Spicy Sausage and Creamy Polenta

I freakin' love polenta! I know I've mentioned this before and in fact posted a blog some time ago with nearly the same recipe- Polenta and sausage. But I didn't have any photos of that meal - so thought it was worth revisiting.

Polenta is versatile and can be so tasty; and in this current economy - it's easy on the wallet! Serve it soft and creamy or let it form into a base you can top for little appetizer or even use as bread for a sandwich!

Look for more recipes for polenta coming soon to keep you fat and happy!


Polenta
2 cups liquid (either water, milk or broth)
1/2 cup polenta
1/2 cup grated Parmesan Cheese
1/4 cup goat (or other) creamy cheese

Whisk the polenta into the liquid slowly. Stir often over medium low heat. As the polenta begins to thicken you will add another 1& 1/2 cups water, 1/2 cup at a time.

This could take up to an hour. When the polenta is complete (taste it, is it still gritty? You may need to add slightly more water)
Remove from stove. Add in 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup of goat cheese (or other creamy cheese) and fresh ground pepper. (feel free to use more cheese!) Serve.

Tomato Sausage Sauce
2 or 3 hot Italian sausages
1/2 cup chopped onions
4 cloves garlic
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped artichokes
1/2 cup chopped olives (use a mixture of good deli olives)
basil, handful of fresh or 1 tbls dried

Start by cooking the sausages, over medium heat in a 2-4" deep pan. Turn a few times. Once those are nearly done, add the chopped onions and sautee for 5 minutes. If you have dried herbs, add them now. Add the garlic and sautee for another minutes (don't add the garlic with the onions or it will burn). Add 1 can of diced tomatoes (use your wooden spoon to scrape all the great cooked on bits off the bottom of the pan, almost like you are deglazing). Let that cook until hot and bubbly. Add in 1/2 cup chopped artichokes hearts and 1/4 cup of chopped olives. If you have fresh herbs, add them now. Salt and pepper to taste

Serve over the polenta, grate fresh Parmesan cheese over the top.

Mango Coconut Milk Ice Cream

It's now fall as of yesterday but my interest in ice cream continues even as the sun fades sooner.

The mango flavor hits you the moment the ice cream enters your mouth, then the coconut flavor comes through, coating everything with the hearty coconut milk flavor. Exactly the reason this would make a really perfect ending to a spicy Tai meal!

This is not my creamiest ice cream I've concocted; the blended mango- while pureed smooth- allows for the tiniest ice crystals to form (similar to a sherbert but on a much less scale). The coconut milk does add a layer of heaviness that I wasn't expecting; you could cut the coconut milk in half in you prefer. Try to choose a ripe mango- one that is soft and juicy; I do give directions on what to do if your mango is hard.

Enjoy the fall weather with this pretty mango ice cream, it will give you a reason to make a spicy dish and to be fat and happy!

Mango Coconut Milk Ice Cream
1 cup cream
1/2 cup half and half
1/2 cup milk
1/2 can of coconut milk (1 cup)
1 mango, peeled and cut off the core in large pieces
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar

mango was hard, had to steep the mango in the milk, then blend it with sugar.

Add all the milk in a pot along with 1/4 cup sugar. If your mango is hard, add it to the cream. Bring just to below a boil, turn off heat, place a cover on and let steep for about 15 minutes. Remove the mango from the milk, place in the blender and puree until smooth, cool. If your mango is quite soft, skip adding it to the cream and go straight to the blender step.

While the milk is warming, whisk together the yolks and 1/4 cup sugar until the yolks turn a fluffy pale yellow. Now, temper the eggs by add a cup of the warm cream to the eggs, one at a time. You're bringing the eggs up the the temperature of the cream slowly to avoid scrambling the eggs.

Once you've tempered the eggs, add them to the pot and turn the heat on to medium low. Stir until the the liquid starts to thicken and coats the back of a wooden spoon (if you run your finger across the back of a spoon you can see a line drawn through the custard.) Do not boil though.

Now cool the cream by placing in bowl (or simply use the pan its in) and then place that in a larger bowl of ice and water to cool. Stir often. Once the cream is cool, add to your ice cream maker along with the mango puree and follow the manufacturers instructions.

