Pretzel Style Sausage Rolls

My Oktoberfest recipe for this year!

My wife has never been a fan of my original sausage roll recipe unless I take the time to trim all the casings off. This has always seemed a little too time consuming for me, so I don't and she doesn't eat them if I make them for a party. This time I just started with a pound of sausage meat and that made the whole thing much easier.

When I was coming up with this recipe I did some research on egg washes and discovered that doing an egg wash with just a beaten egg yolk gets you a deep brown color when baked. When you add a nice serving of large grain salt, it can give puff pastry a pretzel like exterior.

Ingredients:

2 sheets of puff pastry
1lb of pork sausage meat
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 egg yolk, beaten
salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400

Roll out the sheets of puff pastry. I like to use a rolling pin to smooth any creases, I think it makes it easier to roll in the end. Divide the ground sausage into 4 equal portions.

Take one portion and place it on the narrowest edge of the pastry sheet and form into an even log that stretches along the entire edge. Brush the sausage with some of the maple syrup.

Carefully roll the puff pastry around the sausage and right before the pastry would overlap, brush the bit that would overlap with a little egg yolk to seal it. To make sure the roll has a flat bottom, before I seal it up, I lightly dock, or poke with a fork, the piece that will overlap. This collapses the layers of pastry and keeps them from rising as much. This is mostly a cosmetic decision but I find that it makes the whole batch turn out more even and uniform looking.

Cut the roll off from the remaining sheet. Each roll should take half a sheet, feel free to stretch the dough or roll it out thinner if you find that you don't have enough space.

Repeat for the remaining sausage portions. When they are all rolled, lightly brush with the remaining egg yolk and then sprinkle liberally with large flake salt. If you can get pretzel salt, even better.

Cut the logs into 6 equal portions. I shallowly score the tops twice with a knife, not deep enough that it goes through the pastry, so that they don't expand too much. Again, this is a personal preference that helps the finished product look nice and uniform.

Bake on a greased or parchment covered baking sheet for 15-20 minutes until dark golden brown.

To make the dip, combine equal amounts of maple syrup and mustard. Enjoy!

 If you are interested, here is a great place to find some great info on egg washes and how they work and what they do

Layer Dip

No Super Bowl party is complete without good dips! Layer dips are a classic part of any party for the big game, and they are quick and cheap to make if you need a last minute addition to your game day menu.

Ingredients:

1.5 C guacamole (you're in a hurry, store bought will work fine)
1 16 oz can refried black or pinto beans
½ C sour cream

¾ C shredded cheddar cheese

¾ C shredded monterey jack cheese

¼ tsp cumin

Directions:

In a 1.5 qt casserole, if you have a clear one this will look much more impressive, layer the guacamole, the refried beans, and the sour cream. In a separate bowl, mix the 2 cheeses together with the cumin (this can be substituted with a store bought taco cheese blend) before adding as the final layer. Serve with tortilla chips and enjoy! (Told you that was fast!)

Cheesy Roasted Garlic Bread

I actually first started roasting garlic to make this bread. I can't believe that it's taken me so long to put this here. It was a few years ago when my fish monger Adam suggested a variant of this bread, but I think it has been perfected here.

Roasting garlic gives it a much deeper, sweet flavor, so despite how much garlic is in this, it's not as harsh as garlic powder based breads.

Ingredients:

3 bulbs of garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
1 stick of butter
½ tsp of salt
1 loaf of soft crusty bread like ciabatta or batard

1-2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese*

1 tbsp shredded parmesan cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450. This is a good toaster oven recipe since we aren't dealing with large amounts

Cut the tops off each bulb of garlic so that the cloves are exposed. Rub the exposed garlic with the olive oil and wrap in tin-foil, leaving a little spout for steam, and roast for an hour, or until the cloves are caramelized.

Remove from the oven and let them cool until you can handle them before squeezing the caramelized cloves into a blender. Add the salt and butter and blend until creamy.

