Another recipe from the family Thanksgiving dinner: Sausage & cabbage stuffing

Next up is a favorite of mine!  Sausage-cabbage Stuffing (or dressing).  I’m gonna call it stuffing because that’s what I grew up calling it.  I know that stuffing is what’s put in the bird while dressing goes alongside the bird to dress it up.  This doesn’t go in the bird.  Although … I guess it could.  I just don’t see the need to do that.  Oh and I don’t cook turkey.  More on that at a later date - in a month or so I'll be cooking my first turkey since 1997.  I bring side dishes to family holiday dinners.  And this one was a hit this year.  NOTE:  it’s sooooo good that I make it any time of year.  Yummy x 1 million!  5 wing flaps!  Supposedly these feeds 8.  This time around, it fed 8 and there are probably 2-3 servings left.

Sausage & Cabbage Stuffing

Ingredients:

1 pound seasoned sausage (I usually use Publix breakfast pork sausage that is in bulk*)

3 stalks celery, diced

1 small sweet onion (any onion, even shallots) would do), diced

2T butter, unsalted

1 head of cabbage (small to medium), chopped small but not diced

(up to) 15 oz broth (chicken or veggie)

3 eggs, beaten

Instructions: 

Sauté onion & celery in butter.  Add sausage, brown.  Let it get crispy!  Add cabbage.  Cook until cabbage soft.  Add chicken stock as needed to keep moist.  Add seasoning to taste.

Once cabbage is cooked, remove from heat.  Add eggs.  Bake in oven at 350 for 20-30 minutes.  Enjoy this yumminess!!

Step-by-step instructions: (for those of you who prefer this instruction layout)

        1.     Sauté celery and onion/shallots in butter.

        2.     Add sausage and brown it, crumbling it as it cooks.  If you 

                think it’s browned, keep browning!  Let it get crispy.  You 

                want the yummy caramelization on the bottom of the pan to 

                add more flavor.

        3.     Add the cabbage.  I don’t have a large pan so I added the 

                cabbage a bit at a time and let it cook down before adding 

                more cabbage.

       4.     Add more seasoning if desired.

       5.     Add broth as needed to keep it moist.

       6.     Cook until the cabbage is soft and tender.

       7.     Transfer everything to a 3 quart casserole dish (mine fit in a 

               2 quart 9x13 pan). 

       8.     Add beaten eggs.  Mix.

       9.     Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes. 

       10.   Take out and enjoy this yumminess!

*If you use turkey sausage, add more butter to compensate for less fat in the sausage.  You need the extra fat during the browning of the meat.

NOTE:  large/medium chop = size of nickel/half a nickel; diced = small chop; minced = very fine, as small as possible

Nutritional info:

Fat:  151.36g (68.2%)

Protein:  89.08 (20%)

Carbs:  52.39 (11.8%)

Calories:  1776

A recipe from the family Thanksgiving: Apple Salad

Over the holidays I made a couple of dishes.  Each will get it’s own post:  Apple Salad (not low carb!), Sausage-Cabbage Dressing/Stuffing, and Lemon Supreme Cheesecake.  Let's start with the Apple Salad.  :-)

This dish is a family tradition for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Responsibility for making it shifted to me about 10 years ago.  As my sister pointed out this most recent Turkey Day, it’s never exactly the same twice in a row.  Here the version I made this Thanksgiving, which I give 5 wing flaps!

Ingredients:

3 apples (mixed variety, including a Granny Smith), chopped into small bite-sized pieces

½ pineapple, cut into chunks

¼ cup dried cranberries

2T real mayo

2T lemon full-fat yogurt

Mix all of the ingredients together and refrigerate until ready to serve.  Makes 2-3 cups.  I think!  It will keep for 3-4 days, then it gets bitter.

NOTE:  an apple corer-slicer works well for the apples - just make sure your apples are not the large ones.  Or lopsided.  Also, I buy the pineapple peeled and cored but not cut up.  The apple corer-slicer works well for cutting the pineapple into strips.

NOTE 2:  in the past, I have included walnuts or pecans, toasted.  Also, the yogurt is normally no sugar added vanilla or fat-free plain.  I think I prefer the lemon yogurt.

Doesn't this look absolutely awesome!

Doesn't that look like a wonderful way to end a Monday?

