HOMEMADE SAUSAGE RECIPES & IDEAS:

While not great for serious anti-yeasting if you need to avoid dried spices, you can sometimes use fresh herbs in at least some of these recipe-ideas.  Fresh sage is pretty easy to come by, and sometimes just sage and either ground pork or turkey is great!  Sausage is fun, and I sort of count on it never coming out exactly the same each time.  It’s fun to experiment.   

Add the following spices/herbs to ground meat.  It's best if you can then let the mixture sit in the refrigerator for a day to help blend the flavors, but most of the time I just add the spices to the ground meat as it is cooking in the pan.

EASY BREAKFAST SAUSAGE
1 lb ground pork, beef, or turkey
1/4 to 1 tsp. sage
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. marjoram (optional)
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. thyme (optional)
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. coriander (optional)
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

ITALIAN SAUSAGE
1 lb. medium ground pork or turkey, or 1/2 lb. pork and 1/2 lb. beef
1 medium onion, minced
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 clove garlic, minced
1 bay leaf, finely crumbled
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. fennel seed, crushed
1/4 tsp. paprika
1/8 tsp. thyme
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

POLISH KIELBASA
2 lb coarsely ground pork butt
3/4 lb. finely ground beef
1 1/2 tsp. coarse salt
1 1/2 tsp. crushed peppercorns
1 1/2 tsp. marjoram
1 TBLS paprika
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

BRATWURST (This one is really best if it is made a day ahead and "cured")
1 lb. ground pork or turkey
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground mace
1/4 tsp. ground marjoram
1/2 tsp. white pepper

SOUP RECIPES/IDEAS

Basic Chicken Stock:

6-8 large chicken thighs with bones

2-3 quarts water

2 onions, peeled and quartered

2 large carrots, peeled quartered

2 stalks celery, in large chunks

2 large cloves of garlic, peeled

1 TBLS salt

12-15 whole black peppercorns

Bring all to a boil then simmer gently together in a kettle for about 1 hour, remove chicken and cool.  If stock is not concentrated enough, you can take the meat off the bones, return the bones to the stock and simmer for another hour, leaving it at least partially uncovered.  This makes a delicious, rich chicken broth from which you can make several different kinds of soup.  If there is a lot of fat on the top, skim some off and refrigerate and save to season other foods, instead of butter or oil

PLAIN OLD CHICKEN SOUP:  Strain the cooked vegetables out of the stock (they will be limp and have given up their life for the good of the soup!)  Put at least some of the chicken back in the broth (you can save some of it for other chicken dishes) add some chopped fresh carrots, celery and onion, and simmer until the vegetables are just tender.

FANCY ZUCCHINI-THICKENED CHICKEN SOUP.  Before adding the vegetables and meat to to the chicken stock, cook a whole bunch of sliced zucchini in the stock.  When soft, puree either in a blender or with a stick blender (you can leave some of the cooked squash out of the pureeing if you want to and add it back.  Then add the vegetables (optional) and chicken into the thickened soup.

CAULIFLOWER OR “MOCK POTATO” SOUP:  Cook a very large head of fresh cauliflower, cored, in the chicken stock, just until fork tender.  Then carefully puree the cauliflower into a small amount of the broth—adding broth as you go until it reaches the desired consistency.  It’s nice to add some sliced, cooked celery to this too.  One important note: Don’t try this with frozen cauliflower, it doesn’t work, it’s awful.  For some reason frozen cooked cauliflower won’t emulsify into the broth, it will come out a curdled mess.

CURRIED CARROT* SOUP:  Saute a large chopped onion in olive oil in a large dutch oven for 5-10 mnutes until limp and transparent.  Add 1-2 TBLS of curry powder (optional) and brown a minute longer.  Add 1-2 quarts of chicken stock and cook 10 or so large carrots until very tender in the stock.  Blend all until creamy with a stick blender. 

*Obviously, this one won’t work for at all for Atkins induction, if that's what plan you're following, and using the curry might be problematic for hard-core anti-yeasters, but it is good without it too.

SOME OTHER IDEAS AND HINTS

Make a turkey and feed yourself for several days. It doesn't have to be Thanksgiving and you don't have to be having company.  I find cooking them in the oven bags saves messy ovens and clean-up. Generally speaking, always make more meat than you’ll eat at one meal.  Planning to have leftovers is the secret the key to having fast easy food available.

Eat Steak! - pork steaks and beef steaks. It is usually a lot more affordable to eat pork steaks. They are a great fat source too. I broil them or grill them out or cook them on the George Foreman grill.

Pork chops are easy and great done on the grill or baked in the oven; but to change the texture/taste somewhat different brown in a skillet, then braise for 45-60 minutes or cook in a pressure cooker (with some water) for about 10 minutes. Pork loin roasts are usually fast and fairly often on sale. They provide lots of leftover meat. Fresh thyme is wonderful with pork (and turkey).

Ribs---country style or back ribs. No, they don't taste a whole lot different than plain pork, but they can be fun to eat off the bone.  Makes me feel like a real cave girl anyway. 

FAST-FUN and PRETTY DARNED EASY-CLEAN-UP RIBS:

Cut full pork back ribs into halves (to fit LARGE crock pot), into smaller portions to fit smaller crockpot.  Lightly salt & pepper.  Wrap each portion tightly in heavy duty aluminum foil and place in crockpot  (Do NOT add water or anything else to crockpot!)  Turn crockpot on low and cook all day. 

And I seem to NEVER get tired of plain roasted chicken---thighs or breasts---with the skin cooked crisp and brown.  I either bake it in the oven at 350 for about an hour, or I sometimes do thighs on a George-Foreman Grill about 20 minutes total; boneless breasts take about 10 minutes.  Wings, breasts and drumsticks with the bones don’t seem to work well in GF grills because of their irregular shapes.

A frozen vegetable standby is a "California Mix" sold at my local Sam's Club. Sliced carrots with broccoli and cauliflower florets. I will often cook a big batch of this for dinner (oiled w/olive oil or meat fat), take the leftover veggies and divide them into two single serving sized plastic containers, plop some leftover meat into each container and refrigerate.  I have my lunches decided and made for the next two days.

EATING IN RESTAURANTS

Order steak, hamburgers or broiled fresh fish.  Most restaurant chicken, I find, has been marinaded, beef is often a better choice for that reason.  Ask for salads with no croutons, no cheese  If they don't offer oil and vinegar in the little cruets, only an oil and vinegar based dressing, ask them to go to the kitchen and fetch you a dressing container full of oil.  Ask for your veggies steamed then drizzle the olive oil over them as well as your salad.

One last note...when it seems you’re up against a wall, it’s 7 or 8 pm and there's no dinner in sight, scrambled eggs have more than once saved the day.  Eggs are cheap, they last a long time in the fridge, and they can be ready in 5 minutes or less.  Microwave some frozen veggies while the eggs are cooking, and you’re fueled enough to plan a better, smarter day tomorrow.

Adele Stratton

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