Sausage Mishmash

Definition of mishmash... a confused mixture. A jumble of different ingredients that just work!

Ingredients:

1 tbsp avocado oil

2 large sausages (I used 340g of rapini parmesan sausages but use your favourite)

1 onion, sliced

1  1/2 cups frozen kernel corn

1  1/2 cups chopped spinach

2 tbsps fresh chopped parsley

1/4 cup broth, wine or water

Heat the avocado oil in a large skillet. Add sliced onion and cook until lightly browned. Slice the sausages either in rounds or lengthwise and add to the pan until cooked through. Add the remaining ingredients and stir together.

Served here with sweet potato melting potatoes using the method in this recipe:

https://hotandcoldrunningmom.blogspot.com/2021/05/melting-potatoes.html

And if you topped the mishmash with a fried egg you'd have a heck of a breakfast!

Serves 2-3

Tropical Salmon

Get your Omega-3s on with this easy sheet pan salmon! 

Ingredients:

4 salmon fillets

1/2 cup chopped fresh pineapple (reserve the bark)

1/4 cup chopped red pepper

2 tbsps coconut oil or melted butter

2 tbsps lemon juice

zest of 1 lemon

1 tbsp sesame oil

2 tbsps honey

pinch red pepper flakes

1 tbsp brown sugar

2 tsps minced garlic

a few grinds of black pepper and pink himalayan salt

lemon slices

fresh parsley to garnish

Cover a baking sheet with parchment. Lay the pineapple bark and lemon slices down the middle and place the salmon on top.

Combine everything and spoon over the salmon to marinate in the fridge for no more than 30 minutes.

Then bake in a 450°F oven for 20-25 minutes or until salmon flakes easily.

Rest 10 minutes then garnished with parsley.

Served up here with some quinoa and shredded carrots.

Serves 4

Clean Out The Fridge Quiche

For this clean out the fridge quiche I used this-and-that I found hiding on shelves in my fridge. Bet you've got what it takes to throw together a clean out the fridge quiche in your fridge too! 

Ingredients:

2 tsps olive oil

1/2 cup diced onion

1 cup diced red pepper (or green or yellow)

1 cup chopped spinach (or kale or any greens)

2 tbsps fresh chopped parsley 

2 cups leftover latkes diced (or any cooked potatoes)

6 eggs

2/3 cup milk

2/3 cup shredded cheese (gruyère is good, but whatever you have)

1 tbsp dijon mustard

salt and pepper to taste

a few drops of hot sauce (optional)

1 - 28g scoop unflavoured protein powder (optional)

parmesan to top

3/4 lb store bought pie dough (or make your own)

10' pie plate

This pie dough had been in the fridge a good while so that's where the incentive for this recipe started. 

Roll the dough to fit a 10' pie plate, then pinch or crimp the edges. Place shell in freezer for 20 minutes. Reserve any leftover dough (see note at end of this post)

Heat olive oil in a skillet and sauté onion and red pepper until just lightly golden. Remove from heat and add spinach and parsley. Cool in fridge, then spoon into pie shell.

Top the sautéed veggies with diced potatoes. I used diced store bought latkes that weren't very good to begin with but worked well in this quiche. (Those are the things that look like croutons here 🠇) 

Whisk the eggs, milk, dijon, hot sauce, salt and pepper together. Also the protein powder if using. Stir in 1/3 cup shredded cheese and pour over the vegetables. 

Top with the remaining 1/3 cup shredded cheese and sprinkle with some parmesan.

Bake at 375°F on the bottom rack of the oven for 15 minutes to ensure that you don't have a soggy pie bottom. Then move the pie to the middle rack, turn down the heat to 350°F, and bake another 15-20 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

Let stand 15 minutes...

then slice and serve.

Keep scrolling to see what to do with that bit of leftover pie dough.

I had enough leftover pie dough to make a half recipe of this Berry Apple Pie!

