25 May 2012

Rhubarb Chicken Sausage and Fresh Squeezed Lemonade

New addition to Where In The World - house rose posts! Why? Because I am the vagabond house rose, but am currently not vagabonding. Hopefully soon, but not currently. And so that leaves us with just house rose-ing.

In totally unrelated news, I literally just watched a beautiful sunny day become a lightning storm! One of the top ten reasons I love living in the countryside? You can see, hear, and smell a storm coming. And witnessing a storm come in? Is one of the things that should be on your bucket list.

So best friendling, Kendall, brought me two merry gifts yesterday when we met for coffee! An adorable outfit for Critter (it has duckies) and a whole lot of rhubarb. Then came the wonderfully interesting question - what does one do with rhubarb other than make Strawberry Rhubarb Pie? Answer? Have a fuck ton of fun.

My husband? Is a chef. I don't mean he likes to cook, I mean he is a chef - it was once his occupation. So when he cooks? It's an elaborate delicious ordeal. We shop for specific ingredients and the whole kitchen becomes slave to one meal. Two sinkfuls of dishes and a hot mess afterwards, it is entirely worth it. I am not a chef. I am a cook. I love to cook and I love to bake even more (to the chagrin of my husband as he claims his belt line suffers), but I am no chef. I typically use about three dishes when cooking, two if I can get away with it. And I cook from the cabinet and the fridge. What needs to be eaten and what can I create from it? Answer part one: Rhubarb. Answer part two: No idea.

(beautiful blue streak of lightning + thunder)

And so I googled. And pinterested. And searched my cookbooks and the internet in vain. I didn't have any pork and even if I did want to venture out of my bubble to get some? We only have one car and my husband was currently using it some 15 miles away at work. What I did have was chicken sausage. Purchased at Trader Joe's for the incredibly mean price of $2.99 for 12 links, I had a starting point. Rhubarb is good with cinnamon and so are sweet chicken sausages, go.


I cooked the chicken sausage and pulled it out of the pan in order to saute some veggies in the sausage oils, cause that's yummy! My lovely pan had onion, orange bell pepper, zucchini, and Kendall's rhubarb - but you could add whatever veggies you're most fond of. I figured I might add a little butter if the oils from the chicken sausage weren't enough, but it ended up being fine. After they were all heated up, I put a lid on that sucker and let them cook.


Then, like a good Asian, I put some jasmin rice in the rice cooker to give my veggies and chicken a nice bed to lay on (beds are important when cooking - or something). Once the rhubarb was mushy, I added a touch of salt and several shakes of cinnamon. I thought about adding a little sugar to even out the super tart of the rhubarb, but decided I could always go back and do that later if I wanted to. I threw the chicken sausage back in and let everything heat up and mix together until my rice was finished. And bam. Rhubarb Chicken Sausage over jasmin rice.


I don't mean to brag about how awesome I am, but it was delicious and I am awesome.Very North African with the cinnamon and the tart over rice. But my wonderous meal needed a thirst quencher! And I had been meaning to make lemonade for about a week... sometimes I forget what we get from Foley's. I also added a lime, because that sucker was turning into stone.


Now, in order to make a full pitcher of lemonade, you need 4-5 normal sized (not gargantuan) lemons. You do not need any more than that. I learned this the hard way, so please just trust me. This probably won't surprise you, but I like to do things the old fashioned way - which means I refuse to own a juicer. Hand squeezed is probably nine hundred million times better than anything your juicer can come up with, just saying. I get that they are an awesome invention and my bestie, Wesley, has one that he makes rather strange, but good, juices with. However, they got nothing on fresh hand squeezed. 


Plus, it's just more fun and interactive. You can only do about 1 1/2 lemons at a time in that little dish, but it has a very convenient spout (compliments to Sur La Table, Marko's favorite kitchen store)! 


Now add some local honey to give Critter all of the allergens needed to keep away allergies! Should I probably have gone with agave syrup, which everyone seems to have jumped all over as "healthy?" Maybe. But I didn't have any and I love to support my local businesses. How much you put in is totally up to your sweet tooth.


I forgot to take a picture of how much lemon juice there actually is versus water - but it's a little to a lot. That's a regular sized glass pitcher that ended up being full to just below the spout. I even ended up adding more water to mine this morning because I did five lemons and a lime. Sometimes I add whole strawberries, mint, basil... I even thought about using more of Kendall's rhubarb, but decided that would probably lead to adding more sugar. I never ever ever blend them with the lemonade though. They can steep and give off flavor. If it's mint or basil, I might slap them to break the leaves open, but I never cut them up and I never blend them in. That's gross and does not belong in my lemonade.

Anyway, my North African tasting meal was so yummy! As is the lemonade, of which I am drinking right now. Mark had some once he got home and we both lamented our lack of beer. It was the perfect meal to go with beer. Not for me, obviously, but that is a whole different lament.

Cheers!

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