Country Chicken Sausage Patties

As you all know, I received a new mixer for my birthday this year. There are about a dozen little attachments that are available to buy for this wonderful machine.

With the gift cards I received, I purchased the Food Grinder attachment. It can grind veggies, cheese and meat. Today I used it to grind chicken thighs into a wonderful sausage meat.

I had no idea that there were so many different types of sausage out there. I just assumed sausage was sausage. Apparently that is not so. I don't have casing, so I wasn't able to make actual sausages, instead I made them into patties.

Here's what happened:

• 3 pounds Chicken Thighs, bone out, skin on (or 3 pounds preground chicken)
• 3 tsp Kosher salt
• 1 1/2 tsp Pepper, freshly cracked
• 3/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
• 3/4 tsp Ground Ginger
• 3/4 tsp Dried Sage
• 3/4 tsp Onion Powder
• 3/4 tsp Dried Thyme

If you are grinding your own meat, cut the chicken into pieces that will fit your grinder and grind though on the course setting. 

Add remaining ingredients to ground meat and mix well.

Run mixture through grinder a second time on the finer setting. (At this point, you can freeze the ground mixture, provided you are working with fresh meat. If your meat was pre-frozen, you'll have to cook it through before freezing it again.)

Form meat into patties, this should get you 12 - 14 medium sized patties. Put the patties on a parchment covered sheet, cover and place in the fridge for about 20 minutes; this will help them firm up and keep their shape while handling.

Heat a bit of oil in a pan over medium heat, add the patties and cook through. Cooking time will depend on how thick your patties are.

That's my taste on it.

Crisp Zucchini Potato Patties

I don't really feel all that funny today, so this post will have a lot less of the usual wit. Maybe it's the weather. Here it is, middle of April, and we are in the depths of a snow storm. The weather for tomorrow? More snow. Saturday? Snow. Sunday? Snow. I hate winter. It dampens my humor.

Anyway, I've had a craving for zucchini lately, but I just didn't know what to do with it. It's not easy to get kids to eat it. It isn't exactly the funnest vegetable. It's certainly not celery. Or carrots (still working through that ten pound bag.)

So I decided to disguise it. Because I'm clever. And sneaky.

After much searching and googling and cookbook flipping, here's what happened in my kitchen.

• 2 medium-large Baking Potatoes, peeled
• 1 medium Zucchini
• 2 Eggs
• 1/3 cup Flour
• 1 Green Onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 Red Bell Pepper, finely diced
• 1/4 tsp Sea Salt
• 1/2 tsp Pepper, freshly cracked is best. I used a mixture of pink and white peppercorns
• Vegetable Oil

Using a regular cheese grater, shred your potatoes and zucchini. You'll want to get as much moisture as possible out. I used paper towel and scrunched it up.

Once your shreddings are pretty dry, add the eggs, flour, onion, bell pepper, salt and pepper. Stir until well blended, or use your hands to make sure it is mixed really well.

Heat enough oil for frying in a large skillet over medium high heat. Form patties with the mixture, about 1/2 inch thick. Fry them in the oil, you may have to do them in batches so they don't crowd together, for 2-3 minutes per side, until they are nicely browned. 

Remove from pan and place on paper towel to absorb excess oil.

I served mine with a warm corn salsa and a chipotle mayo. The mayo was actually just Miracle Whip with some Chipotle spice mixed in. But it was fantastic.

That's my taste on it.

Roasted Herb Potatoes

When I was younger we ate potatoes a lot. My Dad was pretty old school so we had meat, potatoes and veggies everyday. I didn't know any different, from what I remember the potatoes were always boiled.

A giant pot of boiled potatoes, if there were left overs Mom would slice them and fry them up the next night; but then it was boiled potatoes again. We lived on a farm, and I still remember my Mom making a big plate of dinner (mostly potatoes) and then covering it with foil and then packing the kids up, and bringing it out to him in the field while it was still hot.

After I moved out on my own, I never bought potatoes. Even now, I can only think of a couple instances that potatoes even made it into the house.

When they do, I never boil them. Ever.

Unless I'm making gnocchi. And even then only if I'm being really lazy.

Anyway, when I purchased a 2lb bag of "gems", the only water they saw was to wash them off.

Roasted Herb Potatoes are one of the easiest things in the world to make. The amount of attention they require fully depends on how large the pieces are.

For this recipe, you'll need:

• 1 bag Yellow Gem Potatoes (about 2lbs)
• 1 Shallot, finely diced
• Olive Oil
• 2-3 cloves Garlic, smashed
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 small handful Fresh Thyme 

Preheat oven to 375F.

