Venison sausage, garlic mashed potatoes, cabbage with pancetta and a red wine gravy with roasted mushrooms and pearl onions.

I couldn't wait to try these sausages that came from Megan and Josh. Josh's family hunt up in the Thunder Bay area and then use and share all the meat, some of which we were lucky enough to sample in the form of these sausages. 

You have to have mashed potatoes with sausages, it is almost an unwritten rule no? I had some cabbage to finish up so decided that was the vegetable dish and I got some pancetta to fry with it for a continuance of the pork theme ( the venison sausage is cut with pork as it is so lean ). I also had some mushrooms to use and some pearl onions I got to try, so it seemed like the meal was set. 

I started by frying the sausages to seal them on both sides, then transferring them to a baking pan. I quickly fried the mushrooms and whole pearl onions to give them some colour and added them to the pan too, in and around the sausages, then I put them in the oven to bake at about 375degrees for 45minutes. I am always wary with sausages that they get cooked properly, so I either boil them first then fry or bbq them to finish them or bake them in the oven. While they were baking I washed some potatoes and cut them up and got them boiling. I am a fan of potato skins in mash, if you aren't then obviously peel them first. I am lazy and have a huge jar of chopped garlic in the fridge, which is great until you want to roast some garlic to go in mashed potatoes and you don't have any cloves. Boo! I ended up browning some garlic in butter then adding it to the potatoes as I was mashing them. If you do have whole garlic heads then definitely roast them for the mash. Slice an entire head in half, drizzle some oil over the exposed surface and bake in the oven until soft. The garlic goes so sweet! Just dig each clove out with a knife or squeeze them out from the bottom. If you don't need that much then roast a few cloves in their skins with some oil on them. The garlic goes very soft, slightly brown and tastes and smells wonderful. I guarantee if you made too much you will find ways to use it i.e on crackers with cream cheese. 

While the potatoes are cooking, cut up the pancetta into small cubes and start frying it in a pan. I actually removed some large areas of pure fat before cutting it up. Once the fat starts to come off it and the cubes are browning slightly, add in your finely chopped cabbage. Let this fry for a little while and then you will need to add dashes of water intermittently in order to prevent it from sticking. I also added some garlic powder, pepper and salt to help it along it's way. Occasionally it did start to stick which gives it a nice golden colour instead of a translucent appearance, so a little is good but don't let it burn! Keep adding water as it is needed until you are ready to eat it. I like my cabbage cooked soft for this so I let it cook a long time, like 30minutes or more. 

When the potatoes are ready, drain the water, add some milk, butter, salt and pepper and the garlic then mash it. Or do whatever you normally do with your potatoes. 

I used a Knorr packet of red wine and herb gravy to start my gravy off. To this I added some guava jelly, a wild fruit jelly would do nicely in place there, just for a bit of sweetness. I also added in all the mushrooms and pearl onions that had roasted with the sausages. Then I poured some water into the baking pan and rubbed off all the lovely brown bits that are full of flavour and added that water to the gravy too. It was a wonderful concoction. Neither of us drinks red wine much, or at all in my case really, so we rarely have any in the house, otherwise I would attempt to make it from scratch, or at least add my own wine to a gravy. I had the sausages wrapped in foil keeping warm until we were ready to eat. 

All in all it was a great meal. I was surprised at how smooth the sausages were, it had been ground extra fine, I guess this helps with mixing different meats nicely too maybe. It had a rich, aromatic flavour almost. Such a treat to have something so out of the ordinary! The mashed potatoes were earthy with the presence of the skins, and then sweet from the garlic, a wonderful pile of goodness! The cabbage was nice too. Though I think I may have overdone it a little as the pancetta pieces were a little dry. Perhaps I will try frying the pancetta then removing it and using the fat to cook the cabbage in and adding the pancetta back in later on, or just not cooking the whole thing as long. As usual, the gravy makes or breaks things and this was a great gravy! Mushrooms have a really sweet, intense flavour when they are roasted, partly because some of the liquid comes out of them so their flavour is concentrated. The pearl onions are really delicate too. I loved the depth that the red wine added to it and the sweet edge from the jelly. It really set the meal off and held it all together so nicely. 

Thanks for the sausages guys!

Vegetable curry on quinoa.

This was the dish that I was busy cutting up a cauliflower for! And then got side tracked photographing the cauliflower dissection part which delayed things somewhat but oh well, there generally isn't too much pressing in the life of a housewife!?

I decided on vegetable curry because I needed something to do with the left over lentils from my soup the other day. I also had a cauliflower in the fridge which I hadn't allocated to anything yet and a few odd ends of sour cream and cream to clear out of the fridge. I text my husband at work and the fact that we were having vegetable curry for dinner came up, what was his immediate reply? 'Where's the meat?'! See! Predictable. Anyway, luckily, there was some left over chicken in the fridge from the beer can chicken the night before, so that was his side of meat to go with dinner. 

I was going to cook this curry in 2 parts. I made the curry sauce in a pot and then cooked the vegetables in a wok ( that has a lid) and combined them at the end. The first thing I did was cut up onions. I cut one and half very, very finely and started it cooking in the pot with oil and then the lid went on it. Then I cut the other half onion along with another large onion, into large chunks, maybe 6-8 pieces per half onion. After that I got cutting up the cauliflower, and taking pictures of that. I like to have all my ingredients ready to use before I start cooking if possible (i.e when I have time to do so), it makes it a smoother process. So I then peeled and cut into discs 3 carrots, sliced 2 sticks of celery and quartered about 10 button mushrooms. And got the lentils ( already cooked ones ) out of the fridge. 

