Tag Archives: greens

Sausages, greens, and beans this evening

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Today has been a particularly bone-chilling, dreary, damp, windy, rainy day with temperature steadily dropping this afternoon; looking out the windows you see puddles of water everywhere and you can’t really walk anywhere without getting wet feet;  this calls for  something filling, flavorful, and warm for supper.  (I also need to “tidy up” the freezer to get rid of some of the partial packages of this and that which have accumulated from single-serving cooking.) Since I’m really fond of charcuterie, that seemed like a good starting point for comfort food tonight.

plate of greens, edamame, and a sausage

sausage, beans, and greens for supper

I found Sicilian sausages (house-made) at Harris Teeter when I went shopping yesterday (in 70°F weather, but knowing the forecast) so I got some sausages for a one-pot meal.  Part of tidying up the freezer involves using the bits and pieces living in there, so I thought I’d improvise on one of my favorite meals: braised green, sausages, and beans. The Sicilian sausages are similar to spicy (not  raging hot) Italian with orange zest added so it does well with any rather mellow greens, like turnip, or kale.

I was pretty confident that I had greens of some ilk in the freezer, beans, onions and the like as well; all I needed for my supper was the sausages.  What I found in the freezer to go with my sausages were turnip greens and edamame (soybeans).

I browned the sausages in olive oil, added onions, some garlic, the turnip greens, and edamame and a bit of water.  After reaching a simmer on the stove-top I popped the covered pot into the oven at 425°F oven and went back to the computer to keep working.  After about half an hour in the oven, I uncovered the pot for about 15 minutes to let a little more liquid cook off and supper was ready!

I usually use two sausages to make this–one is quite adequate for a single serving.  I like to put the “leftover” in the freezer for a quick meal later as this freezes and reheats well.  There are lots of easy variations on this dish–use other types of beans like cannelinni, borletti, or pinto–or potatoes to fill this out.  Vary the greens–if you have a sweeter sausage, then mustard greens make a great contrast with their sharp, slightly hot flavor. This can be turned into soup really easily too: slice the sausage, add some broth, add some pasta, and a whole new meal.

There are so many delicious sausages out there and an almost infinite variety of greens to pair them with. You don’t need exact measurements here at all so it does well for single-serving meals.  Just cruise through the produce department and eyeball the greens: frisée, dandelion, kale, mustard…  Bitter greens pair well with sweeter sausages like lamb or sweet Italian–have fun, improvise and a son goût!

Wine? of course!  This just needs a good “everyday” red–even something out of a box, like the Portuguese Alandra box red.  We are, after all, talking peasant comfort food here.

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…and now it’s turkey soup!

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Remember those turkey thighs that I roasted a couple days ago? They have really been a bargain.  I spent about $5 on the package of thighs–two small-to-medium ones.

I had my roast turkey with sides of potatoes and cabbage (with juniper berries). Then I had two full-size sandwiches, and a half sandwich for lunches. Now I’m finishing the turkey thighs with a very hearty bowl of soup (and a  glass of good wine).

small Rival Crockette

a crockette

I popped those thigh bones (with what meat wasn’t easy to carve for sandwiches) in to my tiny little single-serving crock-pot to make some stock–I just added a little salt, a bay leaf, the brown stuff that I deglazed from the roasting pan, and enough water to cover the bones. After slow cooking overnight, I removed the thigh bones.  The meat just fell off into the pot.

In the same little crock-pot (don’t want extra dishes to wash), I added a small handful of barley, some dried mushrooms of various sorts–including shiitake, chanterelle, and porcini. The other things that went into this soup were the leftover cabbage (with juniper berries) and a few potatoes that were roasted with the turkey.  (You may be thinking that this is pretty heavy on starch, but to finish the soup, I added some green stuff.)

small leaves of greens

mixed greens

About half an hour before I was ready to eat, I went out to the garden (which I share through the good graces of a neighbor) and picked a good size handful of small kale, turnip, and mustard greens.

After washing, I cut these in bite size pieces (though that was almost unnecessary as they were really not as big as my hand). They went into the crock-pot; in about 20 minutes they were still bright green but tender.

I did a final adjustment of salt using French Grey sea salt, and finally added several drops of black truffle oil to finish the soup.

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I’ve had my bowl of soup for supper this evening–and it looks as if I’ll get one more meal out of those turkey thighs–with the barley, and the amount of meat that was left on the bones, there is easily another serving of this soup for lunch or supper tomorrow. (I’m sure that by the time I reheat it, those greens won’t be quite so bright green, but the flavors may have melded with the other ingredients so it should be good–maybe even better than this evening.

bowl of soup with greens

a warm, hearty supper

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I opened a bottle of wine this evening that was a completely unknown to me. It was a limited release called “Dark” from Apothic. I was completely beguiled by the description that said that it “blends dark fruit flavors of blueberry and blackberry with opulent notes of coffee and dark chocolate”.  How could I possibly pass that up? (I found it while shopping at Harris Teeter–just after I had bought a case of something called “Besieged”–more about that one later.)

I was surprised how dark it was when I poured it into the glass! (I even tried to take a picture–but it just looks almost black–so forget that.) It is definitely a “big” wine and right out of the bottle it was fruity and mellow–but after breathing for a bit it lives up to its description.

