Pork Wellington

Pork Wellington has been on my list of things to blog for awhile now, waiting for a special time to make it. My husband just had a business trip that was crazy busy and when he comes back from these trips I like to treat him to a special meal. Understandably he gets tired of restaurant food and eating on the run.

The meal had to wait a day as we had tickets to go see Heart. Those two ladies at 65 and 69 years of age can seriously rock. Leaping about and belting out the songs, it was amazing. I would love to have that energy!

This is a time consuming but not difficult meal to make. You can save time by buying puff pastry but making the rough puff pastry is relatively simple and tastes a lot better than store bought pastry.

Technique for Rough Puff Pastry

The main key for a good rough puff pastry is keeping everything cold. Some people will grate frozen butter for this but you can get away with butter from the fridge.

Add the ingredients to a mixing bowl. Work the butter into the flour until you have a coarse mixture.

Add a bit of water at a time until the clumps come together in a rough ball. Cover and chill for at least 20 minutes. If you find that you add too much water, don’t panic you can fix it when you knead the dough.

Turn out the dough onto a floured surface. If you made the dough too wet add extra flour while you are kneading the dough. You don’t want to overwork the dough but you want a smooth ball where you see marbling of the butter. Roll out thinly into something close to a rectangle.

Fold into thirds like an envelope.

Rotate 90 degrees and roll out into a thin rectangle.

Fold into thirds again.

Cover and chill for at least 20 minutes and until you are ready to use it.

Technique for Pork Wellington

Melt butter in the skillet. Season the pork with sea salt and pepper. Sear all sides and cook it to about two thirds done. This is probably the trickiest part as you need the pork to be cooked through by the end of baking but you don’t want it dried out. It’s not like the beef wellington where you want it medium rare.

Remove from the skillet and set aside while you cook up the apple mixture.

Finely chop up the apple, mushrooms, garlic and sage. Add additional butter to the skillet and sauté the ingredients for several minutes until the mushrooms start to brown.

Deglaze with the calvados and cook until the liquid reduces to nearly zero. Remove from the heat.

On cling film lay out the prosciutto and spoon the mushroom mixture onto the prosciutto and spread it out. Coat the pork with the mustard and place the pork in the centre.

Tightly wrap the pork and chill for half an hour. After the half hour roll out the dough, remove the cling film and place the pork in the centre of the dough.

Trim the ends and wrap the pork like a burrito. Place seam down on a baking sheet and brush with a beaten egg.

Bake in an oven set at 425F/220C until the pastry is golden and flaky. About 30-35 minutes.

Let rest for about 10 minutes before slicing. Though if it is really flaky, the darn thing will fall apart as you slice.

I roasted up a bit of parsnip and made up a side salad to keep the meal light.

This Pork Wellington was well worth the effort and the flavours were even better the next day.

Pork Wellington

A twist on the traditional beef wellington.

Course Main Course
Cuisine English, French
Keyword Pork Wellington
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 35 minutes
Servings 4

Ingredients

Rough Puff Pastry

  • 150 grams strong flour
  • 150 grams cold butter
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 60 ml cold water (up to 60 ml)

Pork and Apple Mushroom mixture

  • 1 lb pork loin
  • 1 cup finely chopped shiitake mushrooms
  • 1 cup finely chopped apple
  • 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 3-4 leaves sage, finely chopped
  • 1/4 cup calvados 2oz
  • 4-5 tbsp butter
  • sea salt and pepper to taste
  • 6-8 slices thin prosciutto
  • 1 tbsp stone ground mustard

Instructions

Rough Puff Pastry

  1. Sift the flour and salt in a bowl. Cut up the cold butter and add it to the flour. Using your fingers, incorporate the butter into the flour until you have a coarse mixture. Add a bit of water at a time until the dough comes together in a ball. It will be coarse and sticky. But you don't want it overly wet. Cover and chill for 20 minutes.

