Vegetable and Sausage Hash

I really hate it when I buy something that sounds really tasty and it is totally tasteless and the texture is unpleasant.  Even more when I bought the package at Costco and have more of it to deal with!

Case in point:  Sausages.  I bought a pack of three vacuum sealed packages of sausages (brat or smokey sized style) at Costco, and I separated them from each other to put in the freezer, in the process I threw out the cardboard sleeve that was wrapped around them.  The individual packages of four sausages have no label.  So… I can’t remember what they were supposed to be.  I would not have bought something that didn’t sound like it would be good.

Last night I decided to have sausages and salad for dinner.  They were awful.  I baked them in the oven and there was a lot of red oil coming out of them, and they were quite red colour (I suspect “sun-dried tomato” may be involved?)  I cut them up and inside were green bits of something I couldn’t identify.  There was no discernible flavour to any of it.  The stuffing was quite loose and the meat crumbled out of the casing.

I ate part of one and stuck the rest in the fridge to figure out what to do with them.  I hate wasting food.

My sister suggested they might be mild Italian sausage.  Possibly, but I normally don’t buy Italian sausage – so maybe it was a flavoured version?  Whatever it is I hope I NEVER buy it again.  I do remember the packaging at least, so I should be safe.

So, what did I do with it?  I made Hash!

Hash is easy and is a great Sunday brunch.  And seeing as my fridge is full of all sorts of vegetables I had lots to choose from.

I  diced up some celery, green pepper, onion, cauliflower, pattypan squash, mushrooms, and chopped up all the leftover sausage.  I had about a half a cup to a cup of each vegetable and three chopped up sausages – it is hash, the amounts don’t really matter.  This amount made two meals for me.  One this morning and leftovers for tomorrow.

I heated up my pan and added peanut oil then started with the onions, peppers and celery with a teaspoon of diced garlic (I have a big jar of diced garlic in the fridge).

Once they were sweating down I added the sausage meat and cauliflower.  I let that start to brown a bit and put a lid on to get the veggies cooked.

Then I added the mushrooms and squash, and some Montreal Steak Spice and salt, stirred and put the lid back on.

It needed quite a bit of salt actually.  I added it three times!

I topped it off with a fried egg (fried in butter of course.)

It was good.  And thankfully the sausages didn’t ruin it, so I have a way to use up the rest of them

It would be even better with sausages that taste good, or left over roast, chicken, etc!

 

 

Zucchini Pizza Pie

I was inspired by the posts and recipes floating around for “Zucchini Pizza Crust” knowing full well that it would NOT be as described but liking the sound of it.  I mean, what could be bad about zucchini, cheese and eggs with pizza toppings added?  Not a damn thing as it turns out!

I’m calling this a “Pizza Pie” as it does taste like excellent pizza but is not able to be eaten with your hands (unless you really enjoy being messy!) – knife and fork all the way.

So first off… it is zucchini season, and as anyone who has grown them (or has a neighbour, relative or friend who is growing them) knows, finding things to do with them is always a late summer challenge.

I decided to use my biggest one for this.  It was either grate it up for this or stuff it and bake it.  I scooped out the seeds and grated it up while watching Casablanca… damn, that movie makes me cry every time.

So got it all grated and sat it in a sieve in the sink, sprinkled liberally with salt and let it drain for an hour while I grated up some aged cheddar while watching Dark Passage (it was Bogie day on TCM apparently.)

I turned the oven on to 450F to pre-heat.

Yes, I sit on the chesterfield, watching television, while I grate things… so what?

I mixed up the grated zucchini (after squeezing out all the moisture I could) – I didn’t measure it… probably 2-3 cups total; the cheese (maybe 2 cups of grated;) and two eggs.

I then dumped the mixture on a parchment lined baking sheet and spread it out to about half an inch thickness.  I pushed up the sides a bit to make them straight and not touching the edges of the pan.

I put the sheet in the oven on the centre rack.  The recipes I saw said that it should bake for 15 or 20 minutes.  My oven runs hot and it took closer to 40 minutes!  I checked it every 10 minutes, and then reset the timer.  The edges were brown and the top of it was just barely starting to get a hint of brown, and the surface looked dry when I took it out.  Maybe I had it a lot thicker than the recipes intended?

The recipes said to let it cool before turning it into a pizza.  So I slid it onto a clean piece of parchment on a room temp baking sheet to speed that up (I was hungry!)  I trimmed the edges and ate them – YUM!  It was really excellent all by itself – like a soft zucchini fritter.

I increased my oven temp to the highest it would go which was 550F.

I prepped a bunch of veggies by dicing very small – 1/8 to 1/4 inch.  Needed to be very small to cook through quickly.  I used green pepper, green onions, fresh tomatoes, and a small can of chopped black olives. I also had some parmesan salami and mozzarella cheese.

When my zucchini base was cool-ish (it was still pretty warm, but like I said before, I was hungry) I spread leftover spinach/artichoke/cream cheese dip that I’d made the other day over it, then sprinkled all the fresh veggies and olives over that, then laid out the salami, and slices of mozzarella over top of the whole thing.

It then went into the 550F oven for 8 minutes. I kept a close eye on it as I didn’t want it to burn!

It smelled divine!  As you can see in the next photo, it was too sloppy to eat like a pizza.

I think I’ll make a few batches of the zucchini base and freeze to use later on.  It is one way to use up the zucchini and have something on hand to make a quick dinner.  Although, I need to use the food processor not the hand grater next time.

I now have leftovers for a few days, and am looking forward to them!