Another Variation of Turkey Sausage Pasta

You know, I'm getting used to being married, and living in one place. There's something comforting about having all my clothes in one closet, knowing where I'll spend every weekend, and not having a 360 mile divide between me and my sweetie. Don't get me wrong: I am still on the go. I have a pretty substantial commute (at least on Tuesdays and Thursdays), and I have been a weekend warrior since moving back to Kennesaw. I've been on quite a few short road trips, most without Dave. Grandmother told me I had better watch out or Dave might leave me, since I'm gone so much. I won't write here what my response was, because it was definitely smart-ass in nature, so I just kept it to myself and laughed. I'm still not sure that all the women in my family are aware that they (unknowingly?) raised a feminist who is independent to a fault. My husband is the absolute sweetest person in the world to me, and we have settled into a great relationship - but we are still individuals who like our space. Case in point: I'm here on the couch blogging with a cute little napping Chloe beside me, and Dave's having his weekly World of Warcraft time in the office.

But, one thing we do enjoy is eating dinner together every night. Anna Kudak would probably call it a "ritual" that a "happy couple does" and she'd be correct. It's our time to catch up on what happened during the day. Dinner never lasts very long, maybe 15 minutes? Still, we both look forward to sitting at our simple IKEA table and talking, even if it is just for a few minutes, and even if we're just eating Kraft macaroni and cheese (which was deeee-lish by the way, the other night, but we ate on the couch, which is our preferred mac-and-cheese eating situation). We work together to get drinks poured, forks out, napkins set, and food on the table. We turn the television on the jazz channel and turn Casa Dawmilam into Bistro le Dawmilam. If there are any moving pictures on the television, conversation ceases - and that defeats the purpose of eating dinner together. Why jazz? Because techno is reserved for driving, working out and playing Scrabble. I'm not kidding.

Usually, conversation isn't earth shattering. I hear about Dave's work in an office with 11 other men, which is usually about as uneventful as one would expect a day working with 11 other software professionals would be. He hears about my students, their speeches, and updates from my friends I may have heard from through the day. Chloe usually jumps up in a chair and watches us. Okay, true confession, Chloe *usually* jumps on the table and walks around, then sits in a chair beside us. We are horrible "cat parents" for allowing her such free reign in the house, and we harbor some guilt over it. Oh well. She's cute, and right now she's our cat-child, so if we can spoil her by letting her stand on the table while we eat, who cares.

There are some nights we have dinner and it really, really makes me happy, like tonight. I've had a hellacious week, for some reason. I haven't been at nightmare status, but I have lost sleep this week. Determined to make my day better, I kept the Fraggle Rock theme song in my head all day today.

I can't embed it, but you can/really should click here and listen to it.

Determined to save my worries for another day, I stayed focused on the positive things that happened today - and there were quite a few. Before I knew it, I was home making dinner, in my pj's, and enjoying a much deserved glass of wine, waiting on my husband to get home before digging into my newest creation. It was so tasty, and a variation of another recipe I've made quite a bit in the past - but this time, I think I nailed it. Taken from Good Things Catered and adjusted to what I had on hand, here is:

Hearty Fall Turkey Sausage Penne

about 1/2 box penne pasta (can use whole wheat, if you're healthier than me)
1/2 lb turkey sausage
about 1/2 white or yellow onion, diced
about the same amount of diced red, yellow and/or green pepper
couple cloves of minced garlic
equal parts of dried thyme, Italian seasoning and red chili flakes (about 1/2 teaspoon each maybe)
some chicken stock
some red wine
splash of balsamic vinaigrette
1 can tomatoes, diced (or whole, and diced yourself, like I did)
couple cups of fresh spinach, washed and rough chopped
parmesan cheese
salt

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add salt, cook the penne according to package directions, about 8-9 minutes until al dente.

In the meantime, brown the sausage (make it crumbly) in a large pan over medium heat, with some olive oil so the turkey doesn't stick to the pan (takes about 7-8 minutes). Remove turkey from pan when cooked, set aside. Immediately add diced onion, peppers, garlic, and spices, along with a good pinch of salt, to the pan; may need to add more oil if the pan is really dry. Sautee until onions are cooked through, about 8-9 minutes. Add some red wine to the pan to deglaze (I probably used about 1/3 cup), scrape up the brown bits from the bottom. While you've got the wine out and open, may as well pour yourself a glass to sip on while dinner's cooking. It's the A-50 way. Anyway: simmer that for a minute, add a splash (probably 2 Tablespoons) of balsamic vinegar, and maybe a cup of chicken stock. Add back in the turkey sausage, then add tomatoes with juices, salt again, and stir in the cooked pasta. Stir to combine, then add the spinach; it'll look like a lot, but I promise it will wilt down to almost nothing. Simmer over medium low heat until sauce thickens a little, the spinach wilts, and the pasta has absorbed some of the saucy goodness, about 10 minutes. Serve in big bowls topped with parmesan cheese.

