated. I would just throw some uncooked ones in after reheating.

Chili

Mmmmm, chili. Nothing's better on a cold day, and we certainly have plenty of those here. I'm a big fan of this type of one-pot meal that takes a few hours to cook slowly on the stove.

I start by browning meat (if it's not veggie). This time I browned the turkey in canola oil in our large Le Creuset pot and seasoned with s & p. Then I add in the spices. I remember reading once upon a time that spices had better flavor if they were allowed to toast lightly. I add cumin, chili powder, paprika, cayenne, thyme, and any other chili type spices I have on hand (I used to add chile de arbol (wicked hot) but I've long used that one up and can't find it out here. Ditto the ground poblano spice). I don't measure any of these, but use more paprika and chili powder than cayenne. Sometimes I add a bit of cinnamon too. Next comes an onion, chopped and some garlic. If I have some roasted peppers in the freezer those go in too, if not some canned green chilies (don't get the jalapeños by accident!). I like to add fresh peppers too, if they aren't ridiculously expensive. Red, green, poblano, jalapeño... whatever's easy.

Cook until the onions soften and everything looks a bit tender. Now's the time to check the spices a bit, maybe add a bit more salt and pepper. I add about a cup of water and a can of tomatoes. Sometimes I use the Ro-tel (they come extra spicy!) but remember to reduce the spices. Otherwise just a can of chopped tomatoes is fine.

Now we wait. And stew. I lower the heat to barely a bubble and let it sit until it's about 20 minutes until dinner. Now's the time to stir in the beans. I'm a big fan of the traditional red, but Peter will eat just about any type, black, white, pinto. One or two cans depending on how many leftovers we'll want and how spicy the mix is (since the beans will dilute it a bit). I often use the bean juice too, since I buy the low-salt beans it's not too salty and seems to thicken up the chili a bit.

Now is also the time to make cornbread, for which I use Mom's recipe that was inspired by her mom, Bert's southern style cornbread.

I think chili tastes best the next day, slowly reheated with maybe a spoonful or two of water to thin it back out.


Notes and Next Time

• we should make more vegetarian chili.
  
• the leftovers that I added frozen sweet corn to were very nice
• lime is a good addition, stirred in right at the end
• can always thicken thin chili with cornmeal or cornstarch made into a paste with water
• good toppings are avocado, cheese, gr onion, lime, corn chips, salsa, fresh tomato
  

Ingredients/Recipe

• turkey/pork/elk/etc
• onion
• garlic
• peppers (fresh, canned, roasted)
• spices (cumin, chili powder, thyme, cayenne etc)
• tomatoes (canned)
• beans (canned; kidney, black, white, pinto etc)
  

Split Chicken with Roasted Potatoes

We've been experimenting with buying and cooking whole chickens instead of buying the store rotisserie chickens. It gives us better control of what goes on the chicken, it's cheaper, and it turns out that it's a lot easier that I originally thought. We never had good luck with cooking the chicken whole, but we've found that splitting the chicken prior to cooking works significantly better.

On the recommendation of Cook's Illustrated, I brine the bird. Since it's not so big, I just threw the bird in a large pasta pot with about 1/2 C of salt, a couple cloves of garlic and a couple t of thyme, then covered with water. I let it sit about 1 - 1-1/2 hour in the brine. After pulling it out and wiping it down with paper towels, I cut out the spine and cracked the breastbone (so it would lie flatter in the roasting pan). To help dry the bird, I put a drying rack on a sheet pan with the chicken on top, then the whole set-up into the fridge for the rest of the day.

For the potatoes, I peeled and cut about 5 medium sized reds into 1/4 - 1/2 inch slices. I also julienned half of a sweet onion. I tossed everything in a bowl with s&p and evoo.

I then lined the bottom portion of a 2-piece broiling pan with foil, sprayed with PAM, and layered the potatoes. The split chicken was put on the top portion of the broiling pan, and the whole thing replaced on top of the potatoes.

The whole set-up was cooked in a 500 oven for about an hour. At the half-way point, the chicken was rotated. We used a thermometer to make sure the chicken gets to temp.

Notes and Next Time

• Having the potatoes and chicken all cooking in one pan and finished at the same time is really nice.
• The chicken comes out nice and moist, due to the brining.
  
