Johnsonville® Sausage"mania"

This month for the AllStars, our sponsor was Johnsonville® and their wonderful sausages. We eat sausage on a regular basis but we've never really experimented with it. We've had the standard sausage in Jambalaya or Beaufort Boil or we've eaten sausage for breakfast, but nothing experimental. This month's assignments gave me that opportunity!

First, let me show you what the amazing people at Johnsonville® sent us!

Yes! We got these amazing casserole dishes completely free! These things cost $60 on Sur La Table! We also got several coupons for FREE sausage for our recipes. I received four which worked because we had to do three original recipes and then change up a ground beef recipe and use sausage instead.

I sent them a thank you email for being our sponsors and for sending this amazing gift and they responded with a wonderful letter as well as MORE coupons for $1.00 off their sausage. GREAT sponsors! Just amazing!

Now. Onto what I made throughout the month! It was a yummy month! My first recipe was 1-2-3 Jambalaya. Oh man! We've had Jambalaya before but this was AMAZING and so simple to make. You just use ZATARAIN'S® boxed Jambalaya mix, some creole seasoning, diced tomatoes, shrimp and sausage and BAM! You have a "one pan" dinner that's sure to please. I've made this again since but the second go-round, instead of cooking the rice in one pan and the sausage and shrimp in another and then combining, I used my handy George Foreman skillet and cooked up the sausage and shrimp then drained and wiped the pan. I then made up the rice mixture, added in the meat and set it to cook. We used it as a side the second time but it was definitely big enough and hearty enough to be considered a meal!

My second recipe was Johnsonville® One-Pan Italian. This is basically spaghetti with sausage. This is exactly how I cook my spaghetti only we use ground beef. Spaghetti was going to be my substitute recipe but then I found this one and decided to just make this one as my second required recipe. I used the Johnsonville® Italian Mild Sausage along with Prego® Italian Sausage Sauce and oh my gosh! It was delicious. I think it might be the best spaghetti I've ever made, seriously!

My third and final REQUIRED standard sausage recipe was Johnsonville® Italian Sausage Sliders. These were pretty good. I doubt we'd have them solely for a meal in the future because they're small (duh, they're sliders), however, as a breakfast food or a party/tailgating event these would be awesome. They're the perfect snack size. They're not messy and you can pretty much eat them anywhere, even if you're shouting at a TV because your team is losing!



My FINAL recipe for the overall March mission was my integrated recipe. We were to take a ground beef recipe and create it like usual only instead of ground beef, we had to use sausage. I made Taco Salad with mine. It was....interesting. I used Italian Mild Sausage, which combined with taco seasoning and eaten alone, was not the greatest. It tasted....sour maybe? I'm not sure how to describe it. However, after mixing it with the lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream and chips, it was actually pretty good. Oh yea, let me add that is also requires French dressing cooked into the meat which..... I've never seen done before. Maybe that's where the funny flavor came from. As I said though, all mixed together, it was actually pretty good.

I really enjoyed my month working with Johnsonville® sausages. There were plenty more recipes that I want to try and I will but it'll be a slow progression throughout the next few months. My poor family said they had enough sausage in one month!

Disclaimer:
I am an AllRecipes AllStar Brand Ambassador. This is a voluntary position which I am not compensated for.

Co-Parenting With My Mom....

Keegan and I love talking about my mom. We talk about how they used to play together and it astonishes me that my son can remember things he did at the age of 4 or younger. A lot of kids later in life don't remember those ages. Maybe it's because he's still close to that age or maybe he just REALLY loved Nana and remembers her that well but he can bring up things I can't remember!

It came to my attention however, that he was told my mother raised him and not me. I have to say that this pisses me off. Yes, my mother helped me in so many ways. I never moved out so of course he had extended family in this house. My mother babysat for me so I didn't have to pay for daycare and yes she watched him for me to go out with friends, however, that didn't happen often.

For the first year of my son's life, I took him to every appointment, fed him 90% of his meals and rocked him to sleep 95% of the time. My mother was with there WITH me through all of this. I was 19 when my son was born. My mother helped me through all of the sleepless nights, mounds of baby clothes and various doctors appointments but not once in that first year did I request she do it alone nor did she. We did it together, like a married couple would. She was my son's "father" during that year.