I've been AWOL.  Sorry!  Life interfered.  I didn't remember to weigh in on Friday or Saturday.  Therefore, I do not have an update on that front.  Groceries for the week ... I hadn't been grocery shopping since August!  I had purchased much protein (meats) and had veggies in the freezer.  Publix offered a coupon this past weekend:  spend $50 on groceries and receive a $50 gas card for $40.  That was incentive enough!  I bought mostly staples: condiments, tuna, etc.  I eeked in with $52.00 in groceries.  Plus the gas card!  Plus plus ... I walked to and from the grocery store.

I was invited out to dinner Sunday evening.  As a result, I didn't do my normal cooking on Sunday.  I wasn't going to eat any of the entree on Sunday so I opted to cook later in the week.  I might be cooking individual entrees this week.

Sunday dinner was: salmon topped with soft goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and lemon butter plus sautéed spinach as my side.  Monday ... oh my! ... Monday was delicious.  I'd splurged on a ribeye steak over the weekend.  I cooked it stove-top on Monday.  I added a garlic tomato butter sauce to it.  It was lip smackin' yummy!  How good does that steak above (and below!) look?   And the sauce ... 5 wing flaps!  I melted butter in the pan.  While it was melting, I dried and then seasoned (Jane's Krazy Mixed Up Salt) the steak.  When the butter was melted and the pan hot, I put the steak in it - listen for that sizzle! I let it cook for 4-5 minutes each side.  I like it a lot on the pink side!

It makes my mouth water just looking at it!

No nutritional information for this.  

Sunday - big entree day!

Happy Sunday!  I slept in this morning.  And my dog, Chase, let me. He's such a good dog.  It was glorious!  Of course, I didn't go to sleep until after 2 a.m., so does it still count as sleeping in?  lol

Today's recipe is ... wait for it ... Oven-Baked White BBQ Pork Spareribs!  When I was growing up in Cali, BBQ meant putting the meat on the grill outside, usually with a red bbq sauce.  My dad made up his own sauce:  ketchup, steak sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and, I think, a little bit of soy sauce.  That's what we used when we grilled outside.  For slow cooker bbq, my stepmom used her own sauce, which contained a good helping of brown sugar.  As I recall, my dad hated that sugary sauce.  I loved it.  No surprise ... it was sweet!

When I moved to Florida, I was confronted with several types of BBQ sauce.  That's when I discovered that BBQ in the south is somewhat of a hot topic.  Listen to this song for a summary of the types of BBQ (tomato-based, mustard-based, vinegar-based, etc.) and where they are popular.  According to that song, "grilling", not "BBQ" means cooking out on the grill, while "BBQ" is a style of cooking.  That's a bit of specificity in language; semantics where one specific name becomes the common term.  It's akin to the general usage of "Kleenex" to mean "tissues" or "Xerox" to mean "copies."

Back to what I cooked today.  I bought two slabs of pork spareribs last week when they were on sale for $1.99/#.  As I said before, that was too good of a deal to pass up.  The first slab I cooked up with a homemade tomato-based sauce.  Today I made a mayonnaise-based bbq sauce for the second slab of ribs.  I just finished off 3 off the ribs.  They are all kinds of lip-smackin', 5 wing flaps, of yumminess!  There is a very little bit of tang and kick to the sauce.  It has layers and depth.

Ribs right out of the oven

 

A plate of yumminess ready to eat!

Juicy ribs plated to be eaten!

Oven-Baked White BBQ Pork Spareribs

1 slab of ribs

White BBQ Sauce

White BBQ Sauce

1/2 cup of mayonnaise

1/4 cup of water (if you want a thicker sauce, decrease amount of water)

2T apple cider vinegar

1/2t lemon juice (I used bottled)

1/2t prepared Horseradish

1/2t Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt

1/8t paprika

1/8t ground garlic

1 drop liquid Splenda

Preheat the oven to 325F.  Remove slab of ribs from packaging.  Put them meat-side down on a foil lined pan with a lip.  Using a knife, lift up the thin membrane that covered the backside of the ribs.  Remove the membrane - using a paper towel to grip it as you pull it up makes it easier.  NOTE:  I've never done this step before but read that the membrane becomes tough.  I'm not sure it really made a difference.  Then liberally salt both sides with Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt.  Cover the ribs, meat-side down, with foil.  Bake at 325F for 30 minutes.  Flip the ribs.  Bake another 30 minutes.  

While the ribs bake, mix the sauce.  The sauce will be thin.

