Easy Sausage and Rice

Another sausage dish - because our local store, Schulte's, has great, lean bulk sausage. This is adapted feom what my mom made as "Mock Chicken Casserole" - I'm guessing chicken cost more than sausage at the time. I add more veggies than I used to, and served this with a side of steamed and slightly sauteed veg (directions below).

Sausage and Rice

Chop one large onion and start it sauteing in a very little olive oil. When soft add chopped celery (about three stalks), a grated large carrot. Put a lid on for a couple of minutes to help them cook and then add a couple of big handfuls of shredded cabbage, continuing to cook and stir. If you haven't got previously browned sausage from the freezer, you can brown sausage in the same big pan while doing these vegetables. If you have browned sausage (about 1/2 lb) you can add it to boullion to help get the flavor into the broth. You can add sausage seasoning, favorite spice mixes, or let the sausage be all the flavor you need.
Add 4 cups broth, browned sausage, 2 cups rice, and cover tightly. Bring to a simmer and cook 20 minutes until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed.

a baked sweet potato is a great side with green beans and a salad, or---
Veggies on the side:
steam chunks of butternut squash, cauliflower and broccoli and fresh green beans. Prepare thick slices halved of yellow and zucchini squash. While veg steam, melt some real butter in smaller frying pan and a few minutes before rice dish is done, heat up to med-high and add summer squashes, mushrooms too if you like, let them brown just a bit then add steamed veggies and stir up with seasonings. You can add leftovers veggies at this point to warm up. Pensey's Foxpoint Seasoning is a really good one for this dish.

Fast and Easy Sausage Cornbread

Not sure how high in the health department, but this is very easy, especially if you have pre-browned sausage in the freezer. You can easily double without doubling the meat but with an added can of drained and rinsed dark red kidney or pinto beans for a large family,

Easy Sausage Cornbread

about half a pound of good bulk sausage, browned and crumbled (buy on sale, brown and freeze in small amounts)
one cheap cornbread/muffin mix
one can "Mexi-corn" or "southwest style corn"
about a cup of grated cheese optional
egg and milk as directed on cornbread package

micro-wave thaw sausage, stir egg into milk, put everything but half the cheese in a mixing bowl and stir together. Put in a Pam-sprayed baking dish dish bigger than 8x8 (the one that's not quite a 9x13, I think its about 8x11) sprinkle with cheese and bake as instructed for cornbread.

Serve with green vegetable like steamed broccoli and salad and/or fruit.

White to Wheat Bread, for introducing whole wheat or just want a good whole wheat recipe

This is a great fine-textured bread that you can start making with all-purpose flour and gradually add more and more whole wheat (freshly ground hard white wheat will give best results) until your kids (or your insides) are enjoying whole wheat bread. It simply makes a little more bread by volume with white flour. I do knead a minute or two longer with all whole wheat.
I always double it and found I got 7 loaves using all white or up to about half wheat.
Now I make 6 loaves almost all whole wheat - I use the smaller loaf pans (8x4) and use a little high-gluten bread flour kneaded in near the end and thus no need for dough enhancers or added gluten. Put it in the freezer as soon as it cools completely for fresh bread all week :)
If your kids are still not sure about whole wheat bread, time it to come out of the oven when they get home from school hungry or toast it with jam-

White-to-Wheat Bread
originally based on "White Bread Plus" from Joy of Cooking

In your mixing bowl:
3 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp salt
1 pkg yeast (1 Tbsp)
Start mixer on slow, combine 2 1/2 cups hot water and 1/4 cup canola oil and gradually add to dry ingredients, beat to combine.
Add 1 egg (works fine without it too) and 1 more cup flour, beat three more minutes. Add as much more flour as you can stir in, then knead in rest (up to 3-4 cups additional flour). Knead about 10 minutes. Rise in greased bowl about 1 hour, divide into pieces and shape into balls and rest ten minutes. Shape and put into seasoned or sprayed loaf pans and place in cold (or warmed a little in winter) oven for 30 minutes or until double, turn oven to 325 and bake 35 minutes.

Guru's veggie rice bowl, fast and easy AND healthy and yummy.......

While visiting Provo (Utah)  I enjoyed a restaurant called "Guru's" on Center Street - went back twice already! My favorite was their "vegetarian rice bowl" which comes with brown or white rice. Living pretty far from there I decided to try making it myself, and after the first try realized there might be hints online - which indeed there are. So here's what I learned and what I tried and liked:
This could so easily be make with shrimp or some chicken or used as a side dish, but with the edemame, brown rice, and cheese in the pesto, there is enough protein. (The photo is of leftovers for lunch, so its not quite as pretty as the first night)

Vegetarian Rice Bowl
The ingredient list off the restaurant menu:
"sauteed snow peas, bean sprouts, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, green beans, roasted sweet corn, tomatoes, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, edamame, and your choice of rice in a light cilantro-lime pesto".

Obviously you can use whatever vegetables you like or have on hand. The first time I had broccoli and cauliflower, snap peas instead of snow, had no real tomatoes so we skipped them, forgot artichoke hearts, it would have been great with them! And even though I used an entire bunch of cilantro it wasn't nearly as strong as the restaurant's, (neither was it as greasy - hadn't realized it was a "pesto"), I used some butter and olive oil, not much - and I flavored the brown rice up some. It was still great and made wonderful leftovers for lunches.

My second try was even better, used some fresh greenbeans, broccoli, cauliflower, yellow and zucchini squash, mushrooms, artichoke hearts (just a few), a couple of roma tomatoes, frozen edemame, baby carrots (larger ones cut in half at an angle) and stirred in a "pesto" made as follows:

Lime Cilantro Pesto:
Use a large bunch of cilantro (in Missouri that means buying at least two bunches to equal what you get in one in Utah), either pull leaves off the stems or grab leaf end of the bunch and pull off most of the stems - you need about a cup of packed leaves. Put into a food processor with a few sliced almonds if you like, a goodly amount of garlic (spoonful of prechopped) and a couple of tablespoons lime juice. Process a bit to chop and then drizzle in about three Tbls olive oil (while processing) plus about 1/4 cup parmesan or asiago or cheese blend. (most recipes use more oil, I didn't want to get too greasy).
**(Alternatively, chop the cilantro and add to the vegetables near the end, along with lime juice and a drizzle of oil, use garlic in the sauteing of the veg, sprinkle all with parm)

Vegetables:
I steamed the carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and edemame for five minutes while heating up a large frying pan with 1 Tbsp butter to which I added the zucchini and yellow squash (thick slices cut in half) to "grill" for about two minutes then adding sliced mushrooms, tomatoes, and artichoke hearts (roughly chopped) just to heat. Dump in the steamed vegetables and stir the pesto through it all.

This is wonderful served over minute brown rice made with vegetable broth and some sauteed onion. Of course, its much more economical to cook regular rice or do your brown rice ahead (http://eatfastandhealthy.blogspot.com/2011/02/fluffy-brown-rice.html)

Next time I will remember the corn! For "grilled sweet corn" you can use frozen corn and give it a little color and extra flavor by putting in the frying pan like the squash. Red pepper would be good, snap or snow peas, bean sprouts, etc. Maybe one day I will remember to buy bean sprouts or get my sprouter jar going.


And I finally started getting photos-- check out:http://eatfastandhealthy.blogspot.com/2011/11/tastier-healthier-broccoli-cheddar-soup.html
I figured it couldn't be harder than getting them onto my calligraphy blog, if I can just remember to take them before eating all the food  
http://letterdesignstudio.blogspot.com/2012/01/preparing-polymer-clay-for-casting.html