Locally Made Sausage

After 4-H yesterday we stopped by Maurice Bonneau's Sausage Kitchen, a small-family owned business that sells locally made, all-natural sausage.  I bought a package of Smoked Chorizo and a package of Italian Sausage with Sun Dried Tomatoes & Black Olives.  This morning I made some scrambled eggs with  Smoked Chorizo and cheese curds. It was so filling and delicious!

Scrambled Eggs w/ Mushrooms, Chorizo and Cheese Curds
2 1/4 cups sliced mushrooms
2 eggs
1/3 cup Chorizo diced (skins removed)
1/3 cup Cheese Curds
Kale, ripped up (optional)
Fresh Parsley for garnish

Spray a skillet with cooking spray.  In a bowl scramble the eggs.  Cook the mushrooms in the skillet over medium-high heat for 2 minutes, stirring often.  Add the scrambled eggs, the Chorizo, Kale (optional) and the fresh cheese curds.  Scramble the mixture until the eggs are cooked through.  Remove to a plate and garnish with fresh parsley.  Makes 1-2 servings.
Printable Recipe

Schnitzel

Last night my hubby made Schnitzel for dinner. Schnitzel is pork that is flattened, breaded and fried. My husband picked up this family favorite when he was living in Germany while serving in the Air Force. We don't eat it very often but when we do it is such a treat! We usually serve honey mustard on the side for dipping. Yummy!

Schnitzel

boneless pork

Lemon Juice

Salt and Pepper

4-C Italian Bread Crumbs

Oil

Flatten the pork with a meat mallet. You want the pork to be kind of thin. Put the pork in some lemon juice for a few minutes. Heat up some oil in a frying pan. Remove the pork from the juice and then season both sides with Salt and Pepper. Dip both sides of the pork into the bread crumbs. Fry both sides of the pork until golden in the oil.
Printable Recipe

The above is how my family normally cooks Schnitzel. Last night we followed this Schnitzel recipe but made ours with seasoned bread crumbs instead of Panko. They came out fantastic, but we did miss the lemon flavor. So next time we will also soak them in lemon juice too.

Winter Cooking

Earlier today I went to the wholesale club and restocked our fridge, freezer and pantry. Since we had a lot of bulk meats and other items I decided to do some cooking this afternoon. I prepared hamburger patties, Italian meatballs, BBQ meatloaf, cheesy scalloped potatoes, red lentil soup, and glazed carrots. We ate the meatloaf, the potatoes and the carrots for dinner. It was yummy!

Hamburger Patties
Ground Beef
Montreal Steak Seasoning
Lea & Perron's
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder

Mix together with your hands and shape into patties.

Italian Meatballs
2 lbs Ground Beef
2 Sweet Italian Sausages
1/4 Cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
1 Egg
1 cup 4-C Italian Breadcrumbs
A few dashes oregano and Basil

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees. Lay out two baking trays. Slice open the sausages, remove the meat, tear apart and put in a large bowl with the ground beef. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix with your hands. Roll into small balls and space out meatballs on the trays. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

If using immediately, put the meatballs in a tomato sauce and simmer until ready to eat. The longer the better.

For later use: Once the trays and the meatballs are cool, put the baking trays in the freezer. When the meatballs are frozen remove the meatballs and place in a plastic storage bag. By freezing the meatballs first they will not stick together and then you can remove however many you need at a time.

BBQ Meat Loaf
1 1/2-2 lbs ground beef
2 beaten eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup 4C Italian Seasoned breadcrumbs
Few dashes onion Powder
Few dashes Garlic Powder
Few Dashes Ground Mustard
Few dashes Pepper
1 tsp Salt
A few shakes of any BBQ rub or seasoning

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Layout a baking tray. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Shape into a loaf by hand on the baking tray. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes. Remove any grease, brush BBQ sauce (I use Sweet Baby Ray's) onto the loaf and put bake in the oven for another 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and eat right away or eat the next day.

Glazed Carrots
Carrots-dice into small slices
Honey
Water
Orange juice (optional)

Put the diced carrots, a little bit of honey and a little bit of water in a baking dish and bake until cooked (when you can poke a fork through easily) or cook in a saucepan on a stove top adding the honey towards the end of the cooking.

Crock-Pot Pulled Pork

In this house BBQ is king! When we took a roadtrip this Winter we hit up quite a few bbq joints. The other day I made a Crock-Pot Pulled pork and hubby approved. That says a lot coming from him! I got the original recipe from A Southern Daydreamer, but I made a few changes...

I used our last pork shoulder (from the pigs we raised) it was probably 2 lbs at least

I added 2 cans of Coke (instead of diet soda)--I probably could have used a little less

1/2 a large onion

1 cup of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce

I cooked in the Crock-Pot on High for about 8 hours. I actually didn't pull it all apart until we were ready to eat.

Hubby loved the taste so much he didn't add any bbq sauce or anything! We ate the pork on bulky rolls. It was so good!