Recipe: Sun-Dried Tomato Sausage with Pesto & Artichoke Hearts

A mighty good sausage stuffer was spoiled when the man became a poet. – Eugene Field

This was really tasty, and really quite quick!

A few days ago I promised you a recipe. I had posted about sun-dried tomato sausage and had hinted at something to do with it. Well I did do something with it. We had this recipe for dinner that night.

I always try to be as good as my word. It may have taken a few days to post this recipe, but here it is. Better late than never.

Making your own pesto is really quite easy.
Photo: Skittlbrau, Flickr ccl

You can prepare this recipe and stuff casings, or do as I did and use "loose" sausage meat. Simply roll the meat into small meatballs and fry. Presrved sausage of any kind won't roll. Due to the preservation it is already "partly cooked."

You can substitute smoked, dried, or cured sausage if you opt to take the extra step(s). You'll just have to make do with slices of sausage as opposed to meatballs.

The longest task in this recipe is rolling meatballs from 1 lb of sausage meat. Put on the TV and forget what you're doing. Due to the ingredients in the original sausage recipe these meatballs are very "soft" and tender. It was actually quite an unexpected bonus.

This recipe was inspired by a quickie dinner I make with shrimp, tomatoes and artichoke hearts. The marinated hearts add a nice piquancy against the sweetness of the other ingredients.

This is quite a quick recipe for a weeknight dinner. With a (God forbid) jar of pest sauce it really comes together quickly.

OK, I admit it. I bought my pesto sauce too. I've grown quite fond of Atlantic Superstore brand President's Choice. Not too bad...

A note: I made four sausage patties from this mixture. I served them with mayonnaise, onion slices and lots of fresh basil leaves on hamburger buns. They were actually so good that I would make this sausage meat solely to have burgers on the barbecue! Give them a try!

Sun-Dried Tomato Sausage with Pesto & Artichoke Hearts

Prep: 15 min  |  Cook: 12 min  |  Serves 4

Toss the meatballs and artichokes with the pesto at the last
minute, just long enough to let it heat through.

1 tbsp olive oil

1 lb sun-dried tomato sausage meat

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1/2 cup white wine

1 small jar (170 ml) marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

1/2 to 3/4 cup basil pesto

1/2 cup flat leaf Italian parsley, torn

Linguine for four

Take small pieces of the sausage meat and roll into small meatballs. Each should be about 3/4 to one inch round. Wet hands help the process greatly.

Cook the linguine, according to the package directions, while you make the sauce.

Heat the olive oil in a skillet. Fry the meatballs for about 5-6 minutes. Be careful as they will be very soft. Remove to a plate.

Add the onions to the pan and fry for 3 minutes. Then add the garlic and fry for a further minute. 

Deglaze the pan with the white wine, scraping the brown fond from the bottom. Add the chopped artichoke hearts and meatballs and bring back to a simmer. 

Toss the meatball mixture with the pesto in the pan and keep warm while the pasta finishes cooking.

Drain the pasta. Serve the meatballs on top with a scattering of the torn parsley.

........................................

If you like this post retweet it using the link at top right, or share using any of the links below. Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks?

Old Time Recipe: Mother’s Beef Stew with Dumplings

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. – Maya Angelou

Home on a plate. I put molasses on my dumplings, but that's just me...

It’s raining…again. On days like today my thoughts turn to comfort and what is more comforting than memories of home and hearth.

This is my other grandmother in 1947. She had at
least 14 children from two marriages. I can't remember
the exact number.

I have to confess right at the start this is MY version of my mother’s recipe. It’s essentially identical except for technique. I’ve done two things to increase the overall flavour without adding additional ingredients.

When I was growing up we didn’t have scads of money. Nor do we now. In my mother’s family the situation was magnified. She grew up during the Depression years and, the same as the rest of the world, its impact was direct and felt throughout rural Canada.

My mother’s mother had to feed four children plus her husband on what I know was not the greatest of means. As such, many of the recipes I grew up with were ones that my mother learned at her mother’s knee.

To get an idea of rural life in Canada in the 30s think on these facts. My mother had many duties, even at 10 years old or younger. One of them was to get up and start the day’s bread before going to school. 

