Sausage and broccoli pasta

A quickie. Unfortunately, all I really have time for these days.

This is one of my favorite go-to weeknight recipes. All you really need is a pantry staple (pasta), a freezer staple (frozen chicken or turkey sausage), a crisper staple (broccoli - although I've used everything from asparagus to chard), and a cheese staple (good ole Parmesan).

Lime shrimp over coconut rice with roasted acorn squash in chile vinaigrette

The title makes this sound much more complicated than it is. In reality it's a quick, simple, crazy tasty weeknight meal.

Rice cooked in coconut milk becomes rich and creamy, like risotto without the work. Topped with a ladle full of limey buttery garlicky shrimp, it is heavenly.

Lamb, apricot and almond tagine over cilantro couscous with honeyed carrots

I love a good tagine. This is a classic version - sweet apricots, spicy cinnamon, and savory meat. Texturally it's very interesting too, with the contrast between the crunchy slivered almonds and soft braised lamb, all heaped over fluffy, grainy couscous. I just love it.

I've only been experimenting with Moroccan cuisine for a couple of years. At my bridal shower, my sister's best friend gave me a stunningly gorgeous cookbook called "Fresh Moroccan", by Nada Saleh. As soon as I cracked it open, it was all over.

Steaks with Swiss chard and sun-dried tomato mac and cheese

The other day, Allan jokingly suggested we call ourselves "Pure Land Organic Swiss Chard and Mint", since those are the only two crops that really flourished in the garden. Honestly, I'd be happy with a Swiss chard farm. The stuff is magical. But alas, the final Swiss chard harvest of the summer is upon us.

My plants produced huge gorgeous leaves for about three whole months. I think I'm going to plant some freshies to see if they'll grow for fall. My mustard greens are shaping up nicely in the mean time. And kale, I need to plant some kale! Big weekend of planting coming up in the garden.

I love the sweet, concentrated tomatoey-ness of sun-dried tomatoes. The other week I made some simple oven-dried tomatoes for eating with various cheeses on baguette toasts - just quartered baby plum tomatoes, sea salt, and olive oil. I will definitely make them again, but jarred ones work just fine here, since they're getting pureed to smithereens.

Grilled sausage and fig salads with roasted baby purple potatoes

So, I made sausage the other day.

My Grandpa was a butcher, so if there's a sausage-making gene somewhere, I figure my chances of inheriting it are at least 1 in 4. These odds were good enough for me to spend a glorious summer Saturday rinsing hog guts and grinding fatback (if you don't know what that is, you don't want to) in my little kitchen. I settled on making half traditional Cajun andouille and half hot Italian.