Until I went to cook dinner last night (another Pinterest recipe test) I had forgotten that some time ago (I'm going to guess at least 2 weeks, probably closer to 3 weeks) I had cut a full stalk of celery, and put the leftovers in the fridge following the 'wrap it in tinfoil' suggestion from THIS PIN.
I will confess to not truly believing this would work, and I was afraid I would find a gooey, moldy, wilty mess - but I was very pleasantly surprised. I won't begin to understand why this works, but I am thankful for the tip just the same. I will never ever ever wrap leftover celery in a plastic bag, or 'lock/lock' container again. Ever. Side note, I can't imaging having leftover brocolli, but it's good to know they say it also works for broccoli and lettuce. Maybe I'll go back to buying heads of lettuce again instead of those bags where it's already pre-cut. Maybe.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Smoked Sausage Alfredo Pasta
Techically the 'test' recipe was this one but I'm not a fan of baking pasta when you don't have to and I envisioned a few changes.
I knew I had picked up some turkey smoked sausage on the last Aldi trip and I was pretty sure I had at least one bag of frozen broccoli florets - and I picked up a ton of pasta over the past couple of weeks when it was on sale - so - natural progression to trying this one out.
I had the better half move the sausage from the freezer to the fridge to thaw before I got home just to make things easier (pause for inuendo). I called ahead on my way home to see if he also had found a bag of frozen broccoli - he hadn't so I stopped off at the Save-A-Lot to snag some broccoli and was hoping they'd have some Alfredo sauce so I wouldn't have to go to another store. Success - super fast and easy in and out (annnnd pause for more inuendo).
Ingredients I ended up using for this masterpiece:
Chef's Essence Roasted Garlic Alfredo Pasta Sauce - 12oz jar (Save-A-Lot)
Wylwood Broccoli Florets Steam Bag - 12oz bag (Save-A-Lot)
Barilla Penne Pasta - 1 16oz box
Fit & Active Turkey Kielbasa - 13oz (Aldi)
1 medium yellow onion
Sriracha Hot Sauce
Olive Oil
My process:
Diced the onion and sliced the turkey into 1/4" slices.
Sauteed the onion and sausage in a dab or olive oil and a squirt (probably around a tablespoon) of Sriracha sauce. I knew the sausage wasn't spicy, and I figured the alfredo sauce was going to be pretty bland because it was so inexpensive. And I like spicy!
Boiled the pasta to just past al dente.
Cooked the broccoli per the instructions (steam-in bag in the microwave).
NOTE: you could just as easily use frozen broccoli. I would suggest flash steaming fresh broccoli if you prefer to use fresh - I don't think the fresh broccoli would cook enough in my stove-top version of this recipe without pre-steaming it.
Added the alfredo sauce to the sausage and onion while the pasta finished cooking.
Drained the pasta then added all of the ingredients back together in the pasta pan, and served.
Approximate total preparation time 25 minutes (complete from raw ingredients to serving).
D-VINE. This turned out way better than I had thought it would - and the other half gave it an enthusiastic two thumbs up as well. This one is definitely added into the rotation.
I knew I had picked up some turkey smoked sausage on the last Aldi trip and I was pretty sure I had at least one bag of frozen broccoli florets - and I picked up a ton of pasta over the past couple of weeks when it was on sale - so - natural progression to trying this one out.
I had the better half move the sausage from the freezer to the fridge to thaw before I got home just to make things easier (pause for inuendo). I called ahead on my way home to see if he also had found a bag of frozen broccoli - he hadn't so I stopped off at the Save-A-Lot to snag some broccoli and was hoping they'd have some Alfredo sauce so I wouldn't have to go to another store. Success - super fast and easy in and out (annnnd pause for more inuendo).
Ingredients I ended up using for this masterpiece:
Chef's Essence Roasted Garlic Alfredo Pasta Sauce - 12oz jar (Save-A-Lot)
Wylwood Broccoli Florets Steam Bag - 12oz bag (Save-A-Lot)
Barilla Penne Pasta - 1 16oz box
Fit & Active Turkey Kielbasa - 13oz (Aldi)
1 medium yellow onion
Sriracha Hot Sauce
Olive Oil
My process:
Diced the onion and sliced the turkey into 1/4" slices.
Sauteed the onion and sausage in a dab or olive oil and a squirt (probably around a tablespoon) of Sriracha sauce. I knew the sausage wasn't spicy, and I figured the alfredo sauce was going to be pretty bland because it was so inexpensive. And I like spicy!
Boiled the pasta to just past al dente.
Cooked the broccoli per the instructions (steam-in bag in the microwave).
NOTE: you could just as easily use frozen broccoli. I would suggest flash steaming fresh broccoli if you prefer to use fresh - I don't think the fresh broccoli would cook enough in my stove-top version of this recipe without pre-steaming it.
Added the alfredo sauce to the sausage and onion while the pasta finished cooking.
Drained the pasta then added all of the ingredients back together in the pasta pan, and served.
Approximate total preparation time 25 minutes (complete from raw ingredients to serving).
D-VINE. This turned out way better than I had thought it would - and the other half gave it an enthusiastic two thumbs up as well. This one is definitely added into the rotation.
 |
| Finished Product |
Monday, October 27, 2014
Sweet Potato Crust for Quiche
I love everything Sweet Potato (at least I think I do), and I like quiche - for it's simplicity and generally healthy options, so I was just waiting for the right time to give THIS PIN a try.
The beloved spousal unit made a snyde remark when I mentioned we would have some kind of pasta for dinner (I think it was something like 'Oh well big surprise there') which of course entered him into the asshat of the day contest - especially when I told him that he could cook dinner then, and to remember to do the dishes afterwards. An hour later, when he had NOT started making any dinner - I'm guess he didn't understand that I was serious when I told him to cook dinner - I decided tonight would be the sweet potato crusted quiche night. Yes, I know he's not a fan of sweet potatoes or quiche, but he lost his vote way back on the pasta remark.
