Sausage Pasta Soup with Chiptole and Herbs

Again, you don't need to start with bacon, but I did.

1. Start a pot of salted water on a path to boil.
2. Mince up a few slices of bacon and put in thick heavy pot like a Crueset.
3. While bacon cooks, thinly slice up an onion, chop up some carrots in desired shape and chop up some celery in desired shape.
4. When bacon has rendered its fat, add sausage to pan. Tonight we used Mild Italian Turkey Sausage from Rainbow.
5. When Sausage is done, remove and add more fat if necessary to pan. We used olive oil tonight.
6. Add onions, carrots and celery. Stir and allow to cook to your liking. I like them browned.
7. Add stalks of thyme, a bay leaf, some chopped rosemary and what ever else you want. I also added a lot of ground black pepper. Stir and allow herbs to get in there.
8. Add 1/2 cup of Muir Fire Roasted Crushed Tomatoes and stir.
9. Add two canned chiptoles in adobo sauce and some of the adobo sauce.
10. By this time water should be boiling. Add your pasta. We used Strangled Priest Noodles. They take 8 minutes.
11. Add the broth to your soup pot and bring to a boil. Allow to simmer a bit. Add the sausage back in and salt to taste. Add chopped parsley if you like.
12. Drain pasta when done.
13. To serve, put some pasta in a bowl, and pour soup over it. Sprinkle bacon on if you made it.
    

Dialing in the Family Pasta Sauce. This time with Chipotles.

Growing up my mom had a spaghetti sauce recipe that she followed to a T every time. For a long time I imagined that one day I would too have a sauce that we made consistently. It just hasn't worked out that way. Sauce is always a play of what you have in stock, what is available locally, what the mood is and who you are feeding. Tonight's sauce was spicy and sweet and yummy.

So tonight, we made the sauce like this:

1. In a Dutch Oven like pot (my Crueset is my go to), heat a little olive oil, cook up pieces of hot Italian turkey sausage. Remove with slotted spoon to a bowl.
2. Add a little more olive oil to pot and add 1/2 minced yellow onion, 2 minced carrots, 2 minced celery sticks. Saute for a while.
3. Meanwhile, mince up some fresh rosemary. (I love a little fresh sage too, but did not have any tonight). And mince up the left over pork chop from last night that you already cooked. (Optional and not necessary of course).
4. Once veggies have sauteed to your liking, add the herbs and mix. (Tonight I added Mexican Oregano, Thyme and Fresh chopped Rosemary, Red Pepper Flakes and Lots of Freshly Ground Pepper). Then make a little room to brown the pork a bit. (This could have been done pre veggies, but I spaced). Once pork has browned a bit, add sausage back to pot and stir and let "meld" a bit. Usually I use red wine to deglaze the pan, but tonight I used some port. (Made it too sweet which led to the adding of the chiptoles.) Stirred and allowed to soak until pan was again "dry".
5. Add a can of Fire Roasted Chopped Tomatoes. I wanted the sauce more "saucy". So I peered into my fridge to see if I could find some tomato sauce. I found one labeled 11.03.08. It did not seem okay. If I had had beef broth, I would have added that, but I had some Chicken Stock, so I added a little of that.
   
6. I started the water to boil and began prepping the garlic bread.
   
7. When I tasted the sauce, it seemed too sweet, so I added 2 canned chiptoles. This fixed the problem. Brought Sauce to a boil and allowed it to simmer.
   
8. Once pasta was cooking, I added some chopped fresh Italian Parsley and continued to allow to simmer. I added some salt. (We like the Strangled Priest Noodle).
   
9. Serve with Parmesan to grate.

Manicotti for the Boys

I felt energized and loving when I went to the grocery store last night.  I was feeling pasta, but when I thought Manicotti, I knew the boys (my husband and brother) would be pleased.

Bill of Casa Barranca Winery had just given us 4 bottle of wine for Christmas.  We opened the Bungalow Red.  Fantastic.

I used the recipe on the back of the box of the shells as a grocery list, adding and changing where I felt appropriate. 