Chocolate Bubble Cookies

This cookie was a mistake. I was attempting to make a chocolate lace cookie, but they came out like a little chocolate brownie (not even close to a lace cookie.) So I rolled them in sugar and made them into little bursts of chocolate. In my book, that's called success! Who wouldn't like a little round bubble of brownie?

So it wasn't what I intended to create- but these little brownies bites are fabulous . They can be easily overcooked so you need to watch them closely; otherwise you'll have a dry brownie on your hands. If that happens, you can always freeze these and make them into chocolate bread pudding (adaption in the face of error is what makes a someone good in the kitchen.)

It's a pretty quick mix up, but the rolling in sugar takes an extra step. Don't let that stop you- these are worth the trouble of rolling or just add some sugar in a bowl and toss them rather than roll.

As my motto goes - eat your mistakes and be fat and happy!

Chocolate Bubble Cookies
melt
1/2 stick+ 1 tbl butter
add 6 Tbls cocoa

add 2 Tbls cream
add 1 egg

Mix in
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sugar (+ some for rolling)
3/4 cups flour

Use your smallest cookie scoop. Drop onto a plate of sugar, roll around so the round cookie is covered in sugar and place on lightly greased cookie sheet pan.
Bake (375 degrees) for about 8 to 12 minutes; I found that taking them out just before they get a hard shell to them was best. I do suggest trying a pan with just one or two first to find the right baking time for your oven so these don't get overcooked and dried out.

Citrus Grilled Fish with Parsley Dressing

Fish is one of those foods we are trying to eat more of, but it can easily get 'boring'. To me, grilling gives a great deeper and heartier flavor to fish. The problem is many of the lighter flaky fish would just fall apart on the grill - so your limited to the tin foil pouch.

I saw this idea in a photo and immediately jumped on it. Layering thin slices of oranges and lemons directly on the grates with the fish on top keep the fish just off the grills while still getting all the benefits of the grill.

This works great, giving the fish a hint of citrus, a hit of grill flavor and keeps the fish together. I served these on a bed of couscous and sauteed onions and zucchini with a drizzle of Parsley Dressing. Do try this for a great new way to grill fish- it'll be one more day of eating healthy and being fat and happy!


Citrus Grilled Fish

1 Orange
1 Lemon
2 fillets (like Tilapia)
Olive oil

Drizzle olive oil and black pepper on the fish and let them rest. Slice the orange and the lemon in round, relatively thin slices. Rub oil on your grill; once the grill is ready, place the oranges and lemons directly on the grates. Place your fillets on top of that. In the meantime, make the parsley dressing (recipe below).

Fish is done when it turns opaque.

Parsley Dressing
chop 1 cup of parsley
chop 1 tbls fresh oregano (or dill, or basil)
Juice 1 lemon
1 tbls of olive oil
Fresh ground pepper.

Mix the ingredients; enjoy.

Featherweight Bread

Bread is quickly becoming a new favorite item to bake, especially when I keep getting turned on to these very simple recipes. Now there is no need to make a trip to the store for bread; I can have a loaf put together, baked and in my mouth in about 1 to 2 hours!

Nearly every recipe on my blog is something I've created, but this bread recipe and the English Muffin Bread both came from my friend Carolyn. - Thanks for helping me be fat and happy C!

Proof:
2 packages of Yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 cup water (warm to 100-130 degrees)

Mix together, then let cool:
3/4 cup hot water
1/2 cup butter (8 tbls)

Mix dry ingredients together:
2 tsp salt
5-6 cups flour - add one at a time

Stir above ingredients together and incorporate the dry, adding the flour little by little

Knead 2-4 minutes, then let rest for about 5minutes. Divide in two parts. Roll each into a rectangle 12 " long x 8" wide. Roll up, pinch seam on bottom of loaf.

Grease baking sheet, sprinkle with cornmeal. Place loaves on sheet and let rise for an hour. Bake until lightly browned. You can brush with a beaten egg white for gloss and shine.

Asian steak

Once I thought about being a vegetarian. Once. But just walk by any steak house, or an afternoon party where they are grilling a good ole steak. The aroma itself is so mouth watering I can hardly keep myself from jumping over the fence and grabbing a steak right off the grill.

What other flavor makes you want to commit a breaking and entering crime- or is that a crime of the stomach? Maybe cookies in the oven or maybe a fresh cherry pie but I'm not even those can compare with a classic steak on the grill!

