Tag Archives: sausage

Do you Ever Have Days When…

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Maple & Sausage Corn Bread

…You probably shouldn’t be allowed near anything? Yeah, me too. Today is certainly one of those days.

I have a three year old who has absolutely no interest in being toilet trained and since I’ve done this five times before with no problem, I can only wonder what I’m doing wrong this time. And I’m getting bored washing peed in (or worse) “big boy pants” lol.

I made some scones for all of you that SHOULD have been awesome. We’ll just call them “Omelet Scones” because they had all the ingredients for an omelet tucked into a scone. Continue reading →

Entering The Strata-osphere

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Yeah, I know. I really need to work on my titles. But that was the best I could come up with for today.

With that title as a hint, I bet you can’t guess what the recipe is! Can ya, can ya can ya!!? It’sssssssss

LIVER!!

Ok, so unless you’ve never read my blog before, you’re not falling for that one.

I made a strata. Gee, the title kind of ruined the anticipation of what I made didn’t it? Maybe I should start having really misleading titles and to see what I made, you have to click on a link or something.

Nah. Way too much work and we all know I try to avoid that if possible.

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know about my love/hate relationship with bread pudding and the like. I absolutely LOVE it when I find or create a good one like my Pineapple Upside Down Bread Pudding or the
French Onion Bread Pudding I posted. But by the same token, I HATE them when they are dry, not creamy, boring and dull like the old time ones that were a bunch of stale white bread and a handful of raisins mixed with milk. Can we say “ick”?

Stratas are, in my mind, simply another version of bread pudding thus if it is good, I’m in love. And the one I created tonight was good. I had had a recipe picked out in a cookbook for one I wanted to try but for the life of me, I couldn’t find the recipe. Out of my 500000 cookbooks, I have no idea whatsoever what cookbook it was in. But I was determined to make a strata so I improvised. And it worked. Quite well actually. It is creamy with lots of meat and cheese and would make a perfect dish for an easy meal or to serve on a buffet or Christmas morning breakfast. It has a bit of spice but not overly so if you are one of those strange spice averse people you can still eat it. :-P

This feeds a lot of people… or two teen boys and my husband.

Cheesy Cajun Bacon And Andouille Strata

  • 5 hoagie buns, cubed (you could use Italian bread I’m sure but I had hoagie buns I needed to use thus this says hoagie buns :-P )
  • 12 eggs
  • 2 1/4 cups milk
  • 3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
  • 1 14 to 16 ounce package smoked Andouille style sausage, sliced (I used Johnsonville brand)
  • 1 pound bacon, cooked until crisp and crumbled
  • 5 green onions, sliced thin
  • 1/2 cup chopped green pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon seasoned salt (I used “Janes Crazy Mixed Up Salt” cause I love that stuff)
  • 1 teaspoon salt free Cajun seasoning (only use if it’s salt free or between the seasoning salt and the meats, the end result will be over salted)
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 2 quart (preferably glass) baking dish.
  2. In a  frying pan, saute your sausage and green peppers until the sausage is lightly browned and the peppers are tender.
  3.  Set the sausage aside to cool.
  4. In a large bowl, beat the eggs. Add the milk and beat until blended.
  5. Mix in the rest of the ingredients.
  6. Let sit for about ten minutes to give the bread time to soak up the liquid.
  7. Pour into the prepared baking dish and drizzle with the melted butter
  8. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes or until set in the middle (check with a butter knife or skewer. It shouldn’t come out with any loose dripping mixture on it.) and nicely browned.
  9. Let rest for about 5 minutes before cutting.

 

Is It Tomorrow Yet? Also, Savory Gooey Onion, Cheese & Sausage Bread Pudding

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Have you ever had one of those days you just wish hadn’t happened? Not a wish to start it over, but a wish that it just disappeared and never repeated itself.

Yeah. me too. Today was such a day.

I’m sure some of you have read me talking about (writing about?) my kids. I have six children, five boys and one girl, ranging in age from 25 on down to 3. I also have 5 grandchildren. As I’ve said before, I started having kids at age six… honest. :-D

One of my kids more frequently mentioned, if not here, on my FB page, is my son Jordan. Jordan is sixteen but is always going to be my baby. He is the sweetest boy you could ever know. But he is also Autistic, mildly intellectually challenged, has a severe case of ADHD, some OCD, and other things falling into the emotional/mental disabilities spectrum. He has the emotional and intellectual abilities of about an 8 year old. He is sweet, funny, loving & enjoys helping people. He loves to work with tools though that can end up with broken gadgets and bikes and what have you lol. He loves to “invent” things cooking but rarely does anything of it turn out to be edible. Heck, we all know what THAT’S like though huh? :-D He loves our cats and adores his siblings. He worries about me and wants to take care of me forever.

