Jan-chan’s Tidbits

Since my knife skills are very bad, I precut most of the stuff the night before but this can easily be done in 30 minutes since the cooking time isn’t that long.

Pasta with Veggies & Sausage
Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• Pasta of your choice
• 2 cups Italian sausages - cut into large chunks
• 2 carrots - cut into small pieces
• 1 onion, large - diced
• 3 shallots - diced
• 1 bulb of garlic - peeled, minced (we love garlic so adjust amount to own preference)
• Italian herb mix or any other combination of spices of your choice as seasoning
• pepper flakes for some heat if you like it spicy

1. Boil water to cook pasta. Once you’ve added the pasta to the water, heat up a big pot with about 1/2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil. Add sausage and cook for about 2 minutes. Remove from pot and drain of excess oil, leaving about 1 tbsp.
2. In medium-high heat, add the garlic and shallots. Cook for 2-3 minutes. When it start to turn brown (caramelize), add in the onion and carrots with about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water or stock. Scrape up any brown bits on the pot. Cook the veggies for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding water if pot is too dry. Add in the sausages, spices and pepper flakes. Cook for another 3-5 minutes or until carrots are soft and sausages are heated. Remove from heat.
3. The pasta should have finished cooking so drain it, reserve about 1/2 cup of the liquid. Add the drained pasta to the sausage and veggie mixture. Toss it up with a dash of fresh pepper (optional) and it’s ready for plating. If it’s too dry, add a bit of the reserved pasta water to give it some moisture.

Note: This is the first time I’ve made pasta without sauce so let me know what you think if you try it. The twins said it was good but I don’t really trust them (they might only say that because they don’t want me to stop cooking!). Oh if you notice, I didn’t add any salt in the mixture because I find that the sausage is already salty enough for my preference.

This week the twin’s parents are away on a cruise trip so it’s time to play “Jan’s Kitchen” at their house. The challenge is to have food on the table in about an hour or so after we get home from work. I’m a very slow chopper, so it seems to takes twice as long to prepare the food.

My solution to a quick meal is one pot dinners. Well ok, that’s not exactly true. It’s actually two if you count the rice cooker as a pot. On Monday night I made a chicken and sausage stew with tomatoes served with rice. I found a recipe on Rachael Ray’s website and modified it. It turned out pretty well and I’ve made enough to last for next day’s meal also.

Yesterday was pasta night. I didn’t want to make tomato sauce because we already had the it for the stew for two nights. So it was pretty much a basic toss pasta with veggies and sausages. Just throw everything in a huge pot and toss. Again it turned out better than I thought considering the fact that I didn’t have a recipe to work with.

Wild sockeye salmon were on sale this week (2 for 1!) so we got two fillets which I’m planning on pan searing tonight. It should be enough for tomorrow’s dinner as well unless the twins decided to eat it for midnight snacks. Will update on how it turned out later.

The first time I’ve made this meat sauce was during cooking class in high school. I remember it was in Gr. 8 and I hated cooking back then because it seems like there are so much work. Look what happened in less than 10 years?! I’m writing about my kitchen experiments.

This tomato meat sauce is really easy to make. So easy that I don’t even have a recipe written down for it (I think I threw away my notes from cooking class already). There is minimal chopping and all you really need to know is how to use a can opener. Continue reading »

In preparation for Valentine’s Day dinner (we decided to eat at home this year), I’m trying to make a yummy lasagna for Al. My brother loves lasagna but my mom never makes it at home. The only time we get it is when we have dinner at my Aunt Kit’s place because it’s always part of the Christmas menu. Last year, however, we didn’t go to her place for Christmas dinner so Dave was starved of his favourite pasta dish.

Anyways, I didn’t expect to get the barista job so quickly so instead of having all day today to make the sauce, I had to go in for training. Thank god lasagna is a lovely make ahead dish, so I did all the work for it on Saturday night. Continue reading »