Shift the Balance: Reza's Cheese Soup or Sausaquences and Peppers

Guess what today is! Guess what, guess what, guess what!

Okay, you're not going to guess so I'll tell you: TODAY IS THE DAY THAT DREAMFALL CHAPTERS: BOOK 5 COMES OUT!

No, but you guys, you have to understand, it's the final part of the final game of The Longest Journey saga, and it's been so long since Book 4 came out, and the ending of Book 4 kind of left me sobbing on my keyboard and I just...

I have a lot of feelings, okay?

Anyway, since we all know I celebrate with food, and since I already made Balance Cupcakes, I decided to make something out of the game itself.

Pretty early on in Book 1 (it seems so long ago...), Zoe-- one of the main, playable characters-- has a simple fetch quest: pick up lunch for her boyfriend Reza, and bring it to his office. Seems simple enough, right? It's designed to help you get used to navigating the Propast area (which is totally my favorite in the game), so it's not trying to trip you up or anything. Go to the food cart, talk to the vendor, pick up a food item, find Reza. Easy peasy. Reza even gives you free reign to pick whatever you like, though Zoe knows he doesn't have the most adventurous palate.

However, this is a gritty technopunk future, so when Nela reveals that she has some very rare real pork sausages for sale, it's a bit of a game changer.

Zoe knows that Reza would prefer his usual order of cheese soup, but she also wants to broaden Reza's culinary horizons, and the pork sausages are hard to say no to. So, it's up to you as the player to make the choice.

It seems like an innocent enough choice, something simple for the devs to throw in to give the player the illusion of control. However, as the end card says when you finish Book 1, this choice actually has unexpected and far-reaching consequences. Or sausaquences, as Zoe refers to them in her journal.

And, after one dev tweeted about everything coming back to a choice to you didn't think mattered, everyone's pretty nervous about the sausaquences coming back to bite us.

In honor of that potentially fatal choice, I decided to make both foods so you can make the choice for yourself.

Since it's mid June and it's been pretty warm here in NJ, I decided to make both meals in the slow cooker. Not that Nela does that, but I didn't feel like standing over the hot stove or turning the oven on. Plus I don't have Karl to help out. (Karl is the name of Nela's food cart. It makes more sense in context).

Reza's favorite cheese soup I decided to make nice and hearty. The broth is creamy and flavored with sharp cheddar cheese, and it's chock full of broccoli, potatoes, carrots, celery, and onions. Plus, to thicken it up a bit, since there's not much evaporation in the slow cooker, I added a couple tablespoons of instant potatoes. That's totally optional: you can add rice or noodles with will absorb some of the liquid, go for a cornstarch slurry, or leave it as is, but I liked it this way.

One note is that you really need to add the cheese at the end. Cheddar breaks very easily if it's cooked for too long. You can always use Velveeta to avoid that, but we all know real cheese tastes better.

As for the sausages, since I wasn't going to make my own (Nela didn't either, so we're square), and plain sausages doesn't seem like much of a lunch, I went with sausage and peppers. Or, sausaquences and peppers, get it?
...
I thought it was funny.

Sausage and peppers is a ridiculously simple dish that I think every Italian knows how to make, and it's a fairly common street food around here, especially down the shore (usually served on a roll), so I thought Nela might approve.

My family usually makes it in the oven (dump everything in a baking dish, cover with foil, bake until the sausages are done), but now I might always make it in the slow cooker because holy crap on a cracker did it turn out good. The sausages were so tender they were like butter, and everything just came out so flavorful that I ate like three helpings when I went to taste it. Plus, it's even easier to make it in the slow cooker than the oven, since I don't have to preheat the oven or worry about a timer.

Now, you can brown the sausages on the stove first if you like. I won't stop you. Many people do, to cut down on grease and crisp up the casing. But that just seemed too much like work to me.

So now you have a very important choice to make: Reza's cheese soup or sausaquences and peppers. The fate of two worlds may be in the balance. Or possibly just the fate of your dinner.

