Roasted Zucchini with Pesto

Have you tried pesto?

September is still harvest time. It sounds wonderful and feels so country.  Our local farmers' market should be as large with as many alternatives of fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs. One best thing about this whole thing is the opportunity to learn making food from scratch, from what is available.

Here's a recipe suggested by Your Smart Kitchen Blog.

Ingredients

• 2 Zucchini, chopped into 1 inch chunks
• 3 Garlic Cloves, minced
• Extra-virgin Olive Oil
• 2 tbsp Pesto
• Oregano
• Sea Salt
• Pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 450°F.

Mix olive oil, pesto, oregano, garlic, sea salt and pepper in a small bowl. Coat each chunk of zucchini with the mixture and spread out on a baking sheet. Roast till browning (about 6 minutes) and then flip the zucchini pieces over and let roast for another 7 or so minutes until then are tender. Serve warm with other delicious sides.  

Source : Your Smart Kitchen Newsletter

Sweet & Spicy Chicken Wraps

Try this sweet and spicy chicken wrap. We have tried this many times and it became one of my family and friend's favorite foodie requests every time. Perfect for your holidays.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup finely chopped seedless cucumber
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• ground black pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into thin strips
• 1 cup thick and chunky salsa
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 8 (10 inch) flour tortillas
• 1 (10 ounce) bag baby spinach leaves

Directions

1. Mix together the mayonnaise, cucumber, 1 tablespoon of honey, 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, and black pepper in a bowl until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until needed.
2. Heat the olive oil in a skillet on medium-high heat, and cook and stir the chicken breast strips until they are beginning to turn golden and are no longer pink in the middle, about 8 minutes. Stir in the salsa, 1 tablespoon of honey, and 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the flavors have blended, about 5 minutes.
3. Stack the tortillas, 4 at a time, in a microwave oven and heat until warm and pliable, 20 to 30 seconds per batch.
4. Spread each tortilla with 1 tablespoon of the mayonnaise-cucumber mixture, top with a layer of baby spinach leaves, and arrange about 1/2 cup of chicken mixture on the spinach leaves.
5. Fold the bottom of each tortilla up about 2 inches, and start rolling the burrito from the right side. When the burrito is half-rolled, fold the top of the tortilla down, enclosing the filling, and continue rolling to make a tight, compact cylinder.

Chicken Parmesan Rotini Primavera

This is another recipe I got for the Your Smart Kitchen Newsletter that I know you all will love. This was a discovery of a college student who was eager for a meal and looking to spend a little bit of time in the kitchen came up with this tasty meal on the fly.

   
Ingredients

• 1 2 Chicken Breasts, cleaned and cut into tenders
• 1/4 cup Cheez-Its, crushed
• 1/2 cup Croutons, crushed
• 1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese, grated
• 1 Egg
• Rotini Primavera Pasta
• Tomato Based Sauce
• 1 Zucchini, chopped
• 1 Summer Squash, chopped
• 1/2 Onion, chopped
• Basil
• Oregano
• 3 Garlic Cloves, minced
• 1 Beefsteak Tomato, chopped
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Sea Salt & Pepper

Directions   

Mix the Cheez-Its, croutons and Parmesan cheese in a large bowl. In a separate bowl whisk the egg with a tad of water. Dip the chicken tenders into the egg, coating fully, then place in the large bowl, covering the chicken with the dry mix completely. Place the chicken in a pan that has olive oil heated to a medium high. Cook on each side till crisp and browned.

Heat up the Tomato based sauce at a medium-low heat adding the beefsteak tomatoes. In a large pan saute the zucchini, summer squash, onion and the garlic. Add the basil, oregano, salt and pepper to taste. Mix the saute into the sauce and maintain a low heat till serving.

Boil water for the pasta, adding a bit of olive oil to avoid the pasta sticking. Cook the Rotini Primavera for 9-12 minutes till Al Dente. Fill the base of the plate with pasta, placing the chicken over the top and scooping the sauce over the entire plate. Cover with Parmesan cheese.

Easy to prepare meal your family will love.

Video on How to Make Your Own Bratwurst Sausage

It's Bratwurst season and you may want to try making your own brats in your own kitchen! I've never tried this, though, but I might any of these days. Go ahead here's the video.

