2018 has been a whirlwind of a year (all 1.5 months of it) in terms of my cooking. I feel like these past years I have been trying to make from scratch meals, using real ingredients and although the food that I made was good... it just wasn't there yet. I always felt like it was missing something but for the life of me I could never really figure out exactly what that something was.
I started to gather this interest in cooking back in 2009. Food Inc. was the very first documentary about [food] that I had ever seen and it was a real wake up call. Another reason for my vested interest in food was also because of an experience I had with some stew meat that I had purchased around that year. Back then I shopped at Wal-Mart because I figured it was the cheapest place around (little did I know, that was totally false). I had purchased some stew meat with the idea of making some sort of winter stew out of it. Nothing fancy.. just a simple stew.
I headed home and put the package of stew meat in the fridge with the intent to use it within the next 2 days. Well, life got in the way and I totally forgot about the stew I was going to make and totally forgot about the stew meat, right along with it.
Over the next few weeks, as I added more items in the fridge from another shopping trip, the stew meat ended up getting pushed to the back. Fast forward about 4 weeks when I decided to clean the fridge out (I know, I probably should be cleaning my fridge out sooner than that but oh well. Sorry, not sorry!). I noticed the stew meat in the back of the fridge and that's when the lights went off. "Oh ya! I was going to make a stew with this... what a waste!".
Then that's when I realized that this package of stew meat that had been sitting in my fridge for about a month and half was 1. still red... and 2. did not have any sort of smell to it.
I'm sorry, but that's just not normal >>gross<<
Since then, I have come a long way in terms of food. I started to really look into where our food comes from. How it's grown. Monsanto, Bayer... Factory farms, the conditions that livestock are kept in until slaughter. When you really take the time to look into these things, everything sort of becomes quite disturbing.
Of course, at the time, we just couldn't go out and buy organic/free range/grass fed everything. It just wasn't in the budget and to a point, it still isn't. But this didn't stop me from focusing on making more nutritious meals using as many fresh ingredients as I could. So, that is where my love for cooking started to come into play...
It's been a bumpy road over the course of the past 9 years but there has just been something about 2018 that is just different. Everything is finally clicking and coming together. My experiments are turning into amazingly delicious meals and I am moving forward with making new things vs rotating through the same x-amount of things I've been making in the past.
And the recipe I have to share today is just one of those {new} meals that I have to share!
Chicken Sausage Kale Sweet Potato Salad w/tangy Red Wine & Garlic Vinaigrette
Servings: 1
Ingredients
For the Salad
1/2 of a Sweet Potato (diced)
1 small Chicken Sausage link (casing removed) chopped (I used the smoked pepper & asiago chicken sausage from Al Fresco)
1-2 leaves of Kale
Olive oil for sauteing
For the Red Wine Garlic Vinaigrette
2 tbsp Red Wine Vinegar
1 tbsp Juice from Lemon
1 Garlic Clove (minced)
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp fresh chopped Parsley
Garnish
Cracked Pepper
Directions
remove the casing from the chicken sausage and chop it up and add to a medium skillet set to medium-high heat, garnished with some olive oil, saute until browned & cooked through.
While the chicken sausage is cooking, dice up the sweet potato and then add that to the skillet. Set the heat to medium-low and cover the skillet. Let cook until the sweet potatoes are done to your liking (I like mine with a bit of firmness still in them so mine cooked for about 18mins).
With the potatoes slowly cooking with the chicken sausage, it's time to make the vinaigrette. Combine all of the Vinaigrette ingredients in a small bowl and mix together (take one of the sweet potato chunks from the skillet and taste test the vinaigrette. If it's too tangy, add a bit more olive oil).
Once the potatoes are done cooking, put the potato/chicken sausage mixture in a medium bowl. Take the Kale leaves and chop them up. Add them to the potato/chicken sausage mixture and mix them in. Transfer the "salad" to a plate. Give your vinaigrette one more good whisking and then drizzle over the top of the salad.
Garnish with some cracked pepper and enjoy!
Tip: For some extra flavor, mix the vinaigrette in with the salad and then set it in the fridge for about 20mins. Tastes great when served cold and the juices from the vinaigrette will marinate into the chicken sausage and potatoes for even more bursts of flavor!