I also can remember stories of the hand-me-down clothes of her sister’s, and repairing them to keep them wearable. Once my grandmother made a new coat for my mom when she was in her teens. It was the first new coat she had ever owned.

Although my grandfather operated the water driven sawmill on the river, customers at the time weren’t plentiful and the workers still had to be paid. They supplemented their food from the chickens and cows in their barn directly across the dirt road and the orchard behind it. Those animals and trees all had to be tended too.

Brown the beef well.

Life back then – which wasn’t that long ago – was substantially different than now. Try to explain that to your kids. Few cars, no internet, no cell phones – hardly any phones at all actually. Families would share them. It was from this time the recipes I grew up with had their origins. Homey. Filling. Healthy. Simple.

So what exactly did I do differently to mom’s stew? Her version starts the meat and vegetables together in the pot at the same time sort of like a boiled dinner. 

I brown the meat to release some of the flavour, and fry my onions slightly for the same reason. It really makes a difference. There are no herbs or spices in this. They were precious at the time so weren't in the original. Just good old salt and pepper is all you really need.

Mother’s Beef Stew with Dumplings

Prep: 20 min  |  Cook” 30 min  | Serves 6

Note the amount of water does not cover the vegetables.
See bottom left in the photo.

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 lbs beef stew (see note)

1 large white onion, chopped large

5-6 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped in 1” cubes

5 medium carrots, peeled and chopped in 1” cubes

1 medium turnip, peeled and chopped in 1” cubes

water (see recipe and picture)

salt and pepper to taste

Dumpling recipe is below

Heat the oil and butter in a large pot with a good fitting lid, like a Dutch oven. Add the beef, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and brown on both sides. Do the beef in batches so the pieces aren’t crowded. If you do they will steam and not brown.

Chop up the vegetables while the beef browns. Try to get them all relatively the same size so they all cook in the same length of time.

Mix the dumpling ingredients together just before using.

Note: Take care in choosing your beef. Often when you purchase “stew beef” in the grocery it is essentially trimmings from all cuts of beef. To make a good stew you need well marbled beef. The fat is a necessity to render the cooked beef tender. If you buy lean stew beef, your stew meat will be dry. Get a cheap marbled roast and cut it yourself if necessary. It’s worth it. And don’t worry about the fat. It’s better for you than most of the fats in the “healthy” foods you buy.

Remove the browned beef from the pan to a plate. Add the onion and sauté until it begins to soften. Add a little water to the pan and scrape to loosen the fond. This is where your flavour will come from in the finished broth.

After the onions have begun to soften add the beef and vegetables. Add enough water to just be seen under the vegetables. Don’t drown them. See the picture for how much water to use. Stir in some salt and lots of cracked black pepper.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, cover and let cook for 15 minutes. Meanwhile mix together the dumpling ingredients.

This is the stew after cooking. Remember, don't lift the lid while
the dumplings are steaming.

Dumplings:

2 tbsp melted butter

1 egg, beaten

1/3 cup milk

1-1/2 cups flour

2-1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

cracked black pepper

While the stew is cooking, melt the butter. Whisk the egg with the milk and then beat in the melted butter. Mix together the dry ingredients and them mix into the liquids. Combine just until there is no more dry flour showing. Do not over mix.

At the end of the first 15 minutes, drop measures of about 1/4 cup of dumpling batter on the surface of the stew. Make sure the dumplings do not touch. You should get 8 dumplings. Immediately cover the pot and let the stew and dumplings cook for a further 15 minutes.

Do not peek. Seriously.

At the end of 15 minutes, remove from the heat and serve. I’ve been told it’s a “South Shore (of Nova Scotia) thing” but my favourite way to have the dumplings is drizzled with molasses. I also mash all the vegetables together with butter and pot juice. Yum…

………………………………….

If you like this post rewet it using the link at top right, or share using any of the links below.

Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks?

How To: Homemade Sun-Dried Tomato Sausage

A world without tomatoes would be like a string quartet without violins. – Laurie Colwin

This is someone else's sausage, but at least it's in casings... Photo: fixedgear, Flickr ccl
(My sausage meat is pictured below.)

Sausage. Did you know it is almost a ubiquitous food? Every continent and the regions within have their own characteristic sausages. What makes them distinct is that they use meats and other ingredients native to the areas in which they are made.

