A link to fall pleasures

I usually stock up on smoked sausage and kolbassa in the summer, when they're less expensive than in the fall. I throw them in the freezer and wait for cooler weather. Since they are already cooked, they are great to have on hand for a fast dinner.

Luckily this year, I didn't follow the sales so there wasn't much left in the freezer when a power outage happened while we were on vacation. I threw out all the raw meat and anything that could have spoiled by being at room temperature for four hours. There was one last smoked turkey sausage that I figured was safe but needed to be  eaten this week. So although this dinner would probably be more suitable for the fall, it tasted pretty darn good this evening.

Lori K's sausage bake for two

Ingredients
1 cup of baby carrots
1/2 large onion, or 1 small onion, sliced thinly

Salt and pepper to taste

2 tart apples, peeled, cored and sliced

1 13-ounce smoked turkey sausage rope

Instructions
Heat oven to 450 degrees, with one rack about mid-oven, and one near the broiler. Oil a cast-iron shallow pan or skillet. Spread the carrots across the bottom of the pan and top with the onions. Salt and pepper to taste (keep in mind that the sausage will likely be salty). Cook for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the apples and slice the sausage into 1/2-inch disks. When the timer goes off, top the carrots and onions with the apple slices, and put back in the oven for 5 minutes.
When the 5 minutes are up, remove the pan from the oven and turn it off. Immediately turn on the broiler. Arrange the sausage disks on top of the apples, then put the pan back in the oven on the high rack. Broil until the sausage is toasty, a little charred on the edges. Serve hot.

Ear ye, ear ye - corn shucking made easy

Planning to have a barbecue to celebrate the beginning of summer? If one of the sides is corn on the cob, and you don't mind cooking it in the microwave, this video will save you a ton of time.

Saucy poached eggs

Poached eggs can be a lot of work, and that's probably why most of us don't make them more often. I once had a volunteer crew poach 200 of them for a breakfast we used to do at our Sacramento church, but that's a story for another time.

Someone (not me) came up with a great idea: Poach the eggs IN their sauce. It's a very good way to prepare one of my favorite dishes, huevos rancheros, which I made last week to my husband's delight.

Saucy Poached Eggs
Serves 2

Ingredients
1 can Herdez ranchero sauce
Water
4 eggs
Salt and pepper
4 corn tortillas
4 ounces shredded cheese

Directions
Turn on oven to 350 degrees.
Put the ranchero sauce and a can of water in a large saucepan. Bring to a full boil. Turn down to medium and add the eggs so that they are as far apart as possible. Salt and pepper to taste.
Put the 4 tortillas on a cookie sheet and put 1 ounce of cheese on each. Spread the cheese out so that it covers most of the tortilla. Put in the oven until the cheese melts.
When the whites have mostly set, and the cheese on the tortillas has melted, cover the saucepan to get the top part of the whites done, but not so long that the yolk hardens.
Remove tortillas from oven and put 2 tortillas each on 2 plates.  Uncover, and using a large spoon, loosen the eggs from the saucepan and put one on each tortilla. Spoon any extra sauce over. Serve with knife and fork.

Give me love, give me peas

Things were looking good at the City Market in downtown Charlottesville today. By 9 a.m. the line for tacos was out to the street, and they don't sell breakfast tacos, unless you think chorizo is breakfast sausage. The steak and the al pastor tacos are the best I've had in Charlottesville.


I bought some great looking dinosaur kale and rainbow chard, a variety of lettuces and some rhubarb-sweet cherry jam. But what looked the best of all were the fresh peas. I put on a Daily Show episode I had missed, and before it was over, my pint of peas had yielded enough for this recipe.

Lori K's Spring Pea Risotto

Ingredients

3 1/2 cups regular or low-sodium vegetable broth

2 teaspoons unsalted butter

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 large shallot, finely diced

1 cup arborio rice

1/2 cup dry white wine


1 cup fresh shelled English peas

1 tablespoon butter (salted OK)


1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions
In a large saucepan over medium heat, bring broth to a simmer.

For the risotto, heat butter and olive oil in a wide, shallow, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add shallot and cook, stirring, 3 minutes or until tender and translucent. Add the rice and toast for 1 to 2 minutes, or until slightly translucent. Add the wine and stir until it has evaporated.

