Squid Ink Couscous

Nothing says adult spooky like cooking with squid ink! This dish will impress all of your fancy grown up friends out there, and is great for Halloween dinner parties. We have made for you squid ink couscous, topped with Andouille sausage, oven roasted acorn squash, and dehydrated kale! Enjoy!

Ingredients: serves 4

3 cups pearl couscous
4 teaspoons squid ink
½ yellow onion
2 cloves garlic
1 acorn squash
4 pre-cooked Andouille sausages
2 large leaves kale
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 Tablespoon canola oil
1 teaspoon garlic salt
kosher salt

I always like starting by preparing the items that top the dish, so that I can have that out of the way and cooked.

Preheat oven to 400. Cut acorn squash in half, then into 1 inch thick slices. Using a knife, remove skin, cube, toss in oil, place on baking sheet, then sprinkle with garlic salt. Cook squash for about 30 minutes, rotating half way through.

Reduce heat to 275. Tear kale up into small pieces, discarding the stem, and placing on a baking sheet.   Cook kale for 15 minutes.

Since the sausage is already cooked, simply cut on a diagonal and cook at medium high until you get a slight sear. This will also bring out the spiciness of the meat.

Set all of this aside so we can now make our couscous. Melt butter in a large non stick sauce pan on medium high heat. While that is melting mince up garlic and onion. Cook onion and garlic in butter until onion softens and becomes semi translucent. Add 4 ½ cups of water to onion and garlic and bring to a boil. Add squid ink and make sure that it completely dissolves before adding the couscous. Bring the water back to a boil, lower to a simmer, cover and let simmer for 10 minutes.

Once the couscous is done, fluff it with a fork. Serve in a dish, pinch salt to your taste, top with squash, then sausage, then add the kale at the very end.

Boo!!!

 

Winter Pasta!

Christmas is right around the corner, the temperatures are dropping a bit, life is getting bit more hectic. We have a created a simple yet delicious kale, mushroom, and sausage pasta with a noisette sauce. This is a dish you can throw together at the last minute and satisfy a family!

*We used Casarecce pasta, it holds flavor nicely, but go ahead and used whatever kind you want!

Ingredients: serves 4

1 box casarecce pasta
2 heads kale
2 cups oyster mushrooms
4 Italian sausages
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 Tablespoons ponzu
1 Tablespoon oil
A few inches of Salt

Start by cleaning and slicing both kale and your mushrooms separately. In a large sauté pan heat up your oil on medium high heat, and put all of your kale in. Using tongs, turn the kale so it evenly cooks for the first few minutes. Add the ponzu and let the kale cook down, turning every 5 minutes for about 25 minutes.  Once the 25 minutes are up, add the mushrooms. Let cook an additional 10 minutes, turning every few minutes. Remove from pan, and set aside.

Depending on what kind of sausage you purchase, some are cooked first, others are raw; if cooked slice and brown. If not, poke small holes, cook all the way through, and then slice. Set aside.

Fill a pot with water and a pinch of salt. Once water has boiled add pasta and cook until just al dente about 9 minutes.

Cube your butter, and melt it in the same sauté pan as you cooked your kale on a medium heat. Cook until the butter becomes a light golden color, add a pinch of salt. When butter becomes the color, it becomes almost nutty and very delicious.

Once pasta is cooked, drain, and place into butter, and make sure all the pasta gets coated in butter. Next add kale, mushrooms, and sausage, and toss together! Sprinkle with extra salt to your taste!

Enjoy!

Curry Scotch Egg!

  At the current moment we are up in Sequoia National Forest where my (Francesca’s) parents currently live. It is about 40-50 degrees, which for people who live in California can be quite crisp. This Thanksgiving we are spending it up here for a change of scenery, weather, and pace. To go along with this more laid back and chillier holiday we are making a real traditional English dish called a Scotch Egg, which is essentially a boiled egg wrapped in sausage! It is a perfect breakfast dish, or served here as a lunch item, but is also great to have as a snack, even a snack on the go…basically great whenever.

Ingredients: makes 4

6 eggs
5 bratwurst sausages
2 cups vegetable oil
1 cup panko bread crumbs
½ cup flour
Teaspoon yellow curry
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
Pinch of salt
Frisee lettuce
2 Tablespoons olive oil
½ a lemon

To start out this endeavor soft boil 4 eggs, by placing 4 eggs in cold water on the stove and heat water to a boil. Once the water boils, boil for 4 minutes. Remove from heat and place in cold water bath.