  2. On a floured surface, knead the dough until it is a smooth dough where you can see a marbling of the butter. Don't overwork the dough.

  3. Roll out thinly into a rough rectangle. Fold into thirds in an envelope. Rotate 90 degrees and roll out again into rectangle. Fold again into thirds. Cover and chill for at least 20 minutes or until you need it to wrap the pork later.

Pork Wellington

  1. Heat half the butter in a skillet. Season the pork with sea salt and pepper. Sear all sides of the pork. Cook it about 2/3 thirds of the way. When it's done baking at the end you want the pork to be cooked thoroughly but not dry. Remove from the heat and set aside.

  2. Add more butter to the skillet. Add the mushrooms, apples, sage and garlic. Sauté for several minutes until the mushrooms begin to brown. Pour in the calvados to deglaze the pan. Cook until the liquid is reduced to nearly zero.

  3. On a piece of cling film lay out the prosciutto. Spoon the mushroom and apple mixture onto the prosciutto and spread it out. Coat the pork with the mustard and place the pork in the centre of the apple and mushroom mixture. Tightly wrap the pork in the prosciutto and seal with the cling film. Chill for 30 minutes.

  4. Roll out the pastry thinly. Place the pork into the centre. Trim the sides and wrap the pork like a burrito. Place on a baking sheet and chill for 30 minutes.

  5. Preheat the oven to 425F/220C.

  6. Brush the pastry with a beaten egg. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the pastry is golden and flaky. Let rest for at least 10 minutes before slicing.

Cider Sage Pork

Just like any food blogger that has been doing this for several years, I find inspiration and motivation for new recipes ebbs and flows. I love it when it flows, no surprise there but when life gets crazy the brain cramping definitely increases. When the imagination is sparking I make lists but sometimes ideas show themselves when you aren’t paying attention.

I was in the queue waiting to pay for my weekly food shop and I spied a magazine with a pork dish on the cover. The title for it said Cider Sage Pork. If the magazine wasn’t $10 then it would have left the rack and been perused. But it stayed. I figured I could come up with my own recipe and keep the $10!

Sweet apple is lovely with garlic and sage

We’re lucky that our co-op carries delicious sweet apples like gala or pink lady. First thing is to prepare the marinade so the pork loin can marinate for several hours. If you don’t have the time, try to marinate for at least an hour. Give the pork a chance to take on the lovely flavours. The cider I used was apple cranberry as there was a special on and I’d thought it would be fun to add the tang of cranberry to this dish. But obviously regular cider works. I should also note, the cider is non-acoholic, not the hard cider.


When it is time to cook dinner, finely chop the apple, onion, garlic and sage. Set aside. Pre-heat the oven to 350F/175C. In a skillet, heat up the olive oil and brown all sides of the pork loin.

Finish off the pork in the oven while making the sauce. Add the onion, garlic and apple to the skillet. Cook for several minutes until the onion starts to become translucent.

Add the remaining marinade and chicken stock. Bring to a simmer and add the mustard, sage and thyme. Season with sea salt and pepper.

Simmer the sauce to reduce by a third. When the pork is cooked, remove from the oven and let is rest for 8-10 minutes.

To serve, slice the pork loin and top with the sauce. To keep the dish light we had roasted potatoes and corn as sides.

I was very happy to find this inspiration while patiently waiting in a queue. I’m definitely keeping my eyes open!

Cider Sage Pork

A flavourful pork loin with apple cider, onion, and sage.  

Course Main Course
Cuisine American
Keyword Cider Sage Pork
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Servings 2
Author Our Growing Paynes

Ingredients

  • 1 pork loin (about a pound/16oz

Marinade

  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 cup apple cranberry cider 4oz
  • 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
  • 1 tsp fresh thyme
  • 2 tsp fresh sage, finely chopped
  • sea salt and pepper to taste

Sauce

  • 2 tbsp olive oil (used to brown the pork)
  • 1/2 cup thinly sliced onion
  • 1 apple, chopped
  • 2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
  • 1/2 cup chicken stock 4oz
  • marinade used for the pork
  • 2 tbsp brown mustard
  • 1 tsp fresh thyme
  • 1-2 tsp fresh sage, chopped
  • sea salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Marinade

  1. Mix the ingredients together and marinate the pork for several hours in the fridge.  If you are pressed for time, marinate for at least an hour.  

