Tag: sausage

Weekending: Making Sausage & Pasta

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Good morning! Another weekend, come and gone- how come they go by so quickly?! This past weekend was a real treat on the food front- too good not to share!

Weekending….

I had an apt in the city after work and after that I met RM for a drink and some snacks, but not before enjoying my “to go” wine from my waxer:

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When I met up with RM, we ended up going to Nix’s Mate- I enjoyed a rose bubbly, he had a delicious beer and we ended up getting some oysters and shrimp since they were only $1 each!

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To help with my Box FIIT certification, I’m trying to get to more Box FIIT classes so I hit one up on Saturday morning. It wasn’t as hard as George’s, but it was still a great workout and I seriously cannot wait until I can start teaching my own classes!!

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I hadn’t seen my sister in almost 3 weeks so after class I met up with her and our other friend Amy for manicures in Southie. Amy and I ended up getting the same color and I love it!!

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The rest of the Saturday was spent at our friends Jessi and Chuck’s apartment doing all sorts of cooking. RM and I went to the north end and picked up the sausage and then headed over to their place to get cooking.

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We opted for 8 pounds of meat which ended up yielding about 35 decent sized sausages. RM also had the butcher grind it and season it (2 ounces of salt per 10 pounds of meat) to help save time. We decided to do 2 different kinds: regular and garlic/parsley/parmesan and I don’t know which one I liked more! The whole event was so smooth and seamless- we were all pleasantly surprised by how easy it was! In just a few hours we had loads of sausages to enjoy.

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And, if that wasn’t enough, Jessi and Chuck broke out their recipe for homemade pasta and sauce- umm hello deliciousness! Making pasta with the Kitchen Aid attachment was SO easy- RM was ready to go out and buy the adapter yesterday!

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Between the homemade sausage, which cooked in the homemade sauce and the homemade pasta, the meal was pretty freaking amazing!!

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We also played games and drank lots of vino while we waited for everything to cook. It was seriously one of the best Saturday afternoons we’ve had in a while… even though we were so exhausted by the end that we went to bed at 9:45 haha

Sunday started out with being up nice and early thanks to our early bed time so we ended up going back to the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown for breakfast. Our breakfast looked very similar to how it did the last time we went there, only difference was that RM got an omelet this time.

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I love being up and out early- getting to Whole Foods at 9:15am on a Sunday was such a nice treat! Besides Whole Foods, I went to Target, cleaned the house and then RM and I went to LensCrafters to get new glasses. Since I still love my current glasses, I opted to go for an entirely different style so I can rotate between the two. I’ll show you a picture once we go pick them up. Later that day we went to visit his mom since she just got home from vacation. We had pizza and salad and it was perfect!

And that about does it! How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun or different? Did you get in any good workouts? Do you like boxing workouts? What’s your favorite breakfast item to order? Have you ever made sausage or pasta? What do you have going on this week?

Sausage, Veggie & Pineapple Grilled Summer Skewers

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Good morning! I am so happy to say that I FINALLY have a recipe for you 🙂 RM and I have been grilling quite a bit lately and this meal was so healthy, tasty and fun I figured it was perfect to share with you. I loved the colors from everything and it was like a flavor party in your mouth between the sausage, veggies and sweet pineapple.

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We decided to amp the skewer meal up even more by serving them on a bed of deliciousness- spinach, quinoa and corn and everything was topped with a really simple and fresh EVOO/fresh lemon juice/s&p/garlic powder concoction.

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Of course, if you don’t have sausage, you could do this same meal with steak or chicken- no problem at all!

Ingredients

Skewers:

  • 4 sausage links (we used RM’s homemade sausage- 2 were plain and 2 were garlic, parmesan and parsley)
  • 1 small green pepper, cut into 1 inch cubes
  • 1 small red pepper, cut into 1 inch cubes
  • 1 small onion, cut into thick slices
  • 1 cup chopped pineapple

Salad:

  • Spinach for 2 people (about 1/2 a box for us)
  • 1/4-1/2 cup cooked quinoa
  • 1 ear of corn, steamed and then the kernels shaved off
  • 2-4 tbsp. EVOO per salad
  • Juice of 1 lemon- 1/2 lemon per salad
  • Salt/pepper/garlic powder to taste

Directions

1. Cook quinoa according to the package and let cool. Steam the corn and let cool- once cool, take a knife and shave off the kernels.