Sausage, strictly speaking, is a way to preserve meat. As such it is common to increase preservation either by curing, drying or smoking. But you can also use it fresh quite effectively. I make what is called “bulk sausage” because I have yet to take the leap and buy a sausage stuffer…

My sun-dried tomato sausage recipe is an adaptation of a few recipes “out there.” To bolster my blather I thought I would go looking for its origins. Guess what? I couldn’t find any references! It doesn’t seem to be a regional sausage at all. Therefore one can probably safely assume that it is a recent invention.

This is Step 1: Process the sun-dried tomatoes with the cheese until it is crumbly.

Regardless, this sausage meat can be combined in many Italian style dishes such as risotto, with pasta or stuffed with ricotta in manicotti. Sun-dried tomato sausage is made from pork, but I have seen enough precedents for you to 50/50 the pork with ground chicken or turkey – or perhaps even substitute entirely. 

Just remember, no fat in a sausage means a dry sausage. There’s little worse than a dry as cardboard sausage. If substituting a lower fat meat, grind some fatty bacon or similar in with the poultry.

Step 2: Add in the (considerable) amount of Italian parsley and process until fairly paste-like.
This mixture goes in with the rest of the ingredients.

You may not (want to) know this but…

From Wikipedia

Sausage is a logical outcome of efficient butchery. Traditionally, sausage makers put to use tissues and organs which are edible and nutritious, but not particularly appealing – such as scraps, organ meats, blood, and fat – in a form that allows for preservation: typically, salted and stuffed into a tubular casing made from the cleaned intestine of the animal, producing the characteristic cylindrical shape. Hence, sausages, puddings, and salami are among the oldest of prepared foods, whether cooked and eaten immediately or dried to varying degrees.

Just so you know, you can now purchase casings that are not made from intestines. So the “yuck” factor is reduced.

I will be combining some of this sausage meat as meatballs with sautéed artichoke hearts and onions with pasta tossed with pesto. I’ll post it soon so you can see what it’s like.

One third has already been used for meatballs. I also made 4 patties for burgers
and froze more than 1 lb for later. It looked like more than 1 lb...

Sun-Dried Tomato Sausage

Makes about 3 lbs

1 kg (about 2.2 lbs) ground pork

4 oz sun-dried tomatoes, in oil

200g mozzarella cheese, cubed

1/2-bunch (about 2 cups) flat leaf Italian parsley, chopped

2 tbsp basil pesto

2 tbsp fennel seed

2 tsp cracked black pepper

2 tsp salt

2 tsp ground coriander

1-1/2 tsp oregano

2 tsp cayenne

1/4 cup white wine (optional)

Combine the sun dried tomatoes and cubed cheese in a food processor. Process until they are in small pieces — not to a paste. Add the Italian parsley and process until mixed. The mixture will now be much more “paste-like.”

Place the sun-dried tomato/cheese paste in a bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Knead with your hands until very well combined. If you wish add the white wine. Fry a tiny piece and taste for seasonings. Adjust if desired.

Place in the refrigerator for a few hours to let the flavours blend.

Stuff into casings. Then tie off sausage into 5-6 inch links. Alternatively, form into patties for delicious pork burgers or make into meatballs to use with pasta.

………………………………….

If you like this post rewet it using the link at top right, or share using any of the links below.

Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks?

Hooch: Strawberry Black Pepper Liqueur

Where there's smoke, there's usually strawberry Jello. – J. D. Salinger

Beautiful, red and delicious.

This is a repeat, sort of. On my last post about strawberry liqueur (Feb 6, 2011) I received a comment from a young lady who said she had strawberry-pepper vodka in an restaurant in Toronto. They apparently make their own.

Well, not to be outdone (or perhaps to furnish us all with a recipe) I have come up with a version that is quite tasty. It ranks right up there with the regular strawberry liqueur which is divine. Don’t worry – it’s not overly peppery, just ‘spicy.”

I'm finding that of all the fruit I've used to infuse vodka the strawberry seems to hide/complement/mask the alcohol taste the best. It's almost like there's no liquor in this at all. The only other fruit that does a better job of it so far is chokecherry/chokeberry.