Reza's Cheese Soup
Yield: 12 servings

Ingredients 
3 ribs of celery, chopped
2 potatoes, chopped
1 head of broccoli, chopped small
1 onion, diced
1 cup shredded carrots
6 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp. ground cumin
2 cans evaporated milk (I used skim)
3 tbsp. instant potato flakes (optional)
16 oz. shredded sharp cheddar
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan
Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions
In the bowl of a slow cooker, add the first eight ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours until the vegetables are soft and the potatoes are fork tender. Add the evaporated milk and potato flakes, stirring until the flakes have dissolved. Cover and cook 30 minutes, until heated through. Add the cheese, half cup at a time, stirring until completely melted. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve.

Recipe by Kim

Slow Cooker Sausage and Peppers
Yield: 6 servings 

Ingredients 
12 sweet Italian pork sausages
1 (28 oz.) can crushed tomatoes with basil
2 red bell peppers, sliced into strips
1 onion, sliced into strips
2 tsp. garlic powder
Salt and pepper, to taste
6 large rolls, to serve

Directions
Add the peppers and onion to the bowl of a slow cooker. Season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Add the sausages and crushed tomatoes. Give a quick stir to coat. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, until the sausages are cooked through and tender. Serve in rolls.

Tip: if you have leftover sauce, add it to rice or pasta

Recipe by Kim 

PizzAvengers Assemble!

This is one of those posts that you only get because of the unique way my brain works.

It started out simply enough. I was looking up Iron Man cupcakes on Pinterest (for completely non-blog related reasons. Sometimes you just wanna look at superhero cupcakes, y'know?) and I stumbled across an Iron Man pizza. I thought that was a really cute idea. And then I thought, I wonder why I've never seen a Black Widow pizza. That would be super easy. And then my brain thought about doing a Captain America fruit pizza, and it just kind of snowballed from there.

Plus, with Avengers: Age of Ultron coming out in LESS THAN A WEEK OMG I AM SO EXCITE, it seemed like the perfect time to let Mr. Brain go wild and create the PizzAvengers: Earth's Mightiest Pizzas. (Those of you that live places with an earlier Avengers release, no spoilers, please!)

I stuck with the core 6 Avengers from the first movie because it just worked out better that way. 6 pizzas is already more than enough for just me, and I wouldn't have the slightest idea of what to put on a Scarlet Witch or Quicksilver pizza.

All of the pizzas (except Cap. He's special) start off the same way. I used pre-baked crusts to save some time (you can usually find them in the refrigerated section of the grocery store near the cheese), a simple tomato sauce and shredded mozzarella. You can go with any sauce/cheese combo you like-- the Thor pizza would be really good as a barbecue pizza-- just make sure the cheese is white or lightly colored to give you a plain backdrop.

Because I'm cooking for just me, I decided to make three of the pizzas mini. You can totally make them full size, this is not a comment on their importance as Avengers, they just had the easiest designs to scale down and gave me less to fit in the fridge.

I started out with the Black Widow pizza because she really did have one of the easiest designs to put on a pizza. Take some pepperoni and cut it in half. Outline an hourglass shape using the cut side of the pepperoni to give you straight lines. Fill in. You're done.

Simple and elegant. Just like Natasha. But the pizza is far less lethal.

Hawkeye's pizza may look simple, but it took me forever to figure out. Hawkeye's costume is purple, which means that purple is usually used to represent him, and I couldn't figure out anything purple to put on a pizza. I briefly thought about skipping him, when I remembered about Pizza Dog, and when a character has a Pizza Dog, you can't not make him a pizza. (Lucky, aka Pizza Dog is from the comics, but I'm totally hoping he shows up in the MCU soon)(Lucky is called Pizza Dog because Clint gave him pizza and called him Pizza Dog. It's that simple)

Finally, I remembered that red cabbage is purpley. I chopped it and gave it a quick saute in a hot skillet-- not long enough to make it soft, I just wanted to jumpstart the cooking process since it didn't get very long in the oven-- and used it to make a bullseye pattern.

