A tale of two meals.....

So here you'll have it a couple of ideas to spur your cooking. Last night was bowling night, so that means it's gotta be a quick meal. I was thinking along the lines of ground beef and beef rice a roni.. (quite tasty and quick) I wanted to do something a little different this time around and knew I had a Pepperidge Farms sausage in the freezer. I thought that would give a different spin on the flavor. So I got home and pulled out the sausage, went to grab the box of rice a roni...and saw a box of Long Grain and wild rice mix. So I decided that would be better on the flavors... since I was already adding things I grabbed a can of petite cut tomatos also.

I start the rice cooking then slice up the sausage to brown it up. yes it's fully cooked and ready to use, but I like the taste when I cook it more. Since I'm adding stuff I figured I should saute up some onion to mix in. Garlic, you gotta mince up a couple of cloves and mix that in. (this is kinda how my mind works while I'm cooking...I straighten the steps out below.)

Cook the long grain and wild rice according to the package directions. Mince/chop an onion, add some EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) to the pan, heat then saute the onion. While the onion is cooking, slice up the sausage. Take the onion out of the pan and then cook the sausage. Drain the grease from the sausage. Deglaze the pan with some white wine. (seriously whatever type you prefer. I generally use something fairly cheap, but a bottle I would drink.) At about this time the rice should be done. Dump the rice into the pan with the sausage, add the onion and minced garlic. Open the can of tomatoes, drain, then add to the pan with everything else. Stir it all together and turn the heat to low. Cover and let it simmer for 5 to 10 mins. (lets all the flavors mix and build....) Enjoy!!!

Soups have been on my mind lately. Probably due to the cold weather and I like a good hearty soup. I did a beefy onion barely thing earlier in the week. So I had orignally planned to do a chicken thing with great northern beans, and whatever else fell into the pot. The beans hadn't been soaked so they were out. (yeah I use the dried beans.) I ended up doing a variation that I made up as I went along. (is that possible??? Hell yes) Bratwurst for the meat, chicken stock (yeah I've found some great packaged stock, it's lower in sodium than Swanson broth/stock) Onion, garlic, corn... as it was coming together I decided some rice would make it hearty and replace the great northern beans... (so the original idea was a chicken/corn chowder kinda thing.) Can you see the flavors? Taste the ideas here??

There are so many other options that you can do here. Variations on the basic theme... Red or Green bell peppers, green onions, even some fresh spinach... parsley, thyme to bring a citrus/lemony flavor...

Never be afraid to try. Get the flavors in your head and then you'll see how to combine them. There is no one 'right' way to do it. Endless variations...

Ok I'm getting hungry again and that's not always for the best....

Hugz to you all
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