Month-of-Few Ingredients: Super Bowl Sausage Balls

The story behind Bisquick is, for me, a sad one of corporate greed. In 1930 a sales executive for General Mills was late coming to breakfast on the train. His hot biscuits arrived surprisingly quickly, so he asked the chef about them. The chef had created a biscuit mixture (that he kept on ice) so he could add water and have biscuits ready for the oven in no time flat.

Carl Smith, the sales executive, saw the potential for a ready-made biscuit mix for homes and took the idea back to General Mills where it was given the name we know, Bisquick.

Sadly, lost to history is the name of the creative chef on that train. And you can bet there was no compensation for his genius product. Interesting we know the name of the man who stole the recipe.

In any event, the lucky thing for us is this marvelous mixture has made the life of many a home cook easier with recipes for biscuits (of course), shortcake, waffles, pancakes, chicken and dumplings, “impossible” pies, cobblers, and more.

Probably most of us have used Bisquick. And some of us have created copy-cat versions to save money or keep out preservatives or both. If you’d like to try it, make a small amount this way.

One cup of Bisquick can be substituted by a mixture of:

1 cup flour

1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoons baking powder,

 ¹⁄₂ teaspoon salt

2 ¹⁄₂ tablespoons of oil or melted butter (or  2 ¹⁄₂ tablespoons Crisco or lard).

To make a larger quantity of baking mix you can store (in the refrigerator) to use in several recipes, make this recipe:

Baking Mix

6 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons baking soda
2 cups powdered buttermilk (in baking section of grocery store)
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup solid vegetable shortening

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, powdered buttermilk and salt four times into a large bowl. (Or whisk together for at least 4 minutes.)

Cut in the shortening with a pastry blender or mix in with fingers until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.

Store up to four months in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Use where the recipe calls for Bisquick. There are tons of baking mix recipes on the Internet. I created my recipe for the baking mix from several others.

Now onto the main dish for today. Super Bowl Sausage Balls!

I adapted this recipe for Super Bowl Sausage Balls from one at the Wicked Noodle by adding some sage to perk it up for our taste buds.

Super Bowl Sausage Balls (makes about 3 dozen)

1 pound ground sausage

8 ounces of cream cheese, room temperature

1 tablespoon sage

2 cups baking mix

1 ½ cups sharp cheddar cheese (or other sharp cheese of your choice)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a jellyroll pan with foil.

In a medium bowl and a mixer, blend sausage, cream cheese, and sage. When just combined, add baking mix.

With your hands mix thoroughly. Add in cheese in three additions and continue mixing with hands until all ingredients are fully incorporated.

Using a cookie dough scoop, put balls on plate. When all the meat mixture is in balls, form the balls into football-like shapes and return to the plate.

Refrigerate the plate of sausage footballs for at least one-half hour. Remove from refrigerator and put Do not crowd. Use another pan if needed.
the footballs on the jelly roll pan.

Bake for 35 minutes until lightly browned and cooked through. Let sit on baking pan for a few minutes for easier removal.

Transfer baked sausage footballs to a tray for serving. If you want, decorate the footballs with catsup or mustard to represent lacing. Serve immediately.

NOTE: The first time I tried to remove a football, it stuck to the foil. I let it sit for a few minutes and the rest came off easily. Next time, I might try baking on parchment paper for easy release. Also, catsup was too thin to make a nice lacing line. The mustard worked better, and I liked the flavor better, too.

DH’s Rating: Four Tongues Up  These are great little munchies for your party or just sitting around playing games because football is boring. DH said, “These have a nice flavor, but they’re different than the meatballs you usually serve. But good, they’re still good. Can I add salsa?”

If you liked this recipe, please share on social media using info below or write your own message!

Twitter: Game time #recipe for Super Bowl Sausage Balls by @good2tweat on Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary Time at http://bit.ly/2kEvKwr

Facebook: Sharon Arthur Moore-Author writes the “Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary Time” blog. It's posting its annual February Month-of recipes. This month's recipes have 2-5 ingredients. There's still time to make these Super Bowl Sausage Balls at http://bit.ly/2kEvKwr

A reminder:

House rules for what counts as an ingredient:

    Salt and pepper are not ingredients.

    Oil is not an ingredient when it’s for the cooking pan, not the recipe.

    Water is not an ingredient.

A Month-of-Eggs: SuperBowl Mayo

mixing mayo

This is one of the heaviest entertaining days of the year, giving Thanksgiving and Christmas meals a run for the money. SuperBowl (or as DH likes to call it: SuperBore) is today! If you’re making good eats, make them better with homemade mayonnaise.

Whipping up deviled eggs? Making tuna boats in butter crunch lettuce? Mixing potato salad with cheese and bacon bits? Need tartar sauce for fish tacos? Making crazy-good toasted hamburger buns? Forget the butter—use this mayo and toast the buns on the grill.