Pork Loin

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F/175C.  Heat the olive oil in a skillet and brown all sides of the pork and finish cooking in the oven.  Once cooked, rest for 8-10 minutes before slicing.

Sauce

  1. In the skillet with the olive oil used to cook the pork, add the onion, garlic and apple over medium heat.  Cook until the onion starts to become translucent.  Add the marinade and chicken stock and bring to a simmer.  Add the sage, thyme and mustard.  Season with sea salt and pepper. Simmer until the sauce reduces by a third.  

Serving

  1. Slice the pork and top with the sauce.  

Making a Leftover Thanksgiving Turkey Mac and Cheese 

We’ve all done it.  Opened the door, peered in, shut it again.  Left to wonder what exactly is in that freezer.  Despite best laid plans it’s easy to lose the plot.  Our freezer is nearly 6 feet tall so it’s really not a good idea to lose the plot!  It got to the point where we couldn’t fit anything in and I was wondering how much money we were wasting by not using what we had.  

Off I went to get clear containers to organise the meats, leaving the baskets for all our fruits and veg we had harvested.  I did have to get rid of some things but overall getting it organised and knowing what the heck was in there was a success.  

One of my finds was a vacuumed bag of leftover Thanksgiving turkey.  So this post is either well overdue or too early for Thanksgiving.  😄.  Even though we seem to be stuck back in with the sticky heat of summer we did enjoy autumn weather for a few weeks.  It was wonderful and perfect for some comfort food.  Mac and cheese would do the trick.


Would you believe this onion was supposed to be a scallion?  We planted half a raised bed of bunching onions so you imagine our surprise to find proper onions growing.

While making the cheese sauce for this dish, cook up the pasta.  Preheat the oven to 375F/200C. In a separate saucepan heat up a couple of tablespoons of butter.   Coarsely chop half of a large onion and add it to the butter.


Sauté on low until the onions soften.  Then add a couple of cloves of garlic, finely chopped.  Cook for a couple of minutes then add about a cup and a half of chopped turkey.  Season with a couple of teaspoons of fresh thyme and sage.  If you don’t have fresh sage use about a teaspoon of ground sage.  Continue to season with sea salt and pepper.  Then add a half cup/4oz of dry white wine.


To make it a roux add 2 tablespoons of flour.


Stir continuously until the flour is incorporated and cooked, about three minutes.


Next add 1 1/4 cup of milk and heat through.  Don’t boil!  Once the cheese is warm enough to melt cheese add a cup of grated cheddar and half a cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  Stir until the cheese has melted,


Put the cooked pasta into a baking dish and add the cheese sauce.  Mix well. Top with more grated cheese.


Cover and bake for 20 minutes.  Uncover and brown the top of the dish.


Serve while hot.  Now we try to eat small portions in our house but with this dish we all had seconds and there weren’t any leftovers!  Guess we needed a break from salads.  😊

Definitely Time for Comfort Food

A week ago I was filled with such anticipation of being on the cusp of history.  Since then I’ve been in complete shock, along with a lot of the world.

apple-pork-hand-pie-1-2016

I wore my version of the pantsuit.  I don’t actually have one so a suit coat would have to do!  I also wore white and purple for the colours of the suffragettes.  I was excited!  But after the evening wore on I could see the writing on the wall.  Going to sleep that night I was hoping beyond hope that the numbers would be wrong. The first thing I saw in the morning was a message on my iPad from a friend in Scotland asking what the hell did this country do.

