A Stirfry of Sorts

I love fast, one-pot meals.

In my travels through cookbooks and other recipe sites I've often come accross recipes for sausages and peppers. Now, I'm not a big fan of most Italian sausage (*Taneasha cringes*) because there's usually too much fennel for my taste. But there's a great Italian market on my way home from work that makes a spicy pork sausage with no fennel!

And spicy pork sausage can satisfy my cravings, fast! (*Taneasha rolls her eyes*)

Sausage Stir Fry

• 2 spicy Italian pork sausages
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1/2 zucchini
• 4 mushrooms
• 1 small onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 4 small tomatoes (2 Romas would also work)
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/4 c Italian flat leaf parsley

Heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Break the sausage up into the pan.

While the sausage browns, chop your veggies. Leave them a little chunky so they'll have some substance once they're cooked.

Add the onions, garlic, mushrooms, peppers, and zucchini. Shove this around in the pan for a few minutes.

Once the onion starts to look a bit transluscent, add the tomatoes and the vinegar. 

I hadn't been planning on the vinegar when I put together the ingredients pic, but I was feeling like this was going to need a bit more zip to it so I spalshed some in with the tomatoes. It worked. A bit of wine would work here too, but I'm kinda out of wine.

After a few minutes the tomatoes will be mostly obliterated.

Throw in the parsley.

There are a few different ways you can serve this. I had mine over a wild and brown rice mixture. Rice totally works. You could also toss some cooked pasta shapes, like farfalle or rotini, into the pan with the stir fry. This would make a great sub sammich filling as well, especially if you topped it with cheese and put it under the broiler. I'm also thinking it would be fun to put onto some pizza dough. Or into the dough! Calzone anyone??

Whatever you do though, make sure there's some cheese involved. On mine, I used some freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano.

Which makes me realize that a scoop or two of this stir fry on a plate next to Taneasha's Potato Parmesan Pie would be freaking tasty.

What do you like to top with cheese?

DIY Instant Breakfast

Last week of classes!!!

And not a scrap of food in my house. Well, there is food, but most of it is stuff like spaghetti sauce, and thai green curry, and chicken tortilla soup, and red beans all packaged in handy meal-sized portions in the freezer. Not much in the way of blog posts.

So, with finals looming and a mostly bare pantry, I thought I'd share one of my ongoing experiments with you: Instant Oatmeal.

You know those little packets of sugary powder that you just dump into a mug at work? Well, I'm determined to make some kind of home version of them that doesn't include preservatives and dehydrating chemicals.

I've made a few attempts now, and I think I'm getting closer. Here's what I've done so far:

Home Made Instant Oatmeal:

• 1 c quick cooking rolled oats
• 1/2 c dried fruit
• 1/3 c powdered milk
• 1/4 c cinnamon sugar
• 1 tbsp ground flax seed

I used my handy dandy jar of cinnamon sugar, but if you don't have one (why don't you have a jar of cinnamon sugar??) you can use whatever sugar you like best in your oatmeal and add a 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. 

Dump all the stuff into a container.

If you're using raisins in your oatmeal (you're weird, they're gross) you can just dump them in. I had som dried pears so I diced them into tiny chunks first. Dried apricots, cherries, or blueberries would also be awesome.

Mix everything up.

This is so much work.

Scoop about 1/2 a cup of the mixture into a bowl. (I only made 1/3 c but it really didn't seem like enough. 1/2 is probably just about right for a single serving; 3/4 if you're really hungry)

Pour in about 1/2 c of boiled water. This is one of the those times that a microwave is really handy. You can nuke the water in less time than it takes to put the coffee together.

At first, the mixture will seem pretty soupy, but if you leave it alone for 5 minutes while you go get dressed, do your hair, make the bed, whatever you have to do in the morning, it will thicken up by the time you're done.

If you do this in a go-mug instead of a bowl, you will have perfect oatmeal when you get to work.

Pour on a bit of milk or cream, or, if you're at work, a couple of those little creamer containers.

Sliced almonds are a nice bit of texture and protein.

It's not the prettiest breakfast, and I think I still need to work on my proportions a bit, but it actually kinda works!!

Home made convenience food!

What's your favourite convenience food? I wonder if I could make it at home...