Kale + Chicken Sausage Strata

The wind today is out of control.  Like trash-cans-flying-around-the-street-and-fences-almost-falling-down out of control.  I made sure both of our cars were parked inside because the last time it was like this a tree fell on my brother's car, right outside my house.

The problem was, he was serving in Afghanistan and we were surfing in Costa Rica. (Who am I kidding?  He was surfing, I was floundering around, trying not to die.)  Good thing we had great neighbors who took pictures and documented the whole thing... Geico couldn't argue with that.

Today I have no fear of the wind destroying a car or a house.  I just don't think that will happen.  What I do hope will happen is some wind gust picking up my neighbors barbecue that smells oh so good and plopping it smack dab in my yard.  Tri-tip would be preferred.

But since that's highly unlikely to happen (fingers still crossed!) I guess I will be having leftovers tonight.

Not too shabby when it's this stuff, though.  Can't go wrong with kale in this house.

So now I eat, listen to the wind, and watch The Voice.  And wait for that tri-tip to fly in...

KALE AND CHICKEN SAUSAGE STRATA

Recipe inspired by Everyday Food’s Sausage and Swiss Chard Strata, April 2011

SERVES 6  •  PREP TIME: 15 MINUTES  •  TOTAL TIME: 1 hour 10 minutes

ingredients

• 1 packet chicken sausage, cut into cubes
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 2 small spring onions, finely chopped (bulb only)
• 1 bunch kale (about 1 pound), leaves torn off into 2-inch pieces and rinsed
• coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1 day-old baguette, cut into ½-inch slices
• 2 ½ cups milk
• 6 large eggs, lightly beaten
• ½ cup shredded Asiago cheese

directions

1.      Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Heat a large skillet over medium-high. Add sausage and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned. Transfer sausage to a small bowl, leaving behind as much fat as possible. Add shallots and spring onions and cook over medium until translucent, 3 minutes. Add a little water to pan and cook, stirring and scraping up browned bits from skillet with wooden spoon. Add kale and cook, stirring occasionally, until wilted, 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.  Add to sausage and mix together.

2.      Spread half the sausage/kale mixture in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Top with bread, overlapping slices slightly. Top with remaining sausage/kale mixture. In a large bowl, whisk together milk and eggs, season with salt and pepper, and pour evenly over top. Firmly press on strata to submerge bread in egg mixture. Cover dish tightly with foil and let sit 10 minutes.

3.      Bake strata 45 minutes. Uncover, sprinkle with cheese, and bake until cheese melts and egg mixture is mostly absorbed and set in center, 6 to 10 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes before serving.

 COST: $10.25           COST PER SERVING (6): $1.71

Nutritional Information
calories 332.9   •    total fat 18.8 g    •    fiber 1.2g    •    sugars 5.5g   •    protein 29.2g

Vegan Pumpkin Walnut Bread

Apparently, I am a bad neighbor.

I mean, I try really really hard to be a good one.  Tip-toe through the apartment at night to not disturb the people downstairs, offer to help the old lady next door to carry up her groceries... see?  Proof that I TRY to be a good neighbor.  And I would have said that I was ACTUALLY a good neighbor, until the other day showed me otherwise.

My neighbor was walking toward her apartment, laundry basket in front of her large, pregnant belly.

"Baby is almost here, right?" I asked.  "Probably just a few more days?"

She looked at me with an odd expression for a few seconds and then said, "She is already here.  She was born three weeks ago."

WHA...?  I walk past their door how many times a day?  How on earth did I miss that?!

See, not as good of a neighbor as I thought.

But this weeks 'Sundays with Joy' recipe totally made up for that.  I mean, who could think I am a bad neighbor when I bring them a nice, fresh loaf of vegan pumpkin walnut bread?  And on Pumpkin Day no less?  Yeah, that's what I thought.  I pulled it out of the oven and let it cool, and then wrapped it up (with what I had on hand, which is why that is yarn), and headed over, being all good-neighborly.

So maybe I am not so much of a bad neighbor as an unaware one...

Wanna be a good neighbor?  Joy's recipe makes two perfect pumpkin loaves, great for sharing.  Or great for keeping all to yourself.  It's OK, I won't tell anyone ;)

.For this week's recipe, visit Joy's blog HERE or go buy a book HERE.  You will be happy you did.