You need this recipe! Everyone will be asking for your culinary secret!

I have a funny family story. Our mother had to be someplace so she asked her cousin to babysit the three of us. Come time for lunch, Janie asked us what we’d like. “Goo sandwiches” was our unanimous response. When asked to explain, we had no other words to tell her what to prepare. So she narrowed it down to the refrigerator, and we pointed to the mayo jar. I’ve come a long way since then!

I used to make my own mayonnaise all the time, but I had gotten out of the habit. Now that DH has tried “real” mayonnaise, there’s no going back to the jarred stuff! This is soooo easy and really, there is no comparison to the commercial variety. Expect this to be a light yellow, rather than white. I’ll bet you find lots of uses for it beyond sandwiches and potato salad. See the NOTE below for ideas.

"real mayo"

SuperBowl Mayo (makes about 1¼ cups mayo)

2 egg yolks, room temperature

1 teaspoon ground mustard

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 cup canola oil

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice (about one very small lemon)

salt to taste

In a small bowl, mix egg yolks, mustard, and vinegar on low speed until all ingredients are well incorporated.

Still mixing, drizzle oil into the yolks mixture very, very slowly. The mayonnaise will thicken as the oil creates an emulsification.

When all the oil is in, add the lemon juice and continue mixing. Taste. Add salt slowly and taste again. Don’t over salt since foods you will use this with often have their own sodium content.

Store covered in the refrigerator for a week or so. Use it on everything!

NOTE: All ingredients have to be at room temperature or your mayonnaise won’t come together or stay together or even thicken. Also, you can make this with your immersion blender or in a food processor, but my mixer is easier to clean up quickly, so that’s why I used it.

If your mayo “breaks”, add another egg yolk and ½ cup oil.

Also, experiment to make different flavors of mayo with olive oil or other flavored oils. Try different vinegars. Or you can add garlic, herbs, or spices. Curry mayo? Tarragon mayo. Yummers!

DH’s Rating: 5 Tongues Up  “This tastes like real food.” I showed him the list of ingredients on the mayonnaise jar in the grocery store. He said, “I can’t pronounce half that stuff.”

A Month-of-Appetizers: DH's Fave Super Bowl Wings

Okay. I'll admit it. I am not serving these tonight (had to do them earlier for this posting) but he would have had them if he could. These are sorta gloopy, even though yesterday I talked you out of gloopy for your pork ribs. But they’re worth it.

These are not the hot, hot wings that some people like. You can make those as well, of course, but some of your guests (like me) like to taste the meat and its subtle blend of seasonings rather than having to have a tongue transplant after eating the stuff some of you like.

DH’s Fave Super Bowl Wings (appetizer serves: who knows? Count the chicken pieces and divide by 4. If this is a dinner entrée instead of an appetizer, it serves about 6)

1½ c honey

zest of one orange

6 T soy sauce

3 cloves garlic, minced

¼ t dried red pepper flakes

Sprig of fresh rosemary

2# chicken wings, cut into drumettes and wing tips

In small pan, bring honey, zest, soy sauce, garlic, and red pepper flakes to a simmer. Add sprig of rosemary, stir around, and let cool.

Wash and dry chicken wings. Put wings into gallon zipper plastic bag and pour sauce over and mush together to distribute the sauce evenly.

Refrigerate at least one hour but no more than four.

Preheat oven to 375º. Pam a baking pan with low-rise sides (jellyroll pan).  Dump wings into the pan and make sure all wings have sauce on them. Fish rosemary out of the sauce and discard the sprig. Put wings in oven.

Turn wings after 30 minutes. Bake another 30 minutes and serve.

DH’s Rating: Five Tongues Up. He licked his chops and fingers with this one. He almost down-graded his Tongue Rating because it’s messy, but I told him to stick to the criteria. Honestly! When AREN’T wings messy???

Month of-Appetizers: Northern-Style Pork Ribs à la Alli

Busy month! Mission Impastable just came out! I am so excited! I hope you like what I do well enough to get a copy of this mystery with recipes! You can get it here: http://amzn.to/1eYJ4AY Don’t you love the cover?

This is the first of my daily posts for you this Month-of-Appetizers. Boy, who knew Super Bowl would be so early this year. You are going to be sorry, because there are some great appetizers coming as the month goes along. Save the links and check back next year, and your Super Bowl party is all planned.

I associate rib and wings with Super Bowl parties, so today is ribs and tomorrow is wings. Go buy your wings today so you can make another great recipe tomorrow before the gang arrives.

But, I digress. Ribs are on the menu today. And the ribs dripping in sauce are so last decade. Plus, who can afford to have the carpets cleaned again after serving them? So today, we are doing Northern-style pork ribs, a two-step cooking process. These ribs rely on a dry rub for flavor after frying.

I gotta admit to Googling P.F. Chang’s ribs for some copycat recipes to combine and come up with this version. LOVE me some Northern-style Ribs from P.F. Chang’s!

