Chickpea & Sausage Soup

This lovely (or should I say... "lusty") soup was from the Edmonton Sun:

CHICKPEA AND SAUSAGE SOUP
This lusty soup has with an aroma that greets you as you walk in the door.

1 Tbsp. (15 ml) olive oil
3/4 lb. (375 g) fresh Italian sausage or chorizo (we used gluten-free Italian sausage from the Italian Market)
1 large onion, chopped
3 large cloves garlic, sliced
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp pepper
1 can chickpeas
1 carton (900 ml) sodium-reduced chicken broth
1 Tbsp tomato paste
Salt
2 cups lightly packed shredded spinach

In large heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add sausage; brown well, about 10 minutes. Let cool on cutting board. Slice thinly.

Meanwhile, drain off all but 1 Tbsp. (15 ml) fat. Add onion, garlic, thyme and pepper; saute for 5 minutes.

Drain and rinse chickpeas; mash half with fork. Add mashed and whole chickpeas to onion mixture along with sausage, chicken broth and tomato paste. Bring to boil, reduce heat to low; simmer covered until flavours blend and broth thickens slightly, about 30 minutes. (Make-ahead: Let cool 30 minutes. Refrigerate uncovered in containers until cold. Cover; refrigerate for up to 3 days; reheat.)

Taste, adding salt if desired. Stir in spinach; let stand 1 minute.

Makes 6 servings.

A Cold Snap & Personalized Gnocchi

Lately, my work day consists of at least 4 cups of joy (aka green tea). Those little cups of joy keep me warm from the inside out. For those of you not living in Edmonton, it's cold. Damn cold. Since Friday we have gotten about 25-30cm of snow and the temperature is dropping to around -30 degrees celcius.

Snow in the front:

Snow in the back:

Remember when it looked like this?

Hard to believe, I know!

Since it seemed like Jason was basically shoveling all weekend, I treated him to a pork tenderloin on Sunday night. The recipe was nothing out of this world but I wanted to show you the magic of a crinkle cutter. These are left-overs and check out how fancy they look:

Now on to this evenings dinner - I came up with my own baked pasta creation. Jason had some Italian Sausage (although I didn't eat any, these are gluten free and that just makes it a lot easier for me to cook and not worry about contamination) from the Italian market and I had some turkey sausage from Planet Organic. I used individual ramekins to mix up different creations to satisfy both of us.

I cooked the meat in a frying pan on the stove while the gnocchi cooked in boiling water for only about 4 minutes. In the ramekins I put the sausage, some grated cheese (mozzarella for me, spicy jack for Jason), gnocchi and pasta sauce. You can use your favorite pasta sauce - I used 'Dave's Gourmet Butternut Squash' sauce. I purchased it simply because I liked the design on the jar:

If you're a regular here, you know I'm not one to measure, so use your best judgement! Any leftover cheese was sprinkled on top and then the whole thing was baked in the over at 350F for about 20 minutes. It's ready when it's bubbly:

MY REVIEW: Good, warm comfort food.

JASON'S REVIEW: The pasta was very good. Spicy, sausagey and delicious.

Skillets

Since our camping trip to Jasper had to be canceled *due to SNOW*, I had most of the ingredients already gathered to make an Italian Sausage Skillet. It was inspired by, but not exactly the same as this camping recipe I had made last year. I used orange pepper, red onion and no zucchini this time. It was not as good cooked on the stove as compared to over the open fire. Still, it was tasty and fairly simple to throw together. It was such a colorful dish.. purple and orange! The picture doesn't do it justice.

This morning I threw together a breakfast skillet of my own creation. Here's what was in it:

a little dot of margarine
chopped red onion
frozen hash browns
2 eggs
chopped spinach
fresh ground pepper

I sauteed it all up together and put a cheese curd on top. It was an odd choice of topping, I know,  and not exactly something I would recommend. Jason thought it was butter. Perhaps next time I will just eat the cheese curd on it's own.