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?

Piquant Parmesan Potato Pie

Ok, so pie might not be the best name for this, since it doesn’t have a crust, but it doesn’t really qualify as a tart, torte, or lasagna either.  Pie worked with my alliteration, so we’ll go with that.  Basically it’s layers of thinly sliced potato and zucchini layered with lots of parmesan cheese and other yummy stuff. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

Potatoes
Zucchini
Green onions (⅓ cup, diced)
Parmigiano Reggiano (¾ cup and ¼ cup finely grated)
3 Tablespoons butter
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper

Preheat your oven to 350°.  Grate 1 cup of good cheese.  You want imported parmigiano reggiano, not ‘parmesan’, and certainly not the stuff in the green can.  Put ¾ cup of it into a bowl and set the remainder aside.  Into the bowl with the cheese, add the green onion, salt, and pepper. 

Stir those together and set them aside.  Thinly slice your zucchini and potatoes.  Melt your butter.  I like to do it in a small, glass measuring cup so it’s easy to drizzle.  Gather all your components along with a glass pie plate.  (or I’m sure a square pan would be fine)

Drizzle ⅓ of the butter on the bottom of the pan. 

Lay the slices of potato, overlapping slightly, circling in toward the center.

Sprinkle half of the cheese/green onion mixture over the top. 

Put down a layer of zucchini slices just as you did the potato. 

Then basically just repeat.  Drizzle on another tablespoon of butter.

Then comes a layer of potato, sprinkle the other half of the cheese mixture, layer of zucchini, drizzle the last of the butter, and one final layer of potatoes.  On the top, sprinkle the ¼ cup of cheese you set aside. 

Cover with foil and bake at 350° for 45 minutes.  After that time, remove the foil.  You’ll be slightly disappointed. 

But don’t despair, bake it for another 20 minutes, uncovered, and you will have beautiful, golden perfection. 

Now, it’s going to smell amazing, and you’re going to want to just dig in, but if you can control yourself for 10 minutes, it will be worth the wait.  Cut it into wedges and serve on the side of whatever your favorite main course is.  Or, you could just eat a wedge and yogurt and call it lunch.  Either way, it’s amazing. 

It’s a special week for me.  My eldest niece (we’ll just call her Kiddo) graduated from high school.  (omg, when did I get so old??)  Congratulations, Kiddo!!