Wash and quarter all the potatoes, leaving the peel on. For the super little ones, you can just cut them in half, because quartering them would be overkill.

Toss the potatoes and shallots with some oil, making sure they are all nicely coated. Season with salt and pepper (I used equal parts pink and white peppercorns, smashed up). Stir in the garlic. If you really like garlic, feel free to add more.

Spread the potatoes out on a large baking sheet. If you feel it's necessary, add a bit more oil. 

Take half your Thyme and remove the stems, sprinkling the herb over the potatoes. Lay remaining sprigs of Thyme in and about the potatoes. It'll look really pretty.

Cover with foil and bake for 10-15 minutes. At this point you are going to want to start checking them regularly. Depending on the amount of oil you used, you may need to give them a bit of a toss, so they don't stick to the sheet. As soon as they are soft, remove from the oven. 

For me, I remove the foil after 12 minutes, then start to check them every 2 or 3 minutes. I don't mind if they start to get crispy on the outside.

You can remove the sprigs before serving, or advise everyone at the table to do so.

Tired of Thyme? Use Rosemary, or Dill, or Basil, or any combination you want. Just have fun.

That's my taste on it.

Pretzel Rolls

There is nothing in the world like freshly baked bread or rolls for dinner. Really, it's freshly baked anything. Bread, muffins, cupcakes, you name it.

Soft pretzels are a wonderful little treat, especially when you get them from the street carts while you are out and about, but it has escaped me for years on how to duplicate that flavour. They always turned out more like buns with salt on them. Which is not the same at all.

Having the new mixer in the house has forced me to bake more. I'm not much of a baker, because if I bake stuff, then I'm going to eat it. My interest still lies in cooking, but until I save up some money for the attachments I want, I'll be baking.

In the case of the pretzel rolls, this works out pretty well.

You'll need:

• 1 1/4 cup Non-Alcoholic Beer, flat 
• 3 Tbsp Light Brown Sugar
• 2 Tbsp Milk
• 2 Tbsp Butter, melted
• 1 pk (1 Tbsp) Yeast, (quick rise is best)
• 3-4 cups Flour
• 2 tsp Salt

• 4 litres Water
• 1/2 cup Baking Soda
• Kosher Salt

Mix together the beer, brown sugar, milk, butter and yeast. Add the salt and gradually add the flour one cup at a time, blend together until a stiff dough forms. 

If you are using a mixer, switch to the dough hooks and mix until dough is smooth, about 8-10 minutes. If you are kneading the dough by hand, turn out onto a floured surface and knead well, 15-18 minutes. If the dough is too sticky in either case, add small amounts of flour.

Place dough into a greased bowl, cover and let rise for an hour or until it has doubled in size.

Punch down, turn out dough onto lightly floured surface and knead for about a minute. Divide into 12 equal sized pieces, shape into smooth balls, place on ungreased baking sheet, cover and allow to rise for half an hour.

Bring the water and baking soda to a boil in a large pot.  Pre-heat oven to 425F.

Add rolls to the water in batches of 2 or 3, cook until they puff up turning them over once. When you remove the rolls from the water, place them on paper towel to soak up the excess water.  

Arrange the rolls on a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut an X into the top and sprinkle with kosher salt.

Bake for 15-18 minutes or until browned.

If you want to make smaller rolls, adjust the cooking time as required.

That's my taste on it.

Cream Cheese Biscuits

For my birthday this year I said I wanted a KitchenAid mixer. In orange. The Man said that this was a reasonable request.

Needless to say, once I found out that the mixer was in hand, I needed to have it now. My birthday isn't for a couple more days. (Just over 38 hours from writing this post, but who's counting?)

Sooo I got the mixer early. I also got a wonderful cookbook specifically for the mixer. For my very first recipe I made Cream Cheese Biscuits*.

You can use any mixer for this recipe, or if you want you can do it without a mixer at all.

• 2 cups Flour
• 1 Tbsp Baking Powder
• 1 Tbsp Sugar
• 3/4 tsp Salt
• 3 oz Cream Cheese, cut into pieces (approximately 1/2 cup minus 2 Tbsp)
• 1/4 cup Shortening, cold cut into pieces
• 1/2 cup Green Onion, finely chopped
• 2/3 cup Milk

Preheat oven to 450F. Prepare baking sheet with parchment paper.

Put the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt into mixing bowl. Put in the cream cheese and shortening pieces while mixing on low. Mix until it looks like crumbs.

Stir in the onion. Add milk slowly until dough comes together.

On a well floured surface, knead the dough 10-15 times. Roll out to 1/2-3/4" thick.

