Pasta with sausage and peas

I know I've had delicious pastas before that featured crumbled sausage and peas.  I had some chicken (uh, jalapeno chicken actually) sausages in the fridge, and my roommate had some cream and frozen peas that looked stealable.  This could've gone horribly wrong, but actually turned into a pretty tasty Scavenged Dinner.
I sliced up the sausage (it had no casing, and is pre cooked or something so I couldn't crumble it) and set it aside.
I heated two minced garlic cloves in some olive oil til fragrant, then added the sausage.  Once I felt like things were probably pretty close to heated through, I added the frozen peas, the last of my 1% milk, some cream, salt and pepper, and 1 tbsp or so of butter.  I wanted to add lots of romano or parmesan, but only had like, 2 tbsp, boo.  I let it thicken up and added a little bit of the pasta water to make it nice and saucy.  :)
It actually turned out really well - the sauce was super flavorful and I will totally make it again.

Here is a really close recipe, though I did not use anywhere NEAR the amount of cream or butter it calls for!

Hash Brown Casserole

It was at a diner in. . . .Florida maybe?, where I had a life altering breakfast.  You know the type - you take a bite and think, "OMFG, why doesn't EVERYONE serve this EVERYWHERE?!"  It was basically all my brekkie favorites - eggs, cheese, meat and hashbrowns - cooked into a casserole dish.  Soft, ooey, gooey, flavorful HEAVEN.
I've only dreamed of it for oh, four years or so and have yet to try to make it on my own.  Between Paula Deen (my arteries slammed shut just thinking of what her version would be like), Cooks.com, and everywhere else  you can find a recipe, you're sure to find some variation (bacon!  sausage!  ham!  potato chips?!) you'll be dying to try.  I'm tempted to give it a whirl now because I just had my step grandmother's amazing scrambled egg Christmas morning casserole and thought I could try out the hashbrown version for a hungover January 1st.

Breakfast Casserole
3 cups of potatoes O'Brien, thawed  (you can use the cubed type hash browns if you can't find O'Briens)
1/2 cup milk - I used heavy whipping cream because I had it and also because wow, but I wouldn't normally!
5 eggs
1/3 cup chopped onion (use 1/2 cup if you're not using O'Briens)
1 1/2 cups of shredded cheese (I have a swiss and Gruyere mixture ready to go, but use your fave)
sliced ham, cooked & crumbled bacon, or cooked & crumbled sausage
breadcrumbs
salt & pepper

Beat the eggs and milk and season with salt & pepper (feel free to try paprika, onion or garlic powder, or celery salt here as well).  Stir in onions, 1 cup of cheese and the ham or sausage (the bacon I'd keep to crumble on top so it stays crispy, but you could stir it in if you'd prefer).
Put the hash browns into a baking or pie dish and pour the egg mixture over the top.
Sprinkle with the rest of the cheese and put into oven.  Turn heat on to 350 and allow to cook for 35 minutes or until set.  About five minutes before it's done, add the bread crumbs and bacon to make a nice crispy crust.

Joe's Spaghetti Bolognese

My roommate makes the most amazing, homey, hearty, rich, robust, delicious spag bol I've ever had in my life. Aside from the wild boar ragu at Myth (* sob *). note to self to get resos at Zinnia for Sean O'Briens wild boar meat sauce; nom.

He's made it twice now and every time I smell it cooking I come running. The first time I just had to have a taste, even though I had already eaten. The second time I was lucky enough to get my own gigantic portion. I determined then and there, that I simply must have this dish for my birthday dinner. He seemed to think I was teasing him, but oh no. This spag bol is the way I think spag bol was meant to taste. It's perfect.

Since he'll be off in lalaland (psh) for my birthday, I can't demand he make it for me and my friends as a gift in honor of the kickoff to my 32nd year on Earth. Damn.

What's a girl to do except to insist that he divulge all of his Mexican-English based Italian cuisine secrets? Last night was the night that he looked over my shoulder and walked me through it and well; I came close. There is just something that I can't quite grasp. Some weird, teeny tiny little spark that I was just unable to capture. Is it umami? Bay leaf? Acidity? I cannot tell but it was woefully absent from last night's attempt. To say I'm devastated is to put it mildly. That spark is what I wanted to serve! Without it, it's just spag bol! Good spag bol, but not Joe's LIFE ALTERING spag bol. It's a depth of flavor that I can't quite figure out, but I know I felt like I wanted to add a little wine to the sauce thinking that's what it was.

My birthday sucks already. :o( I hope someone brings cake.

Joe's Spaghetti Bolognese
serves 4-5
1 half of a medium/large white onion, finely chopped
1 half of a shallot, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, smashed
8 oz of sliced mushrooms
1 lb ground beef (80/20 or 85/15 - you need some fat)
Mild Italian sausages - enough for each person to have one (I also used some of those Aidell's sundried tomato ones)
1 jar of Ralphs/Cala Foods tomato basil pasta sauce
pasta of your choice
olive oil
1-2 tbsp butter
salt & pepper
dried basil
oregano
4-5 bay leaves
Italian seasoning
red pepper flakes
Parmesan cheese

Put a tbsp of olive oil into a large saute pan over med-hi. Add the butter and let melt.
Toss in the clove of garlic, the shallots, and about half to 2/3 of the onion and saute for a minute. Add mushrooms and saute just til the mushies get some color and start to soften. Pour the onion/mushie mixture into a bowl and set aside.

In the same pan, add a teeny bit more oil (only if necessary to prevent sticking), and add the ground beef and remaining raw onion. Cook until browned and then pour off fat.
While meat is cooking in one pan, cook the sausages in another pan. Add a little oil so they don't stick, and sprinkle them with some Italian seasoning.