Clinton wasn’t great shakes but I am having trouble wrapping my head round the fact that so many people accepted the sexism, the racism, the ego, the inciting of violence, and outright lies of Trump.  It pains me that these weren’t deal breakers and in fact celebrated.  I don’t know what is in store in the next few years but I can’t say my normal optimism is in play.

It was also difficult talking about it with our kids.  Fortunately they are old enough to recognise what is right and what is wrong.  Let’s just say my daughter can’t wait to be old enough to vote!

In the meantime we have to get on with our lives.  Given we had another weekend of home improvement and how the week went, comfort food was definitely in order.

apple-pork-hand-pie-2-2016

Because we still have a ton of apples from apple picking I thought a pork hand pie with apple and sage would do the trick.

For the pastry I cut in 1/2 a cup of butter into 1 1/2 cups of flour and a 1/4 tsp of salt.  When the mixture is reduced to the texture of bread crumbs and they stick together, gradually add cold water until the dough comes together.  It doesn’t take much so add a bit at a time.  Cover and set aside until it’s time to fill the dough.

In a skillet heat up about two tablespoons of olive oil.  Add about 1/2 a cup of finely chopped onions and begin to cook.  Once the onion starts to become translucent add a pound of ground pork.  Finely chop 2 large cloves of garlic and mix in.

apple-pork-hand-pie-3-2016

When the pork is half cooked add a small handful of chopped fresh sage and a small handful of sliced fresh cranberry.  Then add a spoonful of mustard and about a 1/4 cup of dry white wine.  Season with sea salt and pepper.

apple-pork-hand-pie-4-2016

Roll the dough out thinly and cut out circles.  I used a bowl for this.

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Fill one side of the dough with the filling.  I had filling leftover because I only needed one pie but that would be good for a later pasta dish!   Brush beaten egg round the edge of the pastry and fold the pastry in half.  Pinch with a fork round the edge and then put 3 small slashes in the top. Brush with the egg and bake at 425F/220C for 15-20 minutes until the pastry is golden and flaky.

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My husband made a fabulous dessert with apple and frangipane so it was a lovely meal.

Now that a week has passed I hope the grass roots efforts that are springing up to hold on to the progress we’ve made for equality and to make this place better continue.  It won’t be easy but we do have a voice.

White Wine and Sage for Pork

It was a fantastic weekend.  It just felt really productive and it was fun to hang out with the kids after our holiday.  The meds for the fibro have started to work so I feel like I’m on a roll now.  And gathering steam!

The weather was perfect and no forecast of frost so it was time to clear out the house of the multitude of seedlings we have growing.  It can be hard to time when to start them because we have no idea when the danger of frost has past.  It can be the beginning of April or the end of May.  We got most of it planted and we’re just left with the tomatoes.  I was playing it safe in case the weather people were wrong.  Which never happens.  Ahem.

I was also in crazy baking mode.  I found some burratta at the shops and wanted to do an Italian night with the kids so I made ciabatta and chopped up fresh tomatoes to go with the burratta as a starter.  I also made brioche and shortbread which I’ll be posting about soon.

I flipped through the cookery book that I have by Marcella Hazan and she had a recipe with white wine and sage for pork ribs.  I used it as an inspiration though the only two ingredients I used was the white wine and the sage.  I had a pork loin to cook for this.

White wine sage pork 1 2016

We have discovered that my son, who hates mushrooms, is ok with oyster mushrooms.  So we found some nice fresh mushrooms to pair with the fresh sage.   I chopped enough mushrooms to make up a cups’ worth.  I also finely chopped 3-4 cloves of garlic and a handful of fresh sage.

In a skillet heat up a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.  Season the pork with sea salt and pepper.  Brown all sides.

White wine sage pork 2 2016

Finish it off in the oven at 350F/175C.   In the skillet add a bit more olive oil and the mushrooms.  Saute for a few minutes then add the garlic.