Use a round 3" cookie cutter to form the biscuits and transfer to baking sheet. You should get 8-12 biscuits depending on how thick you made them.

Bake 10-15 minutes, until golden brown.

Brush with butter if desired. This isn't necessary but will keep the tops soft if they aren't eaten right away.

Don't really like onion? You can replace the onion with 1/2 cup real bacon bits, or grated cheese, or finely diced ham or pretty much anything your heart desires.

That's my taste on it.

*Original Recipe can be found on page 36 of The Complete KitchenAid Stand Mixer Cookbook published 2012.

Chicken Roulade with Asparagus

So I wanted to try something new with chicken. Yes, chicken; again. We eat a lot of it. I'd like to say it's because it is healthy for you, or because it's a super tasty meat. But really, it's because we don't have a BBQ and steak without a BBQ just doesn't seem right to me.

Anyway, I found a recipe for Stuffed Chicken Roulade and figured I'd give it a go. The original recipe can be found here.

I mostly followed it as written, but since my computer is a good 20 steps away from my work area, and I didn't bother to write it down -- actually that isn't true; I did write it down, but then I couldn't find the paper I had written it on because my desk has lots of papers on it, and I felt like cooking and not like looking for the paper; so I winged it (wung it?) and just went off of what I could remember.

Here's what happened in my kitchen. The recipe below is for 2 full chicken breasts or a total of 4 Roulade(s).

• 2 Chicken Breasts, boneless and skinless
• Salt and Pepper, to season
• 8 slices Smoked Prosciutto
• 8 Asparagus spears, woody ends chopped, and trimmed to about 4" in length. (I also peeled them, not because it makes a difference, but because I really like my new peeler.)
• 1/4 cup Feta Cheese, crumbled

Pre-heat the oven to broil on high. Raise your rack so that it is about 4-5 inches from the heat. Prepare a baking pan with foil and spray with cooking oil.

Slice each breast in half horizontally, so you have two fillets (not two long strips). You may want to put them between two pieces of parchment paper and bash 'em a bit to get them to 1/4" thick. If it has the finger attached, then remove that, it just gets in the way, and you can use it to make something else later. Or fry it up in some garlic butter while you are waiting. Very tasty.

Lay the breasts smooth side down, season with salt and pepper.

Put down 2 slices prosciutto. Put two spears of asparagus sideways so that they stick out on one end, then add about a Tbsp of the cheese.

Roll each one up snugly and place on pan, seam side down. You can skewer them if you want, but it isn't all that necessary.

Spray lightly with cooking oil (not non-stick spray, that would be gross). If you don't have one of those nifty little oil pump sprayer things, just brush it very lightly with oil. Then season the outside with salt and pepper.

Place in oven, directly under the heat. They'll cook in a surprisingly short amount of time. The recipe says 8-10 minutes, but after 10 minutes mine were still a touch pink, so I put them in for another 5. Turn the tray halfway through cooking.

I also (as you may have noticed) forgot to include the Dijon mustard in the stuffing process, probably because I didn't have the recipe instructions right in front of me.

So I made a Honey Dijon sauce and drizzled it over top of each Roulade after plating. The picture doesn't show it, because frankly it wasn't until we sat down that I even realized I had forgotten.

To make a simple Honey Dijon, simply mix equal parts Dijon mustard and Honey, then adjust to taste.

That's my taste on it.

Carrot Dill Soup

Soup is one of those things for a dreary day. There is something about them that is just comforting. Chicken noodle when you are sick, spring vegetable as a great starter, you get the idea.

I asked The Man to pick up some carrots for me, mostly so I could make baby food. He came home with a 10lb bag of carrots.

10 pounds. Of carrots.

I was at a loss as to what to do with them. So I made soup. It turned out pretty well.

You'll need:

• 5 cups Carrots, chopped
• 3/4 cup Onion, diced
• 1 cup Mushrooms, sliced
• 1/4 cup Butter
• 2 tetra packs Chicken Stock
• 1 cup Rice, uncooked
• 1/4 cup Fresh Dill
• Salt and Pepper, to taste

In a large pan, cook the onion and mushrooms with the butter until tender. Then set aside and allow to cool.

In a large pot, pour both tetra packs of chicken stock, add the carrots. When they start to get tender, add the cup of uncooked rice and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to simmer, add the mushrooms, onions and remaining butter. Allow to simmer for about 45 minutes until the carrots become really soft.

Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. At this point you can use an immersion blender or transfer to an upright blender and blend until smooth.

Stir in dill, add salt and pepper to taste.

This makes a very mild soup that is thick and sweet; even The Baby liked it.

If you want something creamy, add cream or whole milk to taste. 

That's my taste on it.