1. Start the heat under a big pot of salty water.

2. In an cast iron enalmed pot like a Crueset, heat a little olive oil and brown the hot italian turkey sausage.  (4 links with casing removed.  I had to do in 2 batches)

3. While sausage is browning, mince up 2 carrots, 2 leeks, 2 stalks celery.

4. In a bowl, mix 15oz. Organic Valley ricotta with 1/3 cup of finely grated parmeson.

5. Once Sausage is browned, remove to a bowl, add more olive oil to pot and add onions, carrots and celery.  Stir and saute for about 10 minutes, or until softer.  Add mined fresh rosemary and sage.  Some dried thyme.  A little Mexican Oregano.  (Or whatever herbs you have on hand and like).  I also added 2 fresh Bay leaves from B.D.  Pour in some of the wine from your glass to deglaze.  Stir and allow to saute and soak up juices.  Add a 28ox can of Muir's Fire Roasted Crushed Tomotoes.  Stir to combine.  Bring to a boil.  Once boiling, turn heat down and allow to simmer.  Pour in a little beef broth to thin the sauce out a bit.

6. Turn oven to 350.  Grease a 9x12 baking dish with olive oil. Wash your spinich.7. When water is boiling, cook the shells and drain.  I ran cold water over them and that made them cool faster so they were easier to handle.8. Throw washed spinich (still wet) into pan you just cooked pasta in.  Turn heat to super low and stir and cover.  Pay attention to this pot.  Stirring and helping spinach to wilt.  Takes about 4 minutes or so.  Once nice and wilted, but still green, drain into a fine colander and rinse with cold water.  With hands squeeze out excess moisture. Finely chop and mix into ricotta along with meat.  Freshly ground pepper and what ever else you think might taste good.

7. When all ingredients are ready, begin to stuff cheese mixture into shells.  Your hands work the best.  Be careful not to bust open the shells.

8. Lay in baking dish and then cover with tomato sauce.  Put in oven for 45 minutes.  

There wasn't a morsel left.  I imagine that this dish could serve up to six peeps if you had a salad to go along with it.  But the 3 of us polished it off.  OMG.

Food Control and Family Patterns and Pasta

My little brother Geordie has moved in with us.  I love my little brother and am totally delighted that he is here, especially the way his presence exposes the family patterns so quickly and easily.

It was around 3:30pm and Eric had come home from the grocery store with the fixings for a smoked white fish dip and the ingredients for roasted tomato sausage pasta.  I was excited to make a nice meal for the 3 of us.

Geordie emerged from the office and announced he was hungry and was going to go out and get something.  I mistakenly suggested he wait cuz I was going to make dinner.  I jumped up and prepped the whitefish dip.  When it was gone within 2 minutes, I realized that maybe I had underestimated (or worse, not even acknowledged) his hunger.  And that the appropriate response would have been, "Great, see you later."

But I was attached to our having dinner together, and so I navigated incorrectly, not receiving the fresh information.  And as most of us do when we are hungry and not being allowed to do what we want to do, he got angry.  (A mild soft angry with a slight agitated and accusing raised voice).  And I felt like my mother with my father.  One wanting the freedom to satisfy his needs and the other trying to satisfy hers, corrupted with the illusion that her plan was superior.

And so he left to get food, and I laughed and saw what had happened.  And when the invitation came in to go to a housewarming party from 6 to 7, I accepted cuz now I was off the hook for dinner.  Geordie returned with beer and peanuts still under the assumption that I was cooking dinner.  Hahaha.  Trick or treat has been the theme for me with my SELF this week and she keeps winning.

1. Preheat Oven to 400 degrees

2. Slice open the collection of tomatoes you have from Steve and the Sunday Farmers market.  (Tonight we had romas, heirloom, vine ripe and cherry).  Lay out on a baking sheet.  Smear with olive oil, crack some pepper and put in oven.  Set timer for 30 minutes.

3. In a heavy enameled cast iron pot, add some olive oil.  When hot, cook up turkey sausage.  Tonight Eric came home with spicy and mild.

4. Meanwhile, mince up 1 or 2 carrots and 2 stalks celery and 2 shallots.  When meat is done, remove with a slotted spoon.  add more oil if necessary and add carrots, celery and shallots.

5. Mince up some rosemary and add to herbs along with some dried thyme and other desired herbs or spices.  Eventually add about a cup of wine and allow to simmer and evaporate.  By this time the tomatoes are done.  I poured the entire tray of tomatoes with juices in.  If I had paused, i might have drained them a bit, cuz the sauce seems more watery than i would have liked.  Bring to a boil and then lower heat to simmer.  (Even though the sauce did not need any more liquid, I added a little beef broth to enhance the flavor.)