After the second 30 minutes in the oven, remove the ribs.  Turn the oven up to broil.  Apply the sauce to the ribs - both sides.  Pop the ribs, meat-side up, into the oven on the top shelf and broil for 5 minutes.  Remove and baste with more sauce.  Broil 5 more minutes.  When the ribs are nice and brown on top, remove.  Let rest 3 minutes or so; allow the juices to be reabsorbed into the meat.  Enjoy!

Nutritional value of sauce only:

Carbs: 4.9g (3%)

Protein: .7g (0%)

Fat: 72.1g (97%)

Calories:  738

Nutritional value of spareribs:

Check the packaging

Ham with Mustard Tamari (soy) Sauce

Happy Tuesday!  I was a very productive gal today.  This is a big deal because ... I woke up exhausted this morning.  After seven hours of sleep ... I felt like I'd barely gotten 3 hours.  I finally woke up after about 3 hours at the office.  Then this afternoon, during my productivity, I sat too long in one position.   Pain from my right rib in back down into my hip and then the outside of my thigh.  I could feel a little pain below the knee but for the most part it ended at the knee.  The pain was severe enough that I didn't square dance tonight.  Bummer!  Seriously, I was disappointed that I didn't feel okay to dance.  I've spent some time this evening researching how to relieve sciatic pain.  Apparently there are two types of pain:  true sciatica pain caused by the nerve being "pinched" by the disc and piriformis caused by the muscle tightening around or touching the nerve.  I'm going to try stretching and see if that helps.

On to the more fun stuff!  I baked a ham on Sunday.  I know!  It's Tuesday and there's no recipe posted yet.  Bad me!  I love  (love, love, love!) ham, especially smoked picnic ham.  So this gets 5 wing flaps even without the sauce.  I made a Mustard Tamari (wheat-free soy) Sauce.  The sauce is finger-licking yummy.  The juice from the fresh ginger added a whole 'nother dimension to the sauce.  Don't skip the notes at the end. 

Finished ham.  Look how shiny!

Smoked Picnic Ham  with Mustard Tamari Sauce

1 Smoked picnic ham (mine was 8#)

1/3 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
3 tablespoons Tamari sauce
2 teaspoons yellow mustard
4 drops Splenda
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 teaspoons juice from fresh ginger (I was trying for grated ginger but all I got was juice so I went with it)

Sauce:  stir all ingredients together.  Baste ham with it.

Start with a smoked picnic ham.  Place it in a pan with a lip (I used a 9x13 glass baking dish lined with foil).  Bake, covered with foil, at 325F for 20 minutes per pound (follow instructions on outside of packaging).  

When the ham is 2/3 of the way done, take it out of the oven.    Remove the skin and top layer of fat.  Score the top with cross hatches.  Pour or brush some of the sauce onto the ham.   You want to get the sauce into the crevices you just made.  

Put the ham back into the oven at 225F until fully cooked.  Basted it every 10 minutes or so.  Remove from oven.  Let sit for a bit.  Save the juices for a later use.  Carve and eat your fill!

Notes:

1.  Most recipes say "put ham skin side down to start."  My ham has skin on all sides so that instruction is a FAIL for me.  I cook mine with the fattiest side up.  That way the melting fat seeps into the body of the ham.

2.  You can add the sauce at the beginning.  Your choice.  If you do, you might try poking holes into the ham so the sauce permeates the ham.

3.  I've never made a "glaze" - which I believe involved reducing the liquid to a thick and sticky liquid - so I stuck with what I know:  a sauce.  :-)  This sauce was finger-licking good.

Nutritional Information for the entire recipe of sauce:

Carbs:  10.33g (63%)

Protein:  6.14g (37%)

Fat:  .43g (0%)

Calories:  64

Nutritional Information for the ham:  see packaging on your ham.

Cauliflower & Ham Salad

Happy Monday!  Did you survive with all of your hair still in your head?  Or did you pull some out? LOL It was a day today!  Tomorrow will be even busier.  I prepared a new entree when I got home.  Ready for it?  Cauliflower & Ham Salad.  

It's a cold dish - perfect for summer.  It was pretty easy to put together. The most challenging part was draining the cauliflower.  I was in a hurry so I micro waived it then drained it.  Next time, I will probably roast it.  That should eliminate the need to drain the cauliflower.  Oh, as for the "cubed ham," my local store (the one and only AWESOME Publix) carries Hormel cubed ham in the butcher/meat section (not with the lunch or canned meats).  Even before chilling this recipe, I snuck a bite.  It was absolutely delicious!  The sauce has some sweet-n-spicy action going on.  It bursts in my mouth.  I give it 5 wing flaps!!

