Whole Foods and homemade breakfast sausage!

Now "what" you may ask do the 2 things have to do with each other??? Last weekend we took a short drive (about 45 minutes) to Naples to the new Whole Foods store there. I have never been in one before and I was really curious especially about there meats. I had been warned that this would be an expensive shopping trip as the glitz and the shine will entice me to buy way more than I needed! I was prepared...but you know what? I think because we don't eat processed and prepackaged foods I really didn't see a whole lot that I would buy. They have aisles and aisles of things but I can get alot of that stuff elsewhere or can make it myself!

But the meat...OMG the meat! I have never seen so much "happy meat" in one place in my entire life!!!! We bought beef, pork, chicken...It was wonderful. But alas their is always that one sad spot. They had no pork breakfast sausage! My youngest daughter LOVES, LOVES, LOVES breakfast sausage.

I ended up buying some ground pork and trying my hand at sausage making. No way was I going to stuff any casings but she also likes patties so I was good there! After searching the internet for a sausage that wasn't too sweet, here's what I came up with...

Breakfast Sausage (Homesick Texan)

Ingredients:

2 lbs of ground pork
1 tablespoon of sage
2 teaspoons of marjoram
2 teaspoons of thyme
2 teaspoons of red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon of brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Form into patties and fry six minutes on each side.
Keeps in the refrigerator for a week.

***This made spicy sausage. Maybe a bit too spicy for the girls but play around with the pepper flakes and the cayenne until it suits your taste!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Have you ever tried buckwheat (kasha)?

I had never tried buckwheat before but I was in my local health food/grocery market and I ended up speaking to a girl who had just moved here from the Ukraine and she was looking for a couple of things in the bulk food section and she wondered if I could help her. We were able to finding some grain that she could use for sprouting to make bread with. Then she got some some buckwheat or kasha. I asked her what she did with it and she very simply told me that "they ate it". We had a bit of a language barrier so I decided to buy about a cup of it and then look online as to how to cook it up.

Apparently is is treat like rice. 1 cup of buckwheat to 2 cups of liquid. I just cooked it in water with salt. I then let it cool and made a nice salad out of it for my lunch!

Buckwheat and Green Bean Salad

Ingredients:

1 cup of uncooked buckwheat, see below
1 lb of beans, cut to bite sized
1 small onion, chopped

Dressing:
1/4 cup white and red wine vinegar combined
3/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
1/4 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp paprika
1 clove garlic minced

Directions:

Boil 2 cups of water. Add salt and then add the buckwheat. Turn the heat to the lowest setting and cover and allow to cook for 15 minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed. Remove from pot and allow to cool.

Cook the beans in boiling water until tender-crisp. Once at the texture that you want for a salad place the beans in an ice bath to stop the cooking process.

Make the dressing by mixing all the ingredients together.

Mix the buckwheat, beans, onion and dressing together and chill.

This makes enough salad for a lunch for 4.

I loved this salad. It taste fresh and earthy all at the same time. The buckwheat has a stronger more wild taste than any other grain that I have tasted. For more information about the health benefits of buckwheat click here.

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Happy Weekend!

By now we all know that I love the weekends. We went out last night as a family to Coconut Point again...I think I have figured out why I like it there so much. There is something for everyone there. Shopping, restaurants, bars, ice cream and candy stores, book stores. But anyway I was able to buy some shoes and anyone who knows me well knows that is probably the very last thing in the world I would need more of!!! By the way if anyone has any good shoe organizing tips I would really appreciate it (so would Tony)!

Tony has just left to go and show a house and we have no other major plans for the day. I guess the big day is tomorrow when "football season" officially starts.

There is a grocery store that just opened up a few weeks ago and today is their "Grand Opening" so when Tony gets home we may go to that. It is Ada's which is a natural, organic, whole foods grocery store and I am really excited about it because it just shows me that people are really starting to take much better care of themselves if a town like ours can sustain a store like that. I am currently working along with another company right now that sells all natural beef "grass fed - granola finished" to bring you a couple of special offers. Now these offers will only be available to people who have signed up for my newsletter. If I don't have your email address you will not know about these special offers. Here is just an small taste...free shipping! If you need to sign up you can either sign up right here on my blog or your can go to my website at http://www.nofearentertaining.com/ . I promise you this offer is pretty special.

Hope you have a great weekend and are sharing it with people you love and enjoy. I am!!!

Happy Entertaining!

Judy
http://www.nofearentertaining.com/