I ate two big bowls of this pasta tonight, sitting across from my husband, and really have enjoyed the evening. I credit Fraggle Rock, partly. With all the stress of the week, it's so nice knowing I can come home to a cat and man who love me. I get to see great friends next week. I have a job that (hopefully) is making a difference in the lives of some students. And I'm an all around lucky gal. Happy happy joy joy. Let's go eat a turtle brownie and call it a night.

Thanksgiving Special Edition

I planned and executed an entire Thanksgiving dinner all by myself, with a good deal of help from Dave. The dinner went over without a hitch - no one got food poisoning, everyone ate seconds, my turkey was juicy, the sweet tea was scarfed down, and, perhaps most miraculously of all, I managed not to cut, burn, or otherwise injure myself despite 2 days of being alone in the kitchen! Those of you who have been privy to my previous injuries (Rose, Casey, Dave) are probably breathing a sigh of relief that I still have all my fingers and avoided any trips to the ER.

Before I post the recipes I used, let me give you some tips for pulling off Thanksgiving; things they fail to mention on Food Network or anywhere else I've read. The thing about Thanksgiving is, if you're going to woman- or man-up and cook an entire traditional dinner all by yourself, you have to do it because you want to do it. If you're not looking forward to it, or feeling a lot of external pressure for perfection, or just unsure of yourself in the kitchen, then don't do it. Buy your meal from Kroger, or better yet, do what two of my Auburn colleagues were doing and go to the beach for the weekend. Turkey's great, but I bet crab claws, steamed shrimp and beer for Thanksgiving dinner is also pretty amazing. Anyway. I was really looking forward to my time in the kitchen, and to my first big turkey, and it helped the day go more smoothly.

Also, being prepared really paid off in this case. I made a detailed timeline of everything that had to get done by Thursday at 1 p.m., and sure enough, I stuck to my schedule and I had very little stress or rushing around on the big day. Figure out what you can make ahead, and write down the day and time you will "make ahead" whatever is on your list. I kept this list on my refrigerator until everything had been checked off.

Lastly, it helps to have a Dave. No, you can't borrow mine. But if you have someone who will go to the grocery store for you (mind you, following a list I categorized spatially by grocery store section and aisle for easy checking; yes, I have my Kroger memorized), and someone who will sanitize coolers for brining the turkey, and who'll vacuum before the in-laws come over, and who'll carve the turkey, and who'll tell you how cute you look in an apron, it makes a big difference.

I swiped some of my recipes off the internet, as usual. I did Alton Brown's roast turkey, and Paula Deen's dressing. I made a cranberry sauce kind of like Tyler Florence's, but instead I used plain sugar, no cinnamon stick, and some orange liqueur. I did green beans really simply, by boiling them in salted water until cooked through, and topping with a couple tablespoons of butter and salt and pepper. I also did mashed potatoes the way I usually do them - cutting them into cubes, boiling for 20 minutes, draining, and mashing them together with heavy cream, butter, salt and pepper. It's not Thanksgiving without Sister Schubert's frozen dinner rolls, so those were in abundance on our table too.

My favorite part of the meal, though, was dessert. Even though my grandmother sent me a pecan pie and two different cakes to use, I couldn't help but make a pumpkin crisp. It's a recipe from Loren (remember bean dip?), who probably got it from her mom, Barbara. The Hawkins family, like the Icenogle family, supplies me with many delicious recipes. This one is no exception.

Pumpkin Crisp

1 can pumpkin
1 large can evaporated milk
1 cup sugar
1/2 t. cinnamon
3 eggs
1 box yellow cake mix
1 c. chopped pecans
2 sticks butter -- melted & cooled

Frosting
8 oz. cream cheese
3/4 cup cool whip
1/2 cup powdered sugar
(mix all three together)

First, preheat oven to 350. Then, prepare a 9 x 13 pan. Spray the pan with cooking spray, line the pan (sides and bottom) with wax paper, and generously butter the wax paper. Set aside. In a large bowl, blend the pumpkin and milk with a mixer. Add sugar, cinnamon & eggs. Blend well - mixture will be thin. Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle cake mix over pumpkin mixture. Sprinkle nuts over cake mix and pat them into the mix. Pour butter over nuts. Bake for 1 hour or until firm. Let cool before turning onto platter. Carefully peel off the wax paper. Frost when cool.