PS -- Yes, I am sharing my usual Sunday post today, on a Friday.  That's because today is National Pumpkin Day and, more importantly, I have very special thing to share with you on Sunday.  So come back and check it out!  See you then :)

COST: $6.30   COST PER LOAF (2): $3.15

His and Hers: The tale of two biscuits

This week's Sundays with Joy recipe was jalapeno, chive, and cheddar biscuits.  I like cheddar and chives, but I am a little afraid of jalapenos.  Probably stems from the time my best friend and I decided that we were Native Americans and needed to go hunting and gathering... in our neighbors yard.  Picked up some good stuff, too.  Except for the jalapeno.  Darn thing was hot, made us cry, and then we rubbed our eyes with our jalapeno-juice-smeared hands.  Now the tears were really falling, and our noses were runny, and of course we tried to rub the snot away... with those same jalapeno-juice-smeared hands.

Let's just say I never went "gathering" in someone else's yard since.

Or let a jalapeno get anywhere near me.

But I decided I would be bold.  I heard, from Joy the Baker herself (the source of this recipe), that if you take out the seeds the jalapeno isn't that hot.  So bold I did.  And I had some jalapeno, chive, and cheddar biscuits.

You know what?  I can do jalapeno in biscuits!  I was just really cautious as I was take out the seeds... there was no accidentally touching my eyes at that moment.  No sirree, I learned that lesson years ago.

My husband, on the other hand, said, "NO WAY!"  He is a hater of all things spicy and is actually allergic to some peppers, so he was not even willing to attempt being bold with me.  When I asked him what we wanted instead he thought about it and then settled on kale.  He wanted kale biscuits.

Different.

But whatever.  Different can be done.  Besides, I still had my yummy biscuits all to myself anyway ;)

Since I was putting kale in there, a favorite Brazilian veggie, I threw in some other favorite Brazilian items: mozzarella and red bell pepper.  And some cheddar as well, because cheddar tastes amazing and everyone should eat it every chance they get, Brazilian men included.

What did we discover?  Kale biscuits -- they sound weird, but they taste GOOD.

You know, I believe in that whole 'what's your is mine and mine is yours' mantra in regards to marriage.  Except for these biscuits.  Both were great, but I guarded mine and he guarded his.  I guess we can say, once again, Joy's recipe was a success.  And so was mine.  SCORE!

For the jalapeno biscuit recipe, get yourself a copy of Joy's fabulous book.  

For the kale biscuit recipe, here you go:

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
4½ teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon cream of tartar
¾ teaspoon salt
1 cup of milk + 1 teaspoon of white vinegar mixed to make buttermilk
1 egg
1/2 of a red bell pepper, diced
1 large handful of kale, chopped small
olive oil
1/3 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup cubed cheddar cheese
1 1/2 stick unsalted butter, cold and cut into small cubes
Coarse sea salt for topping

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with tin foil.

2.  In skillet over medium heat. saute kale in small amount of olive oil until just tender, about 3 minutes.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cream of tartar and salt. In a small bowl, whisk together 3/4 of the milk combo and egg. In another small bowl, toss together the kale, cheeses, and bell pepper.

3. Add the butter to the flour mixture and use your fingers to work the butter into the flour until the flour resembles coarse meal.  

4. Toss the kale mixture into the flour mixture. Create a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the milk and egg mixture all at once. Toss together with a fork, making sure that all of the flour bits are moistened by the buttermilk. Dump the biscuit dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly, just enough to bring the dough together.

5. Pat the dough until about 1 inch thick.  Cut the dough into 2 inch squares. Gather the dough scrapes, pat into a new circle and cut more squares. Repeat until all of the dough has been used.  (You can use a round biscuit cutter if you are fancy like that.)

6. Place the biscuits on the prepared baking sheets, brush the tops with buttermilk and sprinkle them with the sea salt. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown on top. If you have leftovers, store them in an airtight container at room temperature. You can eat them straight from there the next day, or reheat in a 350-degree oven until warmed through.

