cooking

We don’t eat pork, which means no traditional sausage. Usually I just buy turkey sausage, but with the quarantine and grocery stores being slow to restock, I can’t always find it these days. After looking around online a bit, I hobbled together a few different recipes for making your own sausage out of ground beef. It was based partially on what I had on hand, as well as what I know to be the flavors my family likes. 

Ground Beef Sausage

3 pounds ground beef

3 tablespoons brown sugar

3 tablespoons fennel seeds

2 tablespoons dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried oregano 

1 teaspoon garlic powder 

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon (or more to taste) crushed red pepper

Place all ingredients into a large bowl. Use your hands to mix all the spices through the ground beef as thoroughly and evenly as you can.

Divide the mixture into food storage bags in whatever portions make sense for your family (I do 2 meals out of this recipe, but we have a large family). Put the bags in the fridge to cure for at least 24 hours. After this time, you can either use or freeze your sausage as you would any other bulk sausage (spaghetti, biscuits and gravy, etc).

While this tastes pretty much just like a traditional sausage, it still behaves like and has the texture of ground beef. For that reason, it might take a time or two before your mouth understands what it’s experiencing!

Blessings,

One of the things I’ve struggled with the past few weeks is meal planning for people who have severe dietary limitations – no poultry, limited dairy, allergies to several fruits and vegetables, and a distinct hatred for most others (no, none of these issues are my kids – it’s the other grownups we live with right now causing the “problems”). Most of what we’ve been eating is pork chops and salad or tacos. I was looking for something different the other day to use up some ground beef I had on hand when I remembered one of my favorite simple meals – something I made up a while ago that I call “Taco Rice.” It fit the dietary guidelines, and is really yummy. Plus, it’s a one pot meal! Today, I’m sharing the recipe here. Enjoy!

Taco Rice (serves 6-8)

• 1.5 pounds ground beef (or turkey)
• 2 packets (or equivalent homemade) taco seasoning
• 4 cups water (instead of the amount listed on the seasoning packets)
• 1 jar nacho cheese
• 2 cups uncooked long grain rice (or 4 cups instant rice)

Cook and crumble the ground beef until no pink remains; drain fat. Return to pan and add seasoning, water, and nacho cheese. Stir to dissolve the seasoning and melt the cheese. Bring to a boil. Add the rice. Reduce heat to low; cover and cook 20 minutes. If you’re using instant rice, follow the directions on the box for timing once you add the rice to the pan. Gently fluff the rice and serve.

I like to eat this either plain or scooped up with tortilla chips. It’s also good with a super simple salad, and would make a wonderful tortilla filling.

Blessings,

We recently got a Costco membership as a belated anniversary present to ourselves. One of our first purchases was a book entitled A Year of Recipes. The premise is that there’s a new recipe for every single day of the year (including February 29th). Some of them aren’t super helpful when it comes to mealtime because they’re desserts or require some specialty ingredients, but a fair number of them are easy to pull off with little or no notice. The recipe I want to share today is one of those.

In the middle of packing up the house for an upcoming move (this week!), I wanted to make something for dinner that would use up some of the food we have on hand. The one for the specific day I was cooking (Saturday the 25th) was this one. I was quite skeptical based on the ingredient list (it seemed too basic), but when I tasted it, I was absolutely sold on this recipe. It was so delicious, and it’s going to make its way into our regular rotation of meals.

I had to make a few alterations to the base recipe in order to use up stuff we already had (sherry for white wine, ditalini for penne, and green beans for peas), and the recipe I’m including today is my modified version rather than the official one from the book.

Creamy Chicken and Pasta ~ serves 6-8

• 4-6 chicken breasts (about 1 1/2 pounds)
• 1 pound bite size pasta
• 3/4 cup cooking sherry
• 1 pound frozen green beans
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 1 tbsp dried parsley flakes

1. Cook pasta according to package directions.
2. Cut chicken into strips (or cubes) and cook over moderately high heat until cooked through. Add the cooking sherry and cook over high heat until the liquid is mostly evaporated.
3. Add the green beans and cover the pot. Cook for 5-6 minutes, until the green beans are hot and tender.
4. Add the whipping cream, cooked pasta, and parsley. Cover and cook for 2-3 minutes to soften the parsley and thicken the sauce.
5. Serve hot with the side dish of your choice.

We ate this meal with glazed carrots, but it would be equally delicious with “normal” pasta sides: salad, garlic bread, etc.

Blessings,