Slice your loaf open into halves and then into quarters. Spread an equal amount of the butter mixture onto each piece before sprinkling each piece with mozzarella and parmesan. Place the slices on a cookie sheet lined with tin foil and grill under a broiler set on high until the cheese is bubbling and starting to brown.

Let it cool and set, but enjoy it while the cheese is still good and melty.

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*This bread can be as cheesy as you want it, but if you pile too much on the cheese will simply melt off.

Grilled Ham and Pineapple Skewers

A couple weeks ago my work was demo-ing grilled maple flavored ham and pineapple skewers. I thought they tasted great, but I figured I could improve on the concept, make it more sophisticated.

I'll be including instructions on how to do this on a stove top grill pan, but this would work equally well, if not better, on a real grill. The cooking times would just need a bit of adjusting.

Ingredients:

olive or vegetable oil
2 ⅛" thick ham slices
1 lb fresh pineapple spears or rounds
3 tbsp gin aged maple syrup
1 tsp finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
¼ tsp fresh ground black pepper

Directions:

Heat a grill pan over medium heat until a spritz of water on it evaporates immediately. Brush on the some olive or vegetable oil and lay on your ham slices and pineapple spears. Let them cook on one side until definite grill marks develope and you get good caramelization on the pineapple, flip and repeat.

Remove and let cool before cutting into bite size pieces and arranging on large toothpicks or sandwich spears. Brush liberally with the gin maple syrup, good quality plain maple syrup will work great too, before evenly sprinkling on the fresh thyme and black pepper. Serve and enjoy!

If you liked this recipe please consider supporting me and my content on Patreon. For more info on my patreon, check out my previous post!

Deviled Eggs with Crab

Early last week I was talking to some of my co-workers, and as often happens with me, the conversation turned to food. One of them introduced me to a concept I had never heard of, deviled eggs with crab. I had already been on a bit of a crab kick (more of that to come later) and so I instantly decided that I needed to make those.

They turned out to be really easy to make, the hardest bit is to peel all the eggs, and they taste amazing.

Ingredients:

12 eggs

1 tsp mustard

1 tbsp fresh parsley

1.5 tsp Old Bay

1 green onion, chopped fine

½ C mayo

8 oz crab claw meat

Directions:

In a large pot, place your dozen eggs and cover with and inch of water. Optionally, add 1 tbsp of white vinegar to keep egg from leaking out of any that might have cracked. Bring to a rolling boil over high heat and then kill the heat and let them sit in the pot for 10-12 minutes. Shock the eggs in a water and ice bath to cool them quickly, which, in my experience, is the best way to make them easy to peel. Peel the eggs then slice them in half long ways and extracting the yolks.

In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolks, mustard, parsley, Old Bay, onion, and mayo. Mix well before adding in the claw meat and stirring thoroughly.

Spoon a heaping amount of the filling into each egg half and serve.

Roasted Garlic Tomato Spread

A friend of mine gave me a really great tip about roasting garlic for garlic bread a while ago, and I recently found myself wanting to make something else with roasted garlic since it has a such a complex set of flavors. I came up with this delicious spread that is a little sweet and a lot savory, with a hint of spice. It goes great on crusty bread like a baguette or ciabatta loaf. I'll also be suggesting it with a couple recipes coming up that I think it pairs well with.

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes–1 hour

Ingredients:

3 bulbs of garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
½ oz of sundried tomatoes
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Crusty bread

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit. (Hint: this is a great recipe for a toaster oven since it uses such small amounts.)

Cut off the top of each bulb of garlic so that each clove is exposed. Pour one third of the olive oil on each bulb and gently work into the bulb. Wrap each bulb in tinfoil and roast for 45 min–1 hour.

I like my garlic to be pretty roasted, since it gets sweeter as the existing sugars caramelize. I recommend cooking for 45 minutes and then checking every 5 minutes till it is as dark as you would like. Once the garlic is cooked to your liking, remove it from the oven and set it aside to cool.

