Sausage and Bean Ragu on Quinoa Macaroni

Quinoa (pronounced keen-wa) pasta is made from a combination of the quinoa grain and corn, hence the yellow color of the pasta. You can find it with the gluten-free and other "alternative" pastas at most grocery stores.

I bought the turkey Italian sausage at Market of Choice, who got the meat from Shelton's, but I believe Market of Choice makes their sausages in-house. Don't quote me on that though. Anyway, they were good!

After making this recipe, I'm pretty sure there is a misprint in the amount of pasta called for. I checked online, and lots of other people think the same thing. My magazine cut-out called for 16 ounces of pasta, which was two boxes. It seemed like a lot, but who am I to question Cooking Light? So I cooked all the pasta and set it aside while I made the rest of the meal, and then at the end you are supposed to add the pasta back to the skillet and stir it all together. Heh. That was not going to happen. I ended up tossing it together in a super huge bowl and the pasta soaked up every bit of sauce there was left (it ended up simmering longer than it was supposed to because I was running around the house trying to find my camera to take the picture!). Therefore, my end result was a big bowl of mostly pasta and not much ragu to speak of whatsoever. It was still really tasty, but I can't wait to make it again with the right amount of pasta and see what that's like. For your benefit, I will write up the recipe with half the amount of pasta, as it should be.

Sausage and Bean Ragu on Quinoa Macaroni
adapted from Cooking Light - March 2006 Issue
Serves 8

Notes: If you can't find quinoa macaroni, use whole wheat macaroni. I couldn't find bulk turkey Italian sausage, so I bought links, removed the casings, and broke them into pieces as I added them to the pan.

1 (8-ounce) package quinoa macaroni
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup finely chopped onion (about 1 medium)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound turkey Italian sausage, bulk or links (remove from casings if links)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 (16-ounce) cans cannellini beans or other white beans, drained and rinsed
2 (14.5-ounce) cans diced tomatoes, undrained
1/2 cup (2 ounces) shaved Romano cheese (I just used Parmesan)

Cook the pasta according to package directions, but leave out the salt and oil.

In a large nonstick skillet, add the oil and heat to medium-high. Add the onion and garlic and saute for about 3 minutes. Then add the sausage and cook until browned, breaking it up with a wooden spoon as you stir. Stir in the wine.  There won't really be much to deglaze, since you are using a non-stick skillet, but scrap the bottom with the wooden spoon anyway, just for kicks. Add the broth, fennel seeds, pepper, beans, and tomatoes.  Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes.  It will still look kind of thin and liquidy, but the pasta will soak a lot of that up.

Add the pasta to the skillet, and toss gently to combine.  Alternatively, if you don't think the pasta will fit in your skillet, you can put the pasta into a large bowl, pour the contents of the skillet over it, and stir to combine.  Sprinkle the cheese over the top, or put a little cheese on top of each individual serving as you dish it up.

Serving size: 1 1/2 cups pasta and 1 tablespoon of cheese.

Thanksgiving Leftovers: Baked Delicata Squash stuffed with Turkey and Wild Rice

We had two delicious Thanksgiving dinners this year (one at each of our parent's houses), and we took home full sets of leftovers from each.  That's a lot of turkey!  Besides the usual sandwiches, I used some of it to make an improvised turkey soup with mushroom broth, dried shiitakes, and wild rice, which was delicious.  I ate it for lunch every day this week!  

I still had more though, and we have lots of winter squashes lying around, so I decided to bake a delicata squash and fill it with a mixture of shredded turkey, wild rice, parsley, and cheese.  I got the basic idea from a recipe in Robin Miller's Quick Fix Meals (she used butternut squash and chicken).  Miller has you microwave the squash, to save time, no doubt, but I since prefer baked squash, I looked to a recipe I like over at allrecipes.com for baking instructions (It's called "Delicata Delish", and it lives up to it's name, even though, oddly enough, the picture on their website looks like stuffed zucchini rather than delicata).

I love squash, so of course this meal was a hit with me!

