Sausage, Bean and Vegetable Soup

All week I have been looking forward to going to the Wayland Winter Farmers' Market and the raw milk dairy today. On our trip to the dairy last weekend, we realized that there is a farmers' market along the way on Saturdays (perfect!). But my hopes were dashed on Thursday when the weather man started predicting that we were going to get a major snow storm today. I was so disappointed. It was definitely not worth the risk of travelling 40 miles in a snow storm, so I thought I might have to find another way to do our food shopping for the week. Luckily, I woke up this morning to learn that the storm is going to miss us, and it looks like our field trip is back on. (It's the little things in life that make us happy, right?)

Soups and stews are such satisfying meals during the winter. I love the flavors in this soup so much that I have made a version of this three times in the last month. The recipe started with just spicy sausage, white beans and kale in chicken broth, but I have kept adding vegetables each time. This time around it was not a looker. We had purple cabbage that I wanted to eat up, so I added it in, and it definitely turned the whole soup a crazy color. I think I will stick with green cabbage in the future (unless it's Halloween). Some soups require lots of time for the flavors to develop, but the spicy sausage and chicken stock immediately give this soup a shot of flavor, so it is pretty quick to make.



Sausage, Bean and Vegetable Soup

2 T olive oil
1 lb spicy sausage
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
2 ribs of celery, finely chopped
1/2 cabbage, thinly sliced
1 bunch of kale, torn into bite size pieces
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups of white beans

Heat up oil in a Dutch oven and brown the sausage. Remove the sausage, and add the carrot, onion, celery and cabbage to the pot. Cook until tender (about 30 minutes). Add the kale, chicken stock and white beans. Cook until the kale is tender (15-30 minutes).

This post is part of Sunday Night Soup Night.

Chicken Bulgogi Salad

We always enjoy Bulgogi when we eat at Korean restaurants. Bulgogi is made from thin slices of steak (or sometimes chicken or pork). The meat is marinated with a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, garlic and other ingredients such as scallions, or mushrooms. We have had it served by itself or with cellophane noodles.

We decided to recreate bulgogi at home, but with chicken that we had on hand. Because it was a scorcher again today, we decided to serve it over a salad. My husband already had the chicken thinly sliced and marinating by the time I got home from work. I rummaged through the fridge to see just how many salad fixings we had. We were going to be three for dinner tonight, so I had to stretch a bit. We ended up having spinach and finely shredded cabbage tossed in oil and vinegar. Topped with blanched green beans, chopped heirloom tomato, chicken and corn. It was very tasty, a little chewy because of the cabbage, but overall really good.


Chicken Bulgogi
2 large chicken breasts
1 T sesame oil
2 T tamari or soy sauce
5 green onions, chopped
1/2 small red onion, chopped
1 T maple syrup
1 t sesame seeds
2 T oil

Thinly slice the chicken (if it is slightly frozen this is much easier). Mix with the sesame oil, tamari, onions, maple syrup and sesame seeds. Cover and let marinate for at least an hour. Heat a wok or a deep frying pan, and add oil and the chicken and the marinade. Cook until the chicken is cooked through (about 5 minutes).

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

This post is part of Works-For-Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family.

Oven Roasted Chicken with Vegetables

I had an interesting walk from the subway to home. A cute new chocolate shop opened, and they were handing out samples. I tried a lemon caramel chocolate, which was good. A lot going on with the flavors, but I did choose lemon caramel chocolate. There were signs up and down the street warning drivers that parking was off limits because Happy Hour was filming. We see these signs a lot - last week they were filming White Collar. But this time they shut down Eight Mile Creek to film. I wonder what Happy Hour is? Next I saw a bike tour peddling toward me, and then lots of paparazzi and people taking cell phone photos of an Evian event. I admit that I had to take a peek through the window to see what all the fuss was about, and I saw a blond young woman. I just assumed she was a model and kept walking, but I just googled "Evian event NYC" to find out that it was Maria Sharapova. Google is amazing - it knows which celebrity I saw on my way home from work. Mind boggling! Last but not least, I noticed that the decorations for the Feast of San Gennaro are starting to go up. Soon we will have the equivalent of a county fair right outside our front door.

Once I got home, I found out my blog won an award from a fellow blogger, Cooking in Kenzo. I will write more about it in my next post, and get to pass it along to other blogs that I love.


It has finally cooled off this week in NYC, and we are getting some long overdue rain. On my way home from work yesterday, I decided that I wanted to have oven roasted chicken. It was finally cool enough to turn on the oven. Mmmm, it hit the spot. We cooked the chicken and vegetables all in the Dutch oven which made it a no fuss meal. All of the vegetables took on a great chickeny flavor.

Oven Roasted Chicken with Vegetables
1 medium chicken
1 onion, cut into good size chunks
1 small cabbage, sliced
2 carrots, cut into 1 inch chunks
salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

Rinse and dry the chicken. Add vegetables to the Dutch Oven, and place chicken on top. Cover it and cook for 30 minutes. Remove the cover and turn up the heat to 425, and cook until the juices run clear (about 30 more minutes).

Oven roasted chicken is a gift that just keeps giving. We had salads with leftover chicken for dinner tonight, and now I have the bones in the crock pot making chicken stock.