In the wok I started off frying the onion chunks with some fennel seeds, maybe 2-3tsps, after about 5minutes roughly I added the carrots and then after maybe another 5minutes the cauliflower and celery and gave it some time to cook with the lid on. In the meantime the onions in the pot were soft and translucent, so I added a tbsp roughly of minced garlic and the same of fresh ginger paste, along with 5 cloves. I let this fry for a few seconds then added some water, covered it and let it cook the water out. I then added about 1 cup of crushed tomatoes ( I actually used a can of pasta tomato sauce, which is basically the same but what I had in the cupboards that needed using ) and a vegetable stock cube, about 2 tsp of curry powder, a few shakes of cinnamon and some more water. I also used some chilli flakes but it is up to you if you like heat or not. I let this all come to the boil and then simmered it very slowly. 

Attention then returns to the vegetables, which smell amazing, or rather the fennel smells amazing. Add the mushrooms when the other vegetables are close to being ready. You want them to all be slightly undercooked, because we are then going to add the sauce to it and let it come to the boil again, at which point you won't want your vegetables to be mushy. You would normally use yoghurt in a curry, but I had none, and I had sour cream to finish, so I used about 3 or 4 tbps of sour cream which you add very slowly to the sauce, in one spot, and carefully mix it in gently so as not to curdle anything. I only really had about 1tbsp of cream, not much, but it got rid of it from the fridge. You also add some garam masala at this point, about 1tsp. You need to taste the sauce, I can't express how important it is to constantly taste when you are cooking. In fact, I do this so often that sometimes I don't even want to eat a meal when it is done because I am sick of it from a day of tasting! You should never be surprised with how something tastes once it gets to the table as you should have familiarised yourself with it in the cooking or prepping process. Taste the sauce. It will probably need some salt, especially if you use a can of crushed tomatoes over a can of tomato pasta sauce which may have some seasoning in it. If the spices aren't right add more, or dilute it with water if you put too much in. If your sauce isn't thick enough then you need to use a paste of corn flour or regular flour and water to help thicken it along. Mine needed thickening, so I used about 4 tbsps of corn flour made into a paste with water which I stirred in and let cook. The sauce turns from red to brown with the addition of curry powders and then yoghurt and/or cream. 

You should now have some slightly under cooked vegetables and a wonderful curry sauce. Add the lentils ( which are already cooked so just need warming through ) to the vegetables in the wok then pour the sauce over it, stir it and let it heat through. 

I made this a couple of hours ahead of dinner ( because I needed to make some granola too, and because curry only gets better with age) so I had to heat it up again when we came to eat it. The vegetables were still a good consistency and I ate it again today for lunch and it heated up without the veg. going soggy. Do pay attention to not overcook it in the first place, it will give your curry substance rather than 'mush'. I served it with quinoa, and left over beer can chicken for them man of the house! I loved it! It was so thick and rich and full of amazing curry flavours and vegetable goodness. I was about to look up and watch my husbands expression with the first mouthful but he beat me to it with a loud 'Mmmm, this is really good!'. Yay! 

Cutting up a Cauliflower.

I wondered as I was cutting up a cauliflower whether it had always been easy for me and at what point did I figure out how it is done and the easiest way to do it. I couldn't remember, but I do know that having pointers always makes things easier, so here is another entry along the lines of the pineapple instruction last year. 

The cauliflower can seem like an impenetrable dome but there is an easy way to cut it up the way it is meant to come apart leaving you with ready to use florets. Turn it upside down, sitting on the white part with the leaves and stem facing you. Take a large knife and cut the leaves off working your around the stem and then down it. 

Once the first really bit tough ones are out the way I find that using a smaller knife makes the work easier from there on in. Before switching to a small knife use the large one to cut away the stem. I angle the tip of my knife into the centre and cut into it from different sides so eventually it just snaps out when I push it. Or just use your small knife and cut as best you can. You can cook cauliflowers as a whole, you will want as much of the core removed so as to make cooking from within easier. They make pretty dishes if you cover them in cheese sauce or a cheese crust and serve it from whole. 

Continuing with the cutting up, you want as much of the stem and core removed as you can, until you can see the neat stems of the florets (naturally formed sections of the cauliflower, mini trees!). Using your small knife cut off each floret working your way around the stem again. You will find that all the florets near the bottom are perfectly formed, large pieces, with a large stem and neat cap. See below. These are the pieces you would use if you were steaming cauliflower or making a cauliflower cheese and wanted the nice little dome shapes. 

The very crown of the cauliflower is not segmented so well, and has lots of tiny florets all joined at the same stem, so if you are making a large dish you just need to cut them up as best you can into similar sized florets yourself. 

I was cutting the cauliflower up to use in a vegetable curry. I put the large florets into a bag and back in the fridge for a cauliflower cheese dish later this week and used the smaller, less well formed florets for the curry as I wanted them fairly small anyway. Smaller sized pieces are also good for soups and stir fries.

Eventually you will just be left with a core and stubs of stems once you have removed all the florets.

The difference in size between the natural, large florets and the smaller crown pieces is considerable. However, at the end of the day, cut it up how you want to, you can make the small bits large by cutting them lower down the stem and having them still held together, you can also cut the large florets into smaller pieces by dissecting the stems within it. 

Once you have the cauliflower cut up you will be amazed how much more there seems to be than when it was all nicely domed together.  Sometimes I cut off a few florets at a time and put the whole cauliflower back in the fridge until I need it again, or I get all the work done in one go and cut it all up and put it back in the fridge in a bag ready to use. Depends on the efficiency I am feeling, and sometimes a time factor. Happy carving!

Read the next entry to see how the cauliflower florets turned out in my vegetable curry!