Mixing Bowl Kids

Housekeeping and Homemade Sausage Patties

Happy November, friends!  I hope you all had a great weekend and lots of Halloween fun with your kiddies. Now that we've made it through the October festivities, which if you live in Canada means both Thanksgiving and Halloween, I'm looking forward to a quieter month.  With this new month comes big changes at our house and changes for me and this space as well.

I'm launching another website/blog in January 2010.  Something that will allow me to share more of my thoughts/ideas on food and family and how the two intersect.  I love sharing recipes here and still want to encourage the involvement of little chefs in the kitchen, however, I feel there is so much more I could be, want to be talking about - things that I discuss on the playground, at work, or on the phone with my girlfriends.  All topics will still be food related, and family focused, but more than just recipes.  So, here's where you come in...what topics would you like to see covered?  Some ideas I have are:

• Meals in less than 20 minutes
• Product reviews - food items, kitchen gadgets
• Cookbook reviews
• Links to other great recipes on the web 
• Tip and Suggestions
• Alternative foods and recipes
• Restaurant reviews and recommendations
• The dinner date night
• Entertaining on a budget
• Bakesale/Playdate goodies
• Kitchen organization
• Cooking 101 - how to series
• Ask a question and I'll post it with an answer/suggestion
• Food crafts
• Holiday and Seasonal ideas
• Party planning
• Guest food bloggers

Mixing Bowl Kids will still be up and running, with regular posting when the new website launches.  I still want to have a place to share recipes for all the cookin' kids out there.  But another space, with other topics for foodie mamas, will be fun too.

In the meantime, I made these little sausage patties for dinner.  My boys are carnivores and love their meaty dinners.  Sausages are popular in house, but sometimes I'm just not so sure what goes into them so I decided to make my own.  I don't have the equipment to put the meat into casings so I made a sausage patty instead.  A chicken, apple and sage sausage patty to be exact. They were a huge hit with the boys, who are thrilled that there is enough left over for today's lunch.  They look very similar to a hamburger, but my husband assures me they have the taste and texture of a sausage.  From the little research that I did prior to making these, it would seems as though sausages are made with a fat and a liquid where as hamburgers are not.  I'm not an expert at this, but would love to become one.  They were fun to make and delicious to eat.

So friends, please, please, please send any and all of your ideas for the new website my way.  I'm working on this now and would love to have everything up and running the first week of January.  Thank you all for reading and for your wonderful comments - have a great day!

Chicken, Apple and Sage Sausage Patties

2 lbs ground chicken

1/2 lb bacon, diced

2 apples, peeled, cored and diced

1 onion, peeled and diced

5 sage leaves, minced

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground pepper

1/2 cup chicken stock.

1 tbsp olive oil

~ Place the oil in a medium sized skillet over medium high heat and add the apples and the onions.  Cook until softened, approx. 10 minutes.

~ While the apples and onions are cooking combine the remaining ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Add the onion/apple mixture and the stock to the meat mixture and incorporate well with your hands.  

~ Shape into small, flat patties and place on foil or parchment lined baking sheets.  Place in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.

~ Bake in the oven at 350 degrees, for 20 minutes or cook in a sprayed or oiled pan for approx. 12 minutes (6 minutes per side).

~ Enjoy!

The French Turkey Burger

Burgers are an essential part of our BBQ fare and I'm sure it's the same for many of you.  We try to be conscious of eating too much meat, specifically red meat, so we stitched to turkey a few summers ago and are enjoying it immensely.  Using several different turkey burger recipes, to great success, I decided to start playing around with the toppings and have now ended up with a French Turkey Burger, and Italian one and a Mexican version as well. 

In honor of my love of France, I thought I would share "The French Turkey" Burger.  Easy to make and very tasty as well, or so I'm told by my sous-chefs.  Speaking of the sous-chefs...I'm a little wary of having them work with raw meat, so in the case of burgers they can assemble the add-ins for me, measure them out and add everything to the bowl.  I then mix and shape the burgers while they make the condiment, if we need one, or organize the buns and other items for the table.  At this point we also don't allow them to work with the BBQ, so while it's a meal they can help prepare, I find it's still one that we need to be 95% responsible for.

Have a lovely day wherever you are.  We're entertaining cousins here today with a fun treat that I hope to share with you tomorrow.  

French Turkey Burgers, my recipe

2 lbs. ground turkey

2 tsp dijon mustard

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

2 heads of roasted garlic*

2/3 cups oats

1 apple, peeled, cored and diced

1 egg yolk

2/3 cups of mayo

2 tbsp. fresh sage, minced

10 slices of brie

mixed greens

~ Combine the turkey, mustard, salt, pepper, garlic, oats, apple and egg in a large mixing bowl.  Using your fingers mix to incorporate all of the ingredients well.  Shape into burgers (make them to the size that works best for you) and place on a dinner plate.  

~ Refrigerate burgers for at least 15 minutes.  While they are chilling, combine the mayo and sage and set aside.

~ Grill the burgers on med-high heat until cooked through (approx. 10 minutes per side).

~ Top with a slice of brie and continue cooking until the cheese has melted.

~ Spread the sage mixture over the bottom half of a bun, top with greens, the burger and remaining bun.

~ Enjoy!

Roasted Garlic

2 heads of garlic

olive oil

salt and pepper

~ Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.

~ Slice the top off the head of garlic.

~ Drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper.

~ Wrap in aluminum foil and bake for 25 minutes.

~ Squeeze the garlic out from the head into a bowl and mash all the cloves together. 

Dinner and a Date Night

My husband and I have an "At Home Date Night" every second week.  We feed our boys dinner, get them off to bed and enjoy our own meal, some wine, possibly a movie and always lots of uninterrupted kid-free conversation, later in the evening.  It's nice, often romantic and something we both look forward to.

When the boys were younger we would take turns alternating who would plan the date and the organizer would be responsible for picking up the wine and planning/preparing the menu for the evening.  Now that our nights are fuller with extra-curricular activities, we try to cook one thing that we can use for both the boy's early dinner and our later date night dinner.  One-time cook for two different meals.

The last time we did this we made grilled apricot chicken.  Nothing more than a mix of apricot preserves and olive oil smeared over chicken breasts and placed on the bbq for some quick grilling. Once cooked, we sliced a few breasts and placed them on a tortilla shell spread with the jam.  We added some baby spinach, grated sharp cheddar cheese and placed everything in my beloved panini press and dinner for the boys was ready in ten minutes.  Our chicken was wrapped until later when we placed it, sliced,  on a bed of baby spinach and topped it with honeyed-peaches, navy beans, pistachios and goat cheese.  So delicious, and oh so easy.

I'll try to post more of these two for one meals as we make them.  Even if you don't use the second meal as a date-night dinner, it's great to cook only once in order to eat twice.  Do any of you do that already?  What are your tips for making more than one meal with a one-time cook?  Please do share and I'll gather the ideas and place them all in a future post.  Have a great day....

Apricot Grilled Chicken

1/2 cup apricot preserves

3 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

6 chicken breasts, washed and patted dry

~ Combine the preserves and olive oil in a small mixing bowl.  

~ Sprinkle the chicken breasts with some salt and pepper on each side.

~ Smear both sides of the breasts with the preserves mixture.

~ Grill or bake as usual.

~ Enjoy!