Stuffed delicata squash with turkey, wild rice, and fresh herbs
adapted from Robin Miller - Quick Fix Meals, and allrecipes.com - Delicata Delish
serves 2

Notes: I made a lot of changes to Robin Miller's recipe, mostly because I was just using it as a guide to use what I had on hand.  I used wild rice instead of brown, turkey instead of chicken, I left out the cumin and sour cream, and used havarti instead of goat cheese.  But I always try to give the source of where I get my ideas from, so there you go.  There are lots of ways to modify this meal.  You could use almost any winter squash (except spaghetti).  Swap out the turkey for cooked chicken.  Any kind of rice will be fine, leftover from another meal, or made fresh that night.  You could use a wide variety of cheeses and whatever fresh herbs you have.

1 large Delicata squash, halved and seeded
2 tablespoons salted butter
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 cups cooked wild rice
1 heaping cup shredded turkey
1 tablespoon of fresh minced parsley
1/4 to 1/2 cup shredded cheese, such has havarti

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Place the squash cut side up in a baking dish.  Fill with about 1/4 inch of water.  Put 1 tablespoon of butter in each half and season with salt and pepper.  Cover with foil and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a fork pierces the flesh easily in several places.

Meanwhile, put the rice, turkey, and parsley into a pot and heat, just to warm through.  You could also use a microwave.

When the squash is done, remove from the oven and turn the broiler on.  Divide the mixture between the two halves, it will be heaping.  Sprinkle the cheese over the top.  Broil for a couple of minutes to melt the cheese, and serve.

Turkey Noodle Soup

This meal is brought to you by my mother-in-law, Sharron!  She made a delicious turkey at her house for Easter dinner.  After dinner, Joe carved the rest of the turkey (and we packaged up a portion of it for ourselves for leftovers), then Sharron put the whole carcass in a huge pot of water and let it simmer for about an hour or so.  Then we poured the contents of the pot over a strainer, reserving the broth.  It filled three large mason jars, and she let us take two of them home with us!  We don't cook whole chickens or turkeys are our house very often, so to get real homemade stock like this was really a treat.

When we got the jars of stock home, we refrigerated them overnight, and the next day they had become completely gelatinous, with about a half-inch layer of white colored fat on top.  We scooped off the fat with a spoon, and kept the stock refrigerated until we were ready to use it.    

A few days later, I made Mark Bittman's Chicken Noodle Soup recipe, using one of his variations that included fusilli and roasted garlic, and using turkey instead of chicken.  Of course, it turned out awesome!  It would be hard to screw up anything that started with homemade stock.  I only had one problem with it, and that was the shape of the onions.  He has you halve the onion and thinly slice it.  To me, that produced slices of onions that were too long compared to the other ingredients.  If I were to make this again, I think I would quarter the onion and then slice it.  But that's just me being picky.  It reminded me of a little place I like in town called the Soup Shop; all the ingredients in their soups are roughly the same size, which makes it easy to get perfect spoonfuls of soup!

To go with the soup, we had slices of Sharron's "Alligator Bread".  It's a sweet bread, kind of like Challah.  She has been making it since Joe was a little kid.  She just decided to make it in the shape of an alligator one day, and Joe and his sisters loved it so much that she has been making it that way ever since.  Isn't that so cute!?

Turkey Noodle Soup with Fusilli and Garlic
adapted from Mark Bittman - How to Cook Everything
Serves 4-6

8 ounces fusilli (or other curly pasta)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium onion, quartered and thinly sliced
1 large carrot, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1 head of roasted garlic, cloves removed from their skins and mashed into a paste
6 cups turkey stock (or chicken stock)
8 ounces cooked and cut up boneless turkey meat (we did a mixture of light and dark meat)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish (we forgot this)
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese for garnish (optional)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Salt the water and add the pasta.  Cook until it's just about done, but still lightly chewy.  Drain, rinse in cold water and set aside.

Add the oil to a deep saucepan and heat over medium-high.  When hot, add the onion, carrot, and celery.  Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the onion becomes translucent.  Add the mashed garlic, stir, then add the stock.  Season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil.

Once the soup is boiling, add the cooked pasta and the cut up cooked turkey.  Cook for a couple of minutes, just enough to finish cooking the pasta and thoroughly heat the turkey.  Taste, and season with more salt and pepper as necessary.  Garnish with the parsley and Parmesan.