Ratatouille Again...after AIP

This dish always made a hit–it’s hearty peasant fare with a slightly sophisticated air, and I'd been missing it (you can see our original recipe here.)  I've since discovered that nightshade vegetables and I are not good friends, so today I worked up a new version that works better with my dietary needs.

Nightshades, as you may know, don't do well with arthritis or many autoimmune situations, so I'm mostly skipping tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and eggplant (*sob!*)...and all but potatoes are liable to show up in a traditional recipe for this dish!

I love summer squash and we had both yellow and zucchini, so I just used them and a bit of what we had on hand to fill it out.  Turned out it filled it out a LOT, I've got a huge pot of it.  Good thing we both liked it!

Sweet Italian sausage and onion

1-2 lbs sweet Italian sausage

1 Vidalia or sweet yellow onion, chopped
4-5 cloves of fresh garlic, give or take (we love garlic!)
2 summer squash (yellow or zukes or both), chopped
2 medium carrots, sliced
1 stalk celery (optional)
I had a piece of white sweet potato I cubed and threw in...a bit too sweet, I think...
Mushrooms would be good...didn't have any...

Extra virgin olive oil
Spices to taste – basil, oregano, extra fennel

Salt and pepper to taste 

Splash of white wine (we had leftover) or a little water if needed...

 

Note: as each item is browned, it is added to a large pot on low heat on the back burner. To brown this much you either need a BIG skillet (ours is an antique chicken fryer made of enameled iron, with a lid) or you can do it in smaller batches and then dump it all together to finish cooking. (Otherwise it just sort of steams...)

Brown cut-up or broken-up sausage in a little oil.

Brown onion in oil and grease from sausage. 

 

Joseph likes  carrots really done, so I sauteed them with the celery...add the chopped summer squash and brown them together.

Everything should now be put together in the large pot which you will leave on low heat for at least a couple of hours prior to serving.

Saute' carrots, celery and sweet potato, if you've used it...

Zucchini and yellow summer squash...

A little fresh AND dried basil--the dried was from last year's garden...

Toss in the basil, stir it all together, cover and simmer...

If you can stand NOT to eat this the same day, it gets even better overnight, as the flavors “marry.” 

 

You can also remove most of the fat, which rises to the top when cold--but if you've used good ingredients, this is good healthy fat your brain needs, and we don't remove it. (There will be a lot less fat, of course, if you’ve opted for turkey instead of pork sausage, but we virtually never do.)

I missed the green and red sweet peppers, sometimes miss tomato, but hey, it is what it is. (I didn't miss the eggplant!)  I'm still AIP, in the reintroduction phase...I can have fennel seeds with no problem, so I do!

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Joseph pronounced this delicious, and I didn't mind it a bit myself...leftovers will be more than welcome!

Home made breakfast sausage

This recipe is definitely AIP compliant...you can even use black pepper if you're in the reintroduction phase and don't have a problem with it.  (Most people don't.)  It's a delicous and simple breakfast...

Good sausage needs to be about 20% fat to be tender...but most ground pork you can buy isn't--everybody got mistakenly wacko over "low fat."  (The brain NEEDS fats...you just don't want to use the bad stuff, margarine, corn oil, safflower oil, etc.)  So if it's too lean, I add a bit of ghee, coconut oil, lard (YES, HUSH) or pork fat.

You also need to add about 3 T. of cold water (YES), to keep your sausage from being dry...don't worry, it absorbs it!

INGREDIENTS

1 lb. ground pork
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper unless you're in the introductory phase of AIP...if so, omit
1 tsp dried sage (I like a LOT, but you can cut this back if you like)
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp. dried ginger
1/2 tsp garlic powder (or more)
1/4 tsp onion powder
pinch of ground cloves
(+ 1 T. coconut oil, lard, or pork fat, if your pork isn't 20%)

HOW-TO

Put pork in large bowl, blend spices and water together and pour on the ground pork. Add fat if needed. Blend well...I use my hands to make sure everything is well blended, and yes, nitrile gloves are nice.

I always make a small test patty to see if the herbs and seasonings are sufficient and usually add more of something...even of the cloves.

Cook as usual and enjoy!

The original of this recipe was on the PhoenixHelix blog--she has a lot of wonderful ideas--but I've tweaked it rather a lot to suit my tastes!  You can do likewise, of course.  

Savory Squash Soup--again!

SAVORY SQUASH & SAUSAGE SOUP

I thought I'd done this version in the blog, but if I did I didn't label it....so by popular request, my sausage and squash soup, perfect for a wintry day!

butternut squash keeps well in the winter--this is the bulbous end with the seeds...

bubbling away on the stove...