This is a fun marinade that's super tasty. Watch the flames and the flare ups with this marinade though.

6 Tbls soy sauce
2 Tbls walnut oil
2 Tbls brown sugar
1 Tbls ginger powder
2 Tbls sesame chili oil
Fresh black pepper

Mix all ingredients in dish (about 4 inches deep). Add the steak, marinade for 1 to 4 hours. Grill or pan sear and finish in the oven.

Biscuit Egg Sandwich

Breakfast is a fabulous meal; often overlooked and often shunned at after about noon. This I don't agree with. What's wrong with a green chili smothered burrito at 2am? Or a little mint frittata for dinner?

This one could take a few minutes to put together - if you're going to make the biscuits from scratch. It takes me about half an hour to mix up biscuits and bake them. You could also buy those can ones- you know, the paper canister that POPs open.

In the photo, I served this atop the spinach and yellow pepper salad, which is more of a brunch item, but it's good.

Make the breakfast sandwich day or night, eat it with a fork and knife, fat and happy you'll be - with an egg in your belly.

Biscuit Egg Sandwich

Biscuits
eggs (one per sandwich)
parsley pesto
Roasted yellow pepper (1/2 per sandwich)

It is important to have all of these ingredients ready before assembling the sandwich. First, get the biscuits in the oven. Then, while the pepper is roasting (see my tips on how to roast peppers), mix the parsley pesto if it's not already made. Now, once the biscuits are out of the oven then you can start the egg. Keep the pan on medium so you don't over cook or fry the egg, place a little butter in the pan and crack your eggs in. Top with a little salt and pepper.

Keep your yolks runny even if you don't think you like runny eggs (start with over easy and work your way to sunny side up)- it's important for the sandwich. While the eggs are cooking, split open a biscuit, add a spoonful of parsley pesto and 1/2 of the roasted pepper. Now top with the runny egg and serve immediately with a fork. That is one outstanding biscuit egg sandwich.

Black Pepper Ice Cream

You probably read the title and said "what the..? Black pepper in ice cream?"

Sure, why not!? Continuing on my ice cream infatuation, it's gettin' a little crazy here.

This is classic mix of spicy meets sweet, and it works quite well. Of course you can overdo it the pepper here, so do be careful to not take it too far.

I think what might be harder to imagine is what to serve the black pepper ice cream with. It can stand on its own as just a small scoop, served with say a chocolate martini. When pairing this ice cream, it needs to be a simple item - like a pound cake (try grilling it!) or a very simple dense chocolate cake would work well. I also think that it would blend well with a cherry pie.

This is going to be an adult ice cream rather than one for the kids. Serve it at your next dinner party as just scoops on spoon. It will be a great conversation getter and you'll be looking fat and happy!


Black Pepper Ice Cream

2 cups cream
1 cup half and half
1 cup whole milk
1 vanilla bean
1 1/2 tsp fresh finely ground black pepper
8 egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar

Add the cream, vanilla bean, milk and pinch of salt in a pot. For the vanilla bean, you will need to split the bean in half and scrape out the paste-like inside. Add this to the milk along with the bean casings and the black pepper. Bring just to below a boil, turn off heat, place a cover on and let steep for about 15 minutes. Then whisk together the yolks and sugar until the yolks turn a fluffy pale yellow (this is going take about 5 or 6 minutes, just keep whisking! You're building muscle!) Now, temper the eggs by add a cup of the warm cream to the eggs, one at a time. You're bringing the eggs up the the temperature of the cream slowly to avoid scrambling the eggs.

Once you've tempered the eggs, add them to the pot and turn the heat on to medium low. Stir until the the liquid starts to thicken and coats the back of a wooden spoon (if you run your finger across the back of a spoon you can see a line drawn through the custard.) Do not boil though. Remove the vanilla bean casing and either discard or save to use for other purposes.

Now cool the cream by placing in bowl (or simply use the pan its in) and then place that in a larger bowl of ice and water to cool. Stir often. As I always say, if you need to make the ice cream immediately, add it to your ice cream machine and follow the manufacturers instructions. If you can wait a day, place the custard mixture in the refrigerator for the night, and then continue with your ice cream machine after that, using the manufacturers directions. Allowing the cream mixture to sit overnight helps the ice cream to become slightly smoother and creamier! Enjoy!