Tag: sausage

Sausage Patties

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Spring is here and Mother’s Day is upon us.  A Mother’s Day tradition in many a household is breakfast in bed for mom.  Why not make it extra special this year by going that extra mile?  Making homemade sausage may seem out of reach to many, but with this simple recipe, you will not only get a more delicious patty, but a healthier one!

Made from simple ingredients.  It’s always nice to know exactly what goes into our food and be able to control the quality of what we put in our bodies.  These little patties are without casing, which is just one more reason I love them.

These pork breakfast sausages are perfect for freezing and can be ready to go whenever you want to make a special breakfast or just have a quick breakfast ready to go in the morning.  I enjoy them along side pancakes, but they go really well with eggs or waffles or whatever your favorite breakfast food is!

Slice up one small onion.

Place it in the food processor… I am using the Pampered Chef Manual Food Processor.

Process onions.

Process until finely minced.

Add some olive oil into small skillet.

Add onions into skillet.

Run a large garlic clove or two smaller ones through a garlic press and add in.  This Pampered Chef Garlic Press is fantastic.

Add bacon into skillet.

Brown everything up and remove from heat to allow to cool a bit.

Start with a package of ground pork.

Use your favorite bacon.

Snip through some bacon.  These Pampered Chef Sheers are perfect to get this job done!

Prepare your spices.

Add your spices into your meat.

Add in plain bread crumbs.

Add in one egg.

Add in cooled skillet mixture.

Stir together.

Form patties.

You can form regular circular patties… I like a 2″ patty.

Or you can make them into heart-shaped patties for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day or a special anniversary breakfast.

Using a medium skillet, turn burner heat to medium.

Add patties into skillet.

Turn.

Cook all the way through.

Flash freeze the remaining raw patties for a half hour in freezer bag laying them flat and then remove as much air as possible from bag and place back in freezer for storage.

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Sausage Patties

Makes 18 2 oz. patties

Ingredients:

1 lbs. ground pork

2 eggs

1 small onion, minced

1/2 cup bread crumbs

5 slices bacon, cut into 1/4″ pieces

2 cloves of garlic, run through press

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 tsp. thyme

1/2 tsp. sage

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp. freshly cracked black pepper

1 Tbs. olive oil

Directions:

In a small skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add in onions, bacon and garlic. Saute until golden brown.  Remove from heat and allow to cool.

In a medium mixing bowl, add in ground pork, bread crumbs, spices and brown sugar.  Stir together.  Add in skillet mixture.  Form into 2 oz. patties.

Heat a medium skillet and add patties without crowding.  Brown patties on both sides (4-5 mins on each side).  (Sugar will caramelize as pictured.)

Serve hot, enjoy!

*Recipe can easily be made gluten-free with the replacement of bread crumbs with gluten-free bread crumbs.

Spaghetti Frittata Pie

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I have a family of four, two of the four happen to be toddlers.  So, when we make spaghetti in our house inevitably there are left overs.  None of us are terribly big fans of re-heating left over spaghetti, so I decided to come up with a recipe to use up that left over spaghetti in a whole new way.  Hense, I give you the Spaghetti Fritatta Pie!

This simple pasta and egg dish is the perfect solution to my left over dilemma and the funny thing is, we like the pie left over too!  I made some angel hair pasta (my kid’s favorite) with some homemade sauce and some Italian sausage (my husband’s favorite).  I hate to waste food, especially a home-made sauce, so I put it in the fridge in a Tupperware container.  8 eggs, a pie plate, a block of cheese, and just a few more staples later and wala, a brand new meal.

This may seem odd to you and to be honest, I wasn’t sure about it when I started out.  But, I love Pasta Carbonara and this has a lot of the same element, so I gave it a try.  You don’t know until you try right?

Start with a pad of salted butter in a pie plate, this one is 9″.

Use a paper towel to spread your butter.

Your pie plate should be well buttered.

This is my left over Angel Hair with Sweet Italian Sausage and tomatoes with some basil.

Add into buttered pie plate.

Fill your pie plate up with spaghetti. This is about 2 full cups of cooked and prepared left-over Angel Hair pasta.

In this shot I have 6 eggs, but for my 9″ pie plate, I actually ended up adding in two more for a total of 8 eggs.