2. Turn on your grill to heat. Cut up your veggies, pineapple and sausage and arrange them on skewers. Place on grill, rotating sides every 3-5 minutes. I think it took about 15 minutes for the sausage to be cooked through on low heat.

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3. Combine the EVOO, lemon juice and salt/pepper/garlic powder and set aside. Place the spinach in the bowls, top with the quinoa and corn and then the skewered items. Lastly, coat everything with the dressing and serve.

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This meal came together so quickly, which was perfect for a weeknight meal. I was also able to enjoy leftovers the next day, too. We decided that we are big fans of quinoa spinach salads- so much so that we made them on Thursday of last week, too, to go with the burgers we grilled. Great texture/flavor combo!

Would love to know if you see these- take pics and tag me @Burpeestobubbly.

Questions for you: What’s your favorite thing to grill? Do you like sausage or do you prefer chicken or steak? Cooked pineapple- yay or nay?

Weekending: Babysitting, Spartan Training, Lunching, Lounging

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Happy Birthday Month to all my April birthday buddies! I can’t believe I am going to be 29 in just 2 weeks. Holy crap. Where the heck does time go?!

I had a relatively quiet weekend last weekend, which was a welcomed change! It was nice to not be under stress to get from one thing to the next, and to have time to relax and get stuff done around my apartment.

Friday night I got to babysit my 2 favorite kiddos. They love making pizza with me, so their mom whipped up some homemade dough and we made the most delicious pizza. It ended up working out well since I can’t eat meat on Fridays anyway!

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Saturday started off the best way: with a workout! As I’ve mentioned, I went to a Spartan training workout with a group of gym friends. I’d love to say that I LOVED the workout, but I didn’t. I thought it was really good and left me physically beat, it was too long. I was ready to be done about an hour into it, which I think was because it was fairly repetitive. Read: we did A LOT of burpees, squats, lunges, jumping jacks, running in place and push ups. Like, a lot (I think we did at least 200 burpees- no joke). While those are great exercises, I would’ve liked to have seen a better variety to keep us engaged for the whole time. We did run outside for a bit, which was greatly welcomed since the BC High School gymnasium was SO HOT. Overall, it was a good workout, but I don’t think I’d do one again. It was definitely fun to work out WITH my gym friends, rather than just teaching them 😉

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I definitely earned my lunch and bubbly at Lincoln Tavern with my sister! As I mentioned on Instagram, Lincoln has a “Bucket of Bubbly” deal where you get a bottle of Prosecco and 3 mixers (OJ, grapefruit juice and peach puree) for.. wait for it… $24! Even if you don’t finish the bottle (I’m embarrassed to admit we didn’t finish it…), it’s still a better deal than ordering glasses separately. I also enjoyed an asparagus, caramelized onions and cheese omelet.

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After lunch, I headed to my date’s apartment (I’m going to call him that rather than “the guy I am dating”… much easier 😉 ) to hang out. We had a nice, quiet night in which included drinking really great wine, cooking/making dinner and watching a movie.

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Have you seen the Dallas Buyers Club? We both really enjoyed it. While it was a bit more serious and intense than I usually watch, it was a very interesting story with great acting!

I wanted to share the recipe that we used for our appetizer. My date is gluten and dairy free right now, so he got this really great Paleo recipe book and we made the Tahini sauce.

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(he set this up for me to take a photo to put on here- super cute!)

It was a fun treat! He had made homemade sausages a few weeks ago, so we also had some of those with peppers, onions and a side of kale. Delish!

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Sunday started out with a workout and then grocery shopping, meal prep, laundry, cleaning and blogging. The gross, rainy weather was perfect for all of these activities! I made a crock pot soup, which was just a bunch of veggies, sweet potatoes and broth/Stubbs’ marinade. I added chicken at the end. Perfect meal for a rainy Sunday!

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I also made these amazing bars that Athena posted a while ago. I added in unsweetened coconut flakes and used gluten/dairy free chocolate chips. These things continue to amaze me!

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And that’s about it! All around really great weekend.

Questions for you: Do you make your own pizza dough or buy it? Have you done a Spartan race? Have you seen Dallas Buyers Club? If so, what did you think?