Sausage and Peppers Revisited, with Calzone leftovers!

Last summer, I made a delicious meal of Sausage and Peppers from ingredients from our farm share and farmer's market. This year, I did the same, with a few changes, and had left overs, since it was just my kids and me having the food.

I may even call this version better.

For Sausage and Peppers:
1 package of good sweet Italian sausage (we got this from the Pork Guy (Fertile Plains))
2 thin skinned sweet green peppers, sliced thinly
1 bulb of a spring red onion, sliced
1 bulb of a spring garlic (this looks like a garlic with a scallion-like top on it, but when you cut into the head, it has no "skins" separating the cloves), chopped
leaves from 2 stems of fresh oregano
salt/pepper
scant cup of water

Brown sausages on all sides, remove from pan, slice into bite-sized pieces, and return to pan. Add pepper, onions, garlic, salt & pepper (to taste) and oregano, and mix. Add a scant cup of water to the pan and scrape anything there is from the bottom of the pan. Cover tightly with a lid and continue cooking about 10 minutes more. Serve with pasta, or rice, or not :)

We had about half of the dish left over, and I was not sure what to do with it. Then I remembered something from my childhood: Sausage rolls! Of course, I had no idea how to make them. Mine came out more like a calzone but who cares? They were fantastic.

If you have one, go to Trader Joe's and get a pizza crust dough. It's in the refrigerated section near the cheese, and it costs .99. If you don't have a TJ's you'll have to make your own, or find another brand, but I have not had any as good as the TJ's ones. Also pick up a jar of TJ's marinara sauce (if you don't have any at home) and a bag of shredded mozzerella cheese (we used the lower fat version)

Let the dough sit at room temperature for 20 minutes. Break into 2 pieces and work each piece into a round. Place rounds on a pizza stone. working on a 1/2 round, layer sauce, sausage and peppers, more sauce, and cheese. Fold over and crimp the edge, and pierce with a knife or fork to make vents. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes.

My son had no idea that this was essentially the same dish that we had for dinner last night so YAY for hiding the leftovers!

Raspberry Pork Tenderloin and Chipotle Sweet Potatoes

About a week ago I posted to my facebook status that I had gotten a coupon from Bzz Agent for a free Alexia frozen food product, and that I had bought some Spicy Sweet Potato Fries. My friend Brian suggested I make it with something Pork-like, and it got the wheels spinning in my head. The "spice" in the potatoes was chipotle, and I had in the past made a chipotle raspberry pork tenderloin from Dinner Zen. What if I tried to recreate it, but left out the chipotle in the sauce, since it would be in the fries?

What followed was fantastic. Truly delicious. Here's the recipe:

Raspberry Pork Tenderloin
1 pork tenderloin
1/4 c raspberry jam
1 T apple cider vinegar
salt & pepper
thyme, tarragon, oregano (all dried)
1/2 a small onion, chopped
a little olive oil

Prepare pork tenderloin by rubbing with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, tarragon, thyme, and oregano. Place it in a baking dish and bake at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes, turning once.
While the pork is cooking, saute the chopped onion with a little bit of salt and pepper. When the onions are soft, add the jam and vinegar, and stir until the jam melts, Keep on low until the pork is done. Let pork rest for a few minutes and slice, then pour sauce over the slices.

If you choose to make the Alexia Spicy Sweet Potatoes, you'll want to put them in about 25 minutes before the pork is done. The recipe will say 20 minutes, but you're sharing oven space and you'll need the extra time to make sure they end up crispy like fries, and not soggy, like, um, soggy fries.

Now, for the verdict. The raspberry sauce was spectacular. The pork was delicious. And the seasoning on the fries made the whole dish more reminiscent of the original dish that I had (that had the chipotle peppers in the sauce). The kids loved the pork and the "dip." The three year old thought the fries were too spicy, but he cut the spice by eating a piece of pork dipped in the raspberry dip. The 9 month old actually loved the sweet potatoes as is, and kept screaming for more. The husband and I loved the fries but thought that by the time we got to the end of them, the taste off chipotle was overpowering everything. Still, as sweet potato fries go, they were pretty delicious and much easier than slicing sweet potatoes by myself! One thing that I will caution--the serving size says 3 oz or 30 fries. This is off. If you are measuring for weight-loss purposes, make sure to weigh the fries and don't count on 30 being a serving size, as it was closer to 20-25.

