Vineyard Sausages

Some people have a real fruit and meat aversion.  Me, I'm not one of those!  I love to have something sweet, and juicy to combine with each mouthful of meat.

I have looked at this recipe several times, and contemplated making it.  Today however, way the day the gods deemed to be the day!  It was raining, I was stuck inside, and didn't feel like going out.   I had also set about cleaning out the fridge (joy oh joy - one of my favourite jobs!) You just never know what you are going to uncover!!!  Little frozen packages of mystery that you have carefully packed away and frozen, rather than thrown away.  Somehow, you just never seem to get back to them - or do you - is it just me that likes to make frozen mystery packages??

Well it seems I had an over abundance of sausages in the freezer - so tonight's meal must have sausages - but not just plain old, boring sausages - let's do the thing with grapes!!!!

Vineyard Sausages 
From Faking It Cookbook

Serves 4

1 tbs olive oil
12 pork or chicken chipolata sausages
1 eschalot, finely chopped
2 cups seedless grapes
1/2 cup white wine
2 tsp chopped rosemary leaves
2 tsp honey

Heat a large frypan over medium high heat.  Add the sausages and cook, turning, for 8-10 minutes, until cooked through and golden.

Remove the sausages from the pan, keep warm.

Drain any excess oil from the pan, add the olive oil.  Return the pan to medium heat.  Add the eschalot, cook for 3-4 minutes, or until starting to soften.  Add the grapes, and cook for another couple of minutes, or until the grapes start to soften.  Add the wine, rosemary, and honey.  Stir until well combined.  Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Add the sausages back to pan, and heat through.

Serve with peas and bacon, and fresh crusty bread.

Peas and Bacon

1 eschalot, finely chopped
3 rashers short cut bacon
1 cup frozen peas

Heat a small amount of olive oil in a small frypan over medium high heat.  Add the bacon and eschalot, cook, stirring frequently for 5 minutes, or until the eschalot and bacon have softened.  Add the peas, and cook, stirring often for another 5 minutes.

Focaccia
From EDC Thermomix Cookbook

400g lukewarm water
20g dry yeast
20g oil
500g bakers flour
salt to taste

Place water, yeast and oil into TM bowl.  Mix for 5 seconds on speed 6.

Add flour and salt and mix for 20 seconds on speed 6.

Set the dial to closed lid position and knead for 2 minutes on Interval speed.

Remove dough from bowl and place in an oiled bowl.  Allow to rise in a wamr place for up to an hour.

Knock down the dough and shape.  Allow to rise again for another 30 minutes.

After the second proving, garnish with olive oil, rosemary, parmesan cheese and sea salt.

Bake in oven that has been preheated to 200C for 20-30 minutes, or until golden.

So Dear Readers do you have little mystery packages buried deep down in the frozen tundra that is your freezer??  Are you able to keep tabs on exactly what you have in there - no duplicates of anything???

Italian Pork Meatballs

When is a sausage not a sausage? When you turn it into something that both you and the kids love!!! I saw this recipe in the current edition of Delicious Magazine - and knew straight away that it would be a winner with "The Darlings".  Of course I have "tweaked" it a little - as I usually do!!!  Here is what we ended up with!

Italian Pork Meatballs
Adapted from Delicious Magazine - March Edition

Serves 6


1kg Pork, Sage and Onion Sausages
2 tbs each oregano and rosemary
120g fresh breadcrumbs
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
2 x 700g bottles passata
red wine
2-3 tbs tomato paste
1 tbs TM vegetable stock concentrate
500g dried spaghetti
handful of fresh basil, chopped

Parmesan and crumbled fetta to serve

Place the breadcrumbs in the Thermomix bowl - process for 10 seconds on speed 8.  Place in a bowl.  To the TM bowl add the onion, garlic, oregano and rosemary, process fro 3 seconds on speed 7, scrape down bowl and repeat until processed to your liking.  Squeeze the meat from the sausages into the TM bowl along with the chopped herbs/onion.  Add the breadcrumbs and process on Interval speed, closed lid position, for 2 minutes.

Taking small spoonfuls, make meatballs approximately the size of walnuts.  Allow to sit for 20 minutes in the fridge to firm up.

Heat a frypan to medium high heat, and brown the meatballs in batches, until they are slightly golden.

Place in a large saucepan, add the passata (now here is what I did - I added a good slug of red wine to the passata bottle to ensure I got it all from the bottle - so this is not an exact science!!)  Add the tomato paste, and the stock concentrate.  Season with salt and pepper, and  basil. Simmer for 10 - 15 minutes, or until the meatballs are cooked through.  In the meantime cook your pasta, drain well.

Add the cooked pasta to the meatballs and sauce.

