Apple Pork Sausage and Chimichurri

Hello Friday!  And hello to another day off!  I could really get used to these three day work weeks!

Last weekend while I was waiting for my number to be called at the meat counter, I wandered around and saw that they had pork sausage – at only $2.99 a pound!  I bought some with the thought of making apple and pork breakfast sausages.  This one is almost too embarrassing to post as a recipe because it’s so easy!

Apple Pork Breakfast Sausages

• makes 6 patties, 147 calories, 11 fat, 272 sodium, 4.2 carbs, 1.1 fiber and 6.6 protein

Ingredients:

• 9 ounces fresh pork sausage
• 6 ounces of apple (about half of a large), cored and then shredded with the skin on
• 1 tablespoon of fennel seeds
• salt and pepper

After you shred the apple, put the shreds in a paper towel and squeeze out all of the moisture.  Mix with pork sausage and fennel seeds.  Each of my sausages were 2.1 ounces raw.  I generously coated with salt and pepper.

Put in a non-stick pan.  Add enough water to cover up to half of the side of the sausage over medium low heat – you want to cook the pork through before browning it up.  This batch took me about 15 minutes all together.

My breakfast – a 2 egg spinach omelet, 100 calorie English muffin (that I ended up putting the omelet in and eating like a breakfast sammie) and 2 sausages.

That’s a really shitty picture above, but I wanted you to see all the shreds of apple.

Holy yum, were those sausages good.  While this breakfast comes in at 526 calories, 32 fat, 31 carbs, 8.8 fiber and 31 protein, this packed a punch with staying power – this kept me full for hours.  So full that when it was time to have our office lunch of Chinese food, I wasn’t even sure I even wanted to eat anything!

I did end up getting two chicken sticks and wonton soup, of which I only ate half the soup, so lunch came in at 381 calories, 9 fat, 16 carbs, 1 fiber and 58 protein.  Nice!  I may have added a touch of sriracha to my wonton soup broth.

Before work yesterday, I blindly grabbed some sort of “meat” from the freezer and figured I would wing it when I got home.  When I unwrapped the package, I realized it was the other half of the beef I bought at Whole Foods a few weeks ago.  This portion was $4.20, or $2.10 per person.

I don’t know if you are like me, but when I see bunches of cilantro and parsley on sale for .25 cents a bunch, I routinely buy a dollars worth and then by the end of the week wonder what to do with it before it goes bad.  I’ve made a chimichurri sauce before and completely forgot how delicious it is.

I switched the recipe up a bit, based what I had on hand.  Best part? Tony loved it!

Chimichurri Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• zest of 1 lemon
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup fresh basil (I used a 6 ounce package from the store)
• 1 cup cilantro, stems cut off
• 1 cup parsley, stems cut off
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper
• pinch of sugar

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and puree until smooth.  Holy smokes if you could smell this!  It smells like summer!

The key to a great grilled piece of meat?  Always make sure your meat is at room temperature – never go from fridge to heat because you’ll end up with tough meat every time.  I just salt and peppered this beef.

While the meat started to grill, I popped two of my last red potatoes in the microwave and hit the button for baked potato. Since they were small, it was only about 5 minutes.  Next went in my broccoli head, and I hit the button for fresh vegetable.

When I flipped my meat, I added the potatoes and broccoli to finish them off.  See the broccoli stem?  That’s Tony’s favorite part so he at that!

Love that the sun was setting at 6:30!  And the snow is melted in our back yard – we only have one pile at each side of our driveway – come on spring!

I ended up cutting up my meat, potato and broccoli and stirring it in all that delicious herb sauce – if I could have licked the plate I would have!  (well, maybe I did once I brought the dishes back in!).  This makes a lot – I have about a tablespoon and a half on my plate – I was thinking that it might be a great topping on a goat cheese omelet?

So not a bad dinner considering I didn’t have a plan when I got home from work!

Raise your hand if you have today off!  Hope you enjoy your Friday.  I hope to convince Tony to have deep dish pizza for dinner – except his side can be black olive and cheese (last day of Lent!) and mine can be a spinach deep dish pizza. Doesn’t this look amazeballs?

Make it a great day!