These are not recipes as such since I leave it to you to discover the right balance of ingredients for your own tastes. They are, however, proven and popular combinations in our household.
1) Polska kilbasa, chicken thighs, orange and green bell peppers, green onions. Add a small amount of oil to the pan and heat sliced smoked sausage under high heat. Cut chicken thigh meat into strips. (Leftover BBQ'd chicken is great.) When meat is well heated, add cut up peppers, with some thyme and chopped fresh basil leaves. At the very end, add finely chopped green onions. Excellent over tomato&basil linguini.
2) Hot Italian sausage, onion, mushroom, orange bell pepper, and marinara sauce. Begin with the sausage, skinning and crumbling into hot pan. Add diced onion and sliced mushrooms. Season with thyme, salt and pepper. Cut the pepper into small squares and add toward the end of cooking. Add marinara sauce (comercial or home-made, if you have time), in moderation, and bring up to simmer. Excellent with fettucini.
3)Salmon Alfredo: Fresh salmon, fresh dill, onion, white mushrooms, butter, chives, and parmesan cheese. Use a fresh salmon fillet that has been partially frozen and cut very thin slices diagonally through the meat. Saute finely chopped onion and mushrooms in a small portion of butter until transluscent. Melt more butter into the pan and reserve briefly. In a separate pan, saute the salmon slices lightly and quickly until done. Coat the pasta with the sauted onion and mushroom mixture and add grated parmesan cheese to make a traditional Alfredo combination. Gently mix in the sauted salmon and top with finely chopped chives, dill, and dusting of parmesan cheese. (You can also use an Alfredo based on a standard white sauce instead of butter.)
4)Lake Tahoe Sauce: Smoked sausage, chicken breasts, Italian brown mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, onion, and garlic cloves. Begin with the sausage slices under high heat and add onions and diced garlic when partially cooked. Add skinned and sliced chicken-breast meat (strips) and continue to stirfry the mixture. As the mixture nears completion, add chopped sun-dried tomatoes. This goes well on linguini. Add chopped green onions for color.
5)Jake's Tortelloni: Cheese-filled tortelloni, immitation crab, gorgonzola cheese, shallots, cream, and parsley. Jake's Seafood Cookbook calls for real crab, of course, so the virtue of this is just to say that immitation crab works too. Saute the chopped shallots until done; add cream and white wine (2:1); reheat; add chopped gorgonzola (lots) and crab meat (equal amount). Reduce the sauce and stir until the liquid is smooth. Add the cooked tortelloni and bring up to heat. Season with salt, pepper, and finely chopped parsley. Place in a serving bowl and dust lightly with parsley and parmesan cheese. (If you like this, buy Jake's Seafood Cookbook and try the other great recipes!)
Back to my Projects and Interests.