Cook the risotto at a slow simmer, adding heated broth a half-cup at a time. Stir occasionally, making sure the risotto absorbs the liquid before adding more. Use more or less broth as needed.

Continue cooking in this manner for 18 to 20 minutes. Taste the risotto - it should be creamy and thick. It's best al dente, which means it should be fully cooked, yet still retain some firmness when you chew it.

When you have about 1 cup of broth left, stir in the raw peas. 


When the risotto is finished, turn off heat, stir in 1 tablespoon of butter, the Parmesan and season to taste with  sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Serve immediately.

Cioppino benissimo

After a recent trip to San Francisco, we discovered how sleep-inducing the sound of waves and foghorns off in the distance could be. When we got back to Charlottesville, we found a bedside clock that mimicked the sound of the seashore, and have used it to lull us to sleep.

One drawback is it makes us long for the dishes we associate with the Bay Area: Dungeness crabs, sourdough bread and cioppino. While I don't think we'll find those fresh big crabs or the exact sourdough in Virginia, I still managed to make a fine cioppino, thanks to Seafood on West Main. Paired with a baguette from Albemarle Baking Company, it made us a little less lonely for Baghdad by the Bay.

Cioppino Benissimo
By Lori Korleski Richardson
Serves 4-6


Ingredients
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion
1 small (or 1/2 large) fennel bulb
4 garlic cloves
3 bay leaves
6 sprigs fresh oregano
Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes (with basil, optional)
1 1/2 cups dry white wine
1 8-ounce bottle clam juice
1 pound skinless fillets of a white fish (halibut, talapia, haddock or cod), cut into 1" pieces
1 pound mussels, scrubbed, debearded
1/2 pound cleaned squid, thawed if frozen, bodies cut into 1/2" rings, tentacles left whole
Crusty baguette, or sourdough bread

Instructions

Toast fennel seeds over medium heat until fragrant. Cool and grind to fine powder in spice grinder. Set aside.

Finely chop garlic, onion and fennel (food processor is fine for this) and combine. Put oil in a large heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring, until onions are softened, about 5 minutes. Add bay leaf, oregano, the ground fennel seeds and red pepper flakes. Stir in tomatoes and cook for about a minute. Add wine and boil until reduced by about half, 5 to 6 minutes. Add clam juice and simmer, covered, 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. (You can do this step up to a day before serving and reheat.)

About 7 minutes before serving, add the fish chunks and mussels and cook until the mussels begin to open, about 2 minutes. Add the squid rings and tentacles and cook 5 minutes.
Serve hot in large soup bowls with bread. Set out small bowls for the mussel shells.

If you double the recipe, double the fish, and add 1 1/2 pounds of other seafood as you like: clams, shrimp and/or crab. If you like spicy food, increase the red pepper flakes to 1 teaspoon.

Stalking a tasty chutney

My farmers' bounty basket last week included 5 stalks of rhubarb. Not quite enough for a pie, but what to do with them? I saw a recipe for rhubarb chutney on a Tasting Table email, but I really didn't want to drive 8 miles to get some of the spices from the Indian specialty store. So I improvised. Here's the recipe I came up with.


Rhubarb Chutney
Makes 2 8-ounce jars

Ingredients
½ cup water
Juice of 2 limes
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon dried basil
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
2 dried arbol chili peppers
2 tablespoons garam masala
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and minced
5 medium stalks rhubarb, ends trimmed and stalk chopped into ½- to 1-inch pieces
¼ teaspoon kosher salt

Instructions
In a medium saucepan set over medium-high heat, bring the water, lime juice and sugar to a simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. Add the spices and cook, stirring often, until the spices become fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes.

Add the ginger and stir until fragrant, about 1 minute, then stir in the rhubarb and salt. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and cook, stirring often, until the rhubarb collapses into a sauce, 6 to 8 minutes. Uncover and continue to cook until a wooden spoon leaves a trail in the bottom of the pot that doesn’t immediately fill in, 25 to 35 minutes. Turn off the heat and cool to room temperature, then transfer to glass jars.

I try not to repost stuff here, keeping it real and original at Lori K's Cafe, but I had to share THIS with you.