I feel like Clint would be very torn about whether to shoot at it or eat it.

The Hulk pizza is the one I'm least happy about because he kind of just ended up looking like generic green monster. But I didn't know of anything else that seemed appropriately Hulk-y, so that's what I went with. Plus he's kind of cute.

So what you need are some chopped green peppers and olives, and some extra mozzarella for eyes and teeth. I found it easiest to start by outlining his mouth with the chopped olives. Fill it in with more olives, then add some little pieces of mozz for his teeth. Fill out the shape of his face with green peppers and cut out some eyes out of more mozz. Make the eyes kind of slanty and angry looking, but don't worry if the shape's not perfect since it will melt in the oven. Add tiny pieces of olives for the pupils.

Once you're satisfied with the size and shape of the head, outline it with more chopped olives. Use larger olive pieces for his hair and nose.

I totally meant to add some angry slanty eyebrows and some red onion (cause the Hulk is always wearing purple pants), but since it was one of the mini pizzas, I didn't have room.

HULK LIKE PIZZA

For Iron Man, you need pepperoni, cheddar cheese, and some more chopped olives, plus some mozzarella to make the eye slits. Start with outlining the Iron Man helmet shape with pepperoni. Tony has a big head, so don't be afraid to use most of the pizza. Then you need to shape the face plate. I found it easiest to create the shape with the cheddar, then I used the halved pepperoni I had left over from the Black Widow pizza to give it a more defined outline. Place vaguely rectangular pieces of mozz for the eye slits (again, don't worry about getting the shape perfect), then use the olive to add some of the ridges and details in the mask.

Tony probably thinks ALL pizza should have his face on it.

Thor's pizza I almost forgot about because I was so worried about what to do for Hawkeye's pizza, but it actually ended up being one of my favorites. What you're going to need is shredded cheddar cheese, chopped olives, plain shredded chicken, and cooked, crumbled sausage.

Start by using the cheddar to draw a lightning bolt on the pizza, slightly off center, and then learn from my mistake and outline it with more chopped olives (the lightning bolt got a little lost after baking). Use the chopped olives to outline Mjolnir (rectangular head, long handle). Fill the head with shredded chicken and the handle with the sausage crumbles.

This last step is purely optional, but I put pepperoni around the outer edge of the pizza. I had so much pepperoni left since I bought a 16 oz. bag, and it's the color of his cloak, so I could get away with it. Plus it tickled me to make Thor's pizza a kind of meat lover's pizza. I can just imagine him being all YES MORTAL, I TOO AM A LOVER OF MEAT. LET US FEAST ON THIS STRANGE, FLAT PIE YOU CALL 'PIZZA.'

One last look before they go into the oven. Bake according to the directions for whatever crust recipe you're using. The pre-baked ones I used suggested baking at 450 (F) about 8 minutes for the mini pies and 10 minutes for the large.

While your pies are baking, you can work on Cap's fruit pizza. Since this is a dessert pizza, the crust is a giant cookie. I used sugar cookie dough. Any roll out recipe would probably be best (I can recommend these from LilaLoa). I actually just bought a thing of slice and bake dough from the store since roll out dough and I aren't friends. Spread your dough into a pizza pan (I used a foil one) and bake at 350 (F) until it's a light golden brown. I baked mine about 16 minutes, but keep your eye on it. Let it cool completely. I actually baked mine before I started assembling the pizzas, so it could cool while I was working on them.

Most fruit pizzas I've seen use cream cheese frosting as a base, to which I say ick. We've been over my feelings about sweetened cream cheese before, but honestly, when you're putting all of this fresh fruit on a dessert, why would you use anything except fresh whipped cream? Seriously.

