The Return of Healthy Snack Wednesday (and a giveaway)

Healthy Snack Wednesday is back! I had class on Wednesday nights this semester and that made it difficult to post a new healthy snack idea each week. I still had plenty of snacks, just no time to share them with you! Now that class is done for the semester, I’m excited to bring back Healthy Snack Wednesday (HSW)! For the return to HSW, I have a delicious new treat to share (plus a giveaway!). Take a look at past HSW entries here.

Back in March I was contacted by the marketing manager at Jody Maroni’s Sausage Kingdom. She asked if I was interested in trying out their new low-sodium sausage minis. They sounded like the perfect match for HSW – 75% less sodium than their full-size counterparts and just 40 calories per serving. Here's a look at the nutrition information.

First, have you heard of Jody Maroni’s Sausage Kingdom? I had never heard of them so I headed over to their website to find out. It turns out that Jody Maroni’s Sausage Kingdom has been serving up gourmet sausages and hot dogs on Venice Beach since 1979. Now they have multiple franchise locations and sell their products online on their website. And last week I saw them featured in one of those fun Cooking Channel shows featuring great eats (I can't remember which one)! According to their website, their “gourmet sausage is made the old-fashioned way coarsely-ground with love, care and only the finest, freshest ingredients; and it is made the new-fangled way reflecting contemporary cuisine, new health concerns and a desire and demand for more flavor and value in every bite.”

Logo from jodymaroni.com

I could definitely see that in the sausage minis that I sampled. I received three flavors to try – chicken mango, chicken apple, and turkey maple. Here’s a close-up look at the chicken apple. You can see the chunks of apple and the spices. All of the sausage minis are made with a natural lamb casing. It had a good snap and kept in the the juiciness of the ingredients.

Time for a confession – I don’t know how to cook sausage! We never buy it, since we don’t eat pork in the house and haven’t fallen in love with any turkey or chicken sausage from the grocery store. I turned to my favorite sources (Joy of Cooking and other books in my collection) with no luck. Why would anyone just write “put it in a hot pan and cook until done”? So I heated up my skillet to medium, added a few sausage minis and kept turning until they seemed completely cooked. I also may have used my instant-read meat thermometer to check the internal temperature of the sausage mini. Hey, I’ve never cooked it before and just wanted to be sure!

We tried the turkey maple first for breakfast. I served it on the side of scrambled eggs and whole wheat cheese quesadilla. Yes, that would make for a great breakfast burrito but I love lots of components to my meal.

The turkey maple was my favorite – I loved the maple flavor and I especially loved that it wasn’t terrible for me! The chicken apple was filled with juicy chunks of apple. All of the flavors were juicy and full of flavor. These are great to add extra protein to breakfast (or really any meal). This weekend I plan to turn the chicken sausages into 'pigs' in a blanket for a get together. I think they will be delicious! Thanks to Jody Maroni’s for letting me sample their new products!

Giveaway!
Jody Maroni’s Sausage Kingdom has generously offered to give one lucky winner a t-shirt and 5 lbs of  sausages (your choice of any flavors, including the minis)! You can enter up to four times – be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry. Winner will be selected by Random.org and announced next Wednesday, May 11. All entries must be received by 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 10. Winner must be in the continental U.S. The prize will be shipped directly from Jody Maroni’s Sausage Kingdom.

How to Enter:
Leave a comment below letting me know your all-time favorite sausage flavor or what sausage flavor you'd try if you win (check out https://www.jodymaroni.com/catalog/ for all their flavors). (1 entry)

Like Jody Maroni's Sausage Kingdom on Facebook. (1 entry)

Follow Jody Maroni's Sausage Kingdom on Twitter and tweet, “I just entered to win from @GoodCookDoris & @JodyMaronis - you can too at http://goo.gl/06Jm8” (1 entry)

Subscribe to Good Cook Doris by email or become a follower via the Google Friend Connect widget on the right sidebar.

Full disclosure: I was contacted by Jody Maroni’s and provided with complementary samples of sausage minis. I was not compensated monetarily or obligated to review the products. All opinions are completely my own!

Great for Passover, or Year Round!

For our second night Passover dinner, we enjoyed dinner with the hubby's sister, her husband, and our three nephews. I cooked up a mix of old and new recipes for us to enjoy. Everything we had for dinner is great for Passover, but would be wonderful any time of the year!

I love to make roasted turkey breast. It is easy and it lends itself well to being creative with flavorings. Using some of the herbs leftover from the lamb recipe and my favorite ingredient for flavoring turkey (oranges) I roasted a flavorful main dish! I used a boneless turkey breast, because it was on sale at the grocery store. My preference is a bone-in breast as it stays more moist, but with a little extra juicing liquid the boneless breast comes out just as well. I followed the cooking instructions in my trusty Joy of Cooking book, so I won't repeat them here. Here's a link to a past turkey breast recipe that I've made - and my best advice is to use an instant read thermometer to check for the appropriate internal temperature.

Roasted Turkey with Sage and Orange

1 orange, sliced into rounds
1 orange, rind removed and juiced
4-6 fresh sage leaves
1-2 sprigs of fresh thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil

In a shallow roasting pan, spread a thin layer of olive oil on the bottom
Arrange the orange slices in a row and place the turkey breast directly on top
Pour the juice from the second orange on top of the turkey breast
Place the orange rind, sage, and thyme on top of the turkey
Season with salt and pepper
Roast until done
Let turkey sit for 15 minutes before slicing

I served the turkey with leftover roasted potatoes from the night before and a delicious mix of roasted white and green asparagus.

