Chorizo – Fervent Foodie

As seen on WBTV: Three Awesome Sausage Toppers {recipe}

July 22, 2014 6 Comments

Did you catch me talking sausage toppings on WBTV this morning? Check out the video link below!

Here we are, in the height of backyard barbecue season, with literally dozens of ketchup and mustard covered hot dogs under our belts, and I.am.bored. Don’t get me wrong, I love that classic combo, but sometimes I crave to shake things up a bit. Get a little spicy, a little saucy, a little something like THIS:

TOPPING REMIX #1: a Mexican-inspired sandwich using Johnsonville Chorizo Sausage topped with some of my homemade guacamole and fresh pico de gallo. Incredible flavor, practically impossible to eat just one.

TOPPING REMIX #2: a Johnsonville Turkey Sausage with Cheddar topped with barbecue sauce and a simple lightened up slaw. Hearty and healthified without sacrificing a pants size.

Restaurants

Malabar – Charlotte, NC {restaurant review}

April 6, 2012 6 Comments

Even before I moved to Charlotte, I had a favorite restaurant here: Coco Osteria. I ate there on my first visit to the Queen City (and every trip thereafter). I loved the food, the ambiance, and the service. I never once dined inside of Coco’s—I always sat outside with a bottle of wine smack dab in the middle of uptown surrounded by the energy of the city. To my horror, Coco’s shut its doors in December and reemerged as Malabar, a Spanish tapas restaurant, in January. I was devastated. To make matters worse, I had to walk right by 214 N Tryon every day on my way to and from work. I’d peer into the windows trying to get a feel for the place. I’d note how many people patronized the restaurant at various times of day. I inspected the menu dozens of times.

Last month I realized some of my favorite dishes from Coco’s are now served at Luce, a sister restaurant located in the same courtyard, mere steps away. So then I became a little less angry and slightly less hostile and decided to finally try Malabar.

Inside Malabar, the seating area is quaint with about 15 or so tables. They tend to fill up shortly after noon and again around 6:30 in the evening.

There is also a bar area with a handful of stools.

The Malabar dinner menu boasts four types of tapas (vegetable, meat, seafood, and cheese), plus entrees, and traditional made-to-order paella.

I needed a cocktail to assist me in analyzing the menu, and I opted for the Caipirinha, which had a mango puree and fresh muddled basil. It was different from traditional Brazilian Caipirinha, but very enjoyable nonetheless.

malabar charlotte 2

It wasn’t an easy decision, but we opted for tapas rather than paella so that we could sample more of the menu.

The star plate of the evening was the Almejas a la Mancha (sautéed clams, chorizo, and saffron). At only $10, I think this was a pretty generous serving.

Both the chorizo and the clams were tender and coated in a delicious Spanish red sauce. My best bite was a sauce soaked piece of bread, topped with a large slice of chorizo, and garnished with a succulent clam.

Recipes

Sausage, Kale, and White Bean Soup

January 18, 2011 6 Comments

This time of year, my absolute favorite thing to make for my work-week lunches is soup. I’m sure you all can relate to the need to feed your belly warm comforting foods once winter weather rolls in. Unfortunately, the last few soups I’ve tried haven’t been very exciting. I made a chicken taco soup and came to the realization that corn just needs to stay on the cob and keep the heck out of my soup bowl. I also made chicken pot pie soup. I love chicken pot pie… but the best part of the pot pie is the flaky crust and by turning the pot pie into a pot pieless soup I had effectively cooked up a big batch of blah.

So, I’ve been searching high and low for a new soup to try and finally came across a promising recipe for White Bean Soup with Kale and Chorizo in the November 2010 issue of Cooking Light. It sounded pretty darn delicious to me, and even though I’d never tried Kale I figured I’d give it a shot.

I’ve never had chorizo either (though I’m sure I’d love it), and I happened to have some leftover Honeysuckle Hot Italian Turkey sausage I wanted to use up… So the starting point for my soup was two of these links:

I used a knife to remove the casings on the sausage, then tossed them into a soup pot that I’d heated up over a medium high flame and sprayed down with some cooking spray.

I let the sausage do it’s thang for a bit, stirring occasionally. No need to worry about the hard brown bits on the bottom of the pan – these will turn into little nuggets of flavor in just a bit:

Once the sausage was no longer pink, I added four large cloves of minced garlic along with my beloved onion:

I seasoned this mixture up with some S&P.

I would have been more than happy (elated, actually) to have eaten this simple combo for dinner…

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t grab a spoon and savor a few bites of the sausage onion goodness straight out of the pot. Heaven!

Once the onions were nice and soft, I added about 1 cup of fat-free low sodium chicken broth to the pan and used a wooden spoon to sort of “massage” the brown bits off the bottom of the pan.

Work it….. Wooorkkkkk ittttttt. Winking smile

Then I tossed in the rest of the stock in a box (approx 3 more cups), 2 cans drained and rinsed cannellini beans, and another 1/2 tsp black pepper:

I let the soup jive on the stove for a bit, while I got to tackling the kale monster in my sink:

I’ve never had kale before. For those of you who haven’t had it—it’s kind of like broccoli and spinach had a baby… A really large overgrown baby who was a little rough around the edges. You follow? Smile

Luckily, my years of dedicated Rachael Ray 30 Minute Meals watching had trained me how to handle this kale monster.

Fill the sink up with water, drop in the kale, give it a good swish and let all the gritty bits drain to the bottom.
Dry the kale.
THEN, hold the kale stem in one hand and slide the leaves of the kale through the fingers of your other hand (to rip the kale leaves off the tough stems).
Give it a rough chop.

Once the kale was ready, I dropped about 6 cups into the soup:

I gave it a good stir and let the hot soup wilt down the kale:

One nice thing about kale is it doesn’t get super mooshy and limp in soup like spinach does (not that I don’t love spinach in soup – the kale just adds some welcomed texture to the pot).

Once the kale was worked in, I popped a lid on the pot and let it simmer away for 15 minutes or so while I cleaned up the kitchen.

And dinner was served my friends!

I topped my soup off with 1 teaspoon of shredded parmesan cheese:

This pot of soup made 5 good-size servings, which was plenty for me because I wanted to have some ciabatta for dunking!

If you wanted your bowl to overfloweth with soup – well, then I’d say the pot serves 4.

Regardless of how many people the pot is serving, this pot SERVES it up. DELICIOUS, EASY, AND HEALTHY! That’s the trifecta in my book!

Now the only test remaining is how well this soup freezes… stayed tuned on that!

Sausage, Kale, and White Bean Soup Ingredients List:

2 links Honeysuckle Turkey Sausage, casings removed
1 medium size onion, chopped
4 large cloves of garlic, minced
4 cups (1 box) Swansons fat free reduced sodium chicken broth
2 cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
6 cups Kale, chopped
Black pepper!

Stats on 1/5 of the pot o’ soup: 236 Calories, 38g carbs, 4g fat, 20g protein, 10g fiber