Put the sundried tomatoes and extra virgin olive oil into the carafe of your blender. Once the garlic is cool enough to be handled, simply squeeze each bulb into your blender. Blend until a smooth paste is formed. Feel free to add more extra virgin olive oil if you need to make it a little more spreadable.

Toast or grill some slices of your bread of choice, spread, and serve. This is pretty powerful stuff so a little goes a long way!

Mushroom Risotto

Let's kick off February with a vegetarian side dish perfect for your Valentine's Day plans. I have sized all of my Valentine's Day recipes to serve two, but they should be easy to scale up if you are cooking for more.

A risotto is creamy rice dish, that doesn't have any cream in it. The key to this phenomenon is medium grain rice, which thickens the cooking liquid to a creamy consistency. Some amature cooks find risottos to be an intimidating challenge, I know I did, but trust me when I say that all it takes is some patience and attention to detail to make a scrumptious dish to wow your significant other.

Ingredients:

2 T of olive oil, divided
½ lb of assorted mushrooms, chopped

⅓ C of leeks, sliced

½ C of Arborio or risotto rice

3 T of dry white wine

2 C of low sodium vegetable stock, divided

Salt and pepper to taste

1 T of butter

Shredded parmesan

Directions:

In a saucepan or skillet heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium-high heat and and brown the mushrooms until they have reduced in size and become soft. I used a mixture of shiitake, portobello, and crimini mushrooms, but you can use whatever you prefer or is readily available to you. Remove them from the pan and saute the leeks in the remaining tablespoon of oil. Once the leeks are lightly browned add in the rice, stirring to coat with oil. Toast the rice until it has taken on a light golden color and then add the wine. I used a vidal, which is a blended white wine, but I would also recommend a good dry riesling for this application. Stir the rice constantly until the wine is absorbed.

Now comes the technical part. Add a ½ cup of the vegetable stock and stir until it is fully absorbed. Repeat this with the remaining vegetable stock, adding ½ cup at a time and cooking until that batch is absorbed before adding the next portion. This will take almost 20 minutes and you need to be stirring frequently to make sure none of the rice sticks to the bottom and burns and to get the cooking liquid to a creamy texture.

Once the last batch of broth has been absorbed, remove from heat, stir in the mushrooms, salt and pepper to taste and add the butter and parmesan. Feel free to substitute these for vegan options, or to leave them out entirely. The consistency won't be as creamy, but you will have a vegan version of this dish.

Congratulations, you have made risotto. I know that took a lot of stirring, but hopefully your Valentine is worth it!

Sausage Rolls

EDIT: Here is a better, updated version of this recipe! Check it out!
When I was traveling in the UK with my family, I noticed that in every convince store, instead of the usual fruit danishes, they had these sausage rolls in pastry instead. I missed those once we got back in the States, and I decided to make them myself. These ones are a very simple and easy recipe that can be easily augmented.

Ingredients:

17.3 oz package of pastry dough
1 lb of Italian style sausage links*
1 egg, beaten

Directions:

Defrost the pastry dough according to the package instructions and preheat your oven to 350.

Once the dough has been defrosted, roll it out so that the long side is the length of 2 sausage links, as pictured. When the dough is the proper size, place your sausage links together at the top and gently roll them up. Right before the dough is about to overlap, brush a bit of the egg wash on the two pieces that are about to touch. Overlap the dough a little and then cut off that roll. Brush the top of that roll with some egg wash to enhance browning.

Repeat with the remaining sausage links and sheets of pastry dough. if you get to the end of  a sheet and find that you don't have quite enough to overlap, just roll the dough a bit or stretch it out by hand, yes that will make the pastry a bit thinner, but it will still work.

Once your rolls have been assembled, cut them into 1 inch pieces and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the sausage is cooked through and the top is golden. Enjoy these warm with ketchup or mustard.

*When I make this I leave the sausage casings on because they don't bother me in the final product. They do, however, bother my wife, and if they would bother you, feel free to strip them out of there casings or use a 1 lb package of sausage meat and roll it into thumb size strips.