Local strawberries are long past in Nova Scotia. Their season is late June through July so I ended up using USA grown. Sometimes the imports are hit and miss with regard to strawberry intensity. This time they were a hit. Taste one and you'll know what you have.

The technique for this liqueur is slightly different than previously and I have cut back the alcohol so the end result comes in at about 20% alc. vol. Feel free to put a whole 750 ml in the infusion to make it 30%. I’m sure it will still be great, just more potent.

Try this liqueur in mixed drinks or martinis. I'm certain it would make an amazing martini...

Strawberry Black Pepper Liqueur

Makes 2 x 375 ml, plus a large enough glass for you to enjoy the fruits of your labour

Strain the fruit syrup through a sieve lined with fine cloth.

1 lb fresh ripe strawberries (cultivated or wild)

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

2 tbsp whole black peppercorns

375 ml vodka (your favourite, I used Sobieski Polish vodka)

Wash, hull and slice the berries. Heat the sugar and water in a medium saucepan until the sugar dissolves. Add the strawberries and peppercorns. Let boil together for 5 minute.

Place the mixture in a non-reactive bowl and let cool. Then cover it with saran wrap and let sit in the refrigerator for one week.

 After the week strain through a piece of fine cloth and discard the pulp. Gently squeeze the cloth to extract as much juice as possible without squeezing through pulp. That makes the liqueur cloudy. You should have about two cups of liquid.

Combine with the vodka, bottle and let sit for one week before use. Alcohol content is about 20%.

........................................

If you like this post retweet it using the link at top right, or share using any of the links below. Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks?

Recipe: Creole Shrimp and Andouille Jambalaya

My father was a Creole, his father a Negro, and his father a monkey; my family, it seems, begins where yours left off. – Alexandre Dumas Père

This is an amazing, delicious one-pot meal.

Jambalaya (jum-bah-lie-ah) is a southern United States dish that is a marriage of the Spanish and French culinary influences in Louisiana.

Jambalaya always has three main parts: meat (sausage and/or shrimp), vegetables and rice. As you can see by the ingredients it is very closely related to the Spanish dish paella. 

Four fresh andouille sausage, weighing nearly 1 lb.

There are two different branches of jambalaya. The first and most common is Creole jambalaya, sometimes called red jambalaya, which contains tomatoes. This is the method used in my recipe.

The second method is called Cajun jambalaya. It almost always contains no tomatoes. It relies on the browned “fond” from the bottom of the pan to create the colour of the broth in which the rice cooks.

Jambalaya is different from gumbo and étouffée because in the latter two the rice is cooked separately and the main dish is served on top. In jambalaya the rice is cooked as part of the dish and the flavours permeate the rice as it cooks.

History (abridged from Wikipedia)

Creole jambalaya originates from the French Quarter of New Orleans. It was an attempt by the Spanish to make paella in the New World, where saffron was not readily available due to import costs. Tomatoes became the substitute for saffron. As time went on, French influence became strong in New Orleans, and spices from the Caribbean changed this New World paella into a unique dish.

The first appearance in print of any variant of the word 'jambalaya' in any language occurred in Leis amours de Vanus; vo, Lou paysan oou théâtré, by Fortuné (Fortunat) Chailan, first published in Provençal in 1837. The earliest appearance of the word in print in English occurs in the May 1849 issue of the American Agriculturalist, page 161, where Solon Robinson refers to a recipe for 'Hopping Johnny (jambalaya)'. Jambalaya did not appear in a cookbook until 1878,when The Gulf City Cook Book, by the ladies of the St. Francis Street Methodist Church, was printed in South Mobile, Alabama. It contains a recipe for "JAM BOLAYA".

Creole Shrimp and Andouille Jambalaya

Prep: 15 min  | Cook: 25 min  |  Serves 4-6

Ready to be simmered.

454 g (1 lb) andouille sausage

2 tbsp olive oil

3 medium onions, chopped

6 garlic cloves, chopped

1 cup long grain white rice (although I use Arborio or Calrose)

1 lg green pepper, seeded and chopped

3 plum tomatoes, cubed

 2-1/2 cups chicken stock

250 g (1/2 lb) sliced ham, sliced into strips and halved (optional)

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)

salt and pepper to taste

1 bay leaf

1 lb raw shrimp, peeled and deveined

Sauté the sausage in the oil in a Dutch oven or good sized stock pot. Cook until browned. Remove the sausage and slice into 1/2 inch pieces.