In 2005 after his first birthday, I began college on campus. My mother watched my son for me while I was in class. Generally I came straight home from classes and occasionally I would call my mother and ask if I could hang out with friends after class. If she said she didn't mind, then I would stay out for a couple hours but I was always home to rock my son to sleep. When I began working that would sometimes change as I was in school all day and at work until we closed at 11 every night. I'd get home after midnight and if my son woke up, I cared for him and got him back to sleep. It was no different than a married couples relationship except she was my mother. She was the father my son didn't have. His father was off playing daddy to a brood of children that were NOT his. During the times I was working and going to school, the ONLY time I went out after work was if mom told me Keegan was sleeping well and probably wouldn't wake up, or if he was actually at his father's for the weekend. During this time, my mother did take my son to appointments and oftentimes she was the one to delivery him to his father or pick him up from his father, however, it was not because I was out partying. It was because I was trying to get an education and earn a paycheck.

During the time I was in classes online, and working from 7am-6pm every day, I went grocery shopping with MY money, fed MY family on MY paychecks and came home and cooked dinner for everyone in this house. It was a fair trade for my family and for my mother to watch my son. She saved me money in daycare fees and I took care of the family. There are those that only got ONE side of the story or only saw what they wanted to see. My son was very close to my mother and he misses her dearly all the time. For that, I will never regret the way he was raised, especially those first 4 (almost 5) years of his life. If anyone has a problem with that or things that I didn't care for my own son, screw you. I was and still am a good mother. My love for my son and his love for me is proof of that.

I'm an Allstar!!!

I became an Allstar this month!!! For those of you that have NO clue what that is, AllRecipes® has an Ambassador program that one can become part of through trials and tribulations (so to speak) and once you do, it is AMAZING! That’s what I hear from my girl Faith anyway. I have to say this month was pretty cool. I received an awesome welcome package with a cute little potholder and an insulated grocery tote. For the next 12 months, I get to cook and share it all with other men and women like myself who also love to cook and share it with others! Yay! I hope the rest of the months are as fun and adventurous as February was. Because the Allstars is about cooking and sharing, I figured instead of starting a whole new blog, I’d just post all my fun adventures in this one!

Moving right along! For the month of February, we had to choose three Faceless recipes (recipes on the site with no picture), make them up and post a picture of what our creation looked like. Let me tell you, some of mine weren’t so pretty, however, they got done!

My first recipe was a Garlic Chicken Breast. It turned out pretty tasty but it was very bland looking. I discovered during this dish that my oven’s temperature control is apparently busted. My oven is cooking at 425° no matter what the temperature is set at. The funny thing about this is however, I had to cook the chicken longer than the recipe called for because it wasn’t done at the time allocated! I figured that even if the time in the recipe was off, cooking at a good 75°hotter than it should have, it would’ve gotten done quicker. NOT! Either way it came out pretty good. Tad bit dry but tasty.

My second recipe was fairly easy and simple since all it required was a little booze, lemon (and peel), honey and hot water! It was a......Hot Toddy Cocktail! No, I'm not a boozer (much) but we make these all the time when we have terrible colds or the flu and we had all the ingredients on hand for a change! I discovered with a lot of the faceless recipes, I didn't have a lot of the ingredients on hand (or we wouldn't like them). Yes, I have enough food to feed an army but there are things we do not own!!!!

My third and final faceless for February was Savory Diet Chicken. We discovered why it was called "diet chicken." I'm not so sure why the savory was included in there. I followed the directions exactly and well....as you can tell from the picture it was bland looking. It was pretty bland tasting too. We love chicken and we cook it in a million different ways but this will most likely not be one that we add to our collection.

February was fun though. We did get to try some new recipes. I learned a lot of other spices, condiments and necessary ingredients that I might need to make it through the rest of the program, so we'll see what happens! See you in March!

Disclaimer:

I am an AllRecipes AllStar Brand Ambassador. This is a voluntary position which I am not compensated for.