Like the usual way of making sausages or chorizo, making bratwurst is the same and requires 1 key piece of equipment before, a meat grinder. So if you're decided, make sure you also are ready with these things: 


1. You’re a true culinarian and want to impress your friends.
2. You’re a mercenary-for-hire and the bodies are piling up.3. You’re extremely bored and wanted to know if it was possible. Anyways, just do it and enjoy your sausages with your favorite beer! Get that Brats! :)     

                                 

Kinds of Sausages

Chorizo, bolognese, andouille, linguisa/linguica, keilbasa, are among the sausages that we perhaps encounter almost every time, but what are all of them? If you want to know other kinds of sausages, or at least the most frequently used ones for menu purposes, here's my list.

Don't get overwhelmed!

* Bangers (British Sausages)
* Italian Sausage
* Bratwurst
* Summer Sausage
* Salami
* Andouille
* Liverwurst
* Braunschweiger
* Pepperoni
* Polska Kielbasa or Polish Sausage
* Wiener/Frankfurter (hot dog)
* Bauerwurst
* Bierwurst or Beerwurst (Does not contain Beer)
* Bockwurst
* Chorizo
* Head Cheese
* Loukanika Sausage
* Blood Sausage or Blood Pudding or Black Pudding
* Weisswurst
* blutwurst
* boerewors
* boudin blanc
* boudin rouge
* chaurice
* chipolata
* chourico (Portugese!)
* cotechino
* Goetta
* scrapple
* haggis
* kishke
* knackwurst (knockwurst or knoblauch)
* kolbasz
* landjager
* lap cheong
* linguica
* linguisa
* longanisa
* loukanika
* medisterpoelse
* merguez
* mettwurst
* morcilla
* pickled pork (pickle meat or Creole pickled pork)
* pinkelwurst
* potato korv
* Sujuk
* tocino
* Toulouse sausage

Well and whew!

Don't Ever Boil Your Bratwurst Sausage

It's sausage time, it's bratwurst time!

Like many Bratwurst Day fans, I am now preparing for a brats week! Did I say week? My griller is now waiting, my coals at the corner. Before anything else, there's one thing I'd like to share - don't ever boil bratwurst!  

Parboiling is good, though, in fact you see recipes that call for it. What they actually mean to (or ought to) say is simmered in beer or water, usually with chopped onion added.  Simmering means bringing the liquid to the temperature at which steam rises from the surface, but not so hot that it bubbles.  Boiling will cause the casings to burst. Most understands boiling is to water..... so you have to make these things clear.

Also, you may see or hear the term "brat fry". The term is technically a misnomer.  Bratwurst can be pan fried, and you may see recipes that call for it... My family likes pan-fried bratwurst.  Nevertheless, at a Wisconsin "brat fry", the bratwurst are cooked on a grate over charcoal, usually on a kettle grill...that is how we are cooking our brats on my Bratwurst week.

I'm thinking of something refreshing to match the brats with this new-fangled drink that I found online. This is a classic Wisconsin recipe - a favorite accompaniment to grilled bratwurst, especially while tailgating at a Badgers, Packers, or Brewers game. 

You need:

1 Cooler
3 Bags Ice (cubes)1 Case Beer

Simply:

Remove cans from recyclable cardboard holder.  Place cans in cooler, intermingling with ice cubes.  Chill 45 minutes and serve. There's much more that goes into serving Kevin's bratwash than simply intermingling just any beer and ice into just any cooler.  Pick up essential points and tips on proper technique at Kevin's beer page.(I got this recipe from him).

Happy Bratwurst Day!

Have You Tried Pasta Pomodoro?

Generally, the word "pomodoro" means "tomato" in Italian. Pasta Pomodoro is therefore a dish that primarily contains pasta and tomatoes. Angel hair pasta is the most common type of pasta in Pasta Pomodoro, and it typically has other ingredients, such as olive oil and seasonings. Pasta Pomodoro is high in starch and low in fat. 

Ingredients

• 1 lb angel hair pasta
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 3 Roma tomatoes
  (if you have fresh tomatoes from your garden, use those)
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 can low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
• Parmesan cheese
• Crushed red pepper
• Sea Salt
• Pepper

Directions

Cook pasta for about 8 minutes till al dente and drain. Add a splash of olive oil to the boiling water before cooking to avoid any sticking.Chop the onion, mince the garlic and dice the tomatoes. Add olive oil to a saute pan over high heat and saute the onions and garlic till slightly browned. Reduce heat to medium-high and stir in tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and chicken broth. Bring to simmer for around 8 minutes.