It's All About Inspiration

This was the sunrise sky this morning at about 6:30a.m., it looked especially inspiring....

The weather forecast is for a hot and humid days and weekends, so I was inspired to make tonight's dinner early in the morning, so I did, and all was ready by 10:00a.m. This will also be our lunch tomorrow and probably dinner Monday night. We have a BBQ on Sunday to attend, so don't need to worry about a fancy Sunday dinner. Anyway, I just need to re-heat it in the microwave. As I said, temps expected in the mid-90's not really too hot for July in So. Calif., but too hot to cook spaghetti sauce and boil the noodles! I just cooked the noodles and sprayed them with a little non-stick spray before covering and storing them I've done this plenty of times and you just have to heat up your portion sizes.......

My sauce bubbling away, smelling wonderful so far....

Main ingredients. Not shown is, 1 bay leaf, salt and pepper, red pepper flakes, cinnamon, pineapple extract, water. Cooked sausages Sliced raw "sausage" Marinated for one day in fridge tightly wrapped. Speaking of inspiration, I read Rita Ho's friend, Gertrude Wan's, food blog, "My Kitchen Snippets" (if I knew how to link it, I would). She wrote a wonderful recipe the other day for tangy sweet and spicy chicken legs which I tried (with thighs and baked instead of grilled since I have no grill). The seasoning and taste reminded me so much of the flavors of linguica, I decided I would like to try making my own linguica to use a a base for my father's infamous spaghetti sauce recipe. Years ago, I learned a recipe for home made Mexican chorizo, and it always tastes good, so with just a few changes in the seasonings, I figured it couldn't be bad..... Linguica is a Portuguese sausage flavored with garlic and paprika, sometimes vinegar or sherry, it's put into casings and smoked, but it still has to be cooked. My Dad's father was 100% Portuguese from Madeira. My Dad used to make his spaghetti sauce quite often as we grew up and he eventually perfected it and wrote the recipe down. I have made it lots and lots of times, true to his instructions, but of course, everyone has their own version. I changed around a few ingredients, did a little web research and came up with this: Homemade Linquica "Sausage"

1 pound lean ground pork

2 tsp. vegetable oil 1 tsp. chili powder

1 Tblsp. chopped garlic (I use minced jarred)

2 Tblsp. brown sugar

4 Tblsp. balsamic vinegar

1 Tblsp. paprika (I used smoked to give the smokey flavor of real linguica)

1/2 tsp. salt

Mix all the seasonings in a zip-lock bag or other plastic bag, then crumble in the pork, really mix well by massaging all the seasonings together with the meat. Push into a log shape, wrap tightly, then place in another bag, roll up, place in fridge for at least 8 hours, up to 3 days.

Slice the log into 12-14 pieces, saute in a little olive oil till browned on both sides and cooked through, try to keep the pieces from breaking apart by not crowding them and flipping only once.

Remove to a platter. (I cut them in half before adding to the sauce)

Linguica Spaghetti Sauce (kinda like my Dad's)

1 large can tomato sauce

1 small can tomato paste

1/2 cup Madeira wine or sherry

one half a soft-ball sized sweet onion, chopped

1 bay leaf

1 teasp. cinnamon

1/4 teasp. red pepper flakes

salt and pepper to taste

1 teasp. pineapple extract

1/2 cup water

1 recipe cooked linguica

After you cook the meat and remove it, in the same pan, saute the onions, cover for about 3 minutes to sweat them, add in the sausage, pour wine over to deglaze, add the sauce, paste, and rest of seasonings, stir gently, bring to a boil, stir gently, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for one to one and a half hours, tip lid toward the end, if sauce is too thin. Cool in pot for about 1/2 hour, spoon into plastic container, store in fridge till ready to serve for dinner. Meanwhile, cook your noodles (we like Barilla thick spaghetti, one pound). For dinner, spoon out desired amount of pasta and microwave, covered, with a little water, then microwave desired amount of sauce, pour over pasta and serve with garlic bread and freshly grated Parmesean cheese.

Thank you Dad and Gert for your inspiration. And thank you morning sky for inspiring me to get cooking early. I even had time to stew together some fresh strawberries and rhubarb to make a crisp in the morning. I cleaned as I went so the kitchen is not even that big of a mess! A nice weekend in store here in paradise.....