Pasta Pomondoro with Italian Sausage

Well, this is a bit different!  It's been approximately forever since I posted a recipe (and I'm still definitely no food blogger/photographer by any stretch of the imagination), but given how long it took me the other day to find the piece of paper I jotted down the ingredients on years ago, I thought it might be handy to just pop it up here on the blog.  If for no other reason, I will be able to find it again next time I want to make it.  I'd forgotten how tasty this dish is until I was grocery shopping with my husband the other day and he reminded me of it and asked if I could make it again soon.  Its pretty quick and easy so I made it on the weekend after we'd had a busy day running around doing errands.

The "recipe" is something I came up with about 15 years or more ago after having a similar dish in a restaurant.

Not sure why I was using 1/4 cup of oil at the time - that seems really quite excessive! So we'll just ignore that and carry on and I'll tell you how I made it the other night!

Ingredients:

1 package of Italian sausages, mild or hot
Angel Hair (Capellini) pasta

2 TBSP Oil
1 white or yellow onion (medium sized), chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 red pepper, chopped
1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 cup of chicken broth
2 TBSP Balsamic vinegar
red pepper flakes (to taste - I just did a light sprinkle)
2 TBSP basil (I'm really liking the organic freeze dried basil in a jar right now while the herb garden is still buried under eleventy billion feet of snow)
salt and pepper to taste
small can of sliced black olives
1 TBSP capers
grated parmesan cheese


Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 375*F
Poke sausages with a fork so the grease drains out when cooking, then place on rack on a pan (or on  a broiler pan) and bake in oven for approximately 25 minutes or until fully cooked.  Remove and let cool slightly then slice into pieces and set aside.

In a large skillet, heat oil then saute onion, garlic and red pepper together until soft.  Then add in the sausage pieces you set aside earlier.  Add the remaining ingredients except the parmesan cheese, turn to low and let simmer until it reduces.

In the meantime, prepare the pasta according to package directions.

Once the sauce has simmered enough for your liking (really it's all preference and how patient and/or hungry you are - there's no right amount of time or amount it needs to reduce if you want it a bit runnier, leave it less time, thicker and leave it longer.)

To serve you can top the pasta with the sauce or you can mix it all together in the pot first - I've done it both ways!  Garnish with parmesan cheese and enjoy!  Leftovers freeze and reheat well too by the way!

Roasted Tofu

First off, let me say that I could never be a vegetarian.  I enjoy eating steak and bacon way too much for that.  However, there are a few recipes that I have made that are meatless that I really, really like.  The first is a black bean recipe I found a couple of years ago to serve to Mom and J's girlfriend, M when they come over for BBQs.  The other recipe is one I developed in a hurry on Christmas Day.  I had planned to make roasted tofu as the main dish for M, but when I looked up the recipe I had used in the past I realized that I had almost none of the ingredients save for the actual tofu.  Grocery shopping fail at it's finest.  Ooops!  So I decided to wing it and come up with something on my own.  The end result was quite tasty if I may say so myself - I even finished the left overs the next day for lunch - so I thought that I'd share the recipe with you! It's quick and easy and uses ingredients that you most likely have on hand in your fridge and pantry right now (except maybe the tofu - if you're like me and only buy it on special, people coming to visit kind of occasions).

Roasted Tofu

1 pkg of extra firm tofu, drained and sliced
3 TBSP orange juice
3 TBSP lemon juice
2 TBSP soya sauce
1 TBSP grainy dijon mustard (I used a honey dijon blend I had in the fridge)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
1/2 tsp lemon pepper seasoning
fresh ground black pepper to taste

Place the sliced tofu in a lightly greased casserole dish or other shallow baking pan and set aside.  Mix remaining ingredients until well combined and pour over the tofu in the dish.  Let marinade for at least a 1/2 hour. While tofu is marinading, preheat oven to 425F/205C.  Roast tofu for approximately 25 minutes (or until the tofu is golden brown in colour).  Enjoy!  Serves 2-4 people. Recipe can easily be doubled.

A Summertime Recipe

Summer came early to the prairies this year. A mild winter was followed by an incredible spring. Which means we've been cooking on the BBQ a whole lot. One of my favourite side dishes is potato salad. Not your run of the mill potato salad that everyone grew up eating. Oh no. This is different. It is a concoction I threw together one night that has truly become our favourite potato salad. I might venture to say possibly the best potato salad going! Because I'm busily tooting my own culinary horn, I thought I might as well share my recipe. I hope you like it as much as we do!

POTATO SALAD (Note: measurements given are approximate. I rarely measure. For the dressing start with a little of the seasonings, (maybe 1/4 tsp?) you can always add more, and any fresh veg you like should be just as tasty! Increase or decrease how many potatoes you use to make more or less. Make more dressing if you want it creamier. As written, the recipe serves 4)

Ahead of time bake 4 potatoes and cook 1/2 lb of bacon. Chill completely.

Salad: mix all together in a bowl
Cubed baked potatoes
Chopped green onion
Diced cucumber
Diced red pepper
Crumbled bacon
Finely shredded cheddar cheese

Dressing: mix together in small bowl, pour over salad and gently toss to coat (here's those approximate measurements!)

1/2 c mayo
1/4 c sour cream
1 1/2 - 2 TBSP parmesan cheese
1 1/2 - 2 TBSP grainy Dijon mustard
1 TBSP chives (I used dehydrated, but fresh would be so much tastier!)
Onion powder
Garlic salt
Dill weed
Pepper

Enjoy a fresh taste of summer!

Nom. Nom. I was going to take a photo before supper, but forgot. Sorry. I know most bloggers would have a delightfully photographed setting for you, but well, it's late, and how artful could I get with leftovers and my cel phone's camera anyways?

Update! You can't take a really mouth watering appetizing picture of potato salad. I've tried. Several times. I'll share the best one so far, but I promise it tastes a billion times better than it looks in the picture!

It's delicious! I promise!

In other areas of my creative side, I've finished a few projects, have a few in the works and approximately enough on my "hope to do list" to fill up the rest of time. I think I'll tell you about them another day. As I said, it's kind of late.