Best sausage in the world

My husband's lovely Aunt brought us some of the sausages of the gods when she last came to visit and we finally enjoyed them last night. She has amazing taste in food, so we have been curious.
Spolumbo's Deli in Calgary makes the most amazing sausages I have ever had. Now I'm not normally a fan of sausage unless it's Mennonite garlic farmer's sausage. I find it to be fatty and less tha flavourful...but this sausage is, for lack of a better phrase, "to die for".
Seriously. you have no idea.
So we had their chicken and apple sausage...grilled to perfection on the BBQ by yours truly, along with some coconut ginger rice and veggies. Light and flavourful...and slightly peppery.
The best sausage.
Ever.
I've been told they ship and sell across Canada in some stores and deli...I'm looking into anywhere local. J's Aunt went on an on and on about this stuff. Now I know why. The next time J's Aunt comes out to visit I'll be humbly asking them to bring us more sausages. LOTS more.
Yummers...

Saskatoonberry pie

It's fruit season.

Therefore it is pie season.

Do not argue with the logic of the pie.

The pie must be obeyed...

I'm embarrassed to use an online photo for this (our was way better trust me), but some asshat stole my camera while I was on holidays, so I can't offer you any photos of Magnus' and my pie baking extravaganza on sunday afternoon. He had some saskatoon berries and I inherited some blueberries and had a shwack of peaches from holidays in B.C. so it was indeed time for pie. Magnus had wanted to try a gooseberry pie, but I've never made one and don't know anyone who has and have no recipe to go with, so he kept them for another time...he wanted to learn how to make proper fruit pies. I was happy to show him.

We made my favourite fool proof pie crust recipe which is conveniently enough for 4 pies. I made 2 peach pies, with my same recipe from my peach pie post last year. The remaining crust was free for us to make saskatoon berry and blueberry pies. I made the blueberry pie the same as the saskatoon berry one, as the regular recipe I have from my Mum is for wild berries, and I wanted to try something new. Usually I'm not too much a fan of saskatoon berries as they are rather seedy, but having never actually made one before I had to try it out. I hunted about for a good recipe for saskatoon berry pie filling and chose this one:

4 c berries
1/4 c water
2 T lemon juice
3/4 c white sugar
3 T flour
1 T butter (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 F.
This makes a 9 inch pie. In a large saucepan, simmer berries in 1/4 cup water for 10 minutes. Stir in lemon juice with berries. Combine sugar and flour together in a medium bowl, then stir into berry mixture and allow to thicken up. Pour mixture into a pastry lined 9 inch pie pan. Dot with butter (optional). Place second crust on top of pie; seal and flute edges and cut a few vents in the top crust. I made little pie crust leaves and decorated the top...cuz that's what my grandma always did and she made the best pies ever. It make berry pies taste better - trust me :)

We baked the pies at 425 for 12 minutes with something underneath to catch the drips (trust me berry pies tend to make a BIG mess that is impossible to clean). Then we reduced the oven 350 F and baked until the crust was a nice golden brown (for ~35 min ). Let cool 30 min before you eat to let the filling set. Serve with some vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream.

All in all, another successful pie event. I have been given rave reviews on the blueberry and peach pies and have been told by Magnus that the saskatoon berry pie is also yummy.

It's berry season people! Get out there and make yourself some pie!

Next on my list

Dude.

I was reading my latest addition of Vegetarian Times and salivating over the walnut stuffed eggplant and flipped a few pages further to see this:

A DONUT PAN.







And AND - you can even get a MINI DONUT PAN!







I KNOW.

I have a twinkie pan from these fine folks at Norpro. It rocks... makes the finest derbies in the land. I haven't had homemade donuts since my Mum made them when I was little...and they are deep fried, so seeing as I am without a deepfryer (whish really is a good thing, trust me) I haven't made any.

I think I will be ambulating forthwith to the local Peppers and ordering myself one of these. I mean $15 for baked donuts? And Veg Times had a bunch of different recipes for them.

Joy

The Queen was not amused

Just tweaking things.
Not happy with it yet...I need some photoshop time...the logo have a long way to go.
I just couldn't put up with the food whore thing any longer...