Loaded Nachos

Nachos have come a long way since they were invented in the '40s by Ignacio "Nacho" Anaya. The original nachos were simply fried tortilla chips, melted cheddar cheese, and sliced pickled jalapenos. Since then, nachos have become pretty integrated into Ameri-Mexican cooking and can be found on the menu of almost any bar in the U.S. of A. These nachos are piled high with traditional Mexican flavors and toppings.

Ingredients:

1 lb of Tortilla chips
1 lb Oaxaca cheese or low moisture mozzarella, shredded
1 lb of chorizo, cooked and broken apart
Black bean corn salsa

¼ C of pico de gallo

Disclaimer:

Where I live there are a lot of Mexican grocery stores so I have easy access to fresh, good quality ethnic cuisine. So, I can get a wide variety of Mexican cheeses. Oaxaca cheese is from Oaxaca county in Mexico, and is sort of like Mexican string cheese. It is a fresh cheese, like mozzarella, but it is stretched and folded so it has a bit less moisture than your usual fresh mozzarella. So, if you can't find Oaxaca, or if it's a bit out of your budget, I recommend regular mozzarella, but feel free to use any cheese or blend of cheeses you like best.

Directions:

Preheat the broiler on your oven and place a rack of your oven in the lowest position.

In a baking dish or casserole start with a layer of tortilla chips, bean salsa, pico de gallo, chorizo, and then Oaxaca cheese. Then, add another layer of chips, beans, meat, and cheese, save the rest of the pico to serve alongside. Mine ended up being a bit piled high, so I made sure to put a piece of tin foil down to catch any spills. Depending on how much stuff you like on your nachos and the size of the baking dish you use, you might have some leftovers. I had some cheese and bean dip left over that I'll use for quesadillas or mix in with my scrambled eggs some morning.

Put your nachos on the lowest rack and broil until the cheese is nice and melted. For me this took about 7 minutes. Make sure to keep an eye on it as it cooks to make sure the cheese doesn't burn. Serve immediately.

I serve mine with guacamole and crema. Crema is Mexican sour cream, which is a bit runnier than sour cream, with a bit more flavor, but feel free to use sour cream.

BBQ Meatballs

With the start of fall, it's time for me to break out my slow cooker. This is the first of a bunch of slow cooker recipes you'll be getting from me as the weather turns cold. When I was younger I had meatballs served at my birthday party every year. Because my birthday is close to Christmas, we always decorated the tree at my party. Since we would be moving around, any food served had to be an hors d'oeuvre. Meatballs were always my favorite.

Ingredients:

1 large shallot minced fine
1 T of olive oil
1 18 oz (be weight) jar of grape jelly
Same jar filled with BBQ sauce
2 T of whiskey (I used Jack Daniel's)
Aprox. 34 meatballs (I added them in frozen)*

Directions:

Place a medium saute pan over medium high heat and add the olive oil. Heat the olive oil until it shimmers and then add the shallot and saute until the shallot is well browned, about 2 minutes. Put the shallot in your slow cooker and then add all of the liquid ingredients. Mix well, but don't be surprised if it does not mix thoroughly, because the jelly is hard to mix when it is cold; it will mix more thoroughly when the sauce is warmed. Then add enough meatballs for the sauce to cover, in my slow cooker this was turned out to be 34, but that will change depending on the size of the meatball and the size of the slow cooker.

Turn your slow cooker on high and let it cook for 2-2.5 hours, stirring every 30 minutes. Once the sauce is thickened to your liking, remove the meatballs and serve. I usually just serve these with toothpicks, but these also make an amazing meatball sub when served with provolone cheese.

*I use frozen meatballs for this recipe because when I am making party food, I'm going to be making a lot of food and I don't usually have time to hand-make meatballs. If you feel like making your own, go right ahead, I'm sure they will be excellent. However, if you are using handmade meatballs, make sure they are cooked through since this recipe's cook time does not take that into account.