For dessert, I found a delicious recipe for Passover Almond Macaroons in Joan Nathan's Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous. I have a few issues with Passover desserts. They can be heavy - and chocolate! We're not huge chocolate lovers here in the Good Cook Doris kitchen which means the standard flourless chocolate cakes won't do it for us. Canned macaroons and boxed Passover cakes aren't bad, but they aren't great either. This recipe was simple and delicious. I consulted my KitchenAid Mixer book for assistance on whipping the egg whites to the correct almost-stiff temperature and channeled my inner pastry chef to try to fold in the almond flour without totally ruining the perfectly whipped egg whites. I'm happy to say that these were a success! With only 4 ingredients these macaroons are the perfect light treat to whip up anytime!

Passover Almond Macaroons
Adapted from Joan Nathan in Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous

4 large egg whites
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 cups almond flour
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (I had 2 baking sheets)
In a small bowl, mix sugar and almond flour together well
Add egg whites to the bowl of an electric mixer
Whip until almost-stiff peaks (stands up straight when whisk is lifted, but not too stiff)
Fold sugar and almond flour mixture into the egg whites in three batches
Drop teaspoons of batter onto the baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes, or until just dry (mine took closer to 20 minutes)

A look at the golden brown bottom of the macaroon:

Passover Eats: Part 2

Seder plate with traditional shank bone, charoset, parsley,
two bitter herbs and a roasted egg.

In keeping with this year's theme of combining traditional with modern, I chose to shake up Seder menu. The hubby had our own Seder on Monday night and had a lovely Passover dinner with family on Tuesday.  For our meal, I wanted to cook something new and decided to turn to one of my newest cookbooks. Joan Nathan's Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous is a wonderful book about Jewish cuisine in France. I'll call it a book - more than a cookbook - because of the wonderful stories and history that accompany the recipes. After reading through a number of recipes I chose Membre d'Agneau a la Judaique (Roast Lamb Jewish Style). Joan describes the origin of the recipe was from a 1656 cookbook and that this was one of the first known uses of "Judaique" or "Jewish style" in a French recipe. This recipe gave me an opportunity to use the tin of anchovies I impulsively purchased in my Passover shopping spree. And since the anchovies are chopped and tucked into the lamb to melt away, the hubby wouldn't even notice!

Also new for the Seder was homemade horseradish, which was used in my new Passover deviled eggs, and New England style charoset. I went into my files of saved magazine recipes and found a Cooking Light recipe for a New England charoset that used concord grape wine, maple syrup, and cranberries. Perfect for a local food enthusiast like me! Recipes for the horseradish and deviled eggs were already posted, here I'll include the recipe for lamb and charoset along with a photo recap of all of our dishes.

Fresh horseradish - I don't think I'll ever buy it again!

Slicing the horseradish root into thin slices before processing

Fresh horseradish spicing up the gefilte fish

The beautiful bright red of the beet horseradish made equally beautiful horseradish deviled eggs topped with parsley!

After all these delicious appetizers, we still had room for the lamb. The recipe called for a top round or shoulder roast of lamb. I wasn't able to find that cut at my store, so I substituted a boneless leg roast of the same weight.

Membre d'Agneau a la Juadaique
Adapted from Joan Nathan in Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous

3.5 pound boneless leg of lamb, tied together (the store did this for me)
Salt and Pepper to season the meat
3 anchovy filets, cut into three of four piece each
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut into slivers
4 springs fresh thyme
3 springs fresh sage
Small potatoes, I used a bag of small red potatoes - about 18 small potatoes
1 pound zucchini, cut into chunks
1 cup of water
3 tablespoons olive oil
Juice and grated peel from 1 orange

Preheat oven to 450 degrees
In a roasting pan, spread 1 tablespoon of olive oil on the bottom
Add the roast and season with salt and pepper on all sides
Using a small sharp knife, pierce the lamb in a few spots creating small slits
Insert the pieces of anchovies and garlic into the slits
Add the potatoes and zucchini to the roasting pan
Add 1 cup of water to the pan
Pour the remaining olive oil over the vegetables
Top the lamb and vegetables with the remaining olive oil
Place in the oven and roast at 450 for 20 minutes
Lower the heat to 350 degrees and contine to cook for 1.5 hours or until the internal temperature measures 140 degrees
Remove from the oven and place the roast and vegetables on a separate plate
Pour pan juices into a medium skillet and add orange juice and orange zest
Cook, until reduced by half
Adjust salt and pepper to taste and serve

Summary:
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: Approximately 2 hours
Roasting pan, sharp knife, cutting board, platter, skillet, measuring cups and spoons


New England Style Charoset

This recipe was from a Cooking Light magazine clipping I saved from back in 2003, celebrating local New England ingredients. I like chunky charoset, so I did not finely dice the apples, mince the cranberries, or grind the walnuts. Adjust the size of the cuts for your preferred consistency.

3 gala apples, cored and then diced
1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries
1/4 cup Concord grape kosher wine (like Manischewitz)
4 teaspoons maple syrup (I used Grade A medium amber)
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Combine apples, cranberries, wine, and maple syrup in a bowl and mix
Stir in walnuts
Refrigerate for 2 hours in an airtight container

Summary:
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 0 minutes
Cutting board and knife, measuring cups and spoons, serving bowl, spoon


Coming up next:
Passover Eats: Part 3 will cover recipes good for Passover or any time of the year. Stay tuned for matzoh balls, roasted turkey breast with fresh sage and orange, roasted green and white asparagus, and almond macaroons.  And don't miss Part 4 - a Passover edition of snack dinner from the hubby.