GF/DF Italian Sausage & Brown Rice Soup

Soups on! I want to jolt back to 2010, when I probably could have written a book just about anything delectable that goes into a bowl, slurped up with a spoon! THAT was a seriously cold and snowy winter. So much cold, means so much soup that needs to be in my belly :). Tom Yum, Cream of Mushroom, Creamy Potato, Chicken Noodle, Chili, Chicken Tortilla, Cheeseburger Soup. What a great year was that!!

Well, since the world started spinning reverse on its axis, and I can’t eat anything awesome without my stomach paying the price and feeling like crap for the next day and a half. No more creamy delicious soups for me (unless I’m inhaling Lactase pills to compensate)!  Woe-is-me!
On the bright side, this has just jet-streamed an alternate path of creative juices, to pair new ingredients together, as well as attempting new recipes not yet conquered or developed!

Mass prepping and left over ingredients are becoming an absolute must for me. I work late, I work out late, and get home later. By the time I step thru the door it’s typically pushing 8pm. That then leaves 3 hours to make dinner, clean the kitchen, wind (or WINE) down, and sit for about an hour before going to bed. I’m exhausted just writing that.

Leftover Italian Sausage, yellow and orange peppers, charred poblano peppers from stuff mushrooms really turned out to be a great idea for a sore throat, coughing, hacking, sick….me.

Fat burner, belly warming delight in a bowl. Boom. This is one of those dishes that isn’t the best thing you’ve ever tasted in your life. Nor should it be. Everyone’s taste is a little dulled when they’re under the weather. Broth, veggies, and a little kick of Italian Sausage seems like a good way to kick the end of this cold. It was. Soup ya!

Italian Sausage & Kale Soup
(serving size, 2)

3 cups of chicken broth
1 cup ground Italian Sausage, cooked
1/2 cup brown rice, prepared.
1/2 yellow bell pepper diced
1/2 orange bell pepper, diced
1/4 cup onion, diced
6 Bella mushroom, chopped
1/4 cup kale, chopped

Directions
1. Cook your brown rice, this will take 30-45 min
2. Brown Italian Sausage in sauce pan
3. In the same saucepan, on medium heat, dump the rest all in!
2. Simmer for 30 minutes, or as long as it takes your brown rice to cook
3. Poach an egg
4. Dump soup in bowl, add two tablespoons of brown rice to each bowl, and place poached egg in the middle.

GF Seared Sausage & Kale Salad

Since being on quite a restrictive diet, anything green seems to now find its way into almost every one of my meals. Not the worst thing in the world, as you can imagine. However, one can only eat…so many salads before you really need to change it up, purely to prevent insanity. They’re great in a bind, especially if you’re tired or short on time since compiling a salad typically isn’t overly time-consuming. Obviously since a normal salad was easy, I decided to throw a fork into the equation and step it up a notch with a few extra ingredients.

Albeit still not difficult, this one does need just a little bit more prep time, and a sharp knife 🙂

I think at this point, everyone has at least heard of quinoa, if not tried it. I have found a very noticeable difference in toasting the quinoa in the oven for about 5 minutes previous to boiling it. It gives it almost a bid of a toasted almond, nutty taste, otherwise personally, I find it a little flavorless on it’s own.

Cilantro, tomatoes, sausage, kale, jalapeno, quinoa, egg over easy? Did someone just list all of my favorite things..and then throw them in a bowl? Oh wait, I did. I don’t know if I can really say this is a unique recipe. I was going thru the pantry and fridge and noticed many of my favorite things all staring back at me. It seemed like a good idea to really just throw them all together, see what happens. My Dad basically stirs his plate of favorite things together on Thanksgiving and Christmas, isn’t this kind of the same thing?
Look at this delicious recipe I created with, each ingredient, independently able to stand on its own, combined with other such like ingredients to create a perfectly paired and balanced dish. See what I did there? I pretended to create something, instead of dropping all those stellar ingredients into the same bowl 🙂 It’s like magic (it’s not).
Just a note, I didn’t just use any sausage I think this is really a big part of what gives this extra character and finesse. I use sausages locally, such a variety of flavor combinations, that I usually rotate based on what intrigues me that particular trip to the store.  The ones for this episode were Jalapeno Sausage, with onion, peppers, and assorted spices. There is also a chicken/potato one that will just stop you in your tracks I really enjoy. For prep, they’re pre-cooked so you really just need to heat them. I slice them at an angle and then sear them in a non-stick pan.

I cook the egg over easy in the same pan, because the combined sausage and egg drippings…are super phenomenal. The little fat from the sausage is pretty fwa-pow. The drippings come out to be just under a tablespoon, the perfect dressing to mesh with the egg yolk! #love

Seared Sausage & Kale Salad

1 1/2 cup kale, chopped
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup tomato, chopped
2 tbsp jalapeno, chopped
1/4 cup of prepared Quinoa, toasted then cooked
1 Sausage link, sliced then seared
1 egg, cooked over easy
Sriracha, and pan drippings for dressing

(other items I didn’t add, but would in case you have them on hand, sliced mushroom, red onion, avocado, sun-dried tomatoes)

Directions:

1. Really? It’s a salad. Just kidding, (kind of )
2. Toast quinoa, then boil for 20 minutes (cook according to package)
3. While the quinoa is cooking chop your kale, cilantro, tomato, and jalapeno.
4. You don’t want the quinoa hot, so when it’s finished, remove from heat and fluff with a fork several times. While cooling, slice the sausage at an angle about 1/2″ thick. Sear on each side for 2 minutes on medium heat.
5. Set sausage aside to cool. Plate all ingredients.
6. Spray pan with non-stick spray and cook egg, over easy.
7. Add the sausage, egg, the pan drippings, and drizzle with sriracha.