Bratwurst & Bacon Skillet

I am a HUGE fan of one dish meals.  Typically my Sunday of cooking will yield at least two dishwasher loads and sometimes three.  The weeks that I can get everything cooked and only have one load of dishes to unload is like a I've hit the jackpot.  

I know these ingredients don't sound like they all go together, but amazingly once you cook them all you get a tasty, hearty meal with just a bit of kick.   The mushrooms really fill it out and the tomatoes make it not all boring and light colored.  

Life has been really hectic lately, so I haven't had much to say.  I am impressed enough to get my recipes cooked and posted!

Bratwurst & Bacon Skillet

Prep Time: 20 min                

Cook Time: 20 minutes             

Yield: 5

INGREDIENTS:

6 uncooked bacon strips, diced

½ cup onion, chopped

5 cooked bratwurst, sliced

2 cups mushrooms, sliced

1 tbsp jalapeño, diced small

2 cups diced tomatoes with liquid

½ cup fresh Parmesan, grated

DIRECTIONS:

·         In a large skillet, cook bacon and onion until bacon is almost crispy.  Remove bacon and onion from skillet (leave drippings) and set aside.

·         In same skillet, sauté the bratwurst, mushrooms and jalapeño for 3-4 minutes or until mushrooms ae done.  Stir in diced tomatoes and bacon/onion mixture.

·         Cover and cook for 5 minutes or until heated through. 

Allow to cool, add Parmesan, then portion 1 cup per mealpod for freezing.

5 PODS: 409 calories, 28g fat, 1234g sodium, 13G carb, 1g fiber, 25g protein

nutrition information estimated at Livestrong.com:

http://www.livestrong.com/recipes/mealpod-bratwurst-bacon-skillet/

Kielbasa Ratatouille Skillet

I like sausage.  It's easy, it taste good, what else can you ask for!  There has been a lot going on at my house lately, so quick and easy is what I have been aiming for.  My daughter had a sewing lesson Sunday morning, so I had less time to cook my weekly meals.  

Kielbasa Ratatouille Skillet

Prep Time: 10 min                

Cook Time: 15 minutes             

Yield: 6

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb kielbasa

½ cup onion, chopped

1 large eggplant, peeled and cubed

3 small zucchini, cubed

1 green pepper, chopped

3 roma tomatoes, chopped

½ tsp salt

½ tsp fresh basil

½ tsp fresh oregano

¼ tsp pepper

¼ cup fresh Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS:

·         Chop all vegetables and slice kielbasa to prep

·         In large skillet, sauté kielbasa with onions

·         Stir in eggplant, zucchini and green pepper, cooking until soft about 5-7 minutes

·         Stir in tomato, salt pepper, basil and oregano and heat through

Portion into pods, allow to cool, then add Parmesan cheese to top before freezing.

6 PODS: 297 calories, 24g fat, 820g sodium, 8G carb, 2g fiber, 12g protein

nutrition information estimated at Livestrong.com:

http://www.livestrong.com/recipes/kielbasa-ratatouille-skillet/

Faux Italian Sausage Meat Sauce with Hidden Veggies for 3 Mealpod Recipes

Artwork: Italian Decadence - colored pencil by Nicole Caulfield 

If your family is like mine, it is very rare that everyone is completely happy with a given meal. Everyone has to make sacrifices. This week I did Italian - good ole red sauce Italian, but I did it 3 ways to make everyone happy. One red sauce and 3 Mealpod Recipes that is. I made a noodle-free eggplant lasagna for me (a recipe I posted before here), a whole wheat noodle lasagna for hubby, and whole wheat angel hair pasta for the kids. The sauce WAS a compromise however - because I added loads of hidden veggies (shhh the kids don't know how many I put in there).

If it weren't for making the meals into Mealpods (portioning them and freezing them in packs) I would not be able to cater to everyone's tastes. I spent two hours cooking all the recipes but I got about 24 servings of food out of it - with 3 different varieties. Not bad! 

 

The sauce is the big star in all of these recipes. When I went shopping, the ground turkey was on sale - CHEAP. I don't really like the aftertaste of ground turkey so I decided to make a faux Italian sausage meat sauce using 2 lbs of the turkey on sale and 1 pound of ground sirloin. We try to keep our meats lean and lower in saturated fat if we can. I figured the sirloin would add some flavor, but then added fennel seeds (the seeds in Italian sausage), and red pepper flakes right into the meat before cooking to mimic the flavors of sausage.