Pork Potstickers

I love these pot stickers. My mom claims that my pot stickers are the best things I have ever made for her. I'm not sure about that, but these are quite tasty. They aren't quite as easy to make as some of the other recipes I have put up, but that is mostly in how you make the dumpling.

Ingredients:

1 lb of ground pork
1 T of Worcestershire sauce
1 T of low sodium soy sauce
¼ C of green onion chopped fine
½ C of nappa or Chinese cabbage roughly chopped

½ t of salt

¼ t of black pepper

36 pot sticker wrappers
Vegetable oil (canola or olive)
Low sodium chicken stock

Directions:

Place the pork, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, onion, cabbage, salt, and pepper together in a bowl. Mix until thoroughly combined. When it comes to assembling the pot stickers I like to have my station all set up and everything organized before I begin.

Here is how I set up my fabrication station: my filling, my wrappers (covered by a moist paper towel to keep them from drying out), a plate for construction, a teaspoon for portioning (and an extra spoon to coax out the filling), some water to wet my fingers to make the seal, and a baking sheet with some damp paper towels to keep the finished dumplings from drying out before they get cooked.

Steps in pot sticker construction:

Here are my wife's instructions for how to assemble the pot stickers. She is much better at it than I am:

1. Place one on wrapper on the plate in front of you, dip a finger in the bowl of water and then wet the outside edge of the wrapper, and place about 2 teaspoons of filling in the middle. (Note: Be sure to only lightly moisten the dough. It should feel a bit tacky, but not slippery, so that the wrapper sticks to itself without sliding.)
2. Fold the wrapper in half and seal it by pressing gently outward from the bulge of filling to the edge of the wrapper. Make sure to get out as much air as possible, since air pockets will expand as they're heated up and might burst open in the pan. Then moisten both sides of the wrapper along the outer edge of the crescent.
3. Starting just inside one corner of the crescent, curve the wrapper into a small S shape.
4. Flatten the S shape so that the wrapper is folded against itself, and pinch it tight.
5. Continue making crimps until you reach the other corner of the crescent, making sure that none of the crimps overlap. (I can usually fit four to five crimps along the edge of each wrapper.)

When you are finished constructing the dumpling. place it on the cookies sheet lined with a moist paper towel. Make sure to also have a damp paper towel to place over top the waiting pot stickers. My wife usually fills one and I cook the pot stickers on that one while she fills the next. You can also freeze the pot stickers on the sheet pan and then stash them in a plastic bag in the freezer to cook later.

Heat a 10" skillet over high heat, one with a lid, on my electric stove I put it at 8 out of 10. Heat the pan until water spritzed on the plan doesn't skitter but boils off instantly. Put a tablespoon of oil in the skillet and use a paper towel or basting brush to thoroughly cover the bottom. Place the pot stickers in the skillet with a little space between each, in a 10" one I can usually fit 6 or 7.

Cook on high for 2 minutes, or until browned on the bottom, then pour in ½ cup of chicken stock, slap the lid on, and reduce the heat to low. Steam for 3 minutes and then remove from the pan. Repeat until all the pot stickers are cooked. If you are cooking frozen dumplings, add ¼ cup more chicken stock and steam for 2 minutes extra.

Guacamole

Guacamole is my favorite dip, I love all the different textures, from the smooth avocados to the crisp onion. It has great contrasting flavors that strike a good balance, plus it is really nutritious. This recipe changes things up a bit by taking a pretty traditional recipe and adding pomegranate arils.

Ingredients:

¼ C of cilantro chopped fine

½ of a red onion diced fine
1 large jalapeno seeded and diced fine
1 small tomato diced
1 glove of garlic grated
Juice form ½ a lime
¼ t of salt
¼ t of black pepper (use cayenne pepper if you're feeling brave)
3 Haas avocados, halved, seeded, and peeled
¼ C of pomegranate arils

Directions:

Combine all of the ingredients except the pomegranate in a bowl and use a potato masher to mash and mix everything into your desired consistency. Cover with plastic wrap, making sure that the plastic wrap is coming directly into contact with the food so that there is no air between the plastic and the guacamole. If there is no air, then the avocado can't oxidize and turn grey. Stash it in the fridge for 10 minutes so all the flavors can really come together.