Serve with crumbled fetta, and or grated parmesan cheese.

One of "The Darlings" said to me "Mum, this is the best meal ever - Only one thing would have made it better - your garlic bread!!  (Sorry, didn't have time for that today - perhaps next time!!!) Music to my ears!!!

So the humble sausage had a makeover, and turned itself into a family friendly Italian Meatballs dish that had everyone coming back for seconds!!!

Oven Baked Chicken Paella

This recipe is in the current edition of Super Food Ideas magazine.  Liss from Frills in the Hills recently blogged the same recipe.  I had been tempted to try it, and after seeing her blog, I decided to give it a go.  Me being me, in my usual style, did make a few modifications - the recipe I am giving you is my take on the recipe printed in the mag.

Oven Baked Chicken and Sausage Paella


Serves 4-6

1/2 tsp saffron threads
2 tbs boiling water
4 cups chicken stock *
2 tsp olive oil
3 sliced sausages **
1.2kg drumettes (this will give you approx 20 drumettes)
2 tbs paprika
2 onions, finely diced
3 cloves crushed garlic
2 cups arborio rice
1 cup frozen peas
chargrilled capsicum ***

Preheat oven to 180C.

Place saffron threads in a small heatproof bowl, cover with boiling water, and set aside until needed. (This will allow the flavours to develop).

Heat your stock until it is boiling.  Set aside (covered until needed).

Heat a large frypan over medium high heat.  Add the sausage slices, and cook on both sides until browned (2-3 minutes each side).  Transfer to a plate.  Add the chicken drumettes to the pan, sprinkle with half the paprika, and cook for approximately 5 minutes, or until browned on all sides.  Remove from pan, and place with cooked sausage.

At this point I wiped out the frypan with paper towels to remove the excess oil.

Add the olive oil, and then add the onions and garlic, cook stirring for 3 minutes, or until softened.  Add the rice, remaining paprika and saffron mixture.  Cook, stirring for 1 minute, to coat the rice.  Transfer the rice mixture to a large roasting/casserole dish.

Pour the stock over the rice, stir to combine.  Add the chicken drumettes and sausage to the dish, make sure to push the chicken down in to the stock mixture.  Pour over the peas, and chargrilled capsicum.

Cover the pan tightly with several layers of foil.  Bake in the oven for 50 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let sit for a further 10 minutes, just to let the steam finish the cooking process.

Now you may like to top this with chopped tomatoes, and parsley - but I thought it was fine as it was.

* For the chicken stock I used the concentrated stock that I made with the Thermomix - I used 3 tbs of stock concentrate added to 4 cups of boiling water.

** The recipe actually called for chorizo sausages, and I thought I had some in the freezer, but once I had thawed them out and cut into them I found that they were actually cheese kranskys.  Not to worry, these turned out probably better, as they were not as spicy for "The Darlings".  So use whatever kind of sausage you like I say!!

*** I had a bottle of chargrilled capsicum in the fridge left over from making pizzas - use as much or as little as you like of this!

All in all this was a very good, easy, family friendly dinner.  Of course those that know "the Darlings" well will already know that they had to arm themselves with a spare plate to remove any "green" objects (peas) to!!  I pray for the day to come when they will eat a vegetable without gagging!!!  I live in fear that their wives are going to berate me for the rest of my days because they are such fussy eaters!!  Lord knows I try - but they continue to remove, or gag!!!

Dear Readers do you know of any children that are as fussy as mine (please tell me a story even if you don't - just to make me feel better!)?

Gnocchi with Meatballs and Brown Bread Ice Cream

We had a bit of a disjointed weekend this weekend - or should I say hectic.  I was watching one of "The Darlings" compete at an athletics carnival all day Friday and then we flew to Byron Bay for the weekend to celebrate a milestone birthday in the family.  So, not a lot was prepared in the food department this weekend, and not a lot of preparation (read grocery shopping) was done either!

Needless to say yesterday, although feeling a little wiped out from the weekend, I decided that a little time in the kitchen would fix that.  I had one of "The Dalrings" home yesterday - he too was wiped out!!  I asked him what he would like for dinner, and the response was gnocchi!!  What should I do - the usual spag bol type thing, or something creamy????  I had the gnocchi already, and most of the things to add whichever way I went - just needed to decide on the meat.  After wandering aimlessly in the meat department I stumbled upon these..

They were on special too - 2 packs for $8.00!!  Bargain.  So it was decided Gnocchi with meatballs.

This is the quantity that I made - it made a lot - enough for 6 with leftovers!!