White wine 3 2016

Once the mushrooms have browned a bit add 3/4 cup of dry white wine and 1/2 a cup of chicken stock.  Bring to a simmer and add the sage.  After the sauce has reduced by a third season to taste with sea salt and pepper.

I also made a mash with potato and parsnip.  To dish up add the mash and topped with sliced pork and the sauce.

White wine sage pork 4 2016

I felt the sage was a strong flavour so I would back off the sage a bit for myself but my family all thought different.  Funny how taste buds work!

Turkey Day and Despite a Tough Year, Still Grateful

Thursday is the American holiday of Thanksgiving.  For those that follow me you know this is my favourite holiday.  With all the materialism built in with a lot of holidays I like we have one where is’t just family and good food.

It’s been a tough year for my family.  We have 12 round the table and we weren’t guaranteed we’d have 12 this time round.  Fortunately my sister’s neck is just about good as new and my dad’s life saving surgery went as well as it should have.  And we are fortunate my cousin in Kenya has made a near complete recovery from his car accident.  Thank goodness the two taxi drivers rushed him to hospital barely alive.  This was while others looted his car.  So you can imagine the amount of gray hair that made light of day in our family this year!

We’re very much looking forward to 2016, as you can imagine!

For this post I wanted to reshare a few of my recipes I’ve made over the years for Thanksgiving.  I figured I’d get them in before the holiday rather than after for once.  🙂

Sage pear turkey 5 2014

The Sage Pear Turkey fast became a favourite of mine.  Pear works so well with the sage and stuffing the skin with butter just makes it divine.

Cranberry Raisin Sauce 6 2014

Hopefully this year I won’t forget to serve the cranberry sauce!  I made this last year with port and it was really delicious.  I like to do variations each year for something new.  I’ve done it with orange, ginger, thyme.  Surprisingly cranberry is a good match for many different ingredients.

Stuffing balls 6 2013

Stuffing balls are a fun variation.  These are made with pork.  This year I’ll be separating these out to have sourdough stuffing then pork balls as some can’t have gluten.

I was going to share a blog post of pumpkin pie.  Looks like I haven’t done a post on that!  Guess what will be coming soon?

For those that celebrate this holiday I hope it is a safe and fun one.  And may you not have to travel too far!

Salmon Grilled on Cedar

Timing is everything.  I wanted to have a nice Father’s Day meal but needed to make sure I cooked something that was in my dad’s diet.  That also had a lot of flavour.  Conor from One Man’s Meat posted a wonderful salmon that immediately went on my list.

And fortunately our local kitchen store had cedar planks!  I picked a meal that could be grilled or served cold as I wanted to be able to enjoy the meal and company without being chained to the kitchen.  Luckily it was a gorgeous day so we set up a table at the bottom of the back garden in the shade.  Perfect so the dogs could be there and not bother anyone.

The longest bit of the prep is soaking the cedar plank.  I picked out a pear cider from Ireland.  I love pear and sage.

Cedar grilled salmon 1 2015

Soak a cedar plank for at least a couple of hours in the cider. Put something to hold it down as it will just float otherwise.

Cedar grilled salmon 3 2015

I found a lovely piece of wild sockeye salmon for this dish.  Season with sea salt and pepper.  Lay a few fresh sage leaves onto the fish and then a couple of slices of lemon.  Place the empty plank on the grill to heat up.  Once the board is hot place the fish onto the plank.

Cedar grilled salmon 4 2015

The tricky bit here is you don’t want the grill to get so hot that the board catches fire.  And you want the fish to cook somewhat evenly.  While this was cooking I also grilled steaks marinated in Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, garlic, thyme, sea salt, and pepper.  It’s my favourite marinade.

Cedar grilled salmon 5 2015

My family loves cheese so it’s rare we don’t have a cheese plate going.

Cedar grilled salmon 8 2015

I wanted it to be a little festive, ok a lot festive, so I made the Kir Royale with champagne and chambord.  Drop in fresh raspberries and off you go!  It’s delicious.