So for this fruit pizza, we're using whipped cream (about 1 1/2 cups after whipping), halved strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, sliced bananas (2 were more than enough for me), and mini marshmallows. Start by spreading your whipped cream evenly on your cookie base. Then work from the outside in on the design: start with a ring of strawberries around the outer edge of the cookie, then do a ring of sliced bananas. My bananas were small, so I doubled them up. If you're worried about browning, you can skip them or use large marshmallows in their place. I made a quick glaze out of apricot jelly, and they only looked slightly brown the next day

Inside the bananas, do a ring of raspberries (I meant to do a double ring, but I made the banana layer too wide, so there wasn't room). In the middle, use the mini marshmallows to make a star, then fill in the rest with blueberries. Use more raspberries to fill in any spaces between the strawberries.

It won't stop bullets, but it's perfect for any 4th of July barbecues

I kind of totally love how they all turned out. Especially when they're all together, you can totally tell who they're supposed to represent.

Black Widow's is my favorite. It's just so simple and clean and immediately recognizable. Plus it was the easiest to make. Bonus.

If the lightning had come out better, though, I think Thor's would beat Black Widow. I love the design of it (is that narcissistic to say when you designed it? Maybe I shouldn't have had Iron Man pizza for lunch), and I love thinking about how much he would enjoy it, that great big Norse labradoodle that he is.

I put the most thought into Hawkeye's, but unfortunately, I don't think most people would get it presented on its own. It fits right in with the other PizzAvengers, though.

In my head, the Avengers have 4th of July picnics together and Tony always makes sure they have a dessert like this. Steve stopped being embarrassed when he tasted it.

Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. Pizza.

Hulk was my one disappointment, since he looks too generic, but like Hawkeye, when he's around the other PizzAvengers, you know immediately know who he is.

My Age of Ultron excitement level is officially 6 pizzas high. How about you?

Biscuits and Gravy

I've been getting over a cold this past week. I'm better now, though still slightly sniffly, but comfort food has definitely been the name of the game.

I had defrosted a pound of sausage meat earlier with all of the best intentions, but when the sneezing and hacking came on, I wasn't in much of a mood to cook. Still, I didn't want the meat to go to waste, so I thought about just cooking it up with some hashbrowns and making a fritatta.

Then I found we only had three eggs left. Not enough for a fritatta.

So I did a little interwebz research and saw that sausage gravy seemed really simple to make. I had a can of refrigerated biscuit dough, so I decided to make biscuits and gravy.

Well, it turns out, sausage gravy is really simple to make. I saw a number of iterations out there that were just sausage drippings, flour, cream, and black pepper. I added some unsalted chicken broth to mine because it seemed a little too bland that way (unsalted because sausage meat usually has more than enough salt), and I added lots of freshly cracked black pepper and a hearty shake of Mrs. Dash cooking blend. I also couldn't taste very well, because of the sniffling, so I might have over seasoned it a bit. I'll leave that up to you.

Biscuits and gravy isn't usually my thing, but let me tell you something: when you feel like crap and you can have a fresh, hot, filling breakfast ready in 20 minutes (including biscuit baking time), it's most certainly my thing.

Sausage Gravy
Yield: Approx. 8 servings

Ingredients
1 lb. pork sausage meat
1/4 cup flour
1 1/4 cup half and half
1 cup unsalted chicken broth
Freshly cracked black pepper
Mrs. Dash cooking blend (optional)

Directions
In a large, non-stick skillet, cook the sausage meat. Stir in the flour until well mixed. Add in the half and half and chicken broth and cook, stirring occasionally, until it bubbles and thickens. Season to taste with black pepper and Mrs. Dash, if using. Serve over warm biscuits.

Recipe by Kim

3 Cheese Quinoa Casserole

You guys, I've got something super special planned for the blog starting in March, and I'm so totally excited about it. I've been going crazy researching recipes and techniques and writing myself all kinds of notes that, taken out of context, totally make me sound like a serial killer. (Stick a bamboo skewer in hand, freeze.Stick in blue Jell-o)

I haven't decided whether or not I want to tell you guys what I've got planned, or if I want it to be a surprise. I'm actually terrible at keeping secrets. Doing secret Santa is agony for me, because I always want to go up to the person and be like, "I got you. I'm totally shopping for your present right now. I'm putting lots of personality and thought into it, too."

