Cold cuts are great. I will even order a double portion of turkey on my Cold Cut Combo at Subway at times. Any meat that aids sleep equals fantastic.
Chicken? I'm also a fan. I'm a Southerner, so fried is fine and cold on a sandwich or made into a salad with some ungodly high-calorie dressing, better.
It's when we get into ham and cooked meats I start making that uncomfortable face and making the "I'll pass" gesture.
Cold ham is fine. Cold country ham on a biscuit--I can handle. Then we start inching toward the hot ham and cooked sausage category and, while I can eat it without being repulsed, I'm not excited about it as if it were, say, goat cheese on a Triscuit. Goat cheese on a Triscuit will make me shove a small child out of the way. If it's paired with wine I may trample the child as well but he shouldn't have been drinking in the first place.
So when I saw the roasted sausage recipe, I wasn't thrilled. Adventurous me, however, had to make it work.
Preparing in advance has it's advantages. I was able to find a Johnsonville sausage coupon for exactly what I needed--4 chicken sausage links. Chicken links have %50 less fat and Johnsonville makes several varieties including Chipotle Montery Jack, Three Cheese Italian Style, and Chicken Sausage Apple. Seeing as I'm a cheese fan, I selected the Three Cheese Italian Style.
I would love to shop at our local meat market--Bedford Avenue Meat Shop--but by the time I get home from work, they are closed and it's difficult to buy an entire weeks worth of meat all at once. My second choice is our local Kroger since they often have fantastic Manager's Specials on meat and fish.
I buy my produce at Davis Farm Fresh Market. They have a lot of local produce and it's affordable. You have to be flexible when your values lie in buying local. I needed leeks for this recipe, but sweet onion is close enough and it was available.
In case you needed to know this is what a leek looks like. It's kind of like a sweet onion married a scallion and had a baby:
This dish is approximately $1.92 per serving. We were able to get the thyme for free, since the girl at the check out counter didn't feel like price checking the package. Thank you generous and equally lax check-out girl.
ingredients
2 small crisp red apples (such as Empire or Braeburn), quartered
2 leeks (white and light green parts only), halved crosswise and lengthwise
2 (about 1/2 lb total) yellow potatoes, cut into 1/2-in.-thick wedges
8 sprig(s) fresh thyme
2 tablespoon(s) olive oil
8 small (about 1 1/2lb total) chicken sausage links
kosher salt and pepper
directions
1. Heat oven to 425ºF. In a large roasting pan, toss the apples, leeks, potatoes, thyme, oil, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Roast for 15 minutes.
2.Stir the vegetables and add the sausages to the pan, nestling them among the vegetables. Roast until the sausage is cooked through and the vegetables are tender, 15 to 20 minutes more.
I personally thought the sausage was delicious. I saved a link for breakfast the next morning.
The best part about preparing these meals is that you have breakfast or lunch the next day. If you factor that into the cost you're looking at $1.28 per serving.
If only I could take pictures that reflected the success of slowly morphing a cheese fan into a meat fan.
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