Spicy Sausage and Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

My housemate facebook'd me today and told me she was going to try and make these. They looked delicious so I told her I wanted to join. I've never previously had much luck with stuffed peppers because they haven't been flavourful enough, but these were great!

We didn't have zucchini, so for the vegetables we used asparagus and mushrooms. Also added waaaay more parmesan than necessary. It was delicious.

Sage Cream Sauce

This was delectable... so so good. I was going to be a good girl and not eat this pasta, but then my housemates encouraged me to eat it with pasta anyway. "We'll tell you when you start to get fat from eating too much pasta" were their words. I guess I can go with that.
For the parmesan incrusted chicken: cover chicken breast with salt, pepper and thyme on both sides. Mix parmesan shavings and bread crumbs and put them on the top and along the sides. I wasn't sure when I first decided to incrust the chicken if you could have the bread crumbs on the chicken whole time in the oven without them burning, so I checked this recipe and it suggested "dipping the chicken in melted butter first" for the bread crumbs to stick, so I just melted some butter and put it on top before the bread crumbs. I'm not sure it would have made a difference if I just put the bread crumbs on without the butter, perhaps the butter keeps the chicken moist, I'm not sure. I baked the chicken breast for 30 minutes at 425.
For the sage cream sauce:
I checked out a few recipes for this, but basically mixed some together and added extra ingredients. You need: butter, mushrooms, onions, garlic, sage, nutmeg, white wine, cream and parmesan. I cooked the mushrooms and onions in the butter. I then added one (big) clove of chopped garlic, one dried sage leaf crushed up and a pinch of nutmeg. I let that mix and cook for a bit then I added some wine. I let that simmer for a bit and then I added some cream. Then I put in some freshly grated parmesan.
I cooked some spaghetti, put it on a plate and then took the mushrooms/onions plus some of the actual sauce and mixed it around with the pasta. Then I layered some cooked asparagus on top of the pasta, put the chicken on top and then poured the rest of the sauce over top.

I'll definitely be making this one again. So good.

Quinoa Burgers

These quinoa burgers were absolutely delicious!! Mmmm, I can't stop eating them! I cut the recipe in half and it still made about 12 burgers. I also used ricotta cheese instead of cottage cheese because I'm not the biggest fan of cottage cheese and I wasn't sure how powerful it would be in the burger. I had a zucchini lying around so used that instead of carrot. For all the spices, I guessed the measurements to taste.

I roasted a red pepper and ate that with these tasty little things and topped them with tzatziki.


I'll definitely be making these again!

Risotto Balls

I found a recipe for risotto balls in a cook book I had lying around in Kingston and my mouth began to water. Risotto = good. Deep fried food = good. What is not to like? A lot of the recipe's like the one I found say to use left over risotto, but that's kind of a rare occasion for my sister and I. I forcefully made my sister make risotto during the day while I was on my way home from a weekend away and then we put it in the fridge to cool for about an hour. The risotto was super cheesy as we put a LOT of gruyere and parmesan cheese in it. The middle of the risotto balls also had a small piece of mozzarella in it. What? My sister and I love cheese too much. While some recipe's I had found suggested an egg, flour and bread crumb routine for crusting the risotto that seemed like way to much work to me and the orignal recipe I found suggested just rolling the balls of risotto around in bread crumbs - I went with that. The risotto balls were really good, but all in all a lot of work to do all in one day. If I did happen to have some risotto left over one day I would probably make them again, but for now I'll just stick with normal risotto!

Goat's Cheese Burger on a Everything Bagel

YUMMY! Look at that goat's cheese just drip out of the burger! So good.

Burger instructions: mix ground beef, ketchup, egg, breadcrumbs, onions, garlic, thyme, s & p. The measurements all depend on how much ground beef you're using.

Separate the mixture into the amount of patties you want to have. Split each patty in two and insert goat's cheese in the middle and put it back together, reshaping if necessary. Place on hot grill and cook for the desired amount of time. I think mine took about 5-8 minutes. I wasn't really paying attention.

I put my burger on an everything bagel because I needed to use it up and didn't have any burger buns. I topped it with fried mushrooms and red peppers, spinach and arugula and a garlic mayo. The garlic mayo was just a little bit of mayo, garlic and thyme.

Balsamic-Maple Glazed Pork Chop

I had made these pork chops before with my sister, but because of me we messed up. We wanted to marinate the pork chops (Not needed, fyi. These pork chops are FULL of flavour) so I just put all the ingredients in a bowl, which is not what you're supposed to do. If you do this the maple syrup will burn while frying. We ended up saving it, but tonight I made it properly! Yay me!

I tossed some 1/4 of a small onion and 1/2 a clove of garlic into the glaze, just because. I don't think it particularly added anything, but it certainly didn't take anything away!

I sided it with a little quinoa salad. After I cooked 1/4 of a cup of quinoa in water I cooled it down and tossed it with some cucumber, arugula and goat's cheese. I didn't put any dressing onto it because I wanted to mix it a little with the glaze. The glaze was very sweet and when it mixed with the bitterness of the arugula and goat's cheese and the freshness of the cucumber I think it tasted really good. I was unsure on how it would turn out at first when I mixed them together, but I'm happy I did.

Careful: when making the glaze it did smoke/steam a little so open a window and watch out for the fire detector! Also maybe don't have your computer near where you are cooking (as I did to follow the recipe) because it spits a little.

Spicy Italian Sausage, Goat's Cheese and Arugula/Spinach Pasta

I have a problem. Pasta is my absolute favourite thing. I need to eat less of it, but it's SO good and you can do SO many things with it.

Dinner turned out really good tonight. I really had no clue what I was doing/putting into the pasta until it was already in the pan! I knew I wanted to use some of the arugula/spinach mixture I had in the fridge, and I've recently become a big fan of fresh greens on top of pasta. I also knew I wanted to use goat's cheese, but that's as far as I'd come. I checked the freezer for the meat situation and the only thing worth putting in a pasta I had was some sausage.

I cut up and fried the sausage, tossed in some mushrooms, red peppers and garlic. A little dried red pepper flakes, thyme and basil was added. There were little bits of sausage stuck to the bottom of the pan so I tossed in some Sherry (sweet wine) to get the little yummy bits. I put in 1/4 of a small package of goats cheese and mixed it up. I also added a little bit of cream to make some more sauce. When the pasta was done I added it directly to the sauce pot and mixed it around. In my dinner bowl, I put a little more goat's cheese and a handful of spinach/arugula mix. Yummy!

The mild spice of the sausage mixed with the sweetness of the sherry and paired with the bitterness of the goat's cheese and arugula/spinach was delectable!

Birthday Cupcake and White Cheddar + Arugula Pesto Pasta

Rainbow Nerd Cupcakes for Emma's birthday! SO good.

  

White Cheddar + Arugula Pesto Mac and Cheese - This was absolutely delicious. I added way more cheese than asked for because it wasn't cheesy enough. I also used fresh parmesan instead of asiago. I tossed in some cayenne to the cheese sauce.