6. Meanwhile, start a large pot of salted water to boil.   Cook pasta, drain and serve with sauce.

7. Delight in the revealing of that which is no longer serving you.

Asparagus turkey Sausage PAsta with Fresh Mozarella

1. Start Water to Boil, add Salt
2. Brown Sausage
3. Remove and add some olive oil to the pan
4. Add Thin Asparagus cut in half to pan.  Add fennel seeds, red pepper flakes.
5. Once pretty soft, add thinly sliced fennel
6. Add Red Wine to deglaze.  Put Sausage back in and stir with minced Lemon Basil.  Turn Off Heat as Pasta cooks.
7. Cook and Drain Pasta .  Lately we are using the Strangled Priests.
8. Mix Pasta with Sausage Asparagus mixture.  Add Olive oil and a few dashes of Ojai Olive Oil's White Balsamic vinegar.
9. Serve with Freshly Sliced Fresh Mozzarella

Fennel and Sausage Pasta

We have made this 100 times but tonight it came out really good.

1. Start a large pot of heavily salted water to boil.

2. Pull Mild Fennel Turkey Sausage into chunks and brown in some olive oil.  Remove with slotted spoon to a bowl when done.

3. Add more olive oil to pan if necessary.  Add 2 to 4 thinly sliced heads of fennel to pot. (Amount depends on size of fennel.  B.D. grows this delicate full flavored fennel that is very small.  Steve grows massive bursting extra crisp fennel).  Saute for 3 to 5 minutes depending on your slice sizes, then add a cooking alcohol of choice to pan to deglaze.  Last night we used Madeira.  Saute briefly, then add a mashed head of garlic, red pepper flakes to taste and a least a cup of beef broth.  Partially cover to allow fennel to steam.

4. Eric's new favorite pasta is strangled priests.  Add to pot when water is boiling.  Takes about 13 minutes for this noodle to cook.

5. Meanwhile, add the sausage back into the pot with the fennel and a lot of slivered fresh basil from Steve's farm.  (This is the best basil I have ever had).  Partially cover and turn heat way down to keep warm.  (Usually I throw fresh herbs in at the end, so this was an experiment to allow the herbs to cook a bit).

6. When Pasta is done, drain and toss with fennel, adding salt and freshly ground pepper.  (In the past I have added a hit of creme here but did not tonight).

7. Scoop into bowls and add some fresh mozzarella.

Makeshift Pesto Sausage Pasta

Eric only received half the text and came home with turkey sausage, strangled priest pasta and sun dried tomatoes...not really enough to create a sauce.

So, pulled out everything we had in the fridge (today i was grateful for the CSA) and decided to make pesto kind of thing:

Bring Water to a Boil and pasta accordingly.

In a Cuisinart, mix

- fresh garlic from Steve's Farm

- Salt

- Slivered Almonds

- Fresh Basil from Steve's Farm

- a Canned Chipotle

- Meyer Lemon Juice

- Olive Oil

To create a Pesto.

In the pan, 

- Brown the Sausage and Remove from pan and place in big bowl.

- Add leftover roasted tomatoes from earlier in the week, add the few fresh ones you have along with sliced up marinated sun dried tomatoes and heat through.  Add to bowl with sausage.

1/4 Slice half of a small red onion up for fresh pepperyness.  Add to bowl.

When pasta is done, drain and add to bowl.  Add pesto, salt and pepper and toss to coat pasta. 

Grate Preseason on top.

For a spontaneous random creation, it didn't turn out that bad.  Lots of flavor and good mix of light and savory flavors.  And eric, who just came home from a 12 hour drive was happy.

Brocolli Rabe Pasta with Kale and Sausage

2 Links Spicy Italian Turkey Sausage, broken up
1 medium Red Onion sliced into 1/4 moons
Approx. 1/2 Cup of Madeira or other such cooking alcohol
Dash of Red Pepper Flakes
Freshly ground pepper to taste
Tablespoon or so of chopped rosemary
Teaspoon or so of Dried Thyme
Approx. Cup of Chicken Broth
Generous bunch of Broccoli Rabe from BD's Farm
Bunch of Black Kale from BD's Farm
Approx. 3 tbl of unslated Butter
Approx. 1/4 cup of Half n Half

Egg Noodle Pasta from Farmer and the Cook. 4 minute cooking time.

1. Start a pot of boiling water.

2. Saute Sausage in a heavy pot.

3. Remove Sausage and reserve. Add a little olive oil to pan if not enough fat was rendered.

4. Add onions and saute. When desired tenderness is achieved, add peppers and herbs and stir. Add Madeira and reduce. Add chicken broth. Meanwhile slice kale into 1/4 inch pieces and wash. Chop Broccoli rabe into evenly sized pieces. Usually the stalk can be cut into 2 or 3 pieces.