Add the onions to the pan and sauté for about 3 minutes. Then add the garlic and sauté for a further minute. Add the rice and stir to coat well. Cook for about 1 minute. This allows the starch to come out of the rice more slowly and evenly.

This is just a minute after the shrimp were added.

Add the green pepper, tomatoes and stock. Then add the ham, if using, and the spices. Stir well and add the sausage back in. Bring to a boil.

Cover the pot, reduce the heat to simmer and let cook for 20 minutes. Check periodically and stir to ensure the mixture doesn’t stick and burn to the bottom of the pan. Add more stock or water if necessary. Most of the liquid will be absorbed after 20 minutes.

Remove the lid and stir in the shrimp. Cook until the shrimp are just cooked through. This should take 5 minutes.

Remove the bay leaf and serve with parsley sprinkled on top if desired.

........................................

If you like this post retweet it using the link at top right, or share using any of the links below. Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks?

Wildflower: Nova Scotian Impatiens Capensis

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. – William Shakespeare

Jewelweed aka Touch-me-not, our native impatiens.

This is an unusual one to be sure, for their beautiful flowers as well as the seed pods. You see, it's because they’re “spring loaded!”

This little herbaceous plant likes the damp. It can be found in ditches and at the edges of boggy areas where the soil is rich. Mostly greenery, it’s easily missed but it’s a wonderful discovery if you do stumble upon it.

These flowers are native all through the Eastern Unites States and Canada. Common names are Jewelweed and “Touch-me-nots.”

The flowers are yellow-orange and only about 1 inch long with a recurving tail like garden centre impatiens. They are borne on thin rod-like stems. Several flowers emerge from the same spot on the side branches and follow each other in bloom.

They’re a jolly little flower with spots of deeper orange inside the throat and on the underside. The thinness of their stems mean they dance in the gentlest of breeze.

The plant itself grows between 2-4 feet depending on location. The bluish-green leaves have a pink margin and central vein, are about 2 inches long by 1 inch wide, and emerge along the stalk from small branchlets. These plants never grow alone and can be found in quite large colonies where growing conditions are right.

Jewelweed usually grows near water. It is also often found in areas where poison ivy grows (see poison ivy). The liquid from crushed jewelweed stems can be rubbed on skin contacted by poison ivy and symptoms will not appear or will be much less troublesome.

Here’s the really interesting bit. The seeds, contained in slender pods that can reach about 1.5 inches long, ripen in late August through September. They “auto-sow” themselves by means of a bio-mechanism that contracts in the heat and splits open the pod. 

What does this mean? At warmer temperatures the pods “pop” open and the seeds are flung far away from the plant. The fun part is that your hand has just enough heat to trigger the effect.

Show this trick to a child and they’ll be fascinated. It’s even difficult to resist as an adult. Just place a pod in your hand and in a few seconds it will forcefully spring open. The trick is to get the pod off the plant and into your palm before it opens!

I have seen a larger (I’m assuming cultivated) variant of this plant with soft pink flowers about twice the size of these little wild ones. They were in someone’s garden in Halifax. I’ve never seen them anywhere else.

Being an impatiens, one would assume the flowers are edible but beware. Most people know that you can add cultivated impatiens flowers to salads for an unusual peppery taste. 

Since these wild ones like ditches and bogs I would refrain from using them culinarily, for safety sake. Our ditches tend to be less than sterile here, and I’m sure it’s a similar situation in other places.

Regardless, these flowers are fun to enjoy on strolls in the latest days of summer. Stop and have some fun with the seeds. Watching the pods pop open in your hand can be addictive!

I’ve never tried to bring these plants from the wild to my garden but I assume if you have a moist spot there would be no reason why you couldn’t. I have seen them growing in both fairly deep shade and full sun. I would imagine success would hinge on the soil. I’m not quite sure what “ditch soil” is composed of, but I would imagine it’s fairly high in organic matter.

Touch-me-nots grow in colonies.

If I have the chance to collect some seed, I may actually try some in my side border for next year. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

………………………………….

If you like this post retweet it using the link at top right, or share using any of the links below.

Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks?