Italian Sausage Soup

It is raining today, and actually feels like fall is coming, so here is a warming soup that is quick and easy enough for a weeknight meal. This is another entry in my favorite recipes series. This soup comes from Sara Foster’s cookbook, Sara Foster’s Casual Cooking.

Italian Sausage Soup

• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 lb. Italian sausage
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1 14.5-ounce can chopped tomatoes with their juices
• 1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• Salt and pepper
• 4 cups spinach, cabbage, or other greens, washed and trimmed
• 4 basil leaves, thinly sliced

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Cut open the sausage casings and squeeze the meat into the skillet, discarding the casings. Add the onion and saute 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sausage is light brown all over and the onion is tender and translucent. Drain the fat from the skillet. Add the stock, tomatoes and beans. Season to taste and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the greens and basil.

Pasta with Broccoli and Sausage

This is one of my favorite weeknight meals. It has many things going for it. It’s fast to make. It’s a one-dish meal. It’s adaptable. And I usually have all the ingredients on hand. It’s also very tasty. Try it tonight.

Pasta with Broccoli and Sausage

Yields: About 4 servings.
Time to make: About 40 minutes.

• Salt to taste
• About 1 pound broccoli, cut into florets
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic, or more to taste
• ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds (optional)
• Freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ to ½ pound Italian sausage, sliced or crumbled
• ½ cup white wine
• ½ pound cut pasta
• ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Boil the broccoli until crisp-tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Scoop the broccoli out of the water and set it aside.

Put the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Crumble the sausage into the pan, and cook, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, red pepper flakes and fennel seeds if you’re using them, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Continue cooking and stirring for another minute or so. Add the broccoli and wine, and cook, mashing and stirring, 2 or 3 minutes more. Turn the heat to low to keep the sauce warm.

Cook the pasta in the boiling water. Drain it, reserving about a cup of the cooking water. Toss the pasta with the broccoli sauce, along with some of the pasta water to keep the mixture from drying out. Serve immediately, with the Parmesan.

Notes: You can easily substitute cauliflower, broccoli rabe or any green for the broccoli. It is nice to add roasted red pepper or sun-dried tomatoes to this when it’s finished cooking. Cubed mozzarella is another good addition. Simplify this recipe even more by eliminating all ingredients after the red pepper flakes and tossing the broccoli mixture with cooked pasta.

New Ways with Sausages

Image via Wikipedia

In our household, we like to eat sausages. I buy locally made chicken sausages from our co-op, and they’re very good. Unlike most chicken sausages, these are not pre-cooked, and they come in a variety of flavors. I use them pretty much wherever I would use pork sausage: in scrambled eggs, on pasta, in stews and, of course, on a bun with sauteed peppers and onions.

But even if we never get tired of eating sausages, I do get tired of preparing them the same old way. I recently bought the cookbook Plain Simple Cooking by British author Diana Henry. To my surprise, I found quite a few new recipes featuring sausages inside. I guess the Brits eat more sausages than we Americans, because my American cookbooks are pretty much devoid of sausage recipes. Good to know.

The method I tried last night, from Plain Simple Cooking, was simple and a great new idea for preparing sausages. I first coated the sausages in a mixture of Dijon mustard and honey, then roasted them until cooked through. Usually, I brown the sausages in a frying pan or grill them, so this was a nice hands-free method to add to my repertoire. The honey-mustard glaze added great flavor too. Next time I will add more mustard (for more tang) and continue to baste the sausages while they cook. I can experiment with other flavors, too.

Slow-cooker Sausage Minestrone

Last night my family all came over for dinner. For once, I was thinking far enough ahead that I was able to get dinner going first thing in the morning and put it in the slow cooker to cook all day, so I wouldn’t have to worry about it. A very successful strategy, that I shall have to employ more often.

I made a sausage minestrone, which seemed to satisfy everyone (along with bread and a great salad, contributed by my brother, and a couple of bottles of wine, contributed by my mother). As always, “minestrone” means soup with lots of stuff in it. This time, I used Italian-style chicken sausage, bacon, carrots, onion, leeks, tomatoes, green beans, potatoes, lentils, spinach and orzo pasta.

Here are some things I have learned about cooking in the slow cooker:

• You need to brown the sausage and bacon first (or any ground meats).
• It is also a good idea to pre-saute aromatics, such as onions and carrots, to bring out their flavors.
• I de-glazed the saute pan with some red wine and also added a can or pureed tomatoes to bring some body to the broth.
• The recipe I used called for 8 cups of broth, but since liquid doesn’t evaporate in the slow cooker, I only used 4 cups and it was still quite soupy.
• I added a couple of Parmesan rinds that I had saved in lieu of salt.
• I pre-cooked the orzo and stirred it in at the end of the cooking time so that it wouldn’t absorb all the liquid.
• I also added the spinach at the end and just let it wilt a bit.

I plan to eat leftovers for the next couple of days, so I may not post until those are gone.

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• Chunky Chicken Minestrone (simplycooking.wordpress.com)

Pasta Shells with Cabbage and Sausage

This was one of those recipes that didn’t sound so good on paper — I was dubious about the use of cream — but turned out to be absolutely delicious. Yes, it is hearty and wintry and probably not a good dish for July. But it is also quick and easy to make with ingredients that are more than likely already in the larder. The recipe is adapted from Marcella Cucina by Marcella Hazan, a wonderful cookbook for discovering quick, easy, authentically Italian dishes.

I did modify the recipe a bit. Rather than boil the cabbage for 25 minutes, I merely blanched it and finished cooking it with the sausage, so it retained some crunch and freshness. I also used half-and-half instead of heavy cream without any discernible loss of flavor but probably a tad fewer calories. A nicely spiced chicken sausage worked well, too.

Pasta Shells with Cabbage and Sausage

Yields: 4 servings
Time to make: ~30 minutes

What you need:

• 1 sm. head Savoy cabbage
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• ½ onion, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 Italian sausage links, skin removed and crumbled
• ¼ cup half-and-half
• grated Parmesan to taste
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 lb. pasta shells or other chunky pasta shapes

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
2. Core the cabbage and cut into quarters, discarding any discolored outer leaves.
3. Blanch the cabbage quarters for 1-2 minutes, remove and drain.
4. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium.
5. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until it becomes translucent.
6. Add the garlic and sausage, and brown the meat, stirring.
7. Chop the cabbage coarsely and add to the skillet.
8. Stir to mix well.
9. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
10. Meanwhile, boil the pasta in the same water in which you blanched the cabbage.
11. Drain the pasta and add it to the skillet.
12. Stir in the cream and season well.
13. Cook just long enough for the cream to bind everything together and garnish with Parmesan.

This is my entry for Presto Pasta Nights this week.

Rotini with Swiss Chard & Sausage Ragu

Rotini with Swiss Chard and Sausage, originally uploaded by shannon_turlington.

Please forgive me for posting this rich, hearty, warming pasta recipe in the middle of summer. Yes, this is truly a wintry dish, but it was so good that I couldn’t wait to share it with you.

This is the first recipe that I have tried from Sara Foster’s Casual Cooking, the follow-up to the wonderful cookbook Fresh Every Day. I have been loving Fresh Every Day so much that when I saw this new book in the store, I had to buy it. It is full of gorgeous food photos and easy, adaptable recipes for entertaining and family dinners. Like this one.

Some notes before I give you the recipe. The original recipe claims to serve 4-6, but the quantities were enormous. I cut down the quantities quite a bit, and I think it will still comfortably serve 4. Also, this pasta doesn’t reheat very well, I think because the sauce is so reduced — which makes it so thick and flavorful — that there isn’t enough liquid to facilitate reheating. So plan to eat it all when you make it.

And do make it, even if you have to bookmark this recipe until a more appropriate season. But with all the fresh greens and herbs, there’s no reason you can’t make it right now.

Rotini with Swiss Chard and Sausage Ragu

Yields: 4 servings
Time to make: ~45 minutes

What you need:

• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• ½ onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 Italian sausage links, sliced or crumbled (I used chicken sausage)
• 1 14.5-oz. can chopped tomatoes
• 1 cup chicken stock
• ½ lb. rotini or other large pasta shapes
• ½ bunch Swiss chard, stemmed and roughly chopped
• handful of basil leaves, sliced
• 1 tbsp. fresh oregano, chopped
• 1 15-oz. can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
• salt and pepper to taste
• grated Parmesan to taste

1. Heat the olive oil over medium
2. Saute the onion until translucent, 4 minutes.
3. Add the garlic and saute 1 minute.
4. Add the sausage and brown about 5 minutes.
5. Add the tomatoes and stock.
6. Reduce the heat to low and simmer 30 minutes, until reduced and thickened, stirring occasionally.
7. Meanwhile, cook the pasta and reserve a cupful of the pasta cooking water.
8. Add the drained pasta to the tomato mixture along with the Swiss chard, herbs and beans.
9. Add enough reserved pasta cooking water to ensure that the sauce coats everything.
10. Cook until the chard wilts and the beans are warmed through, about 4 minutes.
11. Season and garnish with Parmesan.

Adapted from Sara Foster’s Casual Cooking.

This is my entry for Presto Pasta Nights, hosted this week by Chew on That.

Southern-style Cornbread & Sausage Stuffing

Thanksgiving is upon us. It just snuck up on me this year. I guess I have been preoccupied with other things and haven’t really given a lot of thought to the holidays.

One thing that hasn’t escaped my attention is the rampant consumerism going on all around me. Every year, I get depressed about this, but this year it seems worse than ever. The Christmas buying season now has to start immediately after Halloween, and the pressure to buy, buy, buy is relentless. I was trying to make up my Christmas list, and I could barely think of anything I really wanted. Of course, there are plenty of things we need, with the impending arrival of our first child, but why not wait until after Christmas and take advantage of the sales?

But what do I want? Living in a very limited maternity wardrobe has taught me that I don’t need much in the way of clothes. My kitchen is pretty much fully outfitted, I’m overflowing with books acquired free from BookMooch, and I don’t really need anything else. Maybe a new cookbook, a food mill for making baby food, but most of all what I want is a break.

I need a break from the full-tilt life of work and shopping and busyness that is our modern culture. One reason why I’m looking forward so much to our child’s birth is that I really feel it will force me to slow down and just be there more, just as the pregnancy has forced me to slow down and realize there’s a limit to what I can do in one day.

In conclusion to this ramble, I want to remind everyone that this Friday is Buy Nothing Day, so why not celebrate by taking a little time for yourself?

In the meantime, here’s a Thanksgiving dish that’s tasty, traditional and doesn’t require hours of advance preparation.

Cornbread & Sausage Stuffing

Time to make: ~45 minutes (not counting time to make the cornbread)
Yields: 8-10 servings

What you need:

• 1 loaf cornbread, homemade or store-bought (can be made a day or two ahead–stale cornbread works fine in this recipe)
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 2 links Italian-style sausage (chicken sausage works great)
• 1 med. onion, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• salt, pepper and fresh or dried herbs to taste (sage and parsley are traditional)
• 9X13 baking pan, sprayed with nonstick cooking spray

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
2. Bring the chicken stock to a simmer.
3. Remove the casings from the sausage, crumble and brown in a small amount of oil over medium.
4. Add the onion and celery, cover and cook 10 more minutes; set aside.
5. Cut the cornbread into small cubes.
6. Combine the cornbread and sausage mixture in a large bowl, and season with salt, pepper and herbs to taste.
7. Pour the chicken stock over the stuffing mixture.
8. Spoon the stuffing into the baking pan and bake for 25 minutes.

Notes: If you have time, I recommend making the stuffing ahead, which gives the cornbread plenty of time to absorb the chicken stock and the flavors. Prepare through step 7 and refrigerate overnight. Bake it the next day but extend the baking time by 10 minutes.

Adapted from a recipe in Eating Well.

Sausage & Cabbage Stew

It has finally gotten cold around here — what we consider cold in North Carolina, anyway. When I get home from work on a cold night, all I want is something warming, satisfying and simple. This stew fits the bill. I couldn’t help going back for seconds.

Sausage & Cabbage Stew

Serves: 2
Time to make: ~45 minutes

What you need:

• 1 cup pasta shapes (I used medium shells)
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• ½ onion, chopped
• 2 andouille sausage links, sliced (I used chicken sausage)
• ½ head Savoy cabbage, shredded
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• ½ cup chicken stock
• Parmesan to taste

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil and cook the pasta until almost done
2. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a dutch oven over medium
3. Saute the onion until very brown and soft, about 15 minutes
4. Add the sausage and brown a few minutes
5. Add the cabbage and garlic, and let the cabbage wilt a bit
6. Add the stock and the pasta
7. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the pasta is fully cooked and the cabbage is tender
8. Garnish with grated Parmesan

Sausage, Beans & Greens Stew

Sausage and beans, beans and greens — both are classic combinations. This simple, one-pot, weeknight supper combines them all. This dish took less than 30 minutes to make and was a big hit at the table.

Sausage, Beans and Greens Stew

Serves: 2
Time to make: ~30 minutes

• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• ½ medium onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 Italian sausage links, sliced
• 1 can of any beans, rinsed and drained, or 1 cup pre-cooked beans
• 1 lb. leafy greens or cabbage, chopped
• ½ cup chicken stock
• grated cheese (optional)

Heat the olive oil over medium-high in a dutch oven. Saute the onion, garlic and sausage until the sausage is browned. Add the beans and greens, tossing to mix and wilt. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and let simmer until the greens are tender, 7-10 minutes. Season to taste and garnish with cheese, if you like.

Notes: I love chicken sausage because it is leaner but still tastes like the real thing — to me, at least. While Italian sausage is called for, you could substitute any sausage flavor of a similar size.

Bonus Recipe: Easy Garlic Bread

I served this with my version of Easy Garlic Bread. Cut an Italian or French loaf into thick slices, but don’t cut all the way through. Slip a pat of butter between each slice and smear with a dab of roasted garlic paste (a handy ingredient that you can find in most grocery stores). Wrap in foil and heat at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes. Voila!