On a [Sausage] Roll

Today we're making a Grandma recipe, from Scratch!

Sausage Rolls!

Truthfully I didn't like these at all when I was a kid, but now I don't make them often because I just want to eat the whole batch when I do. 

Typically the EASY recipe is:

Sausage Rolls

• 1 lb pack of Italian Sausage, Sweet, Mild or Hot. Get the formless forcemeat, it's easier than cutting it out of casings
• 1 bag of Pizza Crust Dough
• Olive Oil
• Red Pepper Flakes
• Anise or Fennel Seed

1. Preheat the oven to 350F, lightly grease a cookie sheet
2. Roll out the dough into a rectangle, somewhat thin.
3. Rub it down with olive oil.
4. Season it with red pepper flakes and anise or fennel seed if you want.
5. Evenly spread little sausage nuggets across the oiled surface. It's messy.
6. Roll tightly and slice into 1.5" pieces
7. Set onto the cookie sheet, cut sides vertical.
8. Bake for 25 minutes? or until golden brown.
9. Eat em hot or cold!

Or be like me and buy a meat grinder attachment for your KitchenAid. I used the Italian Sausage recipe from The Wurst of Lucky Peach (use link below to help me financially! I'm unemployed!)

I didn't like them :| Tom did, because the sausage wasn't overly-italian-y. It was a good exercise in learning how to grind meat, but in the future I'm going the lazy route and just buying a styrofoam tray of sausage. At least until I get better at homemade sausages.

And if you're a fan of Sausages AND Video Games, check out Stephen's Sausage Roll!

Unphogettabowl

To start the new year, and this blog correctly, I made Pho. The winter weather has finally arrived, and there's nothing better than a hot bowl of something. The recipe comes courtesy of Lucky Peach from  their "101 Easy Asian Recipes" book I got from my sister.

I'm not one for substitutions in recipes I'm not familiar with, but I did use neck bones instead of short ribs. They were much cheaper, and I know other Pho recipes use them. It's a slow-cooker recipe, but my Crockpot is too small, so I used my dutch oven and set the oven to 250F. 

Then we couldn't find our sriracha, so we made do with Ssam sauce. I would definitely do this recipe again. I'm probably going to low-carb it for lunch by substituting the rice noodles with shredded cabbage, or more bean sprouts.