Beat them well.

Add in a good pinch of Italian Seasoning blend. this is about 1/2 tsp.

Beat the seasoning into the eggs.

Add in a good pinch of kosher salt, again this is about 1/2 tsp.

Beat into the eggs.

Pour the egg mixture right over your spaghetti or in my case Angel Hair.

This is what you should have.

Slice up some grape tomatoes.

Dart the top of your pie with grape tomatoes.

Add on some Fontina cheese, I am using about 4 oz.

Hand shredding is the way to go, although I’m not sure you can find pre-shredded Fontina anyway.

Add on some shredded parmesan cheese. This one is pre-shredded.

Just add cheese right up on top.  Pop this in the oven for about 45 minutest until the middle has almost set.  Then take it out, tent with foil and let rest for about 10 minutes. The center should set right up for you and the rest will settle nicely.

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Spaghetti Frittata Pie

Serves 4-6Ingredients:

2 cups left over Angel Hair pasta and sausage (or whatever pasta you have)

8 eggs, beaten

8 oz. Fontina cheese, shredded

1/2 cup grape tomatoes, halved

1/2 cup parmesan cheese, shaved

1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning mix

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

6-8 cracks black pepper

1 cup left over sauce for topping

1 tsp butter

Directions:

Butter pie plate.  Place pasta and sausage in buttered dish.  Beat eggs and add in Italian Seasoning, salt and pepper.  Add in shredded Fontina cheese.  Pour evenly over pasta and sausage.  Dot with tomatoes and sprinkle with parmesan.  Bake in oven for 40-50 minutes until set.  Remove from oven and tent with foil for 10 minutes before serving.  Cut and drizzle with warmed left over sauce. Enjoy!

Easy Cheesy Pasta Bake

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My husband often works pretty late and on occasion, I will have a meeting to get to late into the evening as well.  On nights like that I am thankful to have the support of my parents who adore my children.  And my kids love going over to Vavó and Vavô’s house!  But, my mom also works all day, so when they will be there up until bed time and the kid’s need supper, I like to bring by something ready to put in the oven when I can.  something easy and portable is this “Easy Cheesy Pasta Bake”!

Of course if I am making this and bringing it to my parent’s house, then that leaves my husband to fend for himself, not to mention a hungry me when I get home… So, what I decided to do to solve that issue was to make one big batch and divide it among two smaller baking dishes, which was more than enough to feed both homes! (Of course you could make this recipe and freeze half too! – just freeze before the final step of popping it in the oven)

This recipe is great for kids because it has a fun cork screw pasta, cheese and it’s not spicy at all… Of course you could kick it up by using a spicy sausage and spicing up the sauce a bit, but my kids love this version and since Mom and Dad were out working late, the kids win.  It’s got all the same ingredients of a lasagna, but it’s got some semi-homemade ingredients like an easy jarred marinara and it takes about 20 minutes tops to prepare! Then, just pop it in the oven and serve!

This meal is easy enough to be a week night meal, pack away as a freezer meal or serve to a crowd! Let me show you how I did it…

Pick a fun tubular pasta with ridges… I like Cavatappi, it looks like a cork screw. Start this boiling before you do anything else so it can be ready when you finish with the other steps.

Take one package (5-6 links) of Italian Sausage, sweet or hot and take the casings off… Today, I went with sweet because it’s meant to feed the kids. Place in a large skillet over medium heat. I like using sausage in this because it cuts down on some of your work be providing flavor right off the bat, plus my husband loves Italian Sausage.  But, if you wanted to use some ground beef or turkey, that would be fine too! You could even make the sauce without any meat at all!

Dice up an onion.

Add the onions right in with the sausage and add just a splash of olive oil right on top to help them get going.

You want to render out the fat from the sausage and bring everything to a golden brown color. If you have some extra fat in the pan you can either drain it or leave it… I didn’t have much fat left in my pan at all.

Now here is the “Easy” in “Easy Cheesy Pasta Bake”… Add in one jar of your favorite ready-made Marinara Sauce.

For some additional moisture and body add in one can of diced tomatoes… If your family is not a fan of chunks of tomatoes in their food, you should still add in one can of tomato sauce.

