BBQ Smoked Sausage, green beans, and gnocchi!

Looks good, right?

This dish was so easy to prepare and I had to share it. The potato gnocchi was frozen, not fresh. It's okay... I haven't tried to make fresh gnocchi yet. It is on my to-do list, though!

When preparing the gnocchi, just follow the instructions on the bag. Once they were done, I added butter, salt, and pepper. That was it. Such an easy side dish.

For the green beans, I used frozen since we've run out of canned beans from last year and the fresh ones at the store in the cold months are just gross looking. I can't wait for green bean season. I really can't. To prepare those, I just steamed them for a few minutes until they were no longer frozen, and then drained them. In a skillet, I added some butter, thinly sliced onion, and the green beans. I cooked them for about 15 minutes. Of course, I seasoned them with salt and pepper.

The sausage was so easy! I'm partial to 100% beef smoked sausage. I know it's a processed food and I tend to stay away from those, but I just have a thing for sausage... and bacon... It's terrible, but worth it. =]~

I got this recipe from Taste of Home.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

As you see from the photo, I cut the sausages into about 2 inch pieces. In a separate bowl, I added a whole bottle (40 oz., I think) of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce and about 1/4 - 1/2 c brown sugar. Whisk it all together and pour it over your sausages.

The only modification I made from the original recipe was to lessen the sugar. The original called for two cups of sugar. YIKES! I couldn't do it! LOL! Once you have all the sausages covered in the sauce, put it in the oven, uncovered, for about 35 minutes. So easy. So good. 

Risotto - don't be scared!

Risotto is one of those things that I had to learn. I mean Gordon Ramsey is always yelling at people because of bad risotto... it was a personal challenge!

It can be scary, but mostly it's just time consuming.

Here are the things you need for basic risotto and below I will post a few variations and add-ins.

Ingredients:
A bit of olive oil and butter
1 onion, diced
minced garlic, to taste
1 cup of Arborio rice
5 cups chicken stock
salt and pepper
1/4 cup white wine, optional
1/4 c (or so) of fresh parmesan cheese, grated

Directions:
Heat the chicken stock in a small sauce pan. Once it begins to boil, turn the heat down to simmer. In the meantime, chop your onion. In a large skillet, heat over medium heat, the olive oil and butter. Once the pan is hot, add the onion and cook until it's translucent and tender. This should take about 10 minutes. We don't want the onions to brown, we just want them tender. Add the garlic, if you choose to have garlic, for about a minute. We never want garlic to get brown, we just want it to become aromatic and not raw. =]

After two additions of liquid

Add the rice into the skillet with the onions and garlic. Stir the rice around so it's coated in the oil and just beginning to get toasty and nice. If you're using wine, add the wine now and stir until it's all absorbed. If not, just skip this step and move onto the next one. Add one cup of the warm chicken stock into the skillet with the rice and stir it constantly until the stock is all absorbed. Once it's absorbed, add another cup and constantly stir until it's all absorbed. Continue to add the stock, one cup at a time, until you use all the stock and it's all been absorbed.  Add the salt and pepper, mix. Taste the rice and see if it's done. It should be firm, but cooked through and not at all "crunchy" and the rice should be creamy. This process will take quite a bit of time, stay dedicated to it. It's a lot of time stirring, but it's so worth it. It will take no less than 20 minutes, but may take even longer. Add the cheese, mix it in until it's all melty and good.

Here's the thing with risotto, it's going to create its own creaminess. If you desire a creamier rice, use a little more stock or water. It will continue to absorb until you find your happy place.

Just about anything can be added to risotto. In this particular picture, I added peas. My plan was to do a nice pea puree, but I wasn't feeling well, so I just added peas and called it a day. I was fine with that. =]

Almost any vegetable can be added to risotto. Asparagus, pureed roasted squash, peas, leeks, mushrooms, artichokes, etc... We can try anything! When cooking risotto with veggies, add the veggies at the beginning with the onions. The rest of the steps are the same.

Finally, meat. Yes, you can have meat with risotto. Bacon is my favorite! All the steps are the same, except you cook the bacon first, remove it to a plate, drain some of the grease but leave enough in the pan to do the onions and garlic with only a small addition of oil needed.

Also, say you have some left over chicken or turkey, add that in at the cheese step and cook until it's heated through. You can also saute or broil some shrimp and add that - the options are endless! Be brave, try something new! =]

Oven BBQ Ribs!

Okay - so I've only ever done one kind of rib and I've only ever cooked them one way. Boneless country style ribs in the crockpot. Boring, I know.