Another camouflaged element in the sauce were those veggies. The trick to getting the kids to eat the veggies in the sauce and not pick them out is to cut them very very small. I think some people put them in the food processor after cooking and pour them in the sauce like a V8 but I like the chunks in the sauce even if they are small chunks. 

So here is the recipe for the chunky sauce which you can layer in lasagna like I did, put it over pasta, or heck it tastes so good you can eat it as is. Hey its just like chilli! 

Meat Sauce w/ Faux Italian Sausage & Hidden Veggies

This is a kid-friendly - chunky meat sauce with lean meats and teeny vegetables

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground sirloin
• 2 lbs ground turkey
• 1 zucchini chopped really small
• 1 small onion chopped really small
• 2 bell peppers chopped really small (your choice on color)
• 2 tsp fennel seeds
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 clove garlic or garlic powder
• 30 oz strained Pomi tomatoes
• 2 cans tomato paste
• 2 tbs Italian Seasoning
• 1-2 tbs olive oil

Instructions

1. In a large bowl combine your meats and add fennel seeds, garlic powder, and crushed red pepper.
2. Brown in a pan and drain, set aside.
3. Dice your veggies really really small like the photo above and sautee with some minced garlic, olive oil, and Italian seasoning until softened. 
4. In a large pot pour in your strained tomatoes, tomato paste, and add in your veggie mixture, and meat mixture. 
5. Bring up to a simmer and them simmer for about 30 minutes. 

- I used the sauce layered in the no-noodle eggplant lasagna. Recipe here (this one was for me)

-  made a traditional noodle lasagna layering it with whole wheat noodles, part-skim ricotta & egg mixture, and part-skim mozzarella.  (for hubby & the kids a bit) This recipe is really the noodle-less one but replacing the eggplant slices with whole wheat noodles. The trick to keeping it healthy is picking the part-skim dairy products (Sis might disagree on this one). 

-  lastly just mixed it with some angel hair whole wheat pasta for the kiddos who don't really like ricotta. 

& here is the most beautiful thing. The freezer all stocked back up! There are still bags of other pods but they were getting pretty empty. You must be wondering if we eat frozen food every night. Well of course not. We ate fresh today, and we do a couple of other nights too. The Mealpods are eaten about 4 or 5 out of 7 nights which is such a treat not to cook on those nights without ordering takeout!

- Nicole

Pumpkin Sausage Soup Recipe

Sunday Cooking with Sis (Part 2)

I am eating this soup RIGHT NOW as I type this blog post and it is soooooo good.  If you only try one of my recipes, try this one.   It's not the prettiest soup, but it tastes amazing and freezes well!  I <3 this soup.







I have made this soup quite a few times and with all kinds of different sausages.  This incarnation is with a hot and spicy Italian sausage which gives it a really nice kick.  (Can you tell sausage was on sale this week?)  It's also good with turkey and chicken sausage and even breakfast sausage.

INGREDIENTS:

20 oz turkey Italian sausage

½ cup onions, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp Italian seasoning

2 cups mushrooms, sliced

15 oz canned pumpkin

4 cups chicken broth

½ cup heavy whipping cream

½ cup water

DIRECTIONS:

Brown sausage, drain, then add the onion, garlic, Italian seasoning and mushrooms and sauté until done

Add pumpkin to this mixture and mix well.

Stir in the broth and mix well, simmer 20-30 minutes

Stir in the heavy cream and water and simmer on low another 10-15 minute.

Portion into 6 containers, let cool, then freeze.

I use just the cheap disposable plasticware to store the soup and freeze it.  If you are not a fan of the plastic, mason jars work well too,  just be sure not to fill it all the way so it has room to expand when it freezes.

My soup is all gone and my blog post is done.  \o/

Sis

Sunday cooking with Sis!

So, I'm the big sister on this blog. My whole family calls me Sis, rather than Melissa. I owe y'all an introduction post telling you how I ended up here, as a dedicated ancestral eater and lover of planning and cooking my meals. We'll save that for a day when I have more time.

Most weeks I cook my food for the week every Sunday. It's become a ritual and when life interferes and I have to do it on Saturday night or (gasp) not at all, it is not a pretty sight. I am spoiled with eating my own home-cooked meals for breakfast and luch at work.

This week I made two recipes, Sausage and Potato Hash with Eggs and Italian Beef and Squash with Mashed Potatoes.