He also can get overwhelmed when stressed out, discouraged, angry or pushed too hard. He doesn’t like rules and will rebel if he thinks that one is unfair. He wishes he could do everything but frequently tells me that he feels like he can’t do anything right, is stupid and doesn’t fit in anywhere. Those are the days that I feel my heart crack into little pieces. When he is upset and something (usually chaos or being pushed too hard) triggers him, he can also become violent and aggressive. Not in the bullying sort of way. When he is aware of himself and his surrounding, he wouldn’t hurt a flea and has been known to carry flies outside so that they wouldn’t die. But when he gets upset, he is no longer cognizant of how he is acting. he is pure adrenaline. Today was one of those bad days. He has been doing poorly in school, in part, in my opinion, because they are expecting too much academically from him. He is a sophomore who should have extreme modifications in his work but doesn’t. So when he feels like a failure, he doesn’t try and acts up to get out of working.

Today, something happened that made him lose control. From what I have been told, he sat in the wrong chair in class and rather than say the obvious “oh well, what does it matter? and let him sit there (it was a chair for petes sake!), it was turned into a control issue by the teacher and others were brought in to “help”. It ended with him being restrained (way bad move with an autistic child who doesn’t like being touched other than to be hugged), his biting and spitting on a teacher (again; think young child and temper tantrum) and him being suspended. Now, I agree with the suspension. He can’t be allowed to do that and there have to be consequences. But it didn’t end there. The school is pressing charges of assault against my 16 year old Autistic, mildly retarded, IQ of around 75 boy.

I want someone to explain to me what they think will happen to an extremely vulnerable mentally challenged boy in jail or juvenile detention. He isn’t the type to be able to fend off someone who wanted to hurt him or do other things to him. He would cry, he would beg for me to help him though I wouldn’t be there, he would fight as well as he could but ultimately he would lose. The problems he has also have led to poorer than usual muscle tone and strength. But they want him in jail. They want to take him and put him with men or boys who have REALLY committed assault, have raped, have committed armed robbery, have done drugs, abused parents or siblings and God knows what else.

I want this day to disappear. I want to hug my children and hide them in a cave so no one can ever harm them. I want him to be whole.

There is no subtle way to lead into a recipe today so I won’t try. I’ll just post it.

As Scarlett O Hara said, “After all, tomorrow IS another day”. Dear God, I hope so.

Savory, Onion, Swiss & Sausage Bread Pudding

  1. 10 tablespoons unsalted butter
  2. 1 tablespoons vegetable oil
  3. 9 cups thinly sliced onions (about 4 to 5 onions depending on size)
  4. 1 large shallot, finely chopped
  5. 2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
  6. 1/3 cup dry red or white wine (I prefer to use a Cabernet  in this)
  7. 1 loaf (about 12 ounces) French or Italian bread, cubed (I use the garlic/Parmesan loaf that many stores carry in their bakery section.)
  8. 4 cups shredded Swiss cheese
  9. 1 cup grated fresh (not the dry nasty kind) Parmesan cheese
  10. 1 10 ounce package Tyson Italian Sausage Crumbles (or just use regular Italian sausage that you have cooked and crumbled)
  11. 4 eggs
  12. 2 cups heavy cream or a mix of cream and half & half
  13. 1 cup whole milk (you could try this with low fat milk and even use that instead of the cream too, but this isn’t supposed to be a diet dish lol)
  14. 1 teaspoon salt
  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  • Melt 5 tablespoons butter with the oil in a large pan. Add in the sliced onions and the shallots. Cover and cook over low heat until the onions are tender and limp.
  • Uncover, turn heat to medium and cook the onions until golden brown and nicely caramelized. About five minutes before they look done, add in the garlic. Stir well and continue cooking.
  • When browned and cooked, pour in the wine. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the liquid is gone.
  • Butter a 13×9 inch baking dish, preferably a glass one.
  • In a large bowl, combine the bread, sausage and the onions.
  • Melt the last 5 tablespoons of butter and pour it over the bread mixture.
  • Add the cheeses.
  • In a small bowl, mix the cream, milk, salt and eggs.
  • Pour the egg mixture over the bread and mix well. Stir this well for about 2 to 3 minutes to make sure all the bread has a chance to start soaking up the cream mixture
  • Pour mixture into the prepared pan and bake at 350 until it is golden brown and cooked through, about 50 to 60 minutes. To check doneness, poke a butter knife into the middle. If it comes out wet or dripping, it’s not done. It should be the consistency of a cooked cheesecake. Firm and yet still creamy.
  • Let cool for about ten minute before you cut this.
  • This is an awesome side dish for a company dinner or a great light meal with a salad for the family. It’s also great for a weekend breakfast. It’s gooey, crispy at the edges because of all the butter used in it and cheesy and oniony and oh my, it’s SO good. One of my favorite side dishes in fact.