Ingredients:

2 quarts of water
6 cloves of fresh garlic, sliced
2 whole onions, sliced
4 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon of black peppercorns
2 teaspoons of salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
5 dried star anise seeds
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
rack of baby ribs, cut into separate ribs

¼ cup Chinese Five-Spice powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon brown sugar

Oil for frying

Stage One:

Fill a large pot with water, garlic, onions, bay leaves, red pepper flakes, peppercorns, sugar, cinnamon, star anise, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Bring to a boil and lower heat to simmer.

Add individual ribs and simmer about 30-40 minutes until the meat on the ends starts to pull away from the bone. DO NOT OVERCOOK.

While ribs are simmering, mix the Five-spice powder with salt and brown sugar. Place on a small flat plate you can use to roll ribs on.

Stage Two:

Take the ribs from the pot and allow to drain on a rack before putting into the hot oil (to keep spattering to a minimum). Strain and save the stock in the refrigerator for a meal later in the week.

Deep fry until crispy brown. Remove from oil and drain on a rack.

After oil has dripped off and ribs are somewhat cool so you can handle them, roll in the spice mixture. Arrange on a plate and serve immediately.

Here’s a fun vid to watch if you like cooking videos on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzSvhEykxeo

On another day:

*marinate chicken or fish in the broth for a few hours, then broil or grill

*add rice or quinoa and leftover meat, if you’d like, to the stock. Heat for a tasty soup.

*Freeze the stock in an ice cube tray and use when you want to add flavor to side-dish noodles or rice

No Chinese 5-Spice Powder? Make your own!

Faux Chinese Five-Spice Blend (about 1/4 cup)

2 whole star anise
2 teaspoons peppercorns
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 cinnamon stick, broken into several pieces

In a dry pan over medium heat, toast the anise, peppercorns, cloves, and fennel. Stir gently and turn spices over to prevent burning. Remove from heat when you smell their fragrance. Cool on a plate.

Add the seeds and cinnamon stick pieces to a spice grinder. ( You can use a clean coffee grinder if you have no spice grinder.)

Grind for twenty seconds until a fine powder is formed. If large pieces remain, remove as much of the powder as you can and grind the remaining pieces in 5 - 10 seconds increments until no large pieces remain. Store in a sealed jar away from light.

DH’s Rating: 4 Tongues Up. He really prefers the tomato-based sweeter sauce on his ribs. But he did say these were quite flavorful and not as messy. He is a neatnik, so it surprises me that he likes the gloopy ones better.

A Month of Soups: Souper Bowl Beer Stew

Soups and stews. Related but different. It’s a matter of the proportion of solids to liquids. Today’s soup is more of a stew than a soup, but you can make it soupier with more beef broth.

Got some hungry folks showing up tomorrow for your Super Bowl Party? As an aside, and not to offend anyone, but DH calls it “The Super Bore”. But then, he’s a Cardinal’s fan, so what does he know about winning? But, back to you . . .

Everyone serves wings and dips and blah blah blah. Why not make your party stand out from all the others? Make this stew today and re-heat it when everyone arrives. It is much better the second day! It will be a hearty and delicious accompaniment to the cold beer. Serve a loaf of beer bread with it, and, voila! Your reputation as SuperBowl SuperChef is solidified.

Here’s my favorite beer bread recipe: http://bit.ly/9cmtYR I use Guinness Stout in this as well.

Souper Bowl Beer Stew (serves 8-10)

2 T olive oil

salt and pepper

½ cup flour

2# round steak, trimmed of fat, cut into 2” cubes

1 c carrot coins

3 med potatoes, cut into 1” cubes

2 med onions, diced

3 cloves garlic, sliced

2 c beef broth, divided

2 c Guinness Stout (drink the rest as you mix up the ingredients)

1 T dried rosemary

1 T cinnamon

Heat oven to 300°. Heat the oil in a dutch oven over medium heat. Add salt and pepper to flour and mix well. Put in a paper or Ziploc bag and add meat cubes. Shake around to thoroughly coat the cube. Place cubes in hot oil and fry until all sides are brown. Remove meat from pan.

Add carrots, potatoes, and onions to the pan. Cook until onions are translucent. Add in garlic. Cook 2 minutes more. Remove veggies from pan.

Add ½ c broth to pan to deglaze it. Immediately add remaining broth and the Guinness Stout. Mix together. Add spices and mix well. Add meat and veggies back into the pan.

Cover the pan and place in oven for 2-3 hours, until veggies are . Remove and set aside to cool. The next day reheat on the stovetop and dish it up. Don’t expect many, if any, leftovers.

DH’s Rating: 4 Tongues Up. This is a tangy dish. One is not used to an underlying beer flavor, so the first bite catches you off guard. The beer bread enhances the stew’s flavor.