“So, here’s some advice I wish I woulda got when I was your age: Live every week like it’s Shark Week.” – Tracy Jordan, 30 Rock

I’ve noticed that being a 30-minutes-or-less kind of chef is not usually a matter of knowing some good recipes.  It can be.  … but usually 30 minute recipes take at least an hour the first time you make them.  Rather, it’s a matter of knowing tricks for making all recipes simpler, easier, and most importantly, quicker.  Store bought pesto, for instance, is something I always have in my fridge.  Pasta is always in my pantry.  I spent 5 hours cleaning last Saturday, and we still ate a delicious lunch.  And it’s not because I had put something in the crock pot before the day began.  A grocery run was days overdue, and were it not for pantry staples, we likely would have starved (or fed on chocolate… not such a bad alternative now that I think about it).

<sales pitch>One ingredient that makes all cooking easier, quicker, and quite a bit tastier is sausage.  So today, I challenge you to live every week like it’s Sausage Week.  At the very least, enjoy our very own Sausage Week while it lasts.  Why is sausage so amazing? A few reasons:

1. Sausage is pre-seasoned meat, essentially.  It’s packed full of flavor.  Adding it to pasta, sandwiches, etc. can often flavor the entire dish.  No measuring herbs and spices, no worrying about whether you have that obscure seasoning – the work is done for you.
2. Sausage used to only come in one general variety: super unhealthy.  Such is not the case anymore.  Not only are there more flavors than ever before, but there are also a variety of different meats that are playing the sausage game; look for chicken and turkey.  There’s reduced fat sausage and good ol’ country sausage.  Italian sausage and apple sausage.  All of it is delicious.

Put it in your soup, pasta, or chili, and save your valuable brain cells for something else.  Sometime this week, take an otherwise bland dish, and give it personality!</sales pitch>

Keep your eye out for delicious sausage based dishes this coming week.  It’s going to be fun!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 8:43 pm and is filed under Food Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.