Add the tomatoes right in, you want them to cook down a bit.

Add in about 1 tsp. Italian Seasoning, salt and pepper.

Place two cups of ricotta cheese in a bowl.

Add two eggs in with the ricotta.

Here is another “easy” ingredient… Add in 1/2 cup of pre-grated parmesan cheese.

Stir together making sure to really work those eggs in.

Next, add in some shredded mozzarella cheese.

Once you have a smooth consistency, add in some Italian seasoning, salt and pepper.

Once your pasta is drained, add in cheese.

Stir together.

Either divide among two baking dishes like I did, or use one 9″x13″ baking dish.

This is a block of mozzarella… You can find it right in the regular dairy case.

For this recipe, you can dice up about half the block.

Dot the top of cheesy pasta with half of your cubed mozzarella.

Pour the sauce on top.

Spread the sauce.

Dot the top with the remaining cubed mozzarella and some additional shredded mozzarella. Then add on a dash of grated parmesan. Now you are ready to wrap this and pop in the fridge for later or bake.  Whenever you are ready to bake, just place in a 350°F oven for 30 mins.

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Easy Cheesy Pasta Bake

Ingredients:

1 box Cavatappi Pasta, cooked to al dente

For the sauce:

5-6 links Italian Sausage, casing removed

1 onion, diced

1 tsp. olive oil

1 jar marinara sauce

1 can diced tomatoes

1 tsp. Italian seasoning mix

salt and pepper to taste

For cheese mixture:

2 cups Ricotta cheese

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

2 eggs

1/2 cup shredded 3. cheese

1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning

1 dash salt

1 dash pepper

For topping:

8 oz. block mozzarella, cubed

1/4 cup shredded mozzarella

1 Tbs. grated parmesan

Directions:

Cook off pasta to one minute less than the package ingredients, drain.

In a large skillet over medium heat, brown sausage while chopping it into smaller bits with a wooden spoon.  Add in onions and oil.  Render the fat out of the sausage and drain if needed.  Once sausage and onions are brown, add in jarred marinara and can of diced tomatoes.  To the sauce add in Italian seasoning, salt and pepper.  Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine ricotta, grated parmesan, eggs, shredded mozzarella, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper.

Add cheese mixture to drained pasta.  Place in a baking dish.  Directly on the cheesy pasta add on 1/2 the cubed mozzarella, then sauce.  Now dot the top with remaining cubed mozzarella, shredded mozzarella and parmesan.

Bake in a 350°F oven for 30 minutes.  Serve, enjoy!

*Note: If making this recipe gluten-free, just use a gluten-free pasta and follow all instructions.

 

Lisa’s Sausage Stuffed Jalapeños

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Today is a very special day! It’s my 100th post here on thePortugueseAmericanMom.com! So in honor of that I thought I would highlight one of my very favorite party aps to celebrate! One of my very best girlfriend’s, Lisa, makes these for me whenever there is a party to be had.  She came over last Sunday with her husband Carlos and her daughter Kaedence for the football game and we had our selves some good old-fashioned “home-gating”.  And I asked, that instead of her making these for me at home, she make them here so I could document the process and share it with you all! And so she did!

They are a super simple and incredibly flavorful and delicious naturally gluten-free appetizer made with just 5 ingredients! One thing that Lisa asked that I stress and I will stress it in the tutorial as well is to please be sure to have surgical gloves before attempting this recipe.  You will be working with very hot peppers and will need to protect yourself from the oils in the pepper.  Once done and the peppers are in the oven, remove the gloves directly into the trash and thoroughly wash your hands with soap and water to ensure you got it all.

Let me show you how she does it!

Here are all your ingredients! Yep, that's it, just 4! (plus olive oil for the pan, so five if we are technical)

Here are all your ingredients! Yep, that’s it, just 4! (plus olive oil for the pan, so five if we are technical)

Mince your onion.

Mince your onion.

Heat up some olive oil over medium heat.

Sautée the onions.

Split each Italian Sausage so you can remove the casing.  Lisa uses hot Italian sausage and we all love them that way… but if you want to reduce the heat due to the already super hot jalapeño peppers, you could use mild Italian sausage here.