I started with one of Linda's recipes:  here.  I made changes based upon what I had on hand.  I omitted the onion because ... I don't care for raw onions and I was not in an oniony mood.  I don't do pepper much either so I left it out.  With the sweet relish, I might omit the Splenda next time.  I absolutely LOVE (LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!!) Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt.  It has salt, herbs & spices, dehydrated onion, and dehydrated garlic.  

Cauliflower & Ham Salad
7 oz cauliflower, cut into bite-size pieces (I used frozen cauliflower)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1.5 tablespoons sugar free sweet pickle relish
1 tablespoon spicy mustard
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
3/4 teaspoon Jane's Krazy Mixed Up Salt
1/2 tablespoon granular Splenda or 2 drops liquid Splenda
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
4 ounce ham cubes
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped in large pieces

Place the cauliflower in a large bowl.  Microwave on HIGH for 2 minutes.  Drain and microwave on high 2 more minutes.   Cook until the cauliflower is slightly tender and not mushy; drain off any excess water.  Let it cool to room temperature before adding the remaining ingredients.  After it's cooled, squeeze additional water out of the cauliflower.   I used paper towels. Alternate: roast the cauliflower instead of microwaving it.

Meanwhile, mix the mayonnaise, relish, mustard, parsley, salt, and sweetener.  When the cauliflower has cooled, add the dressing and gently toss to coat.  Stir in the tomatoes, ham  (if you use pre-packaged cubed ham squeeze some water out with a paper towel), and eggs.  Cover and chill at least 3 hours.  The longer you let it sit, the more the flavors meld.

Nutritional Information for the entire recipe:

Carbs:  16.13 (7%)

Protein:  17.69 (8%)

Fat:  83.58 (85%)

Calories:  950

Parmesan Mustard Chicken

Yesterday I said today is "cooking day."  That might've been a bit of an overstatement.  My goal is to cook an entree on Sundays - one that will last throughout the week.  I also cook on Mondays because I don't have regularly scheduled events or meetings on Monday evenings.  Then, if I'm running short of entrees later in the week, I can cook up one more.  That way, I have a variety during the week with, hopefully, some carry over to the following week.

Before cooking the entree today, I had to cut  up the chicken leg quarters I bought earlier in the week.  Did I mention - I paid $.79/pound for those!  The downside is I had to cut them up.  Today I just cut the drumstick off the thigh.  The drumsticks are good to go and I froze them, two in a bag.  Yes, I remembered to wrap each in cling wrap so they don't freeze together!  

The thighs need a touch more work to make them "pretty."  I've never really cut up a chicken before.  It looks like I need to remove the spine/back bone from the thigh.  For the time being, I've frozen the remaining thighs as is.  In the meantime, I'll do something I'm good at - research.  I will read up on how to cut up the leg quarters, make them pretty, and debone them.  Maybe I'll take pics of the process!

Here's a pic of the chicken I got for $7.90.  It's already separated.

Are you ready for the recipe?  I started with Linda's Parmesan Deviled Chicken from here.  Linda used Dana Carpenter's recipe from here.  This is what it looked like fresh out of the oven.  If you use thighs cut up and trimmed from the store, you probably won't have as much juice after cooking.

Fresh out of the oven

 And this is a few minutes later, after it's settled - just before I ate it!

Plated after sitting for a couple of minutes.

I changed up some of the ingredients - which is why I changed the name.  I've added cinnamon instead of cayenne.  Based upon Linda's suggestion, I also added a sprinkle of salt after cooking.  I eliminated the oil - it's not necessary if 

Plated after sitting for a couple of minutes

you keep the skin on.  You can use any kind of mustard.  

This chicken is very tasty!  The mustard adds nice kick but not spicy even though I used spicy mustard.  The parmesan cheese mellows the mustard.  I give this recipe 5 wing flaps!

Parmesan Mustard Chicken

1/4 cup spicy brown or Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons dry white wine
1 clove garlic, minced 

3/4 cup parmesan cheese, canned works
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
4 chicken thighs, bone-in and skin on*
Salt, to taste

In a shallow bowl, add garlic to mustard and white wine.  In another shallow bowl, mix the parmesan cheese, paprika and cinnamon. Coat the chicken with the mustard mixture then coat well with the parmesan cheese mixture on all sides. Place the chicken in a non-stick foil-lined 9x13" baking pan and sprinkle any remaining parmesan cheese mixture over each piece of chicken. Bake at 350º 75 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the coating is golden brown.