Recipe here🠇

https://hotandcoldrunningmom.blogspot.com/2019/10/strawberry-and-apple-cast-iron-skillet.html

Green Tomato and Apple Loaf

I know we have just planted our tomato plants in the garden but before you know it the end of season will be here. And you'll have an abundance of green tomatoes. This is a tasty transformation of those green tomatoes into quick bread. 

And I've included a link to my Chocolate and Green Tomato Bread at the end of this post too.

Ingredients:

3 cups flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla

1  1/2 cups grated green tomato

1/2 cup grated apple, with peel

Stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt. Mix the eggs, vegetable oil and vanilla together and combine with the dry ingredients. The mixture will be crumbly.

Stir in the green tomatoes and apple and the batter will come together but will still be thick.

Grease and flour 2 - 9 X 5 loaf pans and spoon the batter in.

Bake at 350°F for 55-60 minutes. A cake tester should come out clean.

Cool in pans 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on racks.

Then slice and serve.

Makes 2 - 9 X 5 loaves

You might also like Chocolate and Green Tomato Bread

https://hotandcoldrunningmom.blogspot.com/2016/10/chocolate-and-green-tomato-bread.html

Orchid Re-Potting

An amateur orchid grower's journal on re-potting and this orchid's journey back to beauty ... a lesson in patience.

I'd had this orchid for nearly 3 years and with just one flower stem it kept flowering and flowering. Then, the last time the flowers started to fade and fall off the stem went yellow and dried up too. I cut the stem off and decided it might be time to re-pot. This was on December 4, 2020.

I found a clear container just a teenie bit bigger than the original. I poked extra drainage holes in it then started the job.

Here's the orchid medium I used.

The roots looked pretty healthy to me so I just removed as much old medium from the roots as I could by picking at it and running under tepid water, leaving all the root system intact. Then I started to add the new medium. I used a chopstick to help move the pieces of bark into place.

I stood the newly potted orchid in a decorative pot in a northwest facing window and crossed my fingers 🤞

A little while later a new leaf started growing!

Then one day I noticed this little green nub! That was March 2nd, 2021.

And it was growing!

But the leaves were pretty droopy.

I read that this could be from either over or under watering (jeez, I had to pick one)! So I decided it was under watered. For 2 weeks on watering day (once a week) I sat the pot in room temperature water for about 15 minutes, them removed it to drain completely. This didn't seem to be helping. 

So I gave it a drink of very diluted coffee and sprinkled about 1 tsp used coffee grounds on top of the potting medium. Went back to watering by just letting tepid water run through for a minute or so as I had done in the past. Also making sure it drained well and was not sitting in any standing water.

April 2, 2021

One week after the caffeine treat the leaves started to perk up, they are stiff now not pliable like before. And just look at that flower spike! Also it seems to be happier beside this curtain in an east facing window.

April 8, 2021 ... OMG!!!

April 28, 2021 ... Anticipation!

May 13, 2021

Patience really is a virtue!

May 22, 2021 ... Success 🙂

Pumpkin Apple Muffins

Going through the freezer I found some pumpkin purée from I'm embarrassed to say how long ago! But if you don't have pumpkin purée you can always substitute with sweet potato or butternut squash.

This recipe makes 30 muffins or 2 - 9 X 5" loaves.

Ingredients:

4 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2  1/2 cups sugar

1  1/2 cups pumpkin purée

1/2 cup applesauce

3 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 tsps baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp allspice

1  1/2 cups diced and peeled apples

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Streusel:

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup brown sugar

In a large mixer bowl, cream together the eggs, vegetable oil, sugar, pumpkin purée and applesauce. Mix the flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice and add to the bowl. Mix until just combined then fold in the apples and walnuts. It's a big batch, the bowl will be really full!

Fill either muffins or loaf pans and top with the streusel mix.

Bake at 350°F - 1 hour for loaves or 25-30 minutes for muffins.

A cake tester should come out clean.

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