Cookin again

Zaukrie · Apr 25, 2020

Smoked chicken thighs stuffed with ham, cheese, and mustard, wrapped in bacon, last night. Alas, most of the cheese leaked out. But it was great. Recipe from project smoke....

Zardnaar · Apr 25, 2020

Zaukrie said:
Smoked chicken thighs stuffed with ham, cheese, and mustard, wrapped in bacon, last night. Alas, most of the cheese leaked out. But it was great. Recipe from project smoke....

Hard to mess up chicken and bacon.

prabe · Apr 25, 2020

Zardnaar said:
Hard to mess up chicken and bacon.

Bacon does cover a multitude of sins, dunnit?

Zardnaar · Apr 25, 2020

prabe said:
Bacon does cover a multitude of sins, dunnit?

It does. Eaten very little of it this year.

Dannyalcatraz · Apr 25, 2020

Zardnaar said:
Not sure if anywhere else has these.

Kiwiana sausage rolls. Just like mum used to make.
View attachment 121354

Looks a lot like kolaches! Very popular in parts of Texas, including our house.

Dannyalcatraz · Apr 25, 2020

This is my riff on Julia Childs’ Potato & Sausage Gratin. I used 3 cheeses instead of just Swiss, and a mix of ground meat & Louisiana hot sausage instead of polish sausage.

Zardnaar · Apr 25, 2020

Dannyalcatraz said:
Looks a lot like kolaches! Very popular in parts of Texas, including our house.

Not familiar with the term.

prabe · Apr 25, 2020

@Dannyalcatraz Do you make that gratin as a main dish? Seems probable with the sausage in it. Also (for perspective) what size dish is that?

prabe · Apr 25, 2020

Kolaches (in Texas): from Wikipedia.

Dannyalcatraz · Apr 25, 2020

prabe said:
@Dannyalcatraz Do you make that gratin as a main dish? Seems probable with the sausage in it. Also (for perspective) what size dish is that?

That was the entire meal. I could easily have added some additional things. I had toyed with putting in a layer of spinach, but passed on that, since this was a first try.

The important part: the results were universally satisfying. Almost everyone went back for seconds!

The dish was a full size ceramic casserole/baking pan big enough to hold a full-sized turkey, ham or roast. I had shallower pans with a similar footprint, but I wasn’t 100% sure they were deep enough to hold everything without some spilling over.

The reason for my uncertainty was I was actually stretching the recipe a bit. The volume of the mix of sausage & ground meat was more than the recipe called for in Polish sausage, so I was also increasing everything else.

There were a couple other changes I made.

1) I sprinkled a little raw green onion on the top layer before putting it n the oven. Added a nice kick.

2) I did NOT peel my potatoes (little reds*) before slicing them for the pot & boiling them. Personally, our family usually eats taters skin on, and the results- as stated- were great.

* I usually buy Yukon golds, but reds were all that were available on that particular shopping trip. Reds are just fine for us, and I bet the originators of the recipe used something like Russets, but I suspect the golds would ge better.