Cedar grilled salmon 7 2015

The salmon was a hit among the seafood lovers of the group.  It didn’t overpower the flavour of the salmon but the pear and sage were wonderful.

Cedar grilled salmon 6 2015

It was a beautiful day with good food and no where to be.  A perfect afternoon celebrating my husband and my dad.  What more can you ask for?

Sage Pear Turkey

How did it get to Saturday already?  Where did this week go?  My husband is travelling for two weeks and I’ve had the kids this week.  It’s been a whirlwind of band practice, concerts, tennis practice, and herding the pets.  Plus the tax office is starting up with some things and suddenly it’s Saturday.  I hope next week goes by just as fast because then my husband will be home. 🙂

We had a lovely Thanksgiving but we delayed it a day because a snow storm blew through the night before the actual holiday.  We were lucky because we didn’t lose power but a lot of people did and they were stuck with all that food and no way to cook it.  Some got creative and fired up the old grill.

As usual we order our turkey from a local farm.  Usually we order it from Mayfair Farms a few towns over.  When we don’t it’s because I flaked and waited too long.  This year I didn’t, I ordered early and asked for a small turkey, about 12-13lbs.  Yes, that won’t be a problem, I am on the list!  Pat on the back and all.  Well, best laid plans and all that because the turkeys turned out to be even healthier and hungrier than planned.  Our turkey ended up being 17.56 lbs!  Holy moly.  So I quickly put out the word to my family members to bring containers.  Did any of them do that?  Absolutely not.  Sigh.

As I drove out into the woods to pick up our bird it started snowing and by the time I got to the farm it was really pretty.

Sage pear turkey 9 2014

Craig and Sarah, who own the farm, have been here for a few years now and have really made it into a growing concern which is wonderful.  And I was greeted by the “guard” dog who definitely had to check me out.

Sage pear turkey 8 2014

Each year I try to do the turkey a bit differently from the last to keep it fresh so I thought I would do a sage and pear roast turkey with butter.

Sage pear turkey 1 2014

I softened 1/2 cup of butter and worked in a handful of chopped fresh sage.

Sage pear turkey 2 2014

Luckily the turkey still fit into the roasting pan.  Not the lid though so I had to use tin foil to cover.  Murphy was really hoping I’d screw up somehow and the turkey would magically fly out of the pan and onto the floor.

Sage pear turkey 3 2014

I’ll admit I don’t like this next step of mucking about with raw poultry.  I stuffed most of the butter under the skin and what little was left rubbed into the outside of the skin.  Season with salt and pepper.  I used white pepper because we ran out of regular pepper.

Sage pear turkey 4 2014

In the basin of the pan add a peeled pear, chopped, half a red onion, a few cloves of garlic, a handful of sage, and a few teaspoons of fresh thyme.  Add 1/2 cup of dry sherry, and a couple of cups of water.  Cover with tin foil or a lid and begin roasting at 325F/160C.  If the turkey is less than 15lbs, cook it 15 minutes per pound, if more than than, then drop it to 12 minutes.  This is per the Fanny Farmer cookbook.  So our turkey was about 3 1/2 hours.  An hour and a half in I basted.  When there is an hour to an hour and a half left remove the cover.  Normally I wait to the last 45 minutes but because I added so much butter I knew this wouldn’t dry out.

Sage pear turkey 5 2014

Now I love turkey skin and let me tell you this was amazing.  Crispy and full of flavour!  And because I put in all the ingredients for the gravy at the beginning it is just about made.  I put it on the boil and add dissolved corn flour a bit at a time to get the thickness I want.  Stir constantly.  I usually add a bit of Gravy Master but not too much because I want the subtle flavours of the pear and sage to come through.

Sage pear turkey 6 2014

We did our usual roast veg and I made the stuffing balls I did last year.  I also made a fabulous cranberry port sauce.  That I forgot to serve. Honestly, all that effort.  All well I’ll serve it at Christmas.

