Damn you, Safeway Organic Tomato Sauce

Sausage and Oyster Mushroom Tomato Sauce

• 3 links Italian sausage (one hot, two sweet)
• Oyster mushrooms
• One onion
• Tomato product (sauce, crushed, etc.) from hell: a salty, salty hell (15% Daily Recommended Value of sodium)
• dried basil and oregano
• Grateful feelings because you forgot to salt the sauce as you were making it
• Wine and Sugar to counteract the terrible salt bomb that is Safeway Organic Tomato Sauce
• Frowns and frustrated sighs
• Wine to drink

I will make polenta as soon as I get over my salt frustration.  

In other news: we planted beets and lettuce today.

And we found a millipede in our apartment.  

It’s been an eventful day.  

Feta and Spinach Chicken Meatballs in a Tomato Sauce over Polenta

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of ground chicken
• 1 egg
• s & p
• spinach (nuked; squeeze the liquid out)
• feta (mine is from Israel.  Not super salty, but very mild and creamy.)
• bread crumbs
• oregano and basil (dried)

Mix it all together.  Form small balls.

Make your favorite tomato sauce.  I added crimini and oyster mushrooms to mine.

Brown meatballs; add them to your sauce and simmer for awhile.

Make your polenta.  Mine will include milk, chicken stock,  and feta cheese.

Top the polenta with sauce and meatballs.

Add some Parmesan cheese if you please.

Drink copious amounts of red wine.  And if you spill it on your carpet, remember:  White wine will take out red wine stains.

Sunday Morning Menu

Last weekend, the husband and I cleaned out our cupboards.  The contents we unearthed?  Split peas–yellow and green. Lentils– red, brown, and green.  Rice–red, brown, jasmine, arborio, long grain, short grain, sushi.  Barley.  Couscous.  Orzo.  Mountains of grains, pasta, and beans that we have shoved to the back of the cupboard.  So, it is going to be my goal to use up these staples each weekend.

When I went grocery shopping yesterday, I had this in mind, so I didn’t buy as much as I normally would have.  I made the bratwurst soup yesterday, and today, I decided to make a split pea soup. The recipe got great reviews, can be made vegetarian, and can be made in a crockpot.

The other meal I plan to make this weekend is chicken meatballs with feta and spinach in a tomato sauce over polenta.  I bought some ground chicken, which I will mix with an egg, some bread crumbs, some crumbled feta cheese, spinach, garlic, and salt and pepper.  I’ll make a tomato sauce with oyster mushrooms and make some polenta with Parmesan cheese melted into it.

Chicken Sausages and Bacon…

It is so strange to be eating meat again.  I don’t find myself craving it or even particularly liking it when I eat it or cook it these days–but I do find the familiarity comforting.  And I really need the comfort.

(My husband is making me add this caveat: I really do like bacon.  It cannot be defamed.)

So, with wine in hand and indie singer-songwriter stuff that makes my husband groan playing on my laptop, I set out to make some comfort food on this peaceful Sunday evening.

On the menu tonight:

Potato soup (red potatoes, milk, flour, bacon and its grease, celery, old bay seasoning, s and p, onion, garlic, vegetable stock)

Tomato sauce with chicken sausage and oyster mushrooms

(crushed and diced tomatoes, red wine, chicken sausage, basil, s and p, oyster mushrooms)

Roasted acorn squash with brown sugar and chili powder

The squash will be for dinner tonight–along with a salad and porkchops.

The sauce will go with either polenta or noodles during the week for dinner or lunches.  The potato soup will reheat nicely for the same purposes.

Mushroom Ragout with Feta and Thyme Polenta

Soup.  Didn’t happen.

Instead, I made a mushroom ragout from a recipe that I first tried about a month ago.  I think I even blogged about it.  Here’s the link.  Last time I made it, I substituted the polenta, which I can barely stand, with pasta.

Today, I thought that maybe the phrase “can barely stand,” is a little harsh.  Maybe I could grow to like polenta.

Love, even?

I pretty much followed the ragout recipe exactly. It’s excellent the way it is.  But I knew that the polenta recipe would need a little work if I was going to stomach it.

But what to do?  The original recipe calls for spinach and Parmesan cheese.  I had neither.

Instead–I added some Israeli feta and some fresh thyme.  And it absolutely blew me away.  So, for the record:  I love polenta.

Sunday Menu: For reals, this time.

• Mexican Red Lentil Stew
• Ricotta Stuffed Tomatoes
• Mushroom Ragu with Spinach and Parm Polenta