5. Add Broccoli and stir. Loosely cover the pot to help broccoli steam, but pay attention that it does not overcook. At this point, throw pasta in boiling water. Just before pasta is done, add kale. And stir sausage back in.

6. Drain pasta and add to pot. Mix in butter and creme and stir to combine. Salt to taste.

A Variation on a Theme: Pasta with Tomotoes and Other Stuff

Eric says I have been dialing this dish in since the winter. Using canned tomatoes and chard and sausage and some other unusual things like adobo sauce from the chitpole pepper can and sun dried tomatoes, the first version of this dish made Eric say, "Wow, this dish would make Uncle Cuccio so mad. Because he would love it and it would be like nothing he ever tasted before."

The ingredients keep changing with the seasons. Here is the version that we made tonight:


1. Start a pot of water boiling
2. Start Heat under your favorite meat searing pan. (Tonight I used non-stick cuz I am going out of town tomorrow and did not feel like having a lot to clean up).
3. Remove casing from Hot Italian Turkey Sausage (or other sausage of choice) and pull into bits and add to hot pan. Brown and when done, turn off heat and leave in pan.
4. Meanwhile, finely mince or press 2 cloves of garlic. Mash with some salt and throw in large bowl with some olive oil.
5. Half a small red onion and slice half moon shapes out of one side. Add to bowl.
6. Core and chop 4 large Delicious Big Beef or Heirloom Tomatoes.
7. Thinly slice about 7 marinated sun dried tomatoes and add to bowl.
8. Drain and add about 1/2 a jar of pitted Kalamata olives.
9. Pull Lemon Basil Leaves off the stems and add to bowl.
10. Stir and pour some more olive oil in, along with some Balsamic Vinegar and lots of Ground Pepper. Allow to sit while sausage finishes cooking and water begins to bowl.

Tonight, Eric and I were working and he asked me to delay dinner an hour, I turned water off and once sausage seemed done, turned it off to, but the tomato mixture was allowed to marinate. This seemed to work out.

11. Once sausage is done, turn off heat and let it rest till needed.
12. Once water is boiling, throw in pasta. I have been a huge egg pasta fan lately and tonight we used the fettucini width egg pasta noodles.
13. When pasta is done, drain. Add Sausage and lots of salt to tomato mixture. Mix with pasta and serve with chopped fresh mozzarella on top.

Pappardelle Pasta with Sausage, Kale and Mozzarella

We have made lots of different versions of this and will continue to vary it depending on what is available. Tonight I have started to record them.


1. Start the Water for the Pasta and add some salt.
2. In a separate heavy pot, heat some olive oil. (Probably about 2 tbl.)
3. Break up Spicy Italian Turkey Sausage into the hot olive oil and allow to brown. Stirring as required to get all sides.
4. As Sausage is browning, dice up 1 leek, 2 carrots and 1 clove garlic. (Sometimes the leeks will be super sandy and you will need to wash them once cut).
5. Once sausage has browned, remove from pan with slotted spoon into a bowl and add a little extra olive oil to the pot.
6. Add Leeks and Carrots to the pot and saute until desired softness and color is achieved. (I usually error on the side of browned and soft). While carrots and leeks are cooking, chop up Fresh Rosemary. (We are lucky enough to have this growing in our yard, so I use it a lot).
7. Once Leeks and Carrots are done, add minced garlic, Rosemary and dried Mexican Oregano. Stir until fragrant, about a minute or so.
8. Add enough Pernod to the pot to deglaze and simmer the veggies for about 2 minutes. (You could use almost anything here. I chose Pernod cuz it was in my cupboard).
9. Add enough Beef Stock (prob. about 1/3 cup) so that you can throw the sausage and slivered kale back in and cook it down into almost a sauce. (I slivered about 1/2 a head of beautiful black kale).
10. Add a smidge of the adobo sauce from a can of chipotles. Add Good Salt and Fresh Ground Pepper.
11. Put the wide egg noodle Pappardelle into the salted boiling water.
12. By the time the pasta is done, about 6 minutes, your 'sauce' is ready.
13. Drain Pasta and mix with sauce. Add some butter to bring flavors forward.
14. To serve, scoop into shallow pasta bowls. Add a bit of lemon zest. Chopped fresh mozzarella and toasted almond slivers.