Sausages with Greens & Beans and Grilled Garlic Bread

I fell in love with Italian Greens & Beans at our Italian friend’s family dinner and have been making it ever since. Here’s my spin on the dish. This dish is healthy, tasty, cheap and quick… and my hubby loves it!

 

Greens & Beans:

1 large bunch of kale, chopped
1 large carrot, peeled into ribbons
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
½ cup broth
2 crushed garlic cloves
Red pepper flakes (Amount depends on how spicy you like it. I usually do 1 tsp.)
1 can cannellini or white kidney beans
Salt & pepper, to taste

Grilled Garlic Toast:

Rustic, crusty bread, sliced (I used a crusty sourdough loaf)
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
Garlic cloves
Sea salt

Sausages…your favorite kind!

In a large pan, heat EVOO over med-high heat. Add kale and carrots; sauté for 2-3 minutes. Add broth, cover and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic, pepper flakes and cannellini beans. Mix together and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover and set aside until ready to eat.

While the sausages are grilling, brush one side of each slice of bread with EVOO. Grill bread on both sides. Once bread is toasty, rub oiled side with garlic cloves. Sprinkle with salt.

Serve greens and beans with grilled sausages and sprinkle everything with freshly grated parmesan cheese.

 

Note: I know traditional Italian greens and beans don't have carrots, but I like to sneak in as many veggies in every dish whenever possible.

Jambalaya 2

1 large chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
2 chicken garlic sausages, cut into bite sized pieces
½ lb large shrimp, cooked and tails removed
1 small green bell pepper, sliced
½ onion, sliced
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 cup of rice
2 cups of canned diced tomatoes, with juices
1/2 cup of chicken broth
Crushed red pepper flakes
Salt
EVOO

In a rice cooker, add rice, diced tomatoes, chicken broth and a drizzle of EVOO. Cook until done.

In a large sauce pan over med-high heat, sauté chicken in a little EVOO. Add peppers, onion, garlic and sausage. Sauté until chicken is almost cooked all the way through. When rice is done, add it to the pan and mix together with other ingredients. Add a couple dashes of red pepper flakes and salt to taste. Stir in shrimp until they are heated through.

Serve in a shallow bowl and accompany with cornbread.

Egg Noodle Casserole with Sausage and Cheese

This is a spin off of a Czech recipe and I tweaked it a little. It can also be a creative way to use up ingredients in the fridge or to sneak in some veggies for those non-vegatable eaters. You can eat this casserole hot or cold.


½ package of wide egg noodles
2 eggs
1 Tbsp of heavy cream
1 tsp French mustard
S&P to taste
2 sprigs of green onions, chopped
1 cup of pepper jack cheese, grated
½ cup of cheddar cheese, grated
½ cup of parmesan cheese, split for two uses, grated
½ zucchini, chopped (or I also use broccoli, though I only had zucchini in the fridge this time)
3 turkey sausage links, though I think beef kielbasa works the best, chopped into bite sized pieces

Serves 3 people with a couple extra helpings.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 8 x 8 casserole dish.

Boil noodles according to directions, for about 8 minutes. It’s okay if they are a little harder than you normally would like because we’re going to bake it afterwards. Let the noodles cool a little (otherwise when you mix them with the eggs, the heat will scramble them).

In a sauce pan, sauté sausages until almost all the way cooked. Add zucchini towards the end of cooking, until a little soft (to save on washing another pan). Let sausage and zucchini cool a little.

In a small mixing bowl, mix eggs, cream, mustard, and S&P together.

In a medium mixing bowl, add noodles, sausage, zucchini, green onions, cheese (only half of parmesan) and egg mixture. Mix well, so everything is coated with egg mixture. This will act as a bonding agent and hold the casserole together. Top casserole with remaining parmesan cheese and bake, uncovered, for about 30 minutes. After, turn oven to broil and move oven rack up to cook casserole for 3-4 minutes. This gives the casserole a nice brown color and crisps some of the noodles.

Serve with your favorite side salad. This is a great meal to make for a warm summer evening.

