One sausage, three hungry mouths
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This weekend was buy Nothing Day. We had a house full of food and planned what we were eating this weekend and then had an unexpected guest.
Mr and Little Miss Green were having sausages, mashed potatoes and vegetables on Saturday and Mr green was all set to pop out just to buy two more sausages in honour of our guest.
No siree. Inspired by my new Margueritte Patten book I set to work in the kitchen. Mr Green then said ‘Give the sausages to the girls and I’ll go without’. Oh, the smell of burning martyr; let alone burning sausages………
Anyway, I decided on a vegetable and sausage casserole stew (just found out the difference between a casserole and stew; it was stew); which was met with all sorts of coos of delight and I ended up with 3 scraped plates which hardly needed washing.
And because I’m nice like that, I documented what I did as I went along. Usually I throw things in, stir them around and drive Mr Green insane because I can’t reproduce what I have done ever again.
Without further ado; here is my Mrs Green’s sausage stew; which it would appear will feed four if served with some hunky chunky bread.
Ingredients
Butter or oil for frying
100g red lentils
1 medium onion or 2 shallots
4 pork sausages
1 clove garlic, smashed and chopped
1 tsp mixed herbs or 1/4 tsp dried sage
3 oz (4 small) carrot cut into chunks
12oz (4 medium) potatoes, cut into chunks
1/2 pint stock – choose whatever you have: beef, chicken or vegetable
tablespoon of cornflour
2 tablespoons of tomato ketchup or puree
Method
Do numbers 1-3 at the same time because they all take around 25 minutes:
1- Put the sausages in the oven to cook at 180.
2- Cover the lentils with water, bring to the boil, cover and simmer.
3- Fry the onion, carrots and potato gently with the garlic and herbs until softened. You’ll need to stir it about a bit as the potatoes usually stick to the bottom of the pan.
Once everything is cooked, take the sausages from the oven and cut into small chunks.
Mix the cornflour with a little cold water and add it to the stock along with the tomato puree or ketchup – mix it all up together and pour over the fried vegetables.
Bring to the boil stirring all the time, reduce the heat and simmer for a minute or so to cook the cornflour and thicken the mix.
Add the cooked lentils and the sausages to the pot, mix it all up, cover and keep on a simmer until you’re ready to eat.
This could be adapted for a variety of dishes. You could use veggie sausages or miss the sausages out altogether and serve it as a lentil and vegetable stew for vegetarians and vegans. I think Margueritte would be proud of me, don’t you?
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Isn’t it amazing having unexpected guests? I looked upon a seemingly empty fridge and dug deep as unexpected guests were over. While I scratched my head, I put some stock on to heat up. I added some potatoes I found on the counter and later some veggies. I used my brand new hand held food processer to puree it all and added milk and cheese. Served with buttered toast, everyone loved it and it actually went to another meal! Whew!
So what is the difference between stew and casserole?
Oh well done ! isn’t it a great feeling when you have to meet a stretching-food challenge and it all ends up tasting scrumptious, as if you’d planned it that way 😉
@ ThinkingWoman, I totally agree, if you have stock, veggies and bread around you need never be at a loss to feed unexpected visitors. And stick blenders are one of the very few gadgets I really would not be without.
@ SarahBarnard – its mostly to do with the heat source. Stews – cooked over heat. Casseroles – cooked surrounded by heat. There would be some that would further diversify into the type of cooking vessel and the consistency of the final product, but thats basically it 😀
Right – stew in pan on the hob, casserole in the oven. Got it, thanks!
Now that’s made me hungry Mrs G: Sausage casserole\stew is one of my favourites. We’ve got nothing in except the remains of a beef stew which was made fresh on Sunday. Just one portion left with four of us to feed….At the moment I’m thinking of jazzing it up with a tin of chopped tomatoes and a little extra puree, with some chopped oven roasted peppers and extra fried onions, all served up on a bed of pasta. My head says it’ll work, but I’ve yet to experience the reality. On the other hand, I think I might head over to Thinking Woman’s place 😀
AMA that will be fab over pasta or rice.
Great to hear you handled it resourcefully!! 🙂
Thinking Woman, I feel most of the time that unexpected guests allow us the opportunity to dig deep into our creativity in the kitchen. Your throw-it-in soup with buttered bread sounds wonderful.
I agree, Greenlady; stick blenders are fab. I don’t have many gadgets, but I love this along with a mini food processor; the sort you buy for making baby food.
Sarah – great isn’t it? You come for a stroll to MZW and end up learning something new too!
So Mrs A – did you have jazzy stew that night? I bet you did 😀 Anything with roasted peppers in it tastes delicious.
Thank you Layla; it was a feel good moment; interesting what little it takes to please me LOL!