Now that we have our eggs, we can set everything else up. We are going to set up three plates; one with flour, the next with two beaten eggs, and the third with the panko bread crumbs and cayenne mixed together. Next Remove sausage from casings and add a pinch of salt, then using your hands, mix everything together! To make things easy for myself I separated the sausage mix into 4 equal portions. Lastly remove eggs from shells.

Now that we have all of that, we are ready to assemble. Putting flour on your hands, take a sausage portion and pat out into a large oval, large enough that it will wrap around the egg but not so large that it will overwhelm it. Roll one of the eggs in flour, and wrap sausage around it. Next roll sausage in egg, and then in panko breadcrumbs. Set to the side and repeat for all four.

After you have made all four, turn oven on to 425, and pour oil into large sauté pan and heat on medium high heat. To check to see if oil is hot enough, you can drop a few drops of panko and if it sizzles it is ready. Place all four scotch eggs in the oil and cook for 6-7 minutes, rotating so that they cook evenly, cook until it is a deep golden brown. To finish off cooking place in oven and cook another 7 minutes.

To serve, place on frieze lettuce tossed with lemon and oil, and voila! Cut in half, enjoy!

Korean- Italian Chili!

Super bowl is right around the corner, it finally drizzled for 2 seconds, and there was a chili cook-off! Do we need more reasons for a delicious chili? Not just chili, but a Korean Italian chili? I will say no more!!!

*PS Kochucara is a wonderful  Korean powdered chili, and Gochujang is an equally wonderful Korean chili paste!

Ingredients: serves 10

5 lbs ground beef
3 lbs ground pork
5 large spicy Italian sausages
3 yellow onions
1 ½ bunches scallions
5 cloves garlic
1 cup Hoisin
¾ cup Gochujang
1/3 cup Kochucara
2 cups orange juice
2 cups tomato sauce
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
3 cans kidney beans
4 Tablespoons olive oil
4 jalapenos
2 Serrano chilies
¼ cup red wine

To start it all off create your mise en place by cubing the yellow onions, slicing the scallions, macerating the garlic, and dicing the peppers (be careful to not touch your face and wash hands after touching pepper!) Also set aside two large sauce pans, and one spaghetti pot.

In a large bowl take sausage out of the casings, and mix together with ground pork, ground beef, garlic, and scallions.

In both sauce pan heat equal amounts of olive oil. When oil is heated sauté equal amounts of yellow onion in each until becoming translucent.  Add the meat mix and mash it up into smaller pieces. Let cook about 15 minutes, turning over to let cook all the way through.

Transfer to spaghetti pot. Add the rest of the ingredients and let cook for about 1 hour on medium low heat, stirring every 15 minutes so that the bottom doesn’t burn.

While it cooks over the hour test the flavor, it will change over time. You may want to add more spice, or cool it out with more orange juice. Be the master of your own chili!

Oktoberfest Pretzel Wrapped Beer Dog

Though Oktoberfest had ended, there is no reason to not enjoy the festivities longer. Oktoberfest typically runs from the end of September until the first week of October. Oktoberfest is a festival held in Germany and has been held since 1810, and is a festival modeled after traditional fairgrounds. There are games played, beer is sampled, and there is delicious food. To honor Oktoberfest, and October, we have made for you a pretzel wrapped beer dog! You get three fabulous things at once; sausage, pretzel, and beer!

*Takes about an hour and 30 minutes. Also using a grill pan is optional.  

Ingredients: makes 6

Pretzel:
4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 ¼ cups warm water  
 5 cups all-purpose flour
 ½ cup white sugar
 1 ½ teaspoons salt
 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
½ cup baking soda
 4 cups hot water
 ¼ cup kosher salt, for topping

Sausage:

1 Tablespoon oil
6 Bratwursts
1 yellow onion
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
4 cups beer (whatever you like)

 

 

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar in warm water. Leave alone until creamy, about 10 minutes.

