a bean counter's food blog
Although it may seem like I eat meatballs at every meal, I occasionally opt for different meats of the non-ball variety. (Like when I’ve run out of meatballs and don’t have the necessary ingredients to make more.) Tonight was one of those nights. With a grumbling belly and nary a meatball in sight, I decided to remix my usual spaghetti squash with some ingredients I had on hand.
Enter Spaghetti Squash with Sausage, Pesto, and Tomatoes:
Morning, friends! I hope you all are lucky enough to have the day off of work like me. If not, well then I’ll try not to rub it in too much. I’ve spent a good portion of the new years weekend in the kitchen cooking up a fury. Ancho chicken tacos, sausage lasagna, and balsamic glazed pork loins, just to name a few. This Monday morning (did I mention I have the day off of work???) I wanted to make something special. So I threw together a delicious sausage and egg breakfast braid.
Isn’t it impressive looking?
Geeze. Can’t believe it is Sunday. Strike that. I can’t believe Sunday is practically over.
Waaaaaaaa!!!!!
I feel like life is moving along at crazy fast speeds and I’m just flailing my arms about trying to stay afloat. The good news is I’m taking over a week off of work for Turkey Day. So hopefully that helps to revive me!
This lovely Sunday I woke up and got straight to work destroying my kitchen.
When will I learn to clean as I go?
Never.
This week I pulled BOTH of the slow cookers out of the pantry for some slow cooked sausage and peppers and slow cooked apple crisp deliciousness!
We make sausage and peppers pretty regularly and don’t really get crazy with them. We simply throw some grilled sausages in the crockpot with a jar of tomato sauce, green peppers, onions, and some seasonings. You know, garlic garlic garlic and maybe some oregano.
Then we just let everything simmer together until we’re ready to feast. Soup was BOGO at Harris Teeter this week (HOLLA!), so I nabbed some Chipotle Chicken soup I’ve been wanting to try.
Altogether:
Since I had to pop into work for a few hours today, Jarrod was in charge of throwing everything together. Holy cow these sausage sandwiches were DELICIOUS. Absolutely delicious. I asked Jarrod what seasonings he used for the sauce… his response? “Ummm… nothing?”
Men.
Thank you Ragu, thank you. 
The soup was great as well—way to hook a sister up, Harris Teeter.
The Slow Cooker Apple Crisp was a wee bit more involved, but totally worth it. I used this Allrecipes.com recipe as my guide, with a few tweaks. I used three granny smith apples and three red apples.. I always get confused on the red apples. What are these? Galas?
First up, mix the following together in a large ziploc baggie or large bowl with lid:
And give it all a good shimmy shake.
Spray the crock with cooking spray, then toss in the apple mixture.
THEN, in a medium bowl, combine the following:
Use a fork or your hands to combine everything until the butter is dispersed throughout. I recommend using your hands, of course. Then sprinkle over top of apples.
Ta-da!
Cook on low for four hours, remove lid half way then cook 1 hour more. And you’ll get….
A big fat gloppy mess.
This is NOT ok.
Luckily, my crockpot is oven safe (up to 400 degrees). So, I popped the crock into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.
Hooray for crispy topping!
The apples of the bottom of the crock disintegrated down into a delicious chunky applesauce. A spoonful of the steaming sauce, some chunks of apple and crispy topping from the top of the crock, and a dollop of slow-churned vanilla ice cream….
O…. M…G….
DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The swaps I made to the original recipe nearly cut the calories in half. Next time I’m going to reduce the sugar more to further healthify the dessert. I’m willing to do several trial runs if necessary 😉
Slow Cooker Apple Crisp
Step one: mix the first five ingredients (through lemon juice) together in a large ziploc baggie or large bowl with lid. Shake the bag/bowl to coat the apples. Spray the crock with cooking spray, then toss in the apple mixture.
Step two: in a medium bowl, combine the next seven ingredients (flour through butter). Use a fork or your hands to crumble the butter into the flour mixture. Then sprinkle over top of apples.
Step three: Cook on low for four hours, remove lid half way then cook 1 hour more.
Step four: Verify your crock is oven-safe, then place uncovered crock into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes to crisp the topping. Serve with vanilla ice cream.
This is one of my favorite weekend treats to throw together. Pasta, sausage, cheese, cheese, and mo’ cheese. It ain’t much of a recipe, but sometimes the simplest of concoctions put the biggest smile on my face. You know what I mean?
Here’s what you’ll need:
Ingredients List for Three Cheese Sausage Pasta Bake (serves 5)
I like to start off with some sauce in the bottom of a casserole dish. Prego is (and always has been) my go-to standard store pasta sauce. It tastes delicious, it’s super cheap, and you can buy it in a ginormous jar. What more could you want?
1/3 of the sauce goes into the casserole:
Then I toss on half of my pasta:
Plus two tablespoons of shredded parmesan and 1/4 cup fat-free ricotta:
Then I add the sliced sausages and sprinkle with my favorite Italian herb combo: oregano, basil, S&P, and a touch of red pepper flakes.
Add another cup of sauce, followed by the remaining pasta, then the last cup of sauce, 1/4 cup of ricotta, 2 tbsp parmesan, and 4 slices of mozzarella:
Cover with foil (careful that it doesn’t touch the cheese!!!). Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes, removing the foil for the last 5 minutes.
Dinner is served!
Stats on 1 serving: 422 calories, 52g carbs, 11g fat, 30g protein, 5g fiber
If I ever volunteer to come to your house and make you breakfast, you should consider yourself very lucky. You should also consider yourself forewarned:
For no dish, no matter how simple, will the kitchen be left unscathed. What can I say? I like to become one with my food 
And yes, that IS a bottle of wine next to the eggs.
I’ve always wanted to make a frittata, and this Sunday morning I was in the mood to get my cook on so I decided to give it a shot. Once I started googling frittata recipes, I realized I was lacking a major piece of equipment: a skillet that could go from stove top to oven without causing a fire. Dangit. That’s going on the T.J. Maxx list.
Since I had my heart set on eggy bliss, I decided to just use a standard glass pie pan. Does that mean it’s not a frittata anymore? Hmmmm what would its proper classification be? I say frittata, you say….. frrrrreggcasserole?
Something to ponder as the man pours your mimosa.
This frittata consisted of:
)While I cooked up the sausage, and sautéed the onion, mushroom, and garlic, I got to egg crackalacking. Once the sausage was cooked and the veggies were soft, I stirred all the goodies into the eggs then poured into a pie pan that I’d coated with cooking spray.
Into the oven at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, and you’ll end up with this beauty:
The frittata set up PERFECTLY. Perfect temperature, perfect cook time:
I started off with just a slice:
But ended up eating precisely half of the frittata…
Good news is the stats on half the frittata: 318 calories, 11g carbs, 11g fat, 41g protein, 3g fiber
Molto bene 