You’ll need:

1/2 large sweet onion
a winter squash (we like butternut squash for this--and of course if you can get organic, all the better)
2 cloves of garlic
5-6 cups of soup stock or to cover well, preferably home made--I used some of my bone broth I hadn't gotten to yet, with chicken stock
breakfast sausage--about a lb.
1 T. butter or olive oil
dash of sea salt
a generous grating of fresh pepper
(We like Pepperman instead of those last two)
1/2 t. cumin
1/2 t. turmeric
Sprinkling of cayenne, to taste (I'm a wuus)

dollop of sour cream or plain lowfat yogurt, optional
dash of hot sauce, optional squared...

Peel and chop the onion into about ½" pieces, and brown lightly in the hot oil–
Add the garlic.

Brown and break up the sausage in another pan.

Slice, peel, and dice the squash.
Put in a stock pot with broth and stock, and cook on medium heat till the squash is soft.  Mash with a potato masher or use a blender or food processor.

Add the sautee'd onion  along with the meat and seasonings, and simmer a half hour or longer.
Serve with sour cream or yogurt and enjoy--perfect for a wintry evening!

You can tell this photo was taken when I was still eating bread. If gluten doesn't bother you, that's your choice!

And add a little hot sauce if you're like my husband...I'm the delicate little flower in the family!

Cauliflower/Sausage Stuffing for Roast Turkey

We've enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with our family for years. Our dear friend Roberta does the bulk of the cooking – turkey and all the trimmings – and a fine job she does of it too! That one time each year we indulge in a bit of traditional bread stuffing.  But since going Paleo I've been looking for a substitute for bread-based turkey stuffing for the times I decide to roast a bird myself.

I knew I wanted a sausage-based stuffing with a taste similar to the traditional, but I scoured the Internet and came up pretty much empty – either it involved bread or it was something else entirely. I’ve been totally unimpressed with non-wheat/gluten free breads, so I decided to wing it and make my own using cauliflower as a base.

One thing I remember from my mom’s stuffing is that she always boiled the neck & giblets with onion and celery as a flavoring/moistening agent, so that’s where I started.

Cauliflower/Sausage Stuffing for Roast Turkey

2 stalks celery, chopped*

¼ sweet yellow onion, chopped

1 turkey neck & giblet package

½ head of cauliflower, trimmed into florets

½ lb pork sausage

1 T Herbs de Provence

1 t rosemary

Boil the celery, onion, neck & giblets in a small pan with just enough water to cover. Simmer until the meat is falling off the neck.

Strain and pour liquid into a medium size pot, setting aside the solids.

Add cauliflower florets to liquid and steam until cauliflower is soft. While steaming, strip meat from the turkey neck and add to cauliflower along with the onions and celery. When soft, mash like potatoes.

Fry the sausage until brown. If desired, chop up the giblets and add those too, otherwise nibble on them while you cook, feed them to your cat, whatever. Once meat is browned, drain off the grease and add the meat to the cauliflower along with the herbs and mix well. Either use it to stuff the bird or keep warm until ready to serve: I did the latter.

I'm still getting used to the idiosyncrasies of making gravy with arrowroot instead of wheat flour - it tends to be a little gooey - but it tasted just fine!

*Note: I didn’t actually use two stalks of celery – I grabbed the whole bunch and chopped a bit of waste off the top, then chopped from the top, leaves included, until I had about two stalks worth.

Savory Sausage-Stuffed Squash--say THAT 3 times fast!

We've shared a stuffed squash recipe here before, with maple syrup...this is a more savory version and it was GOOD.  (Check the link!)

J. does the maple one, so he turned the savory version over to me--I improvised!

You'll need:

1 acorn squash, preferably organic
2/3 lb. breakfast sausage of your choice (not links, of course!) or make your own from ground pork
2 stalks celery
1/2 sweet yellow onion (Vidalia's good!)
1/2 C. cheese of your choice, cubed; I had provel on hand, but cheddar would rock, too
1/2 C. Greek yogurt or
1 egg
Salt and pepper to taste; we use organic Pepperman, a sea salt and variety-of-peppers mix)

(Grated carrots and chopped mushrooms would be a nice addition if you have them)

Cut squash in half and take out seeds and pulp (you can roast these if you wish)
Steam, bake or even (gasp!) microwave squash till tender--I put them in a pan, cut side up, with about an inch of water, put on a lid and steam till done

Meanwhile, saute and separate sausage in a big skillet (I know, I'm lisping again) till brown and set aside to drain and cool.

Dice celery and onion and cook in sausage drippings till transparent and even lightly golden. (You can use oil or butter if you prefer, but the drippings are pre-seasoned and I hate waste.)  Mix with sausage meat in a large bowl. 

Mix in yogurt (or egg, if you prefer) and cheese; if you're going strictly Paleo, use the egg and skip the cheese

Press into squash "bowls" and bake in the oven at 325 degrees for 20 minutes.

This is SO good--we finished the leftovers the next morning for breakfast!  (It was great cold, too...)

Hearty, filling autumn fare!