Mmmm, Chutney

So I made a salmon salad for dinner tonight. I had the assorted greens, the tinned salmon and... a very disappointing salad dressing I bought from Bulk Cheese Warehouse. Bulk Cheese is an exceptional place for food - despite it's rather factory sounding name. So when I bough their Greek salad dressing, I was expecting magic in a bottle. I hate store bought dressings by and large, thus I usually just use a vinegar or citrus and olive oil. From there I will add pepper, onion, garlic or whatever else as I require.
I added my dressing and there was no zip whatsoever. If I were Greek, I would sue the makers of this dressing for sullying the reputation of my people. That it uses canola rather olive oil should have tipped me off right away. What to do? I had no citrus and vinegar would not suit this at all. I added pepper. Hm. I added reggiano cheese that my Mum brought from BC. Better but no cigar. Then I tried the made in Zambia mango chutney that my Mum bought for at Christmas time from Ten Thousand Villages. Hit! Hit! Hit!
I didn't use a lot of it, just enough for some extra zip and it works well. If you are ever at a loss for what to do about a dressing, I would suggest giving chutney a try.

I'll just have salad thanks...

Lately I'm trying to focus on eating healthy, especially now that there's more options for fruits and veggies. Lately when I go visit my brother for supper we have hugeass salads for supper. I've gotten into the whole thing...turns out I like salads a LOT-trick is making them filling enough. I also just found out our city has a Good Food Box program that lets you get fruits and veggies from local sustainable farmers/sources every 2 weeks. VERY cool...we're setting up a pickup here where I work and so I'm looking at ways to eat more veggeis...cuz it turns out I *like* them and will have more of them very soon!
I put this salad together the other day for lunch and it was delicious!

2 c spinach
~1/2 c ea diced red pepper, cucumbers & cauliflower
1/8 c sunflower seeds
1/4 c grated mozza cheese
1 can drained tuna
2 oz low fat greek salad dressing.

Mixed it all up and it was amazing...enough so that I'm still thinking about it days later. I'm going to do this at least once a week and vary up the veggies and nuts in it...whatever I have around -maybe have diced chicken or some hard boiled eggs in it to change up the protein part a bit. Kept me full until supper and was delicious...any ideas from the world about your favourite salad toppings?

All that and a cupcake

What's better than a cupcake?
A mini cupcake!
I like them...one bite of tastiness...like a petite feur, they're just a hint of yummy cakey dessert. I like them when they are particularly rich or chocolatey, as normally it's too much for me to want a whole piece of cake or cupcake but just one bite? Heaven.
I've had the idea to make these for ages, but no mini muffin pan. Tonight, I finally got around to making minicakes as a practice run for a family tea we're having on the weekend. I got me out today to buy a nice commercial grade baking pan from Chicago steel (courtesy of Peppers, the keepers of all good things)- here's my little speech of the day: never chimp on bakeware. People go on and on about Wilson's or Baker's Secret if you're feeling a bit posh, but really even they only last about a year or so and then the finish starts to go and they aren't non-stick...and the pro bakeware is solid metal, conducts heat evenly, cleans up very well (no finish to worry about scratching) and lasts forever. They're non-stick as long as you keep them very clean and spray with cook spray...I like to use muffin papers anyways, so it's perfect for me...

Back to the cakes. Yes...yummy cakes.

I found a good rich cake recipe at my brother's place a while back I've been itching to try, so I made this up. It makes a 9 X 13 cake...this is enough for 6 dozen minicupcakes. It's nice and moist from the bananas and is chocolatey and rich without being too sweet.


Chocolate Banana Cake

In a mixing bowl combine:

2/3 milk with 1T vinegar added - let sit 5 min
3/4 c softened margarine
1 2/3 c sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 c mashed bananas (I pureed mine with a blender)
1 t vanilla
Mix until combined

Sift together into wet:
2 c flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
3/4 c cocoa
For the cake, bake at 350 for 40-45 min. For the minicakes, put about 1 T batter in each paper in a sprayed muffin pan, so the paper is about 3/4 full. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the they bounce back when tapped.
Cook a few minutes on a rack and eat. I'm going to ice them up for the tea. For now, they'll go in my belly as is....and they are just delicious as is!



Wahoo! I've got cakes for both J and I to take to work and still have a few to nibble on here...:) I've got 66! I mean 65...er 64....:)