Sage pear turkey 7 2014

Of course we had way too much food.  I always stress about making sure we have enough food though logically I know we’ll have leftovers taking over the fridge.  But it was wonderful to have family together for my favourite holiday.

Sweet Potato, Apple, and Pork

With trying to branch out in our cooking and the gluten free experiment I have to get creative in how I use the ingredients.  That includes trying to use veg that I really don’t like.  Being a supertaster I’ve been limited because things like squash, sweet potato, zucchini, etc can be bitter to me.  Fortunately I’m having success in making these ingredients palatable for me but still letting some of that flavour that my family likes through.  Which is great because I’d love to be more seasonal with the local foods.  Kind of makes me wish I tried this before!

There was some sweet potato and rutabaga in the fridge that needed to be used up plus a bin full of apples.  I chopped up the sweet potato and rutabaga and covered with two cups chicken stock and 1 cup water.  Cook on a high simmer until they are about half cooked.

Sweet potato apple puree 1 2014

Add some sage and lemon thyme and one chopped apple.  Finish cooking the sweet potato and rutabaga.

Sweet potato apple puree 2 2014

While this is cooking, brown the pork in a skillet and finish it by baking.  Mix some olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper.  Set aside and chop up some mustard greens.  In a food processor spoon in the sweet potato, rutabaga, and apple leaving the liquid in reserve.  Add 1/4 cup of dry white wine.  Pulse while adding the cooking liquid a bit at a time until you get the consistency you want.   Layer the pork over the puree and top with the mustard greens.  Dress with the olive oil and lemon.

Sweet potato apple puree 3 2014

Next time I would use a little less rutabaga but we had to use it up.  Other than that I can say I like sweet potato.  In some things.  😉

Hot Italian Sausage with Apples and Sage

It’s been a fun week so far.  Last night a few of the ladies from our PTA decided we needed a girl’s night out.  It was a lot of fun and we stayed out past 10 on a week night!  LOL.  Today our school put on a volunteer tea for those of us that have been volunteering with the PTA and other school activities.  It was lovely with iced tea and baked goods.  A treat in the middle of the week and I got to see the kids on an off kid week.  Bonus!  Now if the pending thunderstorms hold off until we get the dogs walked, well, we’ll just be riding high.

At our farmer’s market I bought some ground hot Italian sausage and I wanted to do some meatballs.  I saw an idea for using apples and sage.  Once again though the pin was considered spam and didn’t give me a recipe.  That’s ok though, I was able to come up with something.  🙂

I made our homemade pasta first so it was ready to go.

I was pleased to see our sage was doing well again this year so I had some fresh sage at hand.  The plants only last about three years or so.

Apple Sage Sausages 1 2014

Peel and chop about 1/2 a cup of apple.  Give the rest to the optimistic dogs at your feet.  I swear the mantra is “drop it, drop it, drop it”.   In a small bowl mix about a pound of the sausage, the apple, chopped sage, and salt and pepper to taste.

Apple Sage Sausages 2 2014

Form the sausage into balls and heat up olive oil in a skillet.  Brown both sides.

Apple Sage Sausages 3 2014 Apple Sage Sausages 4 2014

Bake the meatballs at 375F/190C until cooked.  In the meantime prepare the sauce.  Chop up some onion and a couple cloves of garlic and saute in the pan that browned the meatballs.  Slice up mushrooms and add to the mixture and saute for a few minutes.

Apple Sage Sausages 5 2014

Add a cup of reisling and a cup of chicken stock and bring to a simmer.  Reduce about a third.

Apple Sage Sausages 6 2014

Add about 3/4 cup of milk or cream to the dish.  Bring to a low simmer but do not boil.  Add the meatballs and the cooked pasta.

Apple Sage Sausages 7 2014

Grate fresh parmesan cheese over the dish and serve.  I do like the pairing of sage and apple and it went well with the spice of the sausage.