Maple Sausage Stuffed Acorn Squash!

Joseph made dinner again tonight, and lo, it was GOOD.  Just right for a gray wintry day...

Maple Sausage Stuffed Acorn Squash

1 acorn squash (we got ours from our organic CSA--that's Community Supported Agriculture)
3/4 lb natural (nitrate/nitrite-free) pork sausage (Turkey sausage is for weenies.)
4 tsp Demerara cane sugar (I use Florida Crystals Natural.)
1/4 c real maple syrup (Do not use the fake stuff or you will die.) [Note from Kate: Don't believe him, J. tends to get passionate about cooking.  You won't DIE, you'll just...ok, maybe you will...]

Preheat oven to 350.

Cut squash in half, remove pith & seeds and bake face down in a pan of water for about an hour – squash should be tender.

Fry up sausage so it’s crumbly - no big chunks.

Drain sausage, add maple syrup and mix well. Set aside until squash is done.

When squash is done, remove from pan and discard the water. Return squash to pan face up. Sprinkle 1 tsp sugar in the hollow of each squash, spoon in one half of the sausage & maple mixture and sprinkle another tsp of sugar over the top of each.

(Note: I like hot sausage and Kate likes mild so I added about 1 tsp of crushed red pepper to my half of the mixture.) [I also added a wee bit of sea salt to mine...I love sweet/salty...]

Return to the oven and bake for another 20 minutes.

Serves two.

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Or four, if you have a salad or other vegetable with it...I'm SO FULL!

Kielbasa and Kraut Medley

Another oldie but goodie...

KIELBASA & KRAUT MEDLEY

Joseph fixed dinner last night, while I curled up by the chiminea he got for me, reading a new Kelly Armstrong book by a warm, crackling fire...is life good, or what?!  He chatted with an old friend on the phone as he cooked, then when he brought the plates out by the fire, told me he'd taken photos, just as I've been doing for the new shared food blog.

Hooray!  I said "then you can write it up for Starving Artists?"--and lo, he did, and you'll find it below!  This is one of my favorite cool-weather dinners, hearty and somewhat German in flavor, savory with meat and onions and fruit...YUM. 

Somehow, eaten by the fire on a lovely November evening, cooked by my love, it tasted even better than I remembered!

Kielbasa & Kraut Medley

4 6-8” kielbasa (about 2 lbs)
2 C sauerkraut
4 small apples (Jonathans are good), cored and sliced
1 large onion, quartered and sliced
Olive oil, coconut oil, or bacon grease.

Brown the kielbasa well in a little bit of oil or grease.  Remove from pan, add onion and cook until glazed.  Add apples and cook until slightly browned.  If you’re drinking beer or hard cider while cooking, you can add a little of that.  Add kielbasa and kraut.  Stir up well, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes.  Serves six--or makes wonderful leftovers!

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(Of course I have to nib in and add my thoughts on this...)

You  can use turkey kielbasa (or smoked sausage) if you're watching your fat intake--tastes great anyway--and tart apples are definitely marvelous in it.  (This isn't the place for sweet, bland, mealy apples that fall apart when cooked!  You want that tart-sweet flavor.  We like to buy local Jonathans, as  mentions, organically grown if possible.) 

I like sweet Bavarian sauerkraut in this, the kind with caraway seeds, if I haven't made my own--and that I haven't done in a lot of years!  The above illustration was painted 30 years ago, from a batch of my own home-canned Bavarian-style stuff--it still hangs in my kitchen today, a lovely reminder of those years.  (It's gouache and sepia ink on a warm tan matboard background.)

Making sauerkraut is dead easy, as far as the process goes, but it can be a tad tricky.  The right temperature range and careful cleanliness are needed to insure proper fermentation. 

When my late husband and I lived on our little back-to-the-land farm and I canned mountains of stuff from our own organic garden, I made some of the best and worst I've ever tasted--and one memorable batch that was in the root cellar when it flooded, and came out smelling of kerosene from the lantern that decided to float.  Needless to say, that batch didn't get tasted--it didn't even make compost!  Ewwwww...

According to The Joy of Cooking--still my favorite cookbook!--sauerkraut's healthful qualities were recognized as early as 200 B.C. when workers on got a daily ration as they worked on the Great Wall of China.  It appears it was first mentioned in America in 1776, and as expected, it was primarily eaten in German communities.  (Sauerkraut literally means "sour cabbage," in German.)

I couldn't find my old recipe--it was NOT in The Joy--but this site comes close: http://www.kitchenproject.com/kpboard/recipes/HOMEADESAUERKRAUT.htm

Remember, sauerkraut gets milder with cooking--in the wonderful dish above, it just adds a lovely tang.  If you think you hate sauerkraut, you may find differently when you try this recipe!

We hope you enjoy this hearty dish as much as we did--great with hard cider or a rich lager like Sam Adams, too...