fried eggs breakfast

This breakfast makes use of surplus chicken pie filling prepared yesterday, but to refer to it now as breakfast eggs on top of chicken pie filling sounds so orninary, not that there's anything wrong with that, but still I fell it should be renamed for a refreshed purpose. I will go with à la King, an amusing name to begin with because it sounds like it switches from English to French then back again, otherwise it would be poulet à le roi, unless King is a name and not a status, which is very likely some chef named King. 

It also uses the other half of the Russet potato that was used for the pie filling. The potato half was already peeled and stored overnight in water to prevent oxidization. The reserved half was cut into matchsticks because both the hand graters are in the dishwasher, apparently, and I didn't feel like dragging out and messing up a Cuisinart just for one half a potato. Plus matchsticks are cool. The potato matchsticks were parboiled to give them a a start, and then fried in butter/olive oil. 

The sausages are in-house prepared with blueberries by Whole Foods on the day I shopped there. Adding blueberries to sausage seemed like a strange thing to do, I had to try them, but more than that, the idea suddenly lit up a whole range of associated sausage-related and meat-grinding thoughts. I said so, and the butcher lady agreed, she said, "Oh, we put all kind of fruity, berry things in sausage. Yesterday we had mango, before that we added cherries, we've had pineapple ... all kinds of things." And I'm all, "Get you guys! I never thought of mixing fruit with sausage before, or other meats for that matter." A world of ground meat perversion opened up right then. 

The two eggs stayed in the pan a minute longer than intended because I was goofing around and consequently the yolks cooked through. Then eating the overly hardened yolks reminded me of being a little kid, which is how I had them then. Runny egg yolks made my child self feel like I would would barf. I would hold my throat and make choking sounds to dramatize the point. Kids' tender sensibilities are weird. It took awhile to fully outgrow that non-vulcanized egg prejudice. 

sausage

These are the last two of four sausages marketed as 'jalapeño' and so presumably hot. The first two were squeezed from their casings and used for risotto, here. These two were seared in a deep pot which happens to be a pressure pot so a small amount of water was aded, the lid clamped on,  and the sausages were finished under pressure which speeded the process appreciably. I bought the sausages for the novelty.  I've never seen jalapeño sausages before and it seemed like a good idea. I'm on a jalapeño kick right now and adding it to sausages is the sort of thing I'd do myself. Truth be told, I could not detect the slightest trace of jalapeño flavor in these and they are not hot at all. *whispers * Threw one out. They are not very good.

farfalle with sausage

This is too much for my delicate little tummy. You know how mild and demure I am.

What?

No seriously, I couldn't finish. But Mommy, my spinach isn't cooked and it has sand in it. EAT IT! But Mommy, my sausage is burning my throat. EAT IT! But Mommy, it has too much garlic and it's turning my face red. EAT IT! But Mommy, the wine in this makes my head hurt. EAT IT! But Mommy, I found a microscopic hair on my plate. Well in that case, Honey, here, have yourself a Dove bar.

So we call this bow tie pasta but Italians call it butterflies. But they also call bow ties butterfly ties. So. Did the Italians name the pasta after bow ties which in turn were named after butterflies or did they name both bow ties and pasta after butterflies? What do I look like, a foreign language etymologist over here? I say, the pasta came before the bow ties, therefore the pasta was named directly from the butterflies and not the bow ties. Nor were the bow ties named from the pasta which were named between the butterflies and the bow ties. But that's me. A friend of mine, an argumentative sort who delights in disputing small things and who also speaks Italian, disagrees with that conclusion. Since he's older than my demure and timid self he thinks that trumps everything so, that, and his possession of a thick head, he cannot be told anything. Bastard.

Fried the sausage I made earlier in a pan then removed it retaining the grease it released. It wasn't enough so I augmented with butter. Added an equal amount of flour and browned the roux. Seasoned it. Cooked diced onions and mushrooms in the finished roux so that it coated it all. Deglazed with the red wine that was opened earlier. Added milk for a thin sauce. The roux that coated the onions and mushrooms released steadily so there was no chance of lumps forming. I kept thinning with milk as needed.

Layered on a plate sauce, farfalle, spinach, farfalle, sauce, herbs, Parmigiano. That turned out to be twice as much as I could handle. I'm a pig, and I have no portion judgement at all, especially when it comes to pasta.

Sadly, this isn't as good as it might look. The sauce lacks something. It's boring. It's the sort of thing that would be OK on a biscuit but not that great on pasta. In fact, I'm never going to do it again. Plain olive oil with garlic would be better.

sausage

OH MY GOD !!11!1!!!11||¡¡¡ONE¡!!ELEVENTEEN!!! I did not know sausage could be this good.

I made this in preparation for something later. I looked online for what kind of spices go into sausage and it turns out to be anything, but looking at what people say did give me a good idea of amounts and range. I would not have imagined ginger or wine. I did imagine all the other things. I've got frozen pork roast out the wazoo and once I got to cutting into one of them I decided to use the whole thing. That turned out to be three pounds, twelve ounces. Or maybe it two pounds, twelve ounces. Whatever, it was large bowl full.

I went through the spice cabinets pulling things out. Originally I pulled garlic powder then put it back in favor of fresh garlic. I have no fresh ginger, although I have it in unfresh jars, powder, and crystalline forms. I chose a red wine somebody gave me a long time ago. I went overboard with the chile peppers. I used cayenne and chipotle powders, and my own house mix flakes, so that turned out to be a lot of chile pepper. This sausage is hot. You might not like it because of that, and I wouldn't consider serving it to children.

• cumin

• coriander

• ginger powder

• fennel seed

• caraway seeds

* black pepper

* Brittany sea salt

* sage, lots of sage, mostly sage. I think three rounded teaspoons full.

* oregano

* mixed dry Italian herbs

* different kinds of red chile peppers, powder and flakes one teaspoon each (too much probably)

* fresh crushed garlic ( a whole bulb, just the big cloves, not the little ones)

* red wine.

I think that's it. If I had mace, I would have added that too.

I coated the semi-frozen meat cubes with spice powder before grinding it. The meat chunks did not take up all the spice, therefore, I packed the extra spice into the grinder between increments of pork cubes. At the end, I packed cubes of my own old bread to clear out the grinder. When the bread started coming out then I stopped. So the meat has a tiny amount of ground up bread too, but not much.

I thought double grinding would be a good idea. It's not. The portion that was double ground was too mushy. I mixed that portion in. So in the end, about 1/16 is double ground and tended to more evenly blend the regular grind. This made a difference with the final texture. I'll keep that in mind -- the idea of double grinding a portion of whatever meat I'm grinding to smooth out the finished product without overdoing it to pure mush.

The sausage patties brown and cook surprisingly quickly. The extra was wrapped and packaged in FoodSaver air-sucking-outie bags.

Honestly, for a first time try, and without a clue what I was doing, I've never had sausage this delicious. Even though it would be too hot for some tastes.

poor little lonely sausage

lettuce call a few of your friends, some chicks and Campo de Montalban.


Oil and vinegar, salt and pepper, Dijon style.