 

In a large bowl, mix together flour, ½  cup sugar, and salt. Make a well in the center; add oil and yeast mixture. Using an electric mixer if you have one, mix into a dough. If the mixture is dry, add one or two tablespoons of water. Knead the dough until smooth, about 7 to 8 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

 

While the dough is setting you will now make the beer dogs. Heat oil in a large sauce pan; dice the yellow onion and place in the pan, cook onion until softened. Add beer and bring to a boil. Once boiling add brats and allow the beer to simmer and cook for 10 minutes.

 

If you want to have grill marks on the brats for color, heat a grill pan, and grill brats until you see grill marks (about 4 minutes). Set aside to cool.

 

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Boil hot water and baking soda.

 

When dough has risen, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 6 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rope and twist into a pretzel shape. Roll pretzel around brats, if you need help keeping it in place you can use toothpicks on each end. Once all the brats are covered in pretzel dough, dip each pretzel into the baking soda solution and place on a greased baking sheet. Sprinkle with kosher salt.

 

Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes, until browned.

 

Enjoy your delicious pretzel wrapped beer dog!

 

Happy October!

 



Grilled Salad Pizza and Grilled Sausage Pizza!!

The summer is officially winding down, which is absolutely not okay, seeing as Michael and I feel that we have barely been able to enjoy it at all. However we did receive sweet vacay time last week, this is the reason why we have been MIA.

My family has a cabin in sequoia national forest, about 4 hours from Los Angeles, with a view of mountains, trees, and the Tule river; it is one of my favorite places to go in the whole world. This last time we decided to try some really healthy eating, and in the meantime also slide in a lil grilled pizza.

This recipe is so simple, and because we wanted it to be camping and BBQing friendly, we used a simple dough mix and added our favorite toppings. We made a sausage, onion, and mushroom pizza with a light sauce, and a salad pizza. Enjoy these recipes, there is no way you will be disappointed.

*We used Auntie Annie’s mix, the kind that makes pretzel, it is also a bomb pizza dough mix.

Ingredients:

Dough mix or premade dough

Sausage Pizza:

1 cup crushed tomatoes

1 teaspoons dried oregano

1 teaspoon garlic salt

5 sweet Italian sausages

3 small green onions

½ cup sliced mushrooms

Salad pizza:

2 cups mixed lettuce

3 cloves garlic diced

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Pinch of salt



 

 

Before you do anything, if you need to mix your dough, do so now because dough needs about 40 minutes to rise. The actual cooking of the pizza goes by really quickly so it is important to create your mise en place and lay out everything first.

Start by slicing mushrooms, slicing onion, dicing garlic, and measuring your olive oil out. To create the sauce all you need to do is mix the diced tomatoes, oregano, and garlic salt in a small bowl.

Next because we don’t want any of the sausage to be served raw, in a sauté pan, break up your sausage links into small bits and cook until your sear it and it is almost completely cooked all the way through.

Now that we have everything prepped, get your grill started. Lay your coals out evenly because we don’t want just the middle to cook. Have low heat, otherwise the dough will burn before you have time to cook the middle (trust me I had REALLY doughy pizza the first time haha).

Maybe set up a little table by the BBQ  so that you have everything close by, and be sure that you have a paper towel or a brush to brush the olive oil on for the salad pizza.

Once the dough is ready, separate it into two different pizzas. Roll them out about a 1/4 inch thick, so not that thick, and put back in the fridge to let harden for about 5 minutes.

Now lets get grilling! Start with the salad pizza, because this one is good cold. Once the coals are ready, pull the pizza off the plate and lay on the BBQ. The pizza will instantly start to bubble, and you only want to cook for about 2-3 minutes, brush with olive oil trying not to pop the bubbles. Now flip, and brush more olive oil on, top with garlic, and a pinch of salt. Cook for another 3 minutes and pull off and let cool.

Now to cook the sausage pizza, cook first side of down then flip. Quickly put sauce on, then sprinkle evenly the sausage, mushroom, and onion, and then cover the BBQ with the lid. This lets the toppings cook a little while preventing the bottom from burning. Only do this for about 4-5 minutes, and then pull off.

*If you aren’t happy with how cooked the toppings are but the crust is cookes, put the pizza under a low broil in the oven for about 5-10 more minutes until the toppings are cooked more, even add a little olive oil to help. But watch it, you don’t want to burn it.

Finish up the salad pizza by adding the lettuce and the remainder of olive oil and balsamic vinegar and serve with the hot of the grill sausage pizza.

Happy pizza grillin!