Add the jar of pasta sauce to the drained meat and stir the onion/mushie mixture back in. Toss in a tbsp or so of dried basil, a few dashes of red pepper flakes (you don't want it SPICY per se, just with a little bit of an undertone from the peppers), some oregano (1 - 2 tsps maybe?), and the bay leaves, and give it a good stir.
If the sausages are done, nestle them into the sauce as well, if not, you can do so once they are ready.

Let the sauce come to a boil, then reduce the heat and cover. Let simmer for 45 minutes or so; stirring a couple of times.

With 15 or so minutes left, get your pasta going.

Drain pasta, serve, and top with a generous portion of pasta sauce and a sausage. Top with a sprinkling of cheese.

Cry because of some undetermined depth of flavor that is missing that makes it not quite Joe's.
No wait, you don't even know what you're missing, so just enjoy it. I'll cry.

The clever gang over at Chowhound has plenty of nommy sounding suggestions too.

"Spanish" rice

My grandfather is of Spanish descent. This rice reminds me of paella. Is it wrong to call it Spanish rice? This was one of the dishes I used to make when I was living in Australia and missing home. Had I ever eaten anything like this at home? No, not really. But to this day, this dish reminds me of my independence, and maturation into an actual self sufficient human being. I made it up, I didn't use a recipe, I didn't ask my Dad, I had no idea what I was doing; but it turned out. My friends started to request that I make it. Holy cow you guys; I was living in another country, on my own, and cooking my own dinner and feeding my friends. Because this is a Jen Original, please don't quote me on it and feel free to taste and modify as you go.

1 can crushed tomatoes in tomato sauce (about a cup and a half)
1 cup chicken broth
1 1/2 cup rice (I'm trying it with brown rice today - wish me luck)
cooked chicken - I used a ready to go roaster chicken that I pick apart and shred with my fingers
cooked sausage - chorizo or some other spicy sausage is perfect for this
scrambled egg
green onions

Bring the tomatoes and broth to a boil, add rice, cover, and turn heat down. Simmer for 30-40 minutes until the rice is done.
Fluff rice and stir in chicken, sausage, scrambled egg and green onions - you be the boss on how much you use. (I'm gonna say two sausages, 1/2 c - 3/4 c chicken, 1-2 eggs, and 1-2 green onions thinly sliced if you MUST have measurements.)
* nom *

Zucchini & Sausage Carbonara

Another recipe you may not want to quote me on since I was inspired by a couple of recipes when making it. I'd say I was inspired by Emeril's use of sausage, but more closely followed Jamie's.

Zucchini & Sausage Carbonara
2 Johnsonville sweet Italian sausages, removed from casings
1/4 lb ground turkey (I had it on hand and threw it in, but you could easily just use another sausage link)
2 green zucchini
2 yellow squash
(I also used one variegated green/yellow squash, but you can just use one more of a green or yellow)
1 pound of freshly made whole wheat fettuccine from the farmer's market (or dry, whole wheat penne)
4 large egg yolks
1/2 c cream (I filled my measuring cup half to 2/3 of the way with cream, and then filled it the rest of the way with ff half and half)
2 good handfuls freshly grated Parm (I had shredded, so that's what I used)
1 tsp of thyme (smoosh it up in your hand or between your fingers before adding)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Put a large pot of salted water on to boil.
Halve and then quarter any larger zucchini lengthwise. Cut out and discard any fluffy middle bits, and slice the zucchini at an angle into pieces roughly the same size and shape as the penne. Smaller zucchini can simply be sliced finely. Your water will now be boiling, so add the penne to the pan and cook according to the package instructions. If you're using fresh pasta - hold off on this until the sausage and zukes are cooked since it will cook up so quickly.

Add a couple of tsp of olive oil to a pan and heat over med-hi. Add meat and cook until no longer pink, breaking it up into small crumbles as you go. Depending on how big your pan is, maybe you can get the zucchini in too, but I took the meat out, leaving all of it's meaty goodness behind in the pan, and cooked the zukes up with some salt, pepper, and the thyme so they dry fried a little, getting nice and brown in some spots, but soft and cooked through overall.

To make the carbonara sauce, put the egg yolks into a bowl, add the cream and half the Parmesan, and mix together with a fork. Season lightly with salt and pepper and set aside.

It's very important to get this next bit right or your carbonara could end up ruined. You need to work quickly. When the pasta is cooked, drain it, reserving a little of the cooking water. Immediately, toss the pasta in the pan with the zucchini & sausage, then remove from the heat and add a ladleful of the reserved cooking water and your creamy sauce. Stir together quickly. (No more cooking now, otherwise you'll scramble the eggs.)

Add more of the cooking water if needed to get a nice shiny sauce and top with the rest of the parm. I tore up some squash blossoms on top as garnish as well. Serve immediately!

No cook dinner

Tonight I had one of those - "hmmmm, haven't been shopping, what do I have in the pantry that I can eat for dinner?" nights. So, channeling my inner Sandra Lee, I started hunting.
I found Trader Joe's black bean soup first, and remembered I had some sundried tomato sausage (also from TJ's) in the freezer. Smoky sausage and black bean soup go together well, so I was onto something.
I nuked the sausage to thaw and "cook" it, then cut it up tiny, threw it in a bowl of soup, and nuked that. Um, that's it. Flavor wise, it's pretty darn tasty - next time I try this, I think I'll open a can of black beans and smash some of those up to thicken the soup - it's pretty watery. It would also benefit from some tomatoes and cilantro, maybe even corn, but I don't want to get crazy. Hopefully next time I'll also have some tortilla chips.
So for those of you that don't cook, but reheat like champs, here you go. I recommend it with one of my nummerific peach margaritas. I'd make one for you, but I used the last of the peach juice, sorry.