Sausage and Sauerkraut Stew

Made this in the crock pot last weekend, and it was goood. It's basically this recipe here, but with a couple of slight modifications.

Ingredients:
1 lb kielbasa sausage*
1.5 pounds sauerkraut**
2 Granny Smith apples
2 pounds small red potatoes
1 medium-size white onion
1.5 cups chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds

*The original recipe calls for 2 pounds, but I cut it to just under 1 lb and it was plenty, plus another pound of sausage wouldn't have fit in our slow cooker.
**User comments on allrecipe say you can use Bavarian sauerkraut if you want a milder taste, but I used regular and it was fine.

1. Cut your sausage into one-inch pieces, your potatoes into quarters, your onion into thin rings, and your apples into half wedges or smaller. Don't peel the potatoes or the apples unless you want them to disintegrate.

2. Put the potato in the crock pot first, followed by the sausage, sauerkraut, onion, and apple in that order.

3. Add the broth, then sprinkle the caraway seeds on top.

4. Cook on high for 4 hours.

The apples probably sound like the weirdest ingredient, but they add a welcome touch of sweetness that goes surprisingly well with the sauerkraut. The red potatoes are amazing - I wouldn't use any other kind. The original recipe recommended sprinkling shredded swiss cheese over when you serve it, but we liked it better without. Instead, serve with a good sourdough bread for dipping.

Pesto-Potato Soup

I made this soup today and it was the easiest tasty soup I've ever made. It's a crock pot dish but you could do it stove top pretty easy, too.

2 Tbs olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced
6 cups vegetable stock
enough pesto to put dollops in your bowl
1/4 toasted pine nuts (optional)

Set your cooker to high and add oil and garlic. Peel and chop the potatoes while the garlic softens up. When the garlic smells nice, add your potatoes and broth and set the crock pot to low for 6 to 8 hours. When you're ready to eat, puree the potatoes with an immersion blender or run it in batches through a regular blender or food processor until smooth (it shouldn't take long).

After you pour your soup into bowls, swirl in a spoonful of pesto and sprinkle some pine nuts on it.

Notes: your broth is a major flavor here, so pick a good one that you really like. You can make your own pesto, of course, but I just used a pre-made one that I like.

Butternut squash pizza

The idea for this just came to me out of the blue over breakfast this morning. I did a little research on-line for ideas, but basically I just made it up. It came out surprisingly well. I'll definitely do it again. It could be done a lot more seriously (you could make the crust from scratch, which I've never done, or roast and puree the squash yourself), but this was about all I was up for after work. It took an hour start to finish.

Ingredients:
1 readymade sourdough pizza crust
1 can butternut squash puree
1 hunk smoked gouda cheese
1 green bell pepper
1 red onion
1/2 cup frozen corn
ground chicken (optional)
ground sage
cream
fine-grated parmesan cheese
lemon juice

1. In a small saucepan over low-medium heat, mix the butternut squash puree together with a little bit of cream, maybe a couple of tablespoons. (All the measurements are really approximate.)

2. Add two or three tablespoons of parmesan cheese and maybe a tablespoon or so of ground sage and a squirt of lemon juice. To taste. When everything's mixed and tastes right, turn off the heat and set aside.

3. Slice the onion in very thin rings. Slice the pepper in very thin crescents (or rings).

4. Grate the gouda, coarsely. Since I was using gouda instead of mozzarella I used a cheaper American smoked gouda, kind of soft and oily, instead of the hoity-toity Dutch import we get for snacking on. It worked well. I think a real hard gouda wouldn't have worked on pizza. Grate as much as you need, which will obviously depend on how much cheese you like on your pizza. A cup? Two cups?

5. If you're using meat, brown the ground chicken, seasoning it as you do with your choice of seasonings.

6. Thaw the frozen corn kernels in the microwave. Putting corn on pizza is, as some of you will remember, a Japanese thing, but in this case it really makes the pie: don't skip this ingredient. Be generous.

7. Preheat your oven to 450.

8. Ladle the squash mixture onto the pizza crust, spreading it evenly.

9. Arrange the onion and green pepper on the pizza all purty-like. Then put on your ground chicken, and then the corn. Finally, top it all with the gouda.

10. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until everything's melted and bubbly and the crust is starting to get crisp at the edges.

The sourness of the sourdough, the sweetness of the squash and the corn, and the smokiness of the sage and the gouda combine really well, and the fresh pepper and onion, while they're standard pizza things, really stand out against this background. This was a really good pizza, if I do say so myself.

