By PK, We Live Concepts
Many of us eat a lot of sausage in the summer. In fact, sausage making has been around for over 2500 years. Originally, it was simply a way to preserve meat. Besides being easy to store away, it is also an easy food to prepare from package to dish. In the modern household, unless you are a vegetarian or vegan, it is quite common to find some sausage in the freezer, especially in the summer. Let me share with you this super easy method I learned from PBS to make something healthy and flavorful out of that freezer sausage.
This dish was inspired by a Greek dish by Chef Yannis from his show The Cooking Odyssey. In the show, he used the traditional Greek sausage. Since I did not have access to it, I chose spicy Italian sausage and turkey Kielbasa from my freezer. I have to say they turned out very good for me too.
No good productions can be achieved without the stars and its supporting actors. So the first star of the dish, sausage, does have a bad rep of being high in fat and salt. However, if done correctly, it can be combined with lots of vegetables to produce a dish that is much healthier and just as flavorful. The next star in this dish, peppers, are almost always in season. Also, growing and harvesting your own peppers with your kids can be a lot of fun too. Next, the rice, is such an important supporting actor that mediates the entire dish. I just can’t think of any other ways to combine the flavors besides using rice.
Besides being easy to make, and easy to pack, the aroma from the cooking will certainly make your kitchen a welcoming place.
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The recipe: Serves 4 to 6
The rice
- 3 cup white rice
- 1 cup wild brown rice
- 1 garlic, sliced
Water, measured according to rice cooker’s instructions.
Mix white rice and brown rice. Wash and add the rice into a rice cooker. Add the garlic. Follow the rice cooker’s instruction to add water. Start the cooker and walk away.
Rice cookers are much easier to get nowadays. The new computerized designs are pretty much fool-proof and can easily handle brown rice for a much healthier alternative too. However, if you wish to cook rice for this dish without a rice cooker, check out How to Make Fluffy Rice Without a Rice Cooker by 5min Life Videopedia.
The sausage and pepper
- 3 tablespoon olive oil
- A few fresh sage leaves, sliced
- 3 to 4 fresh thyme twigs, leaves only
- 1 onion, thickly sliced
- 1 garlic, sliced
- 1 green pepper, thickly sliced into long strips
- 1 red pepper, thickly sliced into long strips
- 2 large tomatoes, thickly diced
- 1 lb Italian sausage, cut into thick chunks
- 1 lb turkey Kielbasa, cut into thick chunks
- Sea salt
- Pepper
- Red pepper flakes
In a dutch oven, heat up the olive oil. Saute onion, then add sage, thymes, green and red pepper. Add the sausage and continue to saute for about 5 minutes. Next add the tomatoes. Season with sea salt and pepper. Then add a teaspoonful of red pepper flakes. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Then add salt and pepper according to taste.
This dish is easy to make and the leftover taste even better later. Therefore, this is another dish that is great for packing your lunch box.
Eat on and stay healthy!
Health notes:
- To reduce the glycemic value, use all brown rice.
- To reduce fat, use all turkey sausage, but I will not recommend soy sausage for this dish
Kitchen notes:
- According to USDA’s guideline, cooked sausage can be refrigerated for about 3 to 4 days.
- To add colors in this dish, use multi-color bell peppers.
- A little hot pepper can also be added so as to add fire into the dish.
Resource notes:
- How to Make Fluffy Rice Without a Rice Cooker by 5min Life Videopedia
- For more information on Mediterranean cooking and travel, check out Chef Yannis at The Cooking Odyssey.
- To learn more about cooking and storing sausage, check out the USDA’s guide Sausages and Food Safety