Grilled Pasta Sauce

I call this "grilled pasta sauce" even though its not really saucy. However, I use it the same way I would use sauce out of a jar, which is why I think of it that way.  The "sauce" is basically just grilled sausage and vegetables. I like to cook the ingredients for this while I'm grilling something else for immediate consumption, because there is an extra step or two to prepare it.

Baby Bok Choy with Sausage

One of the things I like about good Asian grocery stores is that they have a wide variety of green vegetables. Baby bok choy is one of my favorites - it grills well and also works in stir fries like this one.  I like simple protein/vegetable/grain combinations, because they encourage healthy eating while also being filling and tasting good and fast and easy to cook.

Italian Wedding Soup

 While its still cold out, here's one more soup - Italian wedding. The basics of Italian wedding soups are chicken broth, meat(balls), and green vegetables. Its a hearty and healthy soup that can almost be a meal by itself.

Homemade Lamb Sausage with Mint Fenugreek Sauce

I love the taste of lamb sausage, and I decided to make my own. I used fresh thyme as a "rope" to connect the links, and made a chutney-like sauce out of fresh mint and fenugreek.

Eat More Broccoli

There's not always a lot of time to cook, so it helps to have shortcuts. A simple homemade meal will almost always be healthier and tastier than a microwaved meal, and healthier and cheaper than takeout. One time-saver I use is to cook extra rice and broccoli when I can.

Stuffed Bok Choy

 

I got this idea from the Ideas In Food blog, where they usually do much crazier things involving dehydrators or smokers or sous vide cookers, so I was happy to see something I could follow along with. The idea is stuff baby bok choy with sausage, and then bake it. Their approach was a little more complicated, and had an additional step of adding tomato sauce after roasting.

Vaguely Middle-Eastern Rice with Lamb Sausage

I wanted to try to a rice dish along the lines of pulao, and had some nice lamb sausage on hand. This is what I came up with...

Risotto Noodles

When rice is cooked risotto-style, the liquid is added slowly until the rice  has absorbed just the right amount of liquid, giving you perfectly al dente grains in a starch-thickened sauce. The same technique can be used with noodles to get just the right amount of doneness. This approach also lets you use a flavorful liquid, like broth, to cook the noodles without wasting the excess when you drain the noodles.