Updated 4/23/11:
You'd think that using straight squash puree and cream like in the recipe above would be purer=better. But we tried it the other day with a readymade pasta sauce (Dave's Gourmet Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce - real good on ravioli), which had tomato and spices mixed in, and it was real good. Used browned ground beef, liberally seasoned with mesquite, and some chopped olives I had left over from another recipe. It came out even better than the first time.

Vinegar

Lorien gave me some vinegar in my stocking this year and I just wanted to share its awesomeness with everyone:

Pompeiian Pommegranate Red Wine Vinegar.

So far I have only eaten this on veggies but it is just awesome. Scott and I enjoyed it over canned green beans (We share a profound love of canned green beans. Don't ask, I can't explain it.) with a little salt. I tried it by myself on a big bowl of frozen peas and it was such a good match that I had a whole second bowl :)

So yes, pommegranate red wine vinegar is the bee's knees.

Apple Cinnamon Waffles

A neighbor gave us some apple juice for Christmas, which has been going fast, but not fast enough to miss the day that I got around to making waffles. (There was a tantrum over the confusion between "waffle" and "falafel" but even that didn't stop me.) That made this recipe, which came with the waffle iron, even more appealing.

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 3 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• ½ cup butter, melted
• 1 cup apple sauce
• 1 cup apple juice
• 1 medium apple, peeled and diced
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

The recipe calls for separating the eggs, beating the whites stiff and saving them to fold in at the end. I was using egg replacer, though, so I used a simple muffin method: Mix the dry ingredients (flour through sugar) in a large bowl, mix the wet ingredients (eggs through apple) in a medium bowl, and stir together just until moistened. Bake in a lightly greased waffle iron to desired crispness. Makes several large servings.

This batter was very thick and sticky, almost doughy; it came out in large clumps instead of pouring, and the waffle iron had trouble closing over it. However, it spread well while baking, and plenty of steam poured out. Having so much moisture trapped in the diced apple would account for that.

The cinnamon smells wonderful during cooking. The apple flavor is more subtle; a berry syrup highlights it well.

Cry for Help--Fish Edition

So we had a Jesus dinner for Christmas Eve and the kids got their hearts set on fish. They were still set on it even after I said it would be real fish, not fish sticks, so I got some frozen tilapia and Eric grilled it with some lemon pepper. And the kids actually ate some and Emmy was really into it.

But here's my (Eric's) problem. We have several more fish fillets and pretty much zero fish recipes because of that thing where I do all the cooking and I don't eat fish. So I'm hoping you guys will have some nice ideas for sauces or spices to go with fish so Eric (and maybe the kids) can eat them up without getting bored. Thanks. :)

Orange-maple glazed ham

I can't remember where I first found this recipe, and I've modified it quite a bit over the years. This is what I usually make for Christmas; we're going over to friends' tomorrow, so I made it tonight instead, and I thought I'd write it down finally.

Ingredients:
1 ham
1 can frozen orange juice concentrate
12-oz bottle real maple syrup
powdered mustard
powdered ginger root
black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Empty the can of o.j. concentrate into a saucepan, and melt it over medium-low heat.

3. While you're thawing the o.j., add maple syrup to taste. I use 8-10 ounces.

4. When the o.j. is fully melted, and it and the maple syrup are blended nicely (don't let it boil), add about a tablespoon of mustard and a tablespoon of ginger. Mix well. Add pepper to taste.

5. Place the ham in a glass baking dish. With a sharp knife, score the surface of the ham. I usually take a fork and poke a bunch of holes in the surface after scoring it with the knife. The idea is to make it really easy for the glaze to sink into the meat. Poke a meat thermometer in so that the tip is in the middle of the ham.

6. Pour the orange juice-maple syrup mixture over the ham, making sure the surface is entirely coated. Depending on how big your baking pan is, you could have as much as an inch of glaze pooling around the base of the ham. That's okay.

7. Bake the ham until it reaches an internal temperature of at least 145 degrees. Depending on how big the ham is this could take anywhere from an hour to two hours. I bake the ham uncovered because this helps the glaze condense and concentrate; the glaze, in turn, keeps the ham from drying out, so you don't need the foil that some recipes call for. At least in my experience.

8. Every half hour or so during baking I take the ham out and spoon more of the mixture from the bottom of the pan over the ham.

9. When the ham is done, transfer it to a serving dish, spoon as much of the glaze over it as you like, and pour the rest into a bowl to use as a sauce as needed. The maple, o.j., and spices will be enriched with ham drippings, and the result will be awesome.