Sausage & Potato Bake

If you are a reader of Today's Parent magazine, you may recognize this recipe. It's one of the 'Dinner's in the Oven' recipes from the current issue (April 2010). I was really excited about this because I am living in a city now where I can easily find turkey sausage (traditional pork sausage does not agree with me at all) so I knew I could adapt the sausage and be able to eat it. Here's the recipe...then read on to see what happened.

1 tsp veg oil
1 lb raw Italian-style sausages (I subbed turkey sausage here)
1 3/4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 jar (about 200 ml) alfredo pasta sauce
1 tsp dried parsley
2 lb waxy-potatoes, washed (I really don't know what waxy potatoes are, I just used white potatoes)
1 small onion, peeled

Preheat oven to 375*. Heat oil in a deep 12 inch ovenproof frying pan (medium heat). Lightly brown sausages (6 minutes) - set sausages aside onto a plate, drain excess grease from pan. Add broth, alfredo sauce and parseley to pan. Whisk to blend. Bring to a simmer, remove from heat and set aside. Slice potatoes & onions thinly. Spread evenly in pan, nestling into broth mixture. Transfer to oven, bake for 40 minutes, add sausage, bake for 20 more minutes (check sausages are cooked through). Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

*I did all as asked and my recipe turned out nothing like the picture. The potatoes were still crunchy and the broth was really thin, not at all creamy so here's how I saved it. I took the sausages off and set them aside on a plate. I then melted 1/4 cup margarine in a cooking pot, added 1/4 cup flour and blended to a paste, I then drained off the liquid broth mixture from the potatoes and added to the cooking pot. I whisked it all together and brought to a boil. This thickened everything up nicely. I poured it back over the potatoes, turned the oven heat up to 350* and baked it all for another half hour. It worked and was pretty yummy. I think if I were to make this again, I would add a flour mixture to begin with to be thicker to start. I would also up the cooking time to let the potatoes cook really well. The flavor was nice.

Pumpkin Cookies Help

This was a recipe that I found on Recipezaar.com. They were tasty, but came out more like a welsh cake than a cookie. So I'm still on the search of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies. If you have a recipe I'd love to try it :o)

* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 cup oats
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/2 cup margarine
* 3/4 cup brown sugar
* 1/2 cup granulated sugar
* 1 whole egg, slightly beaten
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 cup pumpkin
* 1 cup chocolate chips


Combine flour, oats, baking soda, and cinnamon, set aside. Cream margarine, gradually adding sugars; beat till light and fluffy; add egg and vanilla, mix well. Add pumpkin to wet ingredients. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, mix. Add chocolate chips, mix well. On cookie sheets, drop tbsp full of dough. Bake at 350F for 10- 15 minutes.

The Great Pumpkin

This yummy bread comes from Jean Pare's Company's Coming series. It's in the Muffins and More book. Company's Coming is a Canadian Cookbook series. I have 4 or 5 of the books and each recipe I try always turns out well.

4 oz softened cream cheese
1/4 cup softened butter or margarine
1 1/4 cups suagar
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I didn't add these)

Heat oven to 350*. Combine cream cheese, butter & sugar in mixing bowl. Cream together well. Beat in eggs one at a time until blended. Mix in pumpkin.
In another bowl combine the remaining ingredients. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Pour all at once over batter. Stir until just moistened. Spoon into a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan. Bake for 60-70 minutes (until an inserted toothpick comes out clean). Cool 10 minutes in pan. Remove to rack to finish cooling.

A Tale of 3 Avocados

We bought a 3 pack of avocados in our shop. With the 1st we made smaller guacamole. The 2nd we put into a salad. The 3rd I credit my husband with. He created a really yummy dip.
1 Avocado
a dollop of Renee's Cesar dressing
a good shake of Cajun spice
Mash the avocado and mix in the rest. Enjoy with tortilla chips.

Jeremy's Cars Cake

While I may be taking it easy cooking full force right now, there was no way that I was going to buy a birthday cake for my son's 3rd birthday. I used my wacky cake recipe (which I always use for my kids birthday cakes - it always turns out). The Cars characters came out of a pack of toys I fluked out to find. It was tricky to find a pack that had McQueen, Mater and Doc altogether. The road is lined with Reese's Pieces (my snack habit right now, Jeremy loves them too). An easy way to make a cute cake.