Remove from the fridge and gently stir in the the pomegranate arils. I started with a ¼ cup, but my wife kept adding more as we went along, she liked them so much. Serve with tortilla chips and enjoy!

Pigs in a Blanket with a Ketchup Glaze

I love pigs in a blanket as hors d'oeuvres or party food, right up there with meatballs. (Don't worry, those are coming soon.) They are fun to make, easy to eat, and plenty tasty. They are a hit with kids of all ages. When I came up with this recipe, I wanted to make pigs in a blanket that wouldn't require you to carry a dipping sauce around all night and possibly make a mess. So, I researched how to make a ketchup glaze and went from there.

Ingredients:

½ C of dark brown sugar
½ C of ketchup
1 14 oz package of mini sausages*
2 tubes of croissant dough

Directions:

Preheat the oven according to instructions on package of croissants.

Put the ketchup and brown sugar in a small saucepan and mix until smooth. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. Let it simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Once the sauce is thickened, add the package of mini sausages, bring the sauce back to a simmer and simmer for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. When you are satisfied with how thick the sauce is, take it off the heat and allow the sauce and sausage mixture to cool.

Now unroll one croissant (bottom left in picture) and cut it into two pieces (top two pieces in picture). Roll each sausage in a piece of dough and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake according to the instructions on the croissant tube and serve. Any leftover glaze can be served as a dipping sauce if you desire.

*I prefer Hillshire Farm 14 oz Lit'l Smokies. If you can find the Cheddar Lit'l Smokies, even better.

Steve's Cheesy Buffalo Chicken Dip

We are getting to the start of the football season, let's make some good party food! My senior year of college, when I was living in an apartment on campus, one of my roommates used to make this all the time. We loved it. Steve was gracious enough to part with the recipe so I could share it with you. This is one of the only times you will get a recipe from me that has cream cheese in it.

Ingredients:

2 12.5 oz cans of chicken
5 oz of your favorite hot sauce
1 C of ranch dressing (this can be substituted with blue cheese if you would rather)
2 8 oz bricks of cream cheese, softened
2 C of shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

Drain the cans of chicken and shred them with a fork (this is the real benefit to the canned chicken, it shreds easily). Put the chicken and hot sauce in a medium pan over medium h
eat and stir until the hot sauce has been adsorbed, about 1-2 minutes. Add the ranch and stir thoroughly to combine. Once the ranch has been worked in, add the first block of cream cheese and mix in well, then add the second brick, make sure there are no lumps left.

Reduce the heat and fold in the cheese. When the cheese is full incorporated, make any flavor adjustments you like, more hot sauce for heat or dressing or creaminess. Serve with chips, bread, or, like we did one time and loved it, cheddar cheese combos.

Caprese Salad

Caprese salad is one of my favorite presentation dishes to make. It involves no cooking and little mess, but is packed with color and flavor. Again, I added my own spin to this classic dish, but this time it is mostly in the presentation. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

20 fresh basil leaves
20 cherry tomatoes
20 ciliegine or "cherry size" mozzarella balls
3 T extra virgin olive oil
3 T balsamic vinegar

Directions:

Arrange the basil leaves on a plate and place one cheese ball and one tomato inside each leaf. Once all the of the leaves are filled, drizzle the balsamic vinegar and olive oil on top. For best results, let it chill for about an hour. This will let the oil extract some of the fat-soluble flavors from the vinegar and really kick up the flavor.

In this version, I used heirloom grape tomatoes because they were available locally and added a little extra color, but you don't have to. Standard grape tomatoes work really well and get you a much more traditional Italian flag look.

Alternatively, you can serve these on skewers or toothpicks if you are hosting the kind of party where people will be doing a lot of moving around or if you want to make them beforehand and then travel with them.