This dessert is similar to the gooey butter cakes that Paula Deen makes all the time, but it is simply divine. I can't stop eating it. The pecans get all nice and toasty on the bottom, and I know some people think Cool Whip is evil, but I could eat it by the tub. That, and Velveeta are two ingredients from my redneck childhood I refuse to give up. You can't make Rotel dip without Velveeta, so it's a keeper to me.

Anyway. I hope everyone else out there had a nice Thanksgiving, full of not working, being lazy, and spending time with the ones you love.

"Cook That Again" Turkey Soup

I made a HUGE mistake today. Well, ok, I made a big mistake yesterday by deciding not to go to Kroger's. Not only did I have more free time yesterday, but yesterday was not the day before February Freeze 2008 - or a major winter storm warning for central Kentucky.

Now since moving "all the way up north" to Lexington, I have many a time called my mother or other random family members to brag about how "it snowed all night last night and I drove right through it to school today!" or said "nope, we are almost out of milk and bread and I didn't even think about going to wal-mart to stock up! That's how they do it up north, y'all" or even taken pictures of my car, buried in a good 1/2" of snow in my parking lot, with the cell phone to send to Dave, just to let him know what a skilled driver I was to navigate out of a parking lot covered with a blanket of white stuff I once dreamed for as a child in north Alabama, where it never snowed (unless you count the great blizzard of 1987, when we all went sledding at the elementary school and my dad pulled us around the hills of our pasture in a plastic swimming pool tied to the back of our 3-wheeler. I'm serious about this. Redneck fun!). However, today, it really is snowing. For real. "They" are saying it's going to get pretty bad, with ice, and actual accumulations over 1". So, that is a sign, even for seasoned snowbirds like Lexingtonians, to head to the nearest grocery store, immediately.

That's what I got in the middle of tonight when I went to Kroger after class. I went to the one off Chinoe, thinking it'd be less insane than the one on Euclid. I was wrong. Everyone in Lexington was at the Kroger on Chinoe. I wouldn't have gone tonight, but we are almost out of milk (seriously! not just saying that because of the snow), and I can't eat my daily cereal without milk, and I was craving a turkey chili. I generally make full-out grocery runs in 30 minutes - door to checkout - and today, it took 45 minutes for a shortened run and wait time in line. It wasn't all that bad, as I got an insight as to what people think is really important in times of stress. I'll consider it an informal participant observation. Should've taken field notes! I saw frantic people getting things like cat food. Lean Cuisines. Gallons of Hawaiian Punch (I'm guessing for addition to vodka and not for their kids?). Bottled water. Milk by the gallon. Ice cream. Toilet paper. By the time I got back out to the parking lot, the lot was covered, it was icy, and I had to scrape my windshield.

I digress. When I got home, I was tired, hungry, and craving a beer for some reason. Turkey chili/soup with a miller lite hit the spot. I changed the name from "chili" to "soup" because of our apartment's definition of chili. What I made tonight just doesn't qualify as chili. Chili-a-la-Rose is hearty, with little soup to it. Turkey chili-a-la-me is more like a soup. Hence the name change. Here is the recipe.

1/2 TB olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste
1/2 onion, finely diced
1/2 green bell pepper, finely diced
1 jalapeno, finely diced, seeds removed
3 italian turkey sausage links
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 12 oz can of beer (I used Miller Lite, what was in the fridge)
1 can kidney beans, drained & rinsed
1 can rotel tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes
3/4 cup chicken broth
1 chipotle in adobo, diced, seeds removed

In a large stockpot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Sautee onion, bell pepper, and jalapeno with salt & pepper until tender, about 10 minutes. Add in the turkey sausage links removed from casings. Add in chili powder and cumin. Break up the sausage with a wooden spoon and cook until sausage is cooked through, about 8 minutes. Add in the can of beer (what better way to deglaze a pan?). Add in the tomatoes, beans, broth, and chipotle. Salt and pepper again to taste. Cook over medium heat until all flavors have incorporated and liquid starts to reduce, anywhere from 15-45 minutes, depending on how hungry you are. Top with sour cream, cheese, and crushed up crackers or tortilla chips.

Once I called it a soup instead of chili, Rose decided it was much better. I don't blame her. It is more of a soup, come to think of it. Either way, we both got seconds and it's going in regular rotation. I based this off a recipe I found on food network's website, but since I just threw things together in a pot based on what I had in the pantry, I am taking full credit for this one. It's also very healthy. There's only about 34 grams of fat in the entire pot, and there are at least 4-6 servings in one recipe. Using turkey sausage instead of regular sausage cuts out a ton of fat, and gives more flavor than just plain ground turkey. It certainly hit the spot on this cold, snowy night.

Now, we are sitting around, useless, praying they cancel school for tomorrow (they won't) and that we get a snow day (we won't). It's not that I even have a lot to do tomorrow, but who doesn't like a snow day?