Thanks to dear friend and co-worker Shannon, I had some fabulous home-grown sweet potatoes, just the right size. I peeled 2 small sweet potatoes, and used the trust Pampered Chef Mandolin to slice them into uniform slices. I could have slice the potatoes myself, but figured the mandolin would do a better job getting them as thin as I wanted and safer/uniform. I can be a knife clutz occassionally, and sweet potatoes can be a bugger to cut. Tough little tubers.
I also broke out my trust (and not often used lately) Pampered Chef round stoneware baking dish (which I have just discovered they no longer sell - shame really because it is really a very versatile size/shape). It's slightly larger than a standard pie dish/plate with straight sides, but I've done a quiche in this dish before and have been very happy with the thorough cooking and release convenience.
I rubbed some olive oil onto the baking dish and put a layer of sweet potato slices in the bottom of the dish, trying to overlap just a bit to leave as little open space as possible. I used some of the smaller slickes for the upright sides, but wasnt terrible concerned about having the upright crust. I then sprayed the top of the slices with cooking oil spray - I need one of those oil sprayers so that I can really know what I'm spraying - and put the crust in a 450 degree oven to bake for 20 minutes. While the crust was cooking I sauteed some diced onion - mine happened to be some leftover red onion - about 1/2 cup, some red bell peppers - about 1/2 the pepper, and about 1 stalk of celery (which leads me to remember another Pinterest test I need to blog) in some olive oil, and added about 1/2 a pound of turkey sausage. When this was all cooked up I added about 3 cups of chopped fresh baby spinach, and sauteed it for just a couple of minutes until the spinach was well wilted. I then set this aside to cool as much as possible before adding the eggs. I also chopped up 2 pepperjack cheese sticks.
I opted to just use 4 eggs because I didn't want a super thick quiche. I removed the crust from the oven after 20 minutes and set aside, and reduce the oven temp to 375 degrees. I added the turkey onion celery pepper spinach cheese mixture into a mixing bowl, and added 4 beaten eggs, and stirred just to combine the ingredients well, then poured it all into the sweet potato crust. I put the quiche back into the 375 degree oven and baked for 40 minutes.
Incredients I used:
3 small sweet potatoes
4 medium eggs olive oil - maybe 2 Tablespoons in the saute
3 cups fresh baby spinach
1/2 red bell pepper
1/2 small red onion
1 stalk celery
2 pepperjack cheese sticks
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (the powder kind)
Here are the pics at various stages of completion:
The beloved spousal unit made a snyde remark when I mentioned we would have some kind of pasta for dinner (I think it was something like 'Oh well big surprise there') which of course entered him into the asshat of the day contest - especially when I told him that he could cook dinner then, and to remember to do the dishes afterwards. An hour later, when he had NOT started making any dinner - I'm guess he didn't understand that I was serious when I told him to cook dinner - I decided tonight would be the sweet potato crusted quiche night. Yes, I know he's not a fan of sweet potatoes or quiche, but he lost his vote way back on the pasta remark.
Thanks to dear friend and co-worker Shannon, I had some fabulous home-grown sweet potatoes, just the right size. I peeled 2 small sweet potatoes, and used the trust Pampered Chef Mandolin to slice them into uniform slices. I could have slice the potatoes myself, but figured the mandolin would do a better job getting them as thin as I wanted and safer/uniform. I can be a knife clutz occassionally, and sweet potatoes can be a bugger to cut. Tough little tubers.
I also broke out my trust (and not often used lately) Pampered Chef round stoneware baking dish (which I have just discovered they no longer sell - shame really because it is really a very versatile size/shape). It's slightly larger than a standard pie dish/plate with straight sides, but I've done a quiche in this dish before and have been very happy with the thorough cooking and release convenience.
I rubbed some olive oil onto the baking dish and put a layer of sweet potato slices in the bottom of the dish, trying to overlap just a bit to leave as little open space as possible. I used some of the smaller slickes for the upright sides, but wasnt terrible concerned about having the upright crust. I then sprayed the top of the slices with cooking oil spray - I need one of those oil sprayers so that I can really know what I'm spraying - and put the crust in a 450 degree oven to bake for 20 minutes. While the crust was cooking I sauteed some diced onion - mine happened to be some leftover red onion - about 1/2 cup, some red bell peppers - about 1/2 the pepper, and about 1 stalk of celery (which leads me to remember another Pinterest test I need to blog) in some olive oil, and added about 1/2 a pound of turkey sausage. When this was all cooked up I added about 3 cups of chopped fresh baby spinach, and sauteed it for just a couple of minutes until the spinach was well wilted. I then set this aside to cool as much as possible before adding the eggs. I also chopped up 2 pepperjack cheese sticks.
I opted to just use 4 eggs because I didn't want a super thick quiche. I removed the crust from the oven after 20 minutes and set aside, and reduce the oven temp to 375 degrees. I added the turkey onion celery pepper spinach cheese mixture into a mixing bowl, and added 4 beaten eggs, and stirred just to combine the ingredients well, then poured it all into the sweet potato crust. I put the quiche back into the 375 degree oven and baked for 40 minutes.
Incredients I used:
3 small sweet potatoes
4 medium eggs olive oil - maybe 2 Tablespoons in the saute
3 cups fresh baby spinach
1/2 red bell pepper
1/2 small red onion
1 stalk celery
2 pepperjack cheese sticks
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (the powder kind)
Here are the pics at various stages of completion:
 |
| Crust ready for the first trip to the oven |
 |
| quiche ready to head into the oven |
 |
| completed quiche |
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