Remove the casing.

Remove the casing.

This is what they look like without the casing.

Add in the sausage.

Lisa asked me for not only a wooden spoon to mix, but also a potato masher to make sure it all gets broken down!

Brown up all of the sausage meat.

Strain out any grease. There wasn’t too much in this batch.

Return the sausage to the skillet and add in a bar of room temperature cream cheese.

Then work the cream cheese into the sausage meat.

Once most of the cream cheese it distributed, you can continue to work it with a wooden spoon.

Once the cream cheese is all distributed well, turn off the burner and let cool for a minute or two.

Preparing the peppers: You should have time to prepare the peppers while the sausage is cooking, but to keep things simple, I am keeping that separate…

Before we get into the pepper part, I need to mention these handy-dandy surgical gloves again… Lisa says, if you don’t have these, don’t make this dish! So, I would gather they are imperative.

Split the peppers all in half.

Split the peppers all in half.

Place them into a bowl as you go.

You need to remove the seeds and connective tissue from the inside of each pepper. This is Lisa's technique. Hold firmly an scrape from the top down with your thumb.

You need to remove the seeds and connective tissue from the inside of each pepper. This is Lisa’s technique. Hold firmly and scrape from the top down with your thumb.

Lisa mentioned that the you should look for fatter peppers so they have more stuffing room.

You want to try to get as many of the seeds out to start off with as possible, but you have to go through 18-20 peppers, so you don’t want to spend too much time on it.

Now the peppers need to be washed, but this is more of a technique to get the remaining seeds out.

Fill the bowl with water and let the seeds float around in the water.

Then let them all just flow out in the water. Repeat this process a couple of times until you are satisfied.

Next, take a teaspoon and stuff each.

You want to firmly press in, but build up a little mound at the same time.

This is what you should have.

Line them on a parchment lined rimmed cookie sheet. Pop them in the oven at 350°F for about 30-50 mins or so… but check in on them every 10 mins or so after that first 30 mins.  The cooking time will depend on how big your peppers are.

This is what you need to see before you take them out of the oven… They are all a nice golden brown with some crispiness on top.

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Lisa’s Sausage Stuffed Jalapeños

Serving size: 10

18-20 plump jalapeños, halved and seeded

1 bar cream cheese, room temperature

1 medium onion, minced

1 package hot Italian Sausage, casing removed

1-2 Tbs. olive oil

Directions: Pre-heat oven to 350°F. Sautée the onion in olive oil in a skillet set over medium heat.  Add in the sausage.  With a wooden spoon and a potato masher, work the meat down into the onions and brown.  Once browned, drain fat.  Return meat to skillet and add in cream cheese.  Again, work in the cream cheese using a wooden spoon and potato masher.  Once the cream cheese is worked in, turn off heat and set aside to cool for a moment or two.

Stuff the ingredients into the prepared peppers.  Line a rimmed cookie sheet or baking dish with parchment paper and line up the stuffed peppers, stuffing facing up.  Bake for 30-50 minutes, check on them every 10 minutes after the 30 minutes.  They will be done when they are golden brown. Allow to cool on pan for about 10 minutes before moving to a serving tray. Serve warm or room temperature. Enjoy!

*Note – This is a gluten-free recipe, but as always, check your ingredients in the Italian Sausage.

*Note – This is a low-carb recipe

Sausage Stuffed Peppers

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Bell peppers and I have had a tumultuous past.  As a kid I hated all of them, but someone once told me that every 7 years your taste buds change.  In my case this is definitely true.  I still don’t care much for the green bell peppers, but the red, orange and yellow ones are super sweet and really lovely.  I think one of the reasons for my aversion to bell peppers started when I would try to eat the traditional stuffed bell pepper, over cooked mushy green bell pepper with some pretty bland ground beef, rice and tomato sauce… Now that I have an appreciation for this fine vegetable and we are in the time of year that they are popping out of people’s gardens across the nation, I decided to give the bell pepper the status it deserves.  So, I created the Sausage Stuffed Pepper!