*The original recipe called for 8 thighs.  However, the mustard mixture I had only created enough to coat 4 of my chicken thighs (probably because mine, bone-in, were 14 ounces each!)

Nutritional Information for the entire recipe:

Carbs:  10.65g (4%)

Protein:  96.8g (33%)

Fat:  81.05g (62%)

Alcohol: 1%

Calories:  1180

Sloppy Porky Stuffed Green Peppers

I mentioned in my last post that I decided to start cooking again.  Cooking real food - not just hotdogs.  Not just making chicken salad from store-bought rotisserie chicken.  Last week I made a pizza with a meat crust.  I used the recipe from Karen Barnaby's book The Low-Carb Gourmet.  This cookbook is my all-time favorite cookbook.  Next time I make it, I will take a picture and post it.

Last evening I prepared Sloppy Porky Stuffed Green Peppers.  I started with this recipe for Sloppy Joe Stuffed Peppers from Linda's website.  She ROCKS the low carb recipes!  I changed it up a little bit.  Ground pork was over $1 less expensive than ground beef or chuck so I went with that.
  

Ever since I started cooking for myself, I've avoided stuffed green peppers.  I was forced to eat them as a child.  I HATED them.  Oh, I loved the stuffing.  Just not the green peppers.  I tried them a year or two ago and eat the innards but tossed the peppers.  I'm prejudiced against the word "pepper."  Pepper to me means spicy-hot.  Yuck!

So, as you might guess, I was a bit hesitant to use peppers this time.  However, they were on sale ($.69/each). So I bought 2.  And a large tomato.  I figured I'd stuff 2 peppers and a tomato, just in case.

Weeeeellll, I ruined the tomato* before I even stuffed it.  So that left the 2 peppers.  I have to confess, I was prepared to eat the sloppy joe mix and skip the pepper.  BUT! I tried the pepper with the first bite.  And then the second bite.  And third.  You get the picture.  It was really yummy!  There was no heat to the pepper.  It simply added a bit of a stronger flavor to the bite of food.  Some people describe it as bitter.  I don't think that describes it.  I can tell you, I'll eat the rest of the peppers.  I give this recipe 5 wing flaps of yumminess! 

I ate one half a pepper and bagged the remaining three.  One is in the freezer to see how it freezes.  The other's I'll eat later this week.

Here's the recipe I followed:

1.  1.09# ground pork

2.  1 oz white onion, chopped (larger pieces)

3.  1 stalk celery, chopped

4.  1 clove garlic, minced (smallest pieces)

5.  1/2 cup tomato sauce (I used Contadina because it was - you guessed it - on sale)

6.  1 drop Sweetfreez

7.  2t white vinegar

8.  2t Worcestshire sauce

9.  1t yellow mustard

10. 2t Jane's Krazy Mixed Up Salt

11. 1/2t sea salt

12. 8 oz mild yellow cheddar cheese, shredded (shredded results in bigger pieces than grated)

13. 2 large green peppers, cut in half (I cut it in half from top to bottom instead of around the diameter) with the ribs and seeds removed

Brown ingredients 1-4.  Mix ingredients 5-11 and add to the browned pork mixture.  Simmer for 10 minutes, occasionally stirring.  If it looks dry, add up to 1T water.   Preheat the oven to 300.

While the pork mixture simmers, par boil the green peppers.  I put the peppers (already cut in half and cleaned) in the water before it was boiling.  And I left them in there 4 minutes - until the pot started whistling.  Remove the peppers from the pot, drain and put into a baking dish.

At the end of the 10 minute-simmer, turn off the heat and add 1/2 of the shredded cheese to the pork mixture.  Stir the mixture.  Scoop the mixture into the pepper halves.**  Top with the rest of the shredded cheese.  Pop the stuffed peppers into the oven and let cook for 10 minutes or so.  When the cheese on top is all melty gooey, remove from the oven.  

*If you want to use tomatoes in place of peppers, don't par boil the tomatoes!  Oops!

**I had enough of the pork mix for another half a pepper - which I didn't have.  I put it into a bowl, topped it with a little cheese and scarfed it down.  Sloppy Porky in a bowl!

Nutritional information for the entire recipe:

Carbs:  30.4g (6%)

Fat:  144.1g (69%)

Protein:  115.5g (25%)

Calories:  1881

FYI - without the peppers, the fat percentage increases to 71%