Strangely, I've never had a problem keeping what I bought a secret. I guess because they're already expecting a present, and I just want them to know that I'm the one buying it.

Anyway, I can't decide if this thing I'm planning would be better as a surprise, or if I should just tell you. It's probably better as a surprise, right? People like surprises. But I want to tell you.

So as a compromise, I'm gonna drop you guys hints in each post, from now until I start. Maybe that will keep me from bursting out with it, because I have a whole month longer to wait, and I can't stand keeping it a secret anymore! And if you guess, well, cat's out of the bag and I don't have to keep it a secret.

So, hint #1: I'm planning on doing another series (like Sunday S'mores) starting the end of March.

Super special auxiliary hint: This casserole has absolutely nothing to do with your surprise.

I've seen recipes around the interwebz for quinoa mac'n cheese, and I'm all like, "It's quinoa, not macaroni, so shouldn't it be qui'n cheese?" But they looked tasty, so I let it slide.

As my house still has an overabundance of quinoa, I decided to try it out. I made a cheese sauce based on the one from my favorite mac'n cheese (with actual mac) recipe. I had some sausage meat and some frozen broccoli, so I threw those in to make it a full meal. Then I slopped it all in a baking dish, added some panko and some parm to the top (and a little parsley, for pretties) (and some extra garlic, because I'm me), and baked it until it bubbled like the swamp thing.

How did it taste? Well, like mac'n cheese. But if you made mac'n cheese with like pastina instead of regular pasta. Or, you know, with quinoa. Oh, and I'm super proud of this 3-cheese sauce, because it was uber-yummy and gooey all by its lonesome. I could probably just sit there with a spoon and eat it straight from the pot.

3 Cheese Quinoa Casserole {Printable Version}
Yield: 6-8 servings

Ingredients
For the quinoa
1½ cups uncooked quinoa, rinsed
3 cups water
½ tsp. salt


For the sauce
1 lb. sausage meat*
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small onion, diced
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. sea salt
¼ tsp. pepper (freshly cracked)
2 cups milk
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
¼ grated parmesan, plus extra to top
12 oz. frozen broccoli, thawed and drained
Panko bread crumbs, to top


Directions
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Prepare the quinoa: In a large saucepan, bring 3 cups of water and ½ tsp. salt to a boil. Add the quinoa, and return to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for about 15 minutes, until the water is absorbed. Remove from heat, fluff with a fork, and allow to cool.

Prepare the sauce: In another pot, cook the sausage over medium heat. Drain off the excess fat, and remove the cooked sausage to another plate. Add the garlic, onion, and butter to the pot, and heat over medium-low heat until the butter is melted and the onion is translucent. Add in the flour, salt, and pepper and mix well. Gradually add in the milk, stirring constantly. Continue to heat until it starts to boil. Remove from heat, and add the cheese ½ cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. The cheese should be completely melted before the next batch is added. When all the cheese has been added, add the cooked sausage, quinoa, and broccoli, mixing well.

Spread the mixture evenly into a 9x13 inch baking dish and top liberally with extra parmesan and bread crumbs. Bake 40-50 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool slightly before serving.

*Any meat can be used in place of the sausage, or it can be skipped altogether for a vegetarian dish.

Recipe by Kim

Spinach and Sausage Calzones

Am I the only one that gets a little worried about how their mind works sometimes? I was going to make pretzels. I had planned (that dirty, dirty word) to make stuffed pretzels. I had done research on stuffed pretzels. I had pinned recipes for stuffed pretzels. I had decided to do a spanakopita-inspired stuffed pretzels, with goat cheese (because I didn't want feta) and spinach and sausage.

And I made calzones. Brain, stop trolling me. I now have an unused log of goat cheese in my refrigerator, all thanks to you.