• We've been having a problem with the bottom of the potatoes burning. Maybe if we cut the potatoes a little thicker or maybe flipping/rotating them at the halfway point will be better. I think the flipping will be better, since we've already started cutting them thicker than originally, and that hasn't worked.
• The chicken skin isn't crisping, despite an EVOO massage. Butter may be better.
• The onion, although a nice idea, worked out poorly. They all burned to the point of inedible. If I could figure out a way to make bigger pieces, it might work. The only thing I can think of is thick rings, but that doesn't solve the problem of the thinness of each onion layer.
• The brine could probably be done the night before, and the chicken left in the fridge for the whole next day. I might cover it with some cheesecloth or something similar in that case.
• The chicken carcass will be used to make stock in the future.
  

Ingredients/Recipe

• One whole chicken, about 5#, brined
  
• Red potatoes
• Onion
• s&p
• evoo

Chicken and Dumplings

Mmmm, Chicken and Dumplings. It sounds filling, homey, and winter-y to me. I like one pot meals like this that can be made in steps, reheated, or pulled from the freezer. I'm not sure if Peter has noted, but we're really not recipe people. I imagine we both get this from our moms, who also really aren't recipe people. In fact, my mom (hi Mom!) is famous for saying things like "So, I used the Bon Appetit recipe. Except, well, I used chicken instead of pork. And I didn't have green peppers so I used broccoli. And I didn't want to add the white vinegar so I added wine and I had some extra mushrooms. And I used...." You see what I'm saying. I like recipes and I love reading food books. But they're mostly inspiration instead of rules.

Anyway, we've been trying to save money and use our food well (instead of throwing away old onions and things) so we have a couple big zippy bags in the freezer that we toss the old stuff in. Peter likes to make roasted chickens, so we'll often have the bones. I also toss the tops and bits of onions, carrots, celery, etc in. Especially since we've been traveling, all the produce goes into the freezer instead of coming home to limp carrots and moldy onions. We also toss the rinds of parmigana in (that stuff is GOLD here, can't waste it!).

So, I started this meal by pulling the broth bag out of the freezer. Since it was Sunday, I was mostly home working and had plenty of time to watch the pot and make the house smell good. Of course, I could also have pulled pre-made broth from the freezer (if I had any on hand) or used the canned stuff- which isn't all that bad.

After the broth was done, strained, and left to rest in the fridge, I started our actual meal. I chopped carrot, celery, onion, and garlic and let them saute in evoo in our Le Creuset (one of the best cooking implements we received as wedding presents!). After they softened and smelled nice, I tossed in a few bay leaves, thyme, and s&p. Then I sprinkled flour on top to make a roux. If you aren't a roux person, you need to become one because it's fantastic and means you can use less cream and even Peter won't know! I stir the whole mess and let it cook until the flour is no longer white. I want it to blend into the veggies and turn a light beige color. After the flour cooks (maybe 2 minutes?) it's time to add the liquid. I added plenty of broth (since the dumplings need to absorb liquid later in the recipe), until the Le Crueset was half full. As for the chicken... since I wasn't starting from a whole chicken, and I didn't have any left over cooked chicken in the fridge, I used a couple of breasts and poached then in the chicken broth I made earlier. Once cooked, I took them out and cut into large bites.

So, at this point we have the veggies cooked, the chicken resting on the side, basically it just needs to get put together! I adapted a dumpling recipe from Cooks Illustrated and Betty Crocker. I used whole milk instead of cream as well as flour, baking powder, and salt. Pretty simple. I stirred the mess together and it was like really thick muffin mix. I added the diced chicken to the pot, stirred in a couple handfuls of frozen peas, and spooned the batter on top. The recipes said to let it simmer from 15-20 minutes, which I did with the temp on low and the lid firmly in place.

It made plenty- enough for two hungry people and leftovers. We sat down to a hearty meal on a cold night.


Notes and Next Time

• I think I used too many peas, we both noticed that it was a little sweet. The Cooks recipe called for sherry, which might have added enough acid. Next time I'll probably still use peas, but fewer, and maybe stir in a little lemon juice at the end.
• I definitely didn't cook the dumplings long enough. Some were fine, but all of the larger ones were still damp in the middle instead of being fluffy and dry like biscuits.
• This recipe just reinforces to me the value in making broth. I can grade papers and do all sorts of things and neglect the pot but homemade is so much tastier and cheaper (since I don't buy anything just to make broth, it's all leftovers). Having the freezer bags is so handy, and keeps us from having horrible surprises in the fridge.
• Peter thinks that the dumplings could have used a bit more salt. Since I used kosher not table salt as the recipe called for, this is definitely possible. I don't remember.
  

Ingredients/Recipe

• broth
• carrot
• celery
• onion
• bay
• thyme
• chicken
• peas
• flour
• baking powder
• milk
• s&p