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WARNING: Some of what you’re about to see gives credence to the saying that you shouldn’t watch sausages being made, especially if you like sausage. According to Wikiquote, the earliest iteration of this saying is the quote, “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made,” attributed to American poet John Godfrey Saxe in 1869. I’m no poet, but I have seen the Schoolhouse Rock cartoon “How a Bill Becomes a Law” several times, and now that I have seen sausage being made — well, I have to agree with Mr. Saxe. Although we appreciate and enjoy the Charcutepalooza challenges, this month’s trial — stuffing sausages — was challenging indeed (at least to me, in terms of the gross-ness factor.) You have been warned.
As usual, we thank Charcutepalooza organizers Mrs. Wheelbarrow and The Yummy Mummy for pushing us (me) outside our cooking comfort zone (and kitchen cleanliness zone) and encouraging us to experiment with new culinary techniques. This month, we felt especially inspired and quite literally encouraged, after attending their meat grinding and sausage making demo at the BlogHer Food ’11 conference. Along with Sean from Punk Domestics, they put on a wonderful demonstration and made some excellent chorizo, breakfast sausage and Italian sausage, all while entertaining the audience and making charcuterie look easy and fun! We thoroughly enjoyed it and attempted to channel their enthusiasm and expertise when making our own sausages this month.
Continue reading “Homemade Chicken and Green Chile Sausage”
In our ongoing quest to try to cook healthy meals, we attempt to incorporate fish into our weekly routine on a semi-regular basis. Note how I used the key words “attempt” and “semi-regular,” as opposed to “succeed” and “often.” The problem is that I don’t really like fish — mostly because it tastes like fish (and don’t even get me started on how much I dislike salmon…) So, when we do cook fish at home, the recipe usually involves a sauce of some sort (this is my favorite) and we almost always use a light, non-fishy fish like tilapia. Luckily, our local grocery store sells large bags of frozen tilapia fillets that are really easy to thaw and cook for a quick weeknight meal. I found this particular recipe when I was looking for a new fish dish that met my culinary criteria (sauce, non-fishy, healthy-ish) and called for an Anaheim chile pepper, since we happened to have a few ripe ones in our garden. Not only did this recipe meet these criteria for the most part, it also included TWO sauces — one for the fish while it cooked and another to spoon over the fish when it is done. (If you’re not a fish wimp like me, you might actually enjoy the fish without the second sauce, which would save a little time and effort if you’re looking for a really quick meal.)
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We have several Asian dishes that we like to cook at home, and accordingly, we have more than a few cookbooks that focus on Asian food. I found this side dish recipe in one of our books — “Wok and Stir-Fry: A Collection of Easy and Elegant Recipes.” Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find the book on Amazon; sorry, no link. I purchased the cookbook at HomeGoods a while ago for the low low price of $5.99. (Kitchen Shopping Tip: HomeGoods and stores like it — TJ Maxx, Ross, Marshalls, etc. — can be great sources for interesting (and possibly out of print) cookbooks on the cheap.) It’s a good book and we look forward to trying more recipes from it. The ingredients for this green bean recipe are simple: green beans, vegetable oil, dried chiles, garlic, ginger, and the white part of green onions.
Ina Garten has a way with chicken and lemons. We previously tried another of Ina’s recipes using lemons and chicken, and we really liked it. So we figured we would probably also enjoy this “Lemon Chicken with Croutons” recipe from her “Barefoot in Paris” cookbook. We were even more interested in this dish because it uses a whole chicken (great to have for leftovers), and Ina refers to it as “the essence of French country cooking.” Adding homemade croutons and roasted onions to the mix doesn’t hurt either.
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Homemade baked beans take a long time to prepare. A really, really long time. Sure, you could always opt for the canned baked beans available at the grocery store, but the homemade variety have a lot more flavor, and you have the satisfaction of making them from scratch (or so Dan tells me.) Because we had already set aside a Major Block of Cooking Time this recent Memorial Day for smoking BBQ ribs, we decided to make a batch of baked beans as well. The extra cooking time was well worth it. We might not reach the same conclusion in a blind taste test, but we thought the homemade beans tasted way better than any of the canned versions we’ve tried. (You may borrow the blind taste test idea as a party trick for your next cookout. You’re welcome.) Continue reading “Baked Beans”
We’re a day late in wishing everyone a happy Memorial Day, but it’s never too late to reflect on what this holiday is all about — a day of remembrance for those who have died in service of our nation. When I was thinking about what to write that could somehow adequately express the gratitude we feel to those who selflessly serve in our military, I remembered a profound occasion that Dan and I witnessed in an airport several years ago. We arrived for a very early morning flight and found that most of the people flying out of our terminal that day were men and women in uniform. I had never seen that many military personnel in one place before. I don’t know what branch of the military they were in, nor do I know where they were headed. But they were clearly being deployed somewhere significant.
Airport security relaxed the usual procedures and allowed loved ones to accompany the departing service members beyond the security lines and x-ray machines to the terminal gates. We saw mothers and fathers proudly yet anxiously escorting young men who seemed barely out of high school. Then there were couples, one parent in uniform and holding a baby or small child, the other alongside struggling not to cry. We also saw a few soldiers sitting alone, which was heartbreaking to me without knowing their stories and why no one was there to give them a proper send-off. It was a truly humbling and unforgettable experience. What Dan and I will always remember most from that morning at the airport is seeing those men and women about to embark on a journey that we realized was more than we could ever possibly comprehend in terms of commitment, duty and potential sacrifice. We humbly say thank you to the people we saw that day and all the men and women of the armed forces who devote themselves to serving our country, especially those who, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “gave the last full measure of devotion.”
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