To be fair to Mr. Brain (although he doesn't deserve it, since this is far from the first time he's done it to me)(and he's now apparently male for some reason. I don't know. I'm special.) I was already a bit disheartened by a recipe fail earlier on. I had found the easiest bread recipe in the world, and I was going to make it, then I was going to make a panini with it, and I'd be set with my recipes for the week. Then the bread came out of the oven, and it was gross. See, more planning, and more planning fails. I should really know better.

Anyway, I was disheartened by the bread fail, and Mr. Brain didn't want to go through that agony again. So slowly, stuffed pretzels became stuffed pretzel buns, which became stuffed buns, which turned into calzones.

And, you know, these turned out amazing, so you can't really be too mad at Mr. Brain. He came up with this filling, which is the most epic of noms. Seriously, if it wasn't for the fact that there was raw egg in it, more of the filling might have ended up in my mouth than in the calzones. Creamy and garlicky with the spinach and the sausage and the little tang from the Swiss. Cripes, I'm drooling. I made it pretty super garlicky, but you could tone that down if you want. Just don't tell me, because then we can't be friends.

If you increased the ricotta, this would make killer lasagna or stuffed shells. Or you could wrap it in super simple pizza dough and have a bunch of these hand-held beauties ready for your Superbowl party. Which is soon, right? Soonish? I don't know; I have board game parties, not football parties. But these work well there, too.

So maybe Mr. Brain's trolling all works out for the best. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Spinach and Sausage Calzones {Printable Version}

Yield: 10 individual calzones

Ingredients
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
Big pinch crushed red pepper (optional)
1lb sausage meat (casings removed)
16oz. ricotta cheese
1 pkg. (10oz.) frozen spinach, thawed and drained
½ cup shredded Swiss cheese
2 eggs
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. dried oregano
½ tsp. dried basil
½ tsp. sea salt
Freshly cracked pepper, to taste
1 recipe Basic Pizza Dough (see below), or premade pizza dough
1 tsp. water

Directions
Preheat the oven to 450°F. In a large skillet over medium heat, heat the olive oil. Add the onion, garlic,
and red pepper and cook, stirring constantly, until the onions are translucent. Add the sausage meat and
continue to cook until the sausage has cooked through. Drain off the fat and set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, mix the ricotta, spinach, Swiss, 1 egg, and seasonings until smooth. Mix in the sausage.

Divide the pizza dough into 10 even pieces. Flatten into rounds and roll out to ¼” thickness. In the center
of each round, mound about 3 tbsp. of the sausage filling. Fold the dough in half over the filling, and
pinch the sides together to seal. Place the calzones on an ungreased cookie sheet, and pierce with a
fork. Beat the remaining egg with 1tsp. of water, and brush the tops of the calzones with the egg wash.

Bake 10 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 400°F and bake another 5-10 minutes, until the
calzones are an even golden brown. Let cool a few minutes before serving.

Recipe by Kim

Basic Pizza Dough {Printable Version}

Yield: 1 12inch thin crust pizza

Ingredients
1 tbsp. active dry yeast
¾ cup plus 2 tbsp. warm water (about 110°F)
2¾ cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. olive oil

Directions
Dissolve the yeast in the water and let activate for 10 minutes. In a large mixing bowl, mix the flour and
salt, and make a well in the center. Pour the yeast mixture into the well, and using a fork, pull the flour
into the yeast mixture. Continue stirring until a dough forms.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic,
about 10 minutes. Add more flour as necessary to prevent the dough from sticking.

Coat the inside of a clean bowl with the olive oil. Form the dough into a ball, and place it in the bowl,
turning it over to coat with the oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size, about 1
hour. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Punch down the dough, and form it into a ball.
Cover with a dish towel and let rise again for about 20 minutes, until almost doubled in size. Stretch into
desired shape and bake as directed.

Recipe adapted slightly from Williams-Sonoma The Best of the Kitchen Library: Baking

This recipe is featured on Foodie Friends Friday Linky Party