Smoked sausage and spaghetti

For the last several days I have been making some modifications to the site. A few one them are obvious, like the random gallery and the little ad block on the right. A few changes have more to do with streamlining and formatting and are less obvious. Well, because I have spent more time on the site than cooking I don’t have any gallery or recipe today. Instead I have a simple meal suggestion.

Pasta is almost as easy as it gets when it comes to feeding yourself in college. It’s fairly filling and about as easy as boiling water. The problem is that it gets monotonous. Unless you happen to be Josh. It’s easy enough to add some variety to spaghetti and pasta sauce. Meat is probably the most obvious route. Whatever you happen to have in the freezer, 1lb of smoked sausage or a few chicken breasts, will go well with pasta.

Assuming that your meat of choice is not frozen, cut it into bite-size pieces and cook them however you see fit. I usually put either chicken or sausage with some spices in a skillet with some oil. In fact, this chicken will work just fine. Be sure that the meat is cooked through to your satisfaction before you go eating it though. While the meat is cooking get the water for the pasta boiling and the sauce warming in a saucepan. Once the meat is done just drain the oil and put the meat in the sauce with anything else you might want over spaghetti. Maybe some finely chopped onions or shredded cheese.

Different meats or vegetables added to pasta changes the flavor and provided some variety, which is apparently the spice of life. It’s also a good way to use up leftovers.

I improvised by just baking the corn dogs on a baking sheet. What resulted was, as anticipated, cornbread coated hot dogs. They were not really corn dogs. Honestly I would rather have chopped the hot dogs up and tossed them into the cornbread, but for an experiment they weren’t too bad. Next time  I will make sure that I have enough oil.

In other news, my plans for the site are moving slowly but surely. Hopefully by the end of my spring break I will have redone the Food page as well as the way posts show up here on the front page. Ideally there will be description of what was made (like the one you just read) followed by a continued link. Clicking the post title or the continued link will take you off to the full post, displaying the recipe and possibly gallery as well. I’m not sure yet.

Finals week is fast approaching though. School takes priority.

I don't recommend using a bowl with meals that must be cut.

I’m sorry that this update is a day late. Yesterday was particularly busy, studying for two midterms today. Anyway, this is the post that should have gone up yesterday.

I had some chicken breast sitting in the freezer slowly working their way toward a freezer burn last week, as well as half a dozen potatoes that were going to start sprouting soon. The logical thing to do was to make chicken and mashed potatoes. Oddly enough I had never made mashed potatoes before.

In the end this was a shockingly simple yet tasty meal. The key was the excessive amount of herbs I used on both the chicken and the potatoes. The chicken was just a little spicy with some chipotle and Caribbean jerk seasoning. The mashed potatoes had some of the skins left in as well as parsley, garlic and oregano added.

Boiling the potatoes was the most time consuming part of the meal, but it isn’t exactly difficult. You really just boil them until you can split them with a fork. It worked out pretty well, as it was both cheap and filling.

On a related note, the chicken was wonderful the next day. I sliced it thin and put it on a sandwich with some provolone and chipotle ranch dressing. It was be even better over a spinach salad though. make extra chicken and use the leftovers the next day. No reason to waste good chicken.

I was rushed, so this is a picture of the last pot of stew.

Last night I decided to make a double batch of the spicy chicken stew that I made about two weeks ago. The stew came out wonderful and was once again more or less completely gone by the time the night was over. I had about enough leftover for two good sized bowls.

One very important change to the recipe: chicken breasts instead of thighs. The meat was softer and considerably better tasting. Absolutely worth the extra cost.

As I expected, the stew is, in fact, better the next day. The flavors had more time to mingle and the stew thickened up considerably. The same is true of the Red Beans and Rice and Gumbo (which is not up yet). The problem is of course that no one really wants to wait an entire day to eat something that smells so good.

In addition to the stew I made what amounts to one of the easiest warm party dishes I have ever made. I bought two packs of cocktail wienies and two bottles of BBQ sauce when picking up the chicken for the stew.

All I had to do was warm the BBQ sauce and toss it in a crock pot on high with the hot dogs, a shot of Jack Daniels and some ground chipotle.  The alcohol will cook out as the heat rises leaving the flavor behind, so don’t worry about that. Once it was warm enough I turned it back down to low, but it really just takes care of itself. Unfortunately there aren’t any pictures because I was a little rushed to get everything done as quickly as possible, so the picture is of the last pot.

Spicy Chicken Stew

So last night at about 6 p.m. I decided that maybe it was time to make dinner. I had bow-tie pasta, chicken thighs and a variety of spices and vegetables on hand. The logical food to make was of course stew. If you’re going to make stew you might as well make cornbread as well.

I decided to make a spicy stew, using Jamaican jerk seasoning, chipotle and cajun seasoning for spice. I also added seasoning salt, a bay leaf, garlic powder and some black pepper. The spices gave the stew a nice heat. Not so spicy that it was unpleasant. Even Tim didn’t seem to mind the heat. Even with good spices, stew is nothing without vegetables. I added a little of everything I had on hand: potatoes, carrots, onion and celery.

The cornbread was simple enough. I prepared a box worth of jiffy cornbread to the recipe. Well, I baked it to the recipe. I added honey, butter, chipotle, a dash of seasoning salt and cajun seasoning. The result was a very sweet, somewhat hot cornbread. Beware though, the honey will make the muffins extra sticky. Prepare accordingly.

In the end I’m very pleased with how this stew came out. It seems to be one of those dishes (like red beans and rice) that is much better if you save it for the next day. Don’t misunderstand though. It was great to eat last night, but the little bit of leftovers I had today were even better.

The recipe made enough to give four people second helpings. Were I to do anything different I would use chicken breast instead of chicken thigh — which were very low quality — and start the cornbread much earlier. As it turned out everyone was well into their first bowl by the time the cornbread was done. This recipe was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, so if you make it please drop me a comment and let me know how it comes out.

Served over Rice and cornbread.

Just a quick update: I have completed my first gallery for the site.
You can hop over to the Food tab and look under sub-pages for now. Red Beans and Rice, to be specific. I am devising a better way to manage the galleries, but for now this will have to do. I imagine that I will have a gallery page up soon. Expect another update within the next few hours.

I will probably post my focaccia bread as both a gallery and a recipe as well as the french bread that I made for brunch over the weekend. Then again, I don’t know that brunch can be served at 2 p.m., even if it is french toast. Oh well. We’re not here to argue the definition of food terms. Yet.