Yummy Camping Dinner: Sausage on a Stick, Czech Style

It's a family affair! Cooking sausage on a stick is a great family activity to do around the fire.

Cook the sausage until the ends curl up and get nice and crispy.

Serves 5 people

2 packages of beef kielbasa sausages, cut each package into 3 pieces
Crusty French bread loaf, sliced
French mustard

Make a nice, big camp fire. Everyone should find a stick for themselves that’s at least 4 feet long. Sharpen one end of the stick, which will poke through the sausage. Cut an ‘X’ in the end of each sausage, and score along the top and the bottom of the sausage. Poke the stick through the middle of the sausage. Cook sausages over the fire until the ends curl up and get crispy.

Serve with bread and mustard. Enjoy with a pivo (Czech for beer!).

Mediterranean Flat Bread Pizza

3 flat breads, jalapeño and cilantro flavor
½ red bell pepper, sliced
2-3 rings of red onion, sliced
5-10 Kalamata olives, sliced
1 ½-2 sweet turkey sausage, removed from casting
1 large garlic clove, minced
Herbed goat cheese
Feta cheese, lemon and oregano flavor
EVOO

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

In a frying pan over medium high heat, sauté sausage until cooked all the way through, until no longer pink.

Brush flat bread with EVOO. Top flat bread with peppers, onions, olives and sausage. Sprinkle with garlic and feta cheese. Break off chunks of goat cheese and place on top. Bake pizzas for about 8 minutes, until veggies are cooked and flat bread is crusty. Don’t bake too long or the bread will turn into a cracker!

Note: I would have added sliced tomatoes and quartered, marinated artichokes, but I forgot to add them!

Jambalaya (my version)

1 cup of long grained Basmati rice
½ cup of water
1-14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes with garlic and olive oil

2 raw spicy Italian sausage links
1 raw chicken breast, chopped
10 large raw shrimp, defrosted and peeled
½ red bell pepper, chopped
¼ red onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
½ tsp crushed red pepper flakes
Salt
EVOO

In a rice cooker, add rice, water, ½ can of the diced tomatoes and ½ teaspoon of salt. Cook until ready.

In a medium sized pan over medium high heat, cook sausages until half way done. Add chicken, peppers, onion, garlic, the other half of the diced tomatoes, salt and red pepper flakes. Cover, turn to low heat and cook until chicken is almost done (no longer pink in the middle), about 5-10 minutes. Add shrimp and cook until they turn pink.

Serve jambalaya over rice.

NOTE: I usually use green bell peppers and yellow onions, but I was out, and add parsley (but I was too lazy to go out to the garden and get some).

Italian-Sausage Burgers with Garlicky Spinach

I found this awesome recipe in this month’s issue of Food & Wine and modified it slightly. It has introduced me to cooking with meat from sausage links. It’s so quick and easy to do. The meat is already seasoned, and from my experience so far, stays really moist (if you don’t overcook it, of course).

2 Servings

½ bag of pre-washed baby spinach
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 hot & spicy Italian sausage links, remove from casings
Monterey Jack cheese
2 Tbsp of mayo
1 tsp of pesto
1 Tbsp of chopped sun-dried tomato
A few rings of red onion
2 ciabatta rolls
Slices of salted cucumbers
EVOO (If you don’t know what this is, I’m not going to tell you. Your welcome, Rachel.)

Heat grill for burgers.

Using wet hands, make patties out of sausage. Brush both sides of patties with EVOO. Grill patties over medium heat, about 5 minutes on each side. After flipping burger, top with cheese. Add buns to grill to toast.

Heat EVOO in skillet, add spinach. Sauté until almost wilted, then add garlic. Sauté for a few minutes until garlic is translucent. Set aside.

Mix mayo, pesto and sun-dried tomato. Spread pesto on rolls, when they are done toasting. Top burgers with spinach and red onions. Serve with cucumber slices.

Note: If you want more garlic flavor, add garlic at the end of cooking the spinach, like I did. If you want less garlic flavor, sauté the garlic first and then sauté spinach.