I thought it might overwhelm my bowl of turkey soup, but with the juniper berries, the rather emphatic mushrooms, the flavors of the greens, and the truffle oil, it turned out to be a great combination.  Fortunately there is some of the wine left for tomorrow’s soup! This is one time when I’m looking forward to the “leftovers”.

Turnip greens…

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Loose mustard greens

While having leisurely Sunday morning coffee I was browsing through the Huffington Post and discovered a presentation on rediscovering mustard greens (though I didn’t realize that they were lost or misplaced). If mustard greens need rediscovery, then perhaps turnip greens need rediscovery (or just discovery) too. One of my favorite things to do with heartier greens (those that need longer cooking, unlike spinach) like collards, mustard, kale, dandelion, or chard is to braise them with sausages for a one-pot meal that is easy to make in any quantity–and reheats and freezes well.

Just recently I was the happy recipient of a LOT of turnip greens from a gardener who likes the bottoms–the turnips and not the green tops. Some of these were older–so a bit spicier, with some of the “horseradish” tang that you find in mustard greens as well.

Even though it was warm weather, I had just started an intense indexing project and wanted some easy food–braised greens with sausage.  No need for a recipe and certainly not labor-intensive or needing a lot of attention while it cooked. (I thought about using the pressure cooker, or the slow cooker but just did this on the stove-top this time)

hot italian sausage IMG_6092I started by dicing and sautéing a large onion, then added a mix of sweet and hot Italian sausage, removed from the casings, to brown lightly.  Of course it needed garlic–about half a dozen large cloves, minced. (The garlic mellows a lot during cooking.)  Since the greens had their own “heat” and I had used hot Italian sausage, I didn’t add the hot red pepper flakes that I would have used with other sausages, or other greens–e.g. kale or collards.

Once the garlic had sautéed enough to become aromatic, I added the washed and cut up greens (still wet from washing) and a can of diced tomatoes. In a tightly lidded pot, I left this over low heat until the greens were almost tender–about 45 minutes. (Since these were older turnip greens, I did remove the stems before cooking.)

In went one can (rinsed) of pinto beans (not on the low-carb diet, but…) and continued to cook about 30 minutes more to let the beans pick up some of the flavor of the greens and the sausage. Home-cooked dried beans would have been better, but since I didn’t have any of those in the freezer, and hadn’t planned ahead–canned ones had to do for now.

And there you have it, a quick supper, and a couple of servings for the freezer for several more quick, comforting meals.  Since the greens were spicy, the sweet Italian sausage added a nice counterpoint. I’m glad to have some tucked away in the freezer since I suspect that will be the last of the turnip greens for the summer–as the weather gets hotter the greens get a bit more assertive. If I’m lucky and there are more, I’ll probably do this again, but omit the hot Italian sausage. Or think about doing this with lamb sausage…so many possibilities, and so easy–and reasonably healthy as well.

All you need to add is a glass of a nice sassy, robust red wine, and maybe some good crusty bread (if you’re not on a low-card diet). A son goût!

Dandelion greens

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I finished my teaching week this afternoon and found myself in need of an attitude adjustment.  It’s been a busy, hectic week but I still can’t figure out what I supposedly accomplished in all that business.  Still laundry to do and other household chores….

dandelion greens bunched in the Harris Teeter produce department

dandelion greens

In prowling through the grocery store (my local Harris Teeter) the other day I found absolutely lovely dandelion greens.  I haven’t had dandelion greens very often since I was a kid growing up on the farm.  Then they were a springtime treat–the young tender ones in a wilted salad with bacon dressing.  I thought that I’d try them in a one-dish meal based on a recipe from Jacques Pepin’s Shortcut Cook–quick, easy, and in the comfort-food category.  I decided that a good complement to the bitterness of the dandelion greens would be Siciliansausage which Harris Teeter makes in the meat department.  It’s a bit like Italian, but spicier and with much less fennel.

fresh store-made sausages

freshly made sausages

Remove sausage from casing, brown; add chopped onion and continue with the browning, then add a couple of garlic cloves, minced.  Add the chopped dandelion greens, stems about 10 minutes before the leafier parts (still wet from washing), cover and simmer. Depending on the spiciness of the sausage you might want some red pepper flakes. This particular sausage is strongly enough flavored that I did not add anything else.  When the greens are almost cooked, add some cooked pinto beans (in this case I’m resorting to canned ones). For a change from beans, add some diced potatoes to cook with the sausage and the greens.

Finish with a tiny drizzle of good fruity extra-virgin olive oil and it’s good to go, add some of my homemade oat bread, and ripe and fragrant Bartlett pears.

It’s certainly easy, reasonably quick–it takes about 15 to 20 minutes for the greens to cook, but it sure does contribute to attitude adjustment!  (Sorry, no pictures–it’s not photogenic.)  It’s good for single-serving cooking since I can buy the sausages individually, and if I’m using mustard, kale, I can buy those loose in the amount needed I don’t have leftovers.  If there is more than I’m going to use at once, I’ll take out some of the sausage and greens to be used later, perhaps as an omelette filling.

A son goût!