Today - I was inspired by something, I don't know what, to try my hands at ribs. Real pork ribs. Ribs that make you want to suck the bones because they're so good. And I wanted mac and cheese. Strange. These are not foods I crave. Maybe I felt that since it was a holiday and I didn't have any plans, I should be doing something awesome. haha. I did it! Meat fell off the bones and I was suckin 'em tryin to get more!

Here's what I did:

Oven BBQ Ribs
3 1/2 lbs pork back ribs
1/2 c brown sugar
1 T smoked paprika
1 T garlic powder
some cayenne pepper
some sea salt
Hickory brown sugar BBQ sauce (Sweet Baby Rays)

Preheat your oven to 300. Mix the sugar and spices to make a rub. Lay a sheet of heavy duty foil on a cookie sheet. Cut the back membrane off the ribs because that's just gross. If you don't know how to do this, you can just start on one end and then peel it back with your fingers. It's gross, but necessary.

Cover the ribs completely with the rub, then lay meat side down on the foil. Lay another sheet of foil on top and fold all the edges to seal in the meat. Pop it in the oven for about 2 1/2 - 3 hrs. Take them from the oven (turn the oven onto broil once you take them out), remove the foil and lay the ribs directly on the cookie sheet and slather the BBQ sauce on the bony side and put them back in the oven, under the broiler for about 3 minutes--keep an eye on them, you want them to look "crispy" but you don't want them to burn. Take them out, turn them over, slather more BBQ sauce and give them another 3 minutes under the broiler.

Cut them into serving sizes--I did two rib bones per serving--and enjoy!

Mac and Cheese
2 boxes Kraft Deluxe mac and cheese
1 small can evaporated milk
1 stick unsalted butter
4 oz shredded smoked gouda cheese
6 oz shredded sharp cheddar cheese
6 oz shredded jalapeno cheese
Seasoned salt and pepper

The first thing I have to say is this... now, please, pay attention - this is VERY important. =] SHRED YOUR OWN CHEESE. DO NOT BUY THE CHEESE THAT IS ALREADY SHREDDED. Okay, now that I got that out... let's move on.

Preheat oven to 350. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add noodles from the mac and cheese and set cheese packet aside. While they cook, SHRED that cheese. =] Cook noodles until they're al dente. You want NO mush on these noodles. You want them to remain firm. Drain.

In the same pot you cooked the noodles in add stick of butter, two cheese packets, and can of milk. Heat this over medium-low heat until it's all melty. Add a little of the shredded cheeses just for fun. Oh, by the way, you can use more cheese if you like, I make it according to my audience -- todays require less "cheesy" -- I'm not sure what's wrong with them.

Okay, once it's all melty, add the noodles back to the pan. Add the spices you like - I use seasoned salt and pepper. Mix well. Pour half of the cheesy noodles into a prepared (that means sprayed with non-stick stuff) baking dish. Add a layer of all cheeses, about half of the cheese you shredded. Then top with the remaining noodles. Top with remaining cheese and put it in the oven for about 25 minutes. You want it to be all melty, scrumptious, and just starting to brown on top.

Enjoy!

Slow cookered potatoes!

8 potatoes, sliced
8 oz package of cream cheese, divided into 3 sections
1/4 of a LARGE onion, diced (of course, if you don't have a LARGE onion, use about 1/2 cup or whatever you fancy)
garlic, minced
Salt and Peper

Spray your slow cooker with some non-sticky goodness! Mix the onions and garlic in a small bowl. Throw a layer of potatoes into the slow cooker, then add a handful of the onion/garlic combo, then salt and pepper, and take one section of the cream cheese and separate it into pats over the layers of potatoes. Repeat this process two more times. You should finish with a top layer of the cream cheese. It's OK to be all chunky looking. Set your slow cooker on high for about 3 hours. After the three hours, stir it all together and let it cook for another hour or so until the taters are tender (but not mushy!). Once they are ready, take a hand masher and gently mash them, you don't want mashed potatoes, just smooshed! =] Enjoy!

Oh what to do with the green beans??

So I had some fresh green beans that just HAD to be used before they went all icky and stuff. I was on a quest to find a good way to use them besides the "norm". This is what I did/had:

1 lb fresh green beans
2 zucchinis
1 yellow straightneck squash
1 can tomato sauce
Oregano
Basil
minced garlic
drizzle of EVOO


I drizzled the oil in a skillet, and added the garlic to let that cook up just a bit. I sliced the zucca and squash, added them to the pan. I snapped the ends off the beans and added those to the pan, followed by the tomato sauce. Stirred them til they were all friendly-like. Then added the herbs and a little salt and pepper. Brought it to a quick boil, then simmered for about 20 minutes -- covered it and let it cook another 20 minutes or so. It was yumma!