Crockpot Sausage and Peppers

Dear Jess,

Happy Friday! I feel like I just got rested from our last weekend just in time for this weekend!

As you may have noticed, many of my recipes are as a result of what meat is on sale. This recipe is no different. I have never done sausage in a slow-cooker before, so I thought I would try it out. I will be making this again! It has a very rich flavour, and it makes your house smell like an Italian restaurant! 

Crockpot Sausage and Peppers
adapted from busycooks.about.com
2 lbs sweet or hot Italian sausages
2 onions, chopped
2-3 red peppers
2 cloves garlic, minced
14 oz. can crushed tomatoes, undrained
6oz tomato paste
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 Tbsp dried Italian Seasoning
1/4 tsp pepper

1. Layer half of the onions and half of the peppers on the bottom of your crockpot. Add all of your sausage, and then the rest of the onions and peppers.

2. Mix the remaining ingredients in a bowl and pour into crockpot. Put the lid on, and cook on low for 6 hours.

I served this with mashed potatoes. It would go well with any steamed veggie, and/or rice.

I love you and miss you!

Love,

Jamie Oliver's Chicken and Leek Stroganoff

Dear Jess,

What a busy last couple of weeks! Fortunately, I have today off. This means I have time to write this small little post.

I made this recipe quite a while ago. Jason wasn't a huge fan because of the mushrooms, but I truly enjoyed it. It is simple and comfortable, and you know how I feel about cooking with wine!

Chicken and Leek Stroganoff
From Jamie's Food Revolution, Page 34
(Serves 2)

3/4 cup long-grain or basmati rice (I used long-grain brown rice)
1 large leek
a big handful of crimini or oyster mushrooms (or your favourite kind)
2 chicken breast fillets
olive oil
a pat of butter
a glass of white wine
freshly ground black pepper
a bunch of fresh parsley
1 1/2 cups heavy cream (I used 5%)
1 lemon

1. Pour boiling water from the kettle into a large pan, place on a high heat and add a pinch of salt. Add your rice, bring back to a boil, then turn the heat down slightly. Cook for the length of time given in the instructions on the package. Cut both ends off the leek, quarter lengthways, slice across thinly, then wash well under running water. Slice the mushrooms. Slice the chicken breasts into little-finger-size pieces.

2. Put a large frying pan on a high heat and add a good lug of olive oil and a pat of butter. Add the leek to the pan with the white wine, a small glass of water; and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Let it bubble away for 5 minutes, covered loosely with a piece of aluminum foil. Meanwhile, finely chop the parsley, stalks and all. Remove the foil and add the chicken strips, most of the parsley, the cream, and the mushrooms. Stir, bring back to a boil, then turn the heat down to medium and simmer for 10 minutes. Drain your rice. Just before serving, cut your lemon in half and squeeze the juice of one half into the stroganoff. Season to taste.

3. Spoon some rice onto each plate and top with the stroganoff. Scatter with the rest of the chopped parsley. Serve with the other lemon half, cut into wedges.

I love you and miss you! I hope your kindergartens are doing well, and you're not overwhelmed with is all. I can't wait to see you again!

So much love,

Jamie Oliver: Grilled Fillet Steak with the Creamiest White Beans and Leeks

Dear Jess,

I have made a binder. It contains all the recipes I have made that I would make again. I got tired of searching through dozens of magazines trying to find a recipe I had used months before. Now I can rip out the recipes and tuck them safely into my organized binder. Yesssssss.

What I made today will go in said binder. The steak was pretty straight forward... you can season it with whatever you want and cook it to your liking. The Lima beans and Leeks are what I am excited about. They are so soft and comforting. They make your kitchen smell amazing and you get to put white wine in them! Mmmmm, delicious. (Please excuse the brown plate... it does not compliment the meal very well, but it was all I had to work with...)

Jamie Oliver's Grilled Fillet Steak with the Creamiest White Beans and Leeks (Serves 4)
adapted from Cooking with Jamie
4 leeks, washed, trimmed and finely sliced
a small bunch of fresh thyme, leaves picked
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
olive oil
a knob of butter
a wineglass of white wine
1lb 2oz good-quality canned lima beans, drained and rinsed
2-3 tbsp Greek yogurt
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
7oz well-marbled fillet steaks (Can be any steak you like)
optional: The juice of one lemon

1. Sweat the leeks, thyme and garlic with a splash of olive oil and the butter in a saucepan on a low heat for 20 minutes until they are soft and sweet. Turn up the heat and add the white wine. Let the wine come to a boil, then add the beans and a splash of water, so that the beans are almost covered. Allow to simmer gently for 5 to 10 minutes until the beans are lovely and creamy. Remove from heat. Add the Greek yogurt and salt and pepper. 