And as for the pork, if you have a BJ's near you, you should check there, because ours had a pack of 4 pork tenderloins for $14 (it looked like 2 in the package but it was really 4!). So I actually prepped two of this meal and stuck one in the freezer, and then prepped another 2 freezer meals with the other two. Great deal, and I'll have the recipe for the other one up here after we taste test it!  To prep this recipe for the freezer, do the seasoning and olive oil and stick in a ziploc bag, then saute the onions, and place the sauteed onions, jam, and vinegar in a separate bag, and store together in an outer bag. Defrost before baking.

More CSA Meals

So the mystery herb was definitely oregano! Tonight we had a fantastic dinner of sausage and peppers.

Now, I made it differently than usual because I had so many fresh ingredients. Here's the recipe I used tonight:

4 sweet Italian sausages (from the farm market)

The head of the giant spring onion from the CSA, sliced

1 green pepper, sliced

1 garlic curl, chopped

large pinch of salt 

some freshly ground pepper

leaves from 2 stems of fresh oregano (from our CSA--yay!)

scant cup of water

Brown sausages on all sides, remove from pan, slice into bite-sized pieces, and return to pan.  Add pepper, onions, garlic curls, salt, pepper, and oregano and mix. Add slightly less than 1 cup of water to the pan and scrape anything from the bottom of the pan. Cover tightly with a lid and continue cooking about 10 minutes.  Serve over pasta.

We also had salad, since we have a lot of lettuce. We used romaine lettuce, mixed greens, a carrot, a couple of stalks of celery, and lemon tahini dressing that we bought at the farm market last week. 

We still have a lot of lettuce. I'm not entirely sure what we are going to do with all this lettuce, but I'm going to make a genuine effort!  My friend is also sending me a recipe for the escarole, which should be excellent. The Potomac Vegetable Farms web site has a recipe for garlic curl pesto, so I think I might make some of that, too. 

I am fairly certain I am going to make some lasagna or something similarly Italian-ish :) Maybe a veggie lasagna. 

Two Pork Chop Recipes

We had 12 pork chops from our shopping trip today, and they became 4 meals out of 2 recipes. Three of the same in the freezer and something different for tonight.

First, the freezer recipe:

Pork Chops with "Good Stuff"

I call it "Good Stuff" because of this one time when my friend Maggie came over for dinner. I asked her if she wanted pork chops with applesauce or baked with tomatoes, peppers, and onions. She said, "yeah! Make it with the Good stuff!" Here is my recipe, which makes 3 freezer meals. You can add or subtract pork chops to divide it well for your family.

9 thin pork chops

2 large peppers (I used one yellow and one red but whatever you have), Chopped into chunks

1 very large onion, sliced 

2 cans of diced tomatoes with the liquid

4 cloves garlic, minced

salt, pepper, garlic powder, italian seasoning

Season pork chops on both sides with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Brown on both sides in a large frying pan (I use a cast iron and it works really well). Once they are browned remove them to a plate. In the same pan, add the onion, peppers, garlic, and tomatoes with their liquid. Add additional salt, pepper, and italian seasoning. Heat through so that flavors mingle well.

To freeze, divide pork chops into freezer bags, and divide the mix into the freezer bags with the pork chops. Be sure to use all of the liquid. We made 3 bags. Freeze flat. 

To finish, defrost a bag of pork chops with good stuff, transfer into a baking dish, and bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.  It goes really well with rice or pasta. 

So I spent some time making that, and had 3 pork chops left over.  So here's that recipe

Oven baked breaded pork chops

I don't usually make breaded anything because it generally involves deep frying, which isn't so terribly good for you. I had a brain storm tonight and tried it, and it worked! 

3 thin pork chops

1 egg + some milk to thin it, mixed well

unseasoned bread crumbs, salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, all mixed

1 cast iron pan

cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Place cast iron pan on burner on medium heat and spray with cooking spray

Prepare pork chops by dipping into the egg mix and then into the bread crumb mix. When the pan is hot, add breaded pork chops to the pan. Pan fry for about 5 minutes and flip. Spray the tops with additional cooking spray and transfer to the oven.

After about 2o minutes, flip the pork chops again and return to the oven. Bake another 10 minutes. 

We served this with instant mashed potatoes (yes, I was lazy after all that cooking!) and sauerkraut and olive salad (just take fresh sauerkraut, add chopped black olives and a bit of olive oil, and mix). I had to tell my husband that the pork chops were not deep fried. He never would have known!