Plated: Opa’s hatch chile sausage links, oven baked cauliflower, sautéed portobello mushrooms, sautéed yellow squash & onions, zucchini & onions in a chunky tomato sauce.
Wrecked my kitchen cooking dinner tonight. I haven’t cooked this many dishes at once for MONTHS!
Everything was relatively simple & straightforward. The most complex thing was the cauliflower: brushed with olive oil & melted butter, seasoned with garlic & herb seasoning plus a generous amount of grated Parmesan, then slowly baked in the oven at 350degF. Usually, I cook it at a higher temp for a shorter time, resulting in a bit more browning and a touch of crunch. But I opted for the lower temp because I knew I had a LOT of chopping to do, and that takes time.
The Opa’s links are nice. They’re mild enough you could use them as a hotdog or country sausage substitute, but they DO have a mild kick to them. Hatch chile products in general don’t have a lot of heat to them. Opa’s are on the milder side of the spectrum of the various hatch sausages we’ve tried. Some brands are closer to Earl Campbell hot links in terms of spiciness.
FWIW, hatch chili products have historically been more seasonal, but companies seem to be expanding their window of availability in this past year.
Tangent: My Mom is st least part fire elemental. Why do I say this? Because her tolerance for high-temperature foods is NOT NORMAL! I have known her all my life, so this was not in and of itself a surprise. I’m used to it.
But she caught me off guard when I served her tonight. She only wanted the sausage, cauliflower & zucchini. I plated her dish with zucchini from a pot I had just turned off, cauliflower right from the pan that had just been removed from the 350degF oven, and sausage that had only been off the burner for the time it took me to plate the other food she wanted.
I put her plate in front of her, started to dish up my meal, and she asked me to put her plate in the microwave for 60 seconds.