2. Grill Streak to your liking. Optional: squeeze lemon juice over steak and beans before serving.



I think next time I might add some spinach or kale to the mix. But honestly... the way it is... so good! 

I hope your weekend was enjoyable. The weather was spectacular! I haven't worn a jacket since Friday!

I love you,

Jamie Oliver's Lebanese Lemon Chicken with Moorish Crunch Salad

Dearest Jessica,

It is well known that we like Jamie Oliver. His books, style, magazines, TV shows... everything.

That being said... Jason got me a present. Jamie's Kitchen. The book is beautiful! Full of amazing pictures, recipes and tutorials! I was given this gift during a work shift so I was unable to dive into it as soon as I would have preferred. When we got home, however, it was a whole different story. I snuggled up on the couch with a cup of peppermint tea, a stack of post-its, a pen, and the book. I only bookmarked the recipes I want to make immediately... because eventually I would like to make them all!

Yesterday I decided to make dinner for my parents. I called Jason and asked him to pick out two recipes (one salad and one main) from the bookmarked pages of Jamie's Kitchen. He couldn't have chosen any better than this: Lebanese Lemon Chicken with Moorish Crunch Salad.

We learned many things from these two recipes alone. For the chicken we got to follow some great (and photo-illustrated!) instructions on how to cut a whole chicken down to sizes appropriate for a serving; and we learned what a 'cartouche' is and how to make one. For the salad we were reminded what 'tahini' is and where we can get it fresh in Peterborough (The Main Ingredient!) We were also reminded that salads can be so interesting and hold so much flavor by themselves. A lot of times we just see it as a 'side' to the main course. This salad held it's own for sure. (I added chicken to the leftovers and will eat it for lunch today! So excited!) 

Moorish Crunch Salad (serves 4)
adapted from Jamie's Kitchen, Page 29
10 1/2oz carrots, peeled
5 1/2oz radishes
2 crunchy eating apples
1 small handful of dark or white raisins (I left these out)
1 handful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped
1 handful of fresh mint, roughly chopped
4 tbsp sherry or red wine vinegar
8 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp Tahiti
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted in the oven

First of all, finely slice your carrots into matchstick-sized batons. Finely slice your radishes - you can leave a little of the tops on if you like. Quarter your apples, remove the cores and finely slice. Add all these to a bowl with the rest of the ingredients, apart from the sesame seeds. Toss together, carefully checking the seasons, and serve with the sesame seeds sprinkled over the top. Eat straight away.

Try this: Turn it into a warm salad by adding some pan-seared chicken, shrimp or scallops which hae been dusted with a little paprika.

And this: Make it more of a snack by frying some halloumi cheese until golden with some chopped fresh chilli and crumbling this over the top.


Or this: Grill some pita bread and serve stuffed with Crunch Salad. Crumble in some feta cheese too. Lovely.

Lebanese Lemon Chicken (Serves 4)
adapted from Jamie's Kitchen, Page 164

Note: this can be made into a veggie dish. Instead of chicken you can use root veggies such as carrots, potatoes, onions etc. and veggie stock instead of chicken stock. It will still be very tasty!

1 large chicken, cut for sautéing (If you can't find instructions for this, you can just use 4 chicken breasts instead.)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp sea salt
3 heaping tbsp flour
extra virgin olive oil
1 large bulb of fennel, roughly chopped, herby tops chopped and reserved (I didn't use this. I'm not the biggest fan of fennel.)
1 red onion, peeled and roughly chopped
2-3 small preserved lemons, chopped (no where in Peterborough has these... I just used lemon juice)
1 small bunch of fresh rosemary, roughly chopped
2/3 cup farika or bulghur wheat (I used bulghur)
1 wineglass of tequila, vodka or white wine (I used white wine)
2 cups chicken stock or water
1 small tub of sour cream or créme fraiche (I used light sour cream... Greek yogurt would also work!)