In this beautiful little pepper you will find not only lean ground beef, but hot Italian sausage, brown rice, onions, tomato sauce and my secret ingredient… Swiss cheese.  I decided to keep the ingredients super simple and let the sausage do most of the work for me.  It’s a super simple and delicious dinner to get on the table to spice things up.  And as a mom, I have to tell ya, I love it when a fully balanced meal is all in one tidy package like this.

Now, my husband is still at odds with the poor little bell pepper, so I simply took some of the filling and placed it in an individual casserole dish for him.  If you have pepper haters in your life or just want to try something different, this filling can be placed in a hollowed out zucchini, eggplant or ooooo spaghetti squash, yum.  It’s super versatile and easy to work with.  Give it a try!

The recipe I am going to go through with you is for my small family, so I am only making three peppers and a small casserole as I mentioned… but, you can absolutely double or triple without a problem… You could even double and freeze half if you like…

Start with some lean ground beef, the sausage will provide plenty of fat. I use half a pound. Start this sauteing in a large skillet over medium heat.

Then I used three hot Italian sausages… If you don’t care for spicy food, you could certainly use mild, it will be super yummy too!

I cut down the side to remove the casing.

Give one medium onion a medium dice.

This is a small can of plain tomato sauce. You will use half now and half when you bake and serve.

You’ll want to shred up about a cup for the filling.

then you’ll want to shred up some more for the topping.

Brown up your ground beef while breaking up and browning your sausage meat.

Add your onions right in while you are doing this.

Let them get all nice and brown and lovely in the pan.

Add in about a cup and a half of cooked brown rice. (this is great to do when you have left over rice from dinner the night before… you might even cook a bit extra if you know this is your plan… saves you a step)

Once all combined, I like to transfer to a bowl to cool it a bit. If you want to stick to the pan, that's fine too, less dishes.

Once all combined, I like to transfer to a bowl to cool it a bit. If you want to stick to the pan, that’s fine too, less dishes.

Add in half a small can of tomato sauce.

Combine.

Then add in your cup of cheese and mix in… if your mixture is super hot, you will have to work quickly here so that the cheese doesn’t all clump together.

Once combined, just taste for salt and add a pinch of salt and fresh cracked black pepper.

Here are my peppers, aren’t they pretty? Notice, I left out the green 🙂

You’ll want to cut off the top and remove the seeds from both top and bottom. I try and cut just the very top so there is lots of room for stuffing.

They are all ready, you don’t need to do anything to the insides other than remove those seeds.

Now to prepare the baking dish, I put in some olive oil. (This baking dish I am using is stone, if you are using a metal baking dish, be sure to really coat with a non-stick cooking spray or a bit more oil)

And about half of what is remaining in that small can of tomato sauce… I like to reserve some for serving.

Place the peppers in the pan standing up.

Fill each one evenly.

It’s great if you over stuff a bit.

Then top with your remaining cheese. Pile it on, don’t be shy.

Pop the top back on and it’s ready to go into your preheated 350°F oven for about half an hour. (I like my pepper a bit on the firm side and the filling is fully cooked so that’s just really getting heated through. If you like a softer pepper, go for 45 minutes, etc, until you get the pepper to the consistency you like)

And this is what you get when they come out of the oven… Still firm enough to stand up and hold the filling and heated to perfection.

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Recipe for Sausage Stuffed Peppers:

(serves 3-4)

1/2 lb. lean ground beef

3 Hot Italian Sausage links, removed from casing

1 medium onion, diced

1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice

1 small can tomato sauce, divided

1 1/2 cups Swiss cheese, shredded

3 bell peppers, seeded

kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste

1 Tbs. olive oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a skillet brown the ground beef, sausage and onion over medium heat.  Once fully browned and onions are soft, add in cooked brown rice. Combine and transfer to a mixing bowl for easier handling.  Add in 1/2 can of tomato sauce.  Combine.  Add in 1 cup of shredded cheese.  Combine.

Prepare peppers by cutting off the top and removing the seeds from the top and bottom.  Prepare a baking dish by adding in the olive oil and 1/2 of the remaining tomato sauce.  Spread.

Add filling to each pepper, overstuffing if possible.  Top with remaining cheese.  Add on the top of each pepper.  Bake for 30-45 minutes uncovered.

Serve with remaining tomato sauce, Enjoy!

*This is a gluten-free recipe.