Gnocchi with Meatballs


Serves 6


2 x 500g packets of sausages of choice 
1 x 500g bottle of good quality pasta sauce
1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes
1 x onion, finely chopped
2 cloves crushed garlic
150g bacon, diced
1 large zucchini, quartered, then cut into chunks
3/4 cup of frozen peas
2 x 500g packets gnocchi (shelf kind or fresh)
150g grated cheese
100g grated parmesan cheese


Preheat oven to 180 C.


Make a small cut in the end of the sausages, and squeeze out small amounts to make little meatballs.  Gently fry in a non stick frying pan over medium heat for approximately 5 minutes, or until cooked.  Remove from pan, and place on a plate that has been lined with a paper towel to remove any excess fat.  Repeat with remaining sausages, until all cooked.

Now cook the onion, bacon, garlic for approximately 3 minutes, or until the onion starts to soften, now add the zucchini and peas and cook for a further 3-4 minutes, or until the zucchini starts to soften, and the peas are no longer frozen.


Add the pasta sauce, tomatoes, and the sausages.  Season to taste with freshly ground black pepper, and any salt if needed.


Cook the gnocchi according to directions on the packet.  Drain.


Place the sausage, tomato mixture into a large ovenproof dish.  Cover with the gnocchi, then top with the grated cheeses.  Bake in the oven for approximately 15-20 minutes, or until the golden on top.

There you have it a really easy meal.  Of course "The Darlings" picked out the green things - but oh well, such is life!!!  I am resigned to the fact that they will never eat a green thing!!!

And for dessert ........

Brown Bread Ice Cream


2 litres of good quality vanilla ice cream 
150g fresh brown/wholemeal bread (approx 3 slices)
150g brown sugar
50g caster sugar


Leave the ice cream out of the freezer for approximately 30 minutes, depending on weather - or until/ soft enough to incorporate mixture with a spoon.


Preheat oven to 200 C.


Line a baking sheet with baking paper.


Process the bread into breadcrumbs.  Lay out on the baking paper.  Sprinkle the sugar over the top of the breadcrumbs, making sure that there is sugar all over the crumbs.

Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until the sugar starts to caramelise.  Now be very careful here - it may take a little longer - but once the sugar starts to caramelise it turns very fast.  Mine actually "caught" around the edges - but that's ok - just take the middle bits - there are heaps of crumbs!

Allow the crumbs to cool.  Break apart into small chunks.  Place the ice cream into a large bowl, and carefully incorporate the crumbs into the ice cream, working fast so that you don't end up with a sloppy milk mixture!!

Put the ice cream back into the container, and freeze for several hours (at least 6).


Serve with fresh strawberries.

You really must try this.  It doesn't taste anything like what you think it will.  The brown bread turns into crunchy toffee - and unless you are told, you would probably never guess it was actually bread in there!!

One Pot Sausage Hot Pot

You know I am not sure that I really like long weekends.  They lull you into a false sense of security.  You put off doing jobs because you know that you have three long days to do things in, as opposed to two, and then WHAMMO before you know it the third day is upon you and you have so much to do, how are you going to get it all done!! Then you have the old favourite day of the week "monday" which is actually Tuesday, and you are all confused.  You forget which day you are really on, what sport is on today, what day is it again???

So that brings me to Tuesday.... tennis night, gym night.  Home at 7'ish.  What to cook - something that can be consumed relatively easily so that MasterChef can be watched (you know that is NEVER going to happen don't you??).  I tried - why do they have to have a 30 minute show on Tuesday night - I barely saw the credits last night - thank god for the internet!!!  Will have to catch it sometime next weekend!

What did we have for dinner last night?  An all in one pot (well except for the pasta, which was actually an afterthought anyway as I was starving because I had only a banana for lunch - too busy catching up on all those jobs I missed out on during the weekend!!)

...One Pot Sausage Hot Pot


Serves 5


1kg extra lean beef chipolata sausages (I used the Peppercorn ones - they have hidden veggies in them!!)
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves crushed garlic
400g can cannellini beans, drained, rinsed
800g can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup barbeque sauce
1 tbs brown sugar


Real easy - brown off the sausages - you don't need to cook them right through.  If you have a good non stick fry pan you wont need any oil.  Put the sausages to one side.  


Add a small amount of oil to the pan and add the onions and garlic.  Cook for 5-6 minutes, or until the onion has softened.  Add the beans, tomaotes, barbeque sauce and sugar.  Mix well.  Return the sausages to the pan.  Cook on medium heat for approximately 25 minutes, or until the sausages are cooked, and the sauce has thickened.


Serve with risoni pasta and bread.

A meal that they will all eat, so easy to cook, and not much washing up!!!

So what is for Wednesday night's dinner.... always a dilemma.  Will have to ponder more on that as the day goes on!!