I Like Sausage

This winter I have been cooking a lot with sausages. Sausages are one of my favorite comfort foods and I thought that, as my first posting with recipes, I would include two of my favorite winter sausage recipes.

For both of these recipes I used Aidell's New Mexico chicken and turkey sausages. But, as these are now only available by mail-order and in person at farmer's markets throughout the Bay Area, you could use any high quality, spicy sausage you like. As I am a total sausage nerd, I bring back 5 or 6 pounds of this particular sausage to Arizona in my luggage from every visit I make to California.

Recipe # One
Jette's Awesome Farro and Sausage Stew

One of my very dear friends made this for me when I was over for dinner one night. It is amazing served with a glass of red wine, a piece of crusty bread spread with goat cheese, and a green salad (I like arugula, dressed with lemon juice and olive oil).

Ingredients
1 cup Farro (or you can use hard winter wheat)
3 links spicy sausage, cut into bite-size pieces
3 cloves of garlic
2 shallots or 1 small onion
1 Tbls olive oil
1 giant carrot, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
4 Tbls tomato paste
1/2 red wine
2 cups chicken stock
1 Tbls fresh thyme
salt and pepper

Cook the farro in boiling salted water for 10 minutes. Drain. If using winter wheat instead of farro, you will have to cook it for at least 45 minutes (maybe more). Meanwhile, saute the shallots, garlic, and sausages in the olive oil for a few minutes (until they brown a little). Add the carrots, celery, and bell pepper and saute fro 5 minutes. Add farro, tomato paste, red wine, chicken stock, and thyme and cook on low heat for 20-30 minutes until combined and cooked through.

Recipe # Two
Ultimate Comfort Food
(or, creamy polenta with sausage and Cambozola cheese)

For the polenta:
1 qt water
1 cup polenta
1 1/2 tsp salt
pat of butter

Bring 1 quart of water to a boil. Salt. Stir the water to create a whirlpool in the center of the pan. Add the dry polenta to the water in a steady stream. Stir like hell. Keep stirring until the polenta forms a coherent mush. Reduce the heat to low. let the polenta cook, on low, for 40-45 minutes. Before serving, stir in the butter.

While the polenta cooks, prepare the other ingredients:
1 sausage (at least), per person
1oz Cambazola cheese, per person
1 egg, per person (optional)

Cut the sausages into bite size pieces. Saute to GBD (golden brown and delicious). Fry the eggs (I like them runny).

Put a generous portion of the cooked polenta into each dish (polenta could serve up to four people). Top with the cheese and the sausage. Cover with the fried egg. Eat.


WARNING: You may need a nap.

copyright 2010 the creeping unknown

What I Like

As you might have guessed from reading this blog, I like food. I am willing to try anything, but here are some of my favorites:Oysters with chorizo butter, The Marshall Store, Marshall, CA

A huge gaufre (waffle) with powdered sugar, Waffle Mania Belgian Waffles, San Rafael Farmer's Market, San Rafael, CA

More delicious oysters, The Marshall Store, Marshall, CA

The World Famous Salumi Cone, Boccalone, Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA

Beer, I love all beer, especially when it is this color, this particular stein of glory can be found at Suppenkuche, Hayes Valley, San Francisco ,CA

Also from Suppenkuche, Wild Boar Sausages with sauerkraut and spaetzle, so freaking delicious! Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA

(The picture above refused to be moved by this blogger, it is of the beauty of roast chicken from the geniuses at Roli Roti, San Rafael Farmer's Market, San Rafael, CA. Just so you know they cook their potatoes in the dripping chicken fat...drool...)

The Best Shrimp and Fish Tacos, from Mariscos La Bocanita, Rio Rico, AZ

I also can't get through the day without at least one cup of coffee (favorite roaster in AZ Adventure Coffee Roasting, all organic, all fair trade, all delicious), I love Sonoran Hot Dogs, anything with cheese on it or in it, and I am a candy fiend (full post on why I love candy to follow soon).

I know this post seems very California-centric, but I just got back from a visit and I had tons of great photos. There is amazing food to be had in Southern Arizona as well. I also want to note (as I'm sure my mother is reading this blog), that I do eat vegetables and fruit, not just salted meats, sweets, and liquor (though I like those best).

copyright 2010 the creeping unknown All photos 2009/2010 the creeping unknown

Where I Come From

I was born in the San Francisco Bay Area, in the heart of the slow food movement. I have always loved food. From an early age, I was spending time in the kitchen, insanely curious about everything (and getting a reputation as a troublemaker). I have always loved to try new foods and learn about new cooking techniques and recipes. My parents were both students of the University of California, Berkeley, and I spent the early part of my life living in the married student housing, surrounded by people from many different backgrounds and cultures. I have vivid memories of tea with our neighbors from Ireland, Iranian rice pilaf, and eating sheets of seaweed and shrimp crackers with my Korean friends. Growing up with friends from all over the world, I was able to learn and grow into many cultures at once. This has influenced my entire life.

We ate at home most nights at my house growing up, and both of my parents cooked. My father had spent much of his young life as a chef and his love of food and of cooking food himself, with his own hands, showed me what one could do with love for and knowledge of ingredients.

When I was older, my family moved to a small (very small) town on the coast north of San Francisco. My younger brother and I spent our days running over the beaches and exploring the forests around our house. We ate wonderful local cheese and milk, and I discovered oysters, which remain one of my favorite foods today. Our next door neighbor had, briefly, a business farming abalone, and we used to be the recipients of 5-gallon buckets of the hugely expensive mollusks (which of course we didn't realize at the time). There was always frozen abalone in our house.

After that, I spent a lot of time in restaurants and catering businesses and voraciously tearing apart every book on food or cooking I could get my hands on. I am a student of cultural anthropology these days as well as an avid home chef. Now, years later, I live, with my husband in Tucson, Arizona. Abalone is not common fair in our house these days, but the love for delicious local, ethnic, and handmade food endures.


copyright 2010 the creeping unknown