Thursday 27 August 2009

a country mouse cooks sausages











Continuing my quest to find wholesome dinners that the family will actually eat and that I can cook, I made Made-Up Tuscan Sausage Stew from Fay's Family Food (p.64). I was a fish-eating veggie for nearly twenty years but in recent years I have been eating high-welfare/organic meat on occasion. I feel that cooking for the family would be a lot easier if I just gave in and ate more of it but I am struggling. I keep seeing little animal faces - baaaaaad. Making this sausage stew is an experiment for me in meat-eating as it is made with pork sausages, not my usual Quorn. They are called Debbie and Andrew's sausages and the packet makes a big deal about how well treated the piggies are and how the sausages are made from lean pork shoulder and nothing else, so I am assuming that means no piggy eyelids will be discovered on the plate. We will see at tea time how it goes - it's in the oven cooking as I write.
I modified the recipe slightly in that I put in a bouquet garni instead of a bay leaf and oregano, and I cut up the pepper, onion, carrot and celery very small so that it would go un-noticed. I also added a leek. And, as before, I cooked it all in the big silver frying pan then transferred it at great personal risk to the rectangular casserole dish and covered that with foil as I am not a well-paid actress who writes cookery books (regrettably).
Mmmm, just ate it. Delicioso, as Dora the Explorer would say. I ate the beans and sauce and left the sausages. They were delicioso too but in the end just too porky for a veggie coming slowly down from her high horse. Little R has not touched hers but perhaps today was not a good day to make it as we were at a friend's house today and that friend is a great baker and Little R paid tribute to her skills by scoffing several muffins and gingerbread men. Still, there is plenty left and she will be getting another chance at it tomorrow. The recipe says to add pesto at the end I would say that really makes the dish. I think DH will like it.




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