Rules, Schmules!

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I’ve never been very good at following some kinds of rules. In most cases, I am a stickler for them. I always use my turn signals and never follow too closely. I don’t jaywalk. If I were a smoker, I would never think of smoking somewhere where there is a no smoking sign and I try to treat others as I would want to be treated (yes, I feel that comes under the heading of rules. If it didn’t, it does now. I just made it a rule :-P ) and so on and so forth. But when it comes to recipes, I am simply horrible at following the rules. I can barely follow a recipe much less cooking rules. Mix soy sauce with BBQ sauce? Ewwwww! I’ve done it… it works.  Fruit with meat? I was doing it long before it was fashionable. Wear white after Labor day? Oh wait, wrong kind of rules and a stupid one to boot. Mix two totally different types of cuisine? Yep, been there done that. It’s one of my favorite ways of cooking. Tonight I wanted Quesadillas. But I was also craving the Andouille sausage I bought a few days ago. I wanted Gumbo. I wanted Tex-Mex. In other words, I was completely confused… aka my normal state of being. Pretend you didn’t read that. I am never confused. I walk through my days in utter logic and straight thinking. I also have a dinosaur named Barney who hides in my closet.

So as usual, I decided to play. Sometimes my playing ends in utter disaster like what happened here . Sometimes I get lucky although I like to delude myself into thinking it is my skill. Yeah… right. Pure luck. I tend to think that that is how most decent dishes came about. Luck or mistakes. Tonight I lucked out. I hope you like it. :-)

Cajun Panini Quesadillas With A Spicy Lime-Cilantro Mayo

  1. 1 lb andouille sausage, cut into bite size chunks (you can also just take it out of the casing altogether but I tend to like the bite you get with the casing)
  2. 1 package pre cooked chicken strips ( the kind in the lunch meat section)
  3. 1 large green pepper, cut into strips
  4. 1 large onion, cut into half moon slices
  5. 8 10 inch flour tortillas
  6. 1 tablespoon olive oil or vegetable oil
  7. 1 teaspoon Cajun seasoning
  8. 1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
  9. 1 cup cheese (just use your favorite. I used a four cheese Mexican blend)
  10. 1/2 cup mayonnaise
  11. 1 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro
  12. zest of one lime
  13. juice of half a lime
  14. 1 tablespoon chili lime hot sauce (Franks makes the one I used but you could just sub your favorite hot sauce. You DO have a favorite hot sauce I hope? Please tell me that you do.)
  • Dump your andouille, green pepper and onion in a large saucepan with the oil.
  • Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently until the andouille is thoroughly cooked and the veggies are soft.
  • Add in the Cajun seasoning, tomatoes and chicken strips. Continue cooking over medium heat until the chicken is heated through and the tomatoes are softened.
  • While this is cooking, preheat your Panini press. If you don’t have a press, you can use a frying pan lightly greased with oil but it is going to prove more difficult to get out of the pan w/out thing flopping out of it.
  • Put one tortilla in the press. Cover with 1/4 cup cheese and a quarter of the sausage mixture. Top with the other tortilla and close press. Cook for about 4 minutes or until it is nicely browned. It’s thick so you may have to press the heck out of the panini press.
  • To make the spicy cilantro-lime mayo, mix together the mayo, cilantro, lime zest, lime juice and hot sauce.
  • Serve the quesadillas  cut into fourths with some of the mayonnaise and a lime wedge on the side for drizzling over.