COST: $4.89   Cost per biscuit (12): $0.41

Sundays with Joy -- Avocado Fries

This weeks recipe was something I would have never in my wildest of wild dreams have come up with.  Avocado Fries. 

I mean, really the concept is simple... kind of like fried green tomatoes.  Which are amazing, right?  So why not with avocados?  Yet, I still would never have come up with this combination.  Just a few simple ingredients: avocados (obviously), eggs, flour, oil for frying, and bread crumbs.  It also called for Cayenne pepper, but you will never find that in my house.  Never. 

Instead of going for bread crumbs I decided to make them myself.  I figured out how to do this a few months back, and even though it is way easier to buy the store ones and the taste isn't that much different, I feel a sense of pride when I make bread crumbs from scratch.  I feel so... domesticated.

If you have never made bread crumbs from scratch, have no fear.  It is really, really easy. Takes about 10 minutes, too.  And you can season them any way you like.  There are four things you need:  bread, salt, seasonings, and a little bit of olive oil.

First, you take your bread (I used three slices of potato bread this time, but you can use any) and you grate it into, well... crumbs.  Makes total sense, right?  Throw those crumbs into a frying pan, add your salt and seasonings (I use garlic salt, oregano, and thyme), and drizzle some olive oil on top.  Turn the heat on to medium and then stir frequently for 5-7 minutes.  That's it!

Now that I had that done I was ready to go onto the actual recipe.

I have mentioned it before, but it is worth repeating.  I heart avocados.  Oh yes, I do.  So does my husband.  He likes them sweet, I like them salty, but whatever, we love them.  So this sight makes us happy.

There you go, avocado fries.  I must say, the concept is a little weird, right?  As my husband pointed out, "Isn't the point of eating fruit and veggies to be healthy?  Doesn't deep frying them kind of take that away?"  Hmm... Dude's gotta point.



But that didn't stop him from getting seconds, thirds, and then more...

So yeah, maybe not your healthy veggies-on-the-side that you go for, but a dish you can enjoy none-the-less.  And my thought is this: If I can do it to green tomatoes, why not to avocados?  Yeah, that's what I thought.

Recipe Adapted from the Joy the Baker Cookbook

INGREDIENTS:
3 slices of bread
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon thyme
2 avocados
2 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup flour

DIRECTIONS:
1.  Make bread crumbs (see above).
2.  Cut the avocados in half, peal skin off, and slice
3.  Beat eggs together.  Put the eggs, flour, and bread crumbs out.  Heat up vegetable oil in small frying pan over medium heat.
4.  Taking one piece of avocado at a time, dip in egg, then flour, and then bread crumbs.  When you have 6-8 pieces drop them (carefully) into oil. 
5.  Let cook in oil for 4 minutes, flipping once.  Carefully remove from oil with a fork and place on paper-towel lined plate.
6.  Continue dipping and frying until all pieces are done.

Cost: $3.74                  Cost Per Serving (4 servings at 6 slices each): $0.93

October Unprocessed: Can You Smell It?

There is a smell that is over taking my house these days.  One that is not causing any complaints, mind you...

Oh man. 

One thing I quickly realized when we started the October Unprocessed Challenge was that I would have to find alternatives for our customary bagels/potato bread/sourdough.  Each and everyone one of them tastes great, but when I read the ingredients, well... Knowing myself as I do, I also knew that there was no way I was going to bake all of our bread supply.  Sure, I can bake bread, and I do from time to time, but that just isn't feasible to make all of it -- at least not at this moment in my life.  I work full time, have incredibly busy weekends, and my evenings aren't all too free either.  But that is OK, because the challenge was not to make all of your food, but know that it was freshly made, where ever you get it from, whether your kitchen or elsewhere.  And the bakery makes fresh bread.  That's their claim to fame, folks!  I am so glad they do! 

 
I may never go back to store bought bread again if I can keep my house smelling like this.  Seriously, all I want to do all day is eat the bread. 

As an extra bonus, it is cheap.  Three little loaves for a buck, which kicks some serious bread-cost booty when you compare it to a pack of bagels.  Poor Paulo.  He thought he left french rolls for breakfast in Brazil and came to the glorious land of Sarah Lee bagels.  If only I could find some great fresh and cost effective bagels...  Time to pay Noah's a visit tomorrow.