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. First, cut your chicken for sauté, then bash all the spices up with a mortar and pestle with the salt until you have a fine powder. Add your flour and mix together well. Rub this intensely flavored flour all over your chicken and in every crack and cranny. You may have a little flour left over, so just reserve this for later.

2. Heat an appropriately sized casserole-type pan, or a roasting pan, on the stovetop and add 5 tbsp of olive oil. Begin to brown your chicken pieces on all sides - you want them to fry in one layer. Once they are nicely coloured, remove to a plate, turn down the heat and then add your fennel, onion, preserved lemons and rosemary to the pan. Fry for around 5 minutes, until nice and softened. Then add any excess flavored flour and your farika or bulghur wheat, and give it a good stir.

3. Add tequila, vodka or wine and allow to cook down to leave a fabulous fresh and fragrant taste. Cover with chicken stock or water until it reaches the same level as the grains and the veg. Now you need to make a cartouche. (a piece of parchment paper cut to the size of your dish/pan) Run it under the tap to make it flexible, then rub it with olive oil so it doesn't stick. Place the cartouche over the couscous and veg in the pan and put the chicken on top. Place in the preheated oven and cook for 45 minutes, until the chicken skin is really crisp. Sometimes the grains start to burn on the bottom and they get a little bit of colour. I quite like it when this happens, but to prevent it just make sure you place the pan at the top of the oven so it's not getting direct heat from the bottom. Serve straight away with a good dollop of sour cream or créme fraiche and sprinkle with the fennel tops.


(For serving: place chicken in one dish, discard your cartouche and place bulghur mixture in another dish.)

It all came together so wonderfully! I prepared the chicken first, and put the salad together in the last 10 minutes of the chicken baking. The flavours were amazing in both the chicken and the salad. The salad is so crunchy and satisfying! To add to all this, my mom did a quick calculation of how much this meal costs, and she estimated it came to only four dollars a plate! I was very impressed with this meal.

I hope all is well on your end. Wedding plans, teaching and everything else. I am very excited to start our training program for Oxfam. Lots of fun times to come!

All My Love,

Silky Smooth Avocado Pasta

Dear Sally,

After a couple of weeks of opening my refrigerator only to be greeted by my lonely water jug and almond milk, I decided to go grocery shipping without a concrete list. Generally this can go one of two ways and I think it worked out for the best this time. Jesse wanted ingredients for homemade pizza . . . fine that's easy. I wanted something with more gumption so I raided the isles trying desperately to stay away from peanut butter and chips (not to be consumed together).

I successfully gathered enough ingredients for about 6 different meals and proceeded to make homemade pizza when we got home. What I didn't calculate into the equation were two things. The first was that I would soon contract some sort of evil parasite that would keep me away from food and in bed for a solid day and a half. Also . . . I may have forgotten how close we are to Christmas and therefore my trip to Florida with Jesse. So here I am with a fridge full of food, no appetite and a schedule to get things cooked and frozen before I leave for Florida. I did it and I think you would be proud. Some of the dishes are a mish mash of things but my favorite was the Avocado pasta. The recipe was a whim but is deliciously simple. Work it into some gluten free pasta and you have the perfect accompaniment to a glass of wine.

Smooth Avocado Pasta

1 ripe avocado (pitted and smashed)

1 package pasta, prepared as directed

3 cloves garlic

1 tbsp butter

3 oz or so goat cheese

Splash of lime juice

Splash of balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook pasta according to package directions and let sit in the strainer.

2. Melt 1 tbsp. butter in a large pot. Crush the garlic cloves and add to the butter to cook. Stir for about 1 minute and add the prepared pasta. Toss in the garlic butter adding the limejuice and balsamic vinegar to help stir.

3. Gently stir in the crushed avocado and goat cheese until the cheese is melted and the pasta looks creamy. Remove from heat, sprinkle with goat cheese for garnish and serve warm.

The pictures don’t really do the pasta justice because my lighting is horrible at night but I had to try some and I don’t even have an appetite at the moment. It smelled soooooo good!

I loved the tribute blog, the perfect choices for a reflection. I give you an A+. Thank you so much for coming dress shopping last weekend. You really helped calm me down when nothing but numbers are worries were running through my head. I can’t wait to see you again whenever that may be. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Give my love to Jason and the family.

Love,