Date Night Dinners - Sausage and Apples
This week's dinner was bursting with flavor: tart apples mixed with sweet cranberries and crunchy toasted pecans merged with soft semi-caramelized onions, all balanced with a mild couscous base and connected by juicy, browned apple chicken sausage. It was the perfect blend of ingredients to warm us up in preparation for the unwanted snow to come.
We used our Tandoori Mango flavor turkey sausage last week to make indoor kabobs. This week we had a choice between apple chicken sausage and hot Italian turkey sausage. Although apples associate more with fall time then winter, it all represents cold weather to me. We decided to utilize the apple chicken sausage knowing that hot Italian turkey sausage would be perfect for a real grill BBQ later this spring.
Brenden and I found a few recipes incorporating apple chicken sausage that intrigued us. A few pastas, some hashes, and then this one. A recipe that included couscous. Now I know couscous is similar to pasta, but it is different enough for us. We are carb-addicts and eat a lot of pasta, so when presented with the chance to change it up from our usual angel hair, rigatoni, or tortallini (we live on the wild side, I know), we jumped at the opportunity. Even if it was just a small jump or should I say hop in comparison to what we probably could have done. But hey, the recipe sounded good and we were excited to try it.
Per usual, this recipe was quite simple and came together rather quickly. The basic steps were to cook all of the ingredients and then combine. While cooking sausage, apples and onions in a skillet are no new feat for Brenden and I, we did get to try our hand at toasting nuts on a stovetop for the first time. Not too challenging of a night, but still a first, and a rather delicate one we discovered. Keeping an eye on the nuts is the key, once they start burning, there is no fix besides beginning again. Luckily, we had two sets of eyes on the nuts so we were able to prevent this from happening, barely, but we did it. Phew!
We mixed all the prepared ingredients together and everything smelled and looked great. The different colors - the deep red cranberries, the vibrant green apples, the browned sausage - really popped against couscous and brought the dish to life. And, all of the components truly balanced with one another, enhancing rather then overpowering each flavor. It was the perfect end-of-winter-spring-is-here-tomorrow-even-if-it-is-supposed-to-snow-again meal.
Recipe adapted from homecookingmemories.com, Autumn Apple Sausage Couscous
Ingredients
- 1 lb apple chicken sausage, sliced
- 2 medium granny smith apples, cored and chopped
- 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
- Juice of one lemon
- 5 cups couscous, cooked
- 3/4 cup dried cranberries
- 3/4 cup pecans, chopped
- In a large pan over medium heat, cook the sausages completely.
- When the sausages are cooked through, remove from the pan and set aside.
- In the same pan, cook the apples and onions and squeeze the juice of one lemon (or to taste) over the apples and onions.
- Cook until the apples and onions become tender and then set aside with the sausages.
- In a small, ungreased skillet, add the chopped pecans and cook on medium heat, string constantly until they are slightly browned and fragrant.
- In a large bowl, combine all of the prepared ingredients: cooked sausage, cooked apples and onion, couscous, cranberries and pecans.
- Mix everything until well combined, dish out, serve and enjoy.
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