Category Archives: lunch recipe

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Sausage Balls (Pork and Turkey)

It’s been a very long time since I’ve written a complete wine blog post – please forgive me.  We moved last year and life got more chaotic than usual.  If you ever want to see what I’m doing with wine, or have any questions, please follow me on this blog’s Facebook page (FromTheBottomOfAWineBottle).

Today, I’m sharing this recipe from my childhood.  My mom found this recipe in our church cookbook and she used to make these sausage balls all the time.  They call for three main ingredients and are easy to bake/freeze for a quick breakfast, an after school snack, or even a light dinner.  I’ve added a little white wine, simply to make the finished product slightly less dense, but you can certainly leave the wine out if you prefer.

SausageBalls

Ingredients:

1 pound bulk pork sausage (I used pork sausage, but you can easily substitute ground turkey sausage, if you can find it)

3 cups Bisquik or Jiffy baking mix (I prefer Jiffy mix since we used to live in Chelsea, MI, where the Jiffy company is located)

10 oz shredded cheese (I used sharp cheddar)

White Wine (I used a white wine from Boordy Vineyard, called Rockfish, but you can use your favorite dry white wine)

Fresh Rosemary (This is one of my favorite flavors with sausage – feel free to omit if you’re not a fan)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375*.  Cover two large baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. Blend sausage, baking mix, and cheese until it comes together thoroughly.  I use a mixer, but this can be made in the same way you would mix up a meatloaf.
  3. Using a 1/4 cup ice cream scoop, form balls of the mixture and place them on the prepared baking sheets.  They won’t spread out as they bake, but I like to spread them out on the baking sheets so air can circulate for cooking.
  4. Bake sausage balls for 15 minutes, until lightly browned.
  5. Serve warm or allow to cool and put into bags in the freezer.  These make an excellent snack or light dinner and simply need to be warmed up in the microwave.

FOR TURKEY SAUSAGE BALLS:  If you prefer to use ground turkey instead of ground pork, here are a few photos from that option.  I also adjusted them to a smaller size, using a 1/8 cup (2 Tablespoons) scoop.  Here’s a photo of them, in all their cheesy goodness:

TurkeySausageBalls

I hope you enjoy this recipe.  As an alternative, I like to make this recipe into even smaller balls for appetizers.  You can turn up the heat by using a hot sausage or you can make it even more savory by adding other herbs.  It’s a great basic recipe to have on hand to share with friends.  Have fun with it!

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White Cream Puffs

This recipe is one that has been used in my family for as long as I can remember.  As a child, my mom would make these cream puffs for her bridge club nights.  She’d make the cream puffs, cut off the tops and fill them with vanilla ice cream, then frost them with some chocolate before serving them to her honored guests.  Occasionally, we’d be given one of these treats before the ladies arrived and they always looked so incredibly elegant.  What a gift to find out, years later, that this was a simple recipe that I could share with my own guests… and now I get to share that gift with you!WhiteCreamPuffs

Ingredients:

  • 1 cups boiling water (I like to use 2/3 cup water and 1/3 cup white wine)
  • 1/2 cup butter (don’t skimp… butter is the only way to go here)
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 4 eggs

Directions:

  1. In a heavy saucepan, combine the water/wine with the butter and bring to a boil.  Once melted and fully boiling, add the flour/salt at once and stir, beating vigorously with a wooden spoon until the dough is smooth.
  2. Remove from heat and add eggs, one at a time, stirring well after each addition.  Drop by teaspoons onto 2 greased cookie sheets (or baking sheets lined with parchment), shaping dough to peak in center and round out on the bottom.  Place dough 2″ apart.
  3. Bake in preheated 375* oven for 10 minutes, reduce heat to 350*  and bake for an additional 25 minutes.  Cool and fill.  Freeze or use immediately.

These cream puffs make a lovely dessert – slice off the top of the puff, fill with softened ice cream and replace the top, then frost with a bit of chocolate.  My Red Fudge Sauce is fabulous with this dessert (as seen in the photo), but you can use whatever sauce you like best.

Another alternative would be to fill the puffs with a small amount of my Nutty Chicken Salad and serve for a fancy luncheon. You are only limited by your imagination when it comes to using these cream puffs!  Enjoy!

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Leftover Recipe: Turkey Spring Rolls

I was searching for a new way to use up leftover turkey when I stumbled upon The Pioneer Woman, showing her spring roll recipe and I knew I had my inspiration.

I started by letting a small round of rice vermicelli sit in hot water until they were soft (this is, by far, the easiest thing to do!).  I then created a turkey mixture using thin sliced turkey, a spoon of apricot jam, some rose’ wine (white wine would be just as good, but I had leftover rose’ from Thanksgiving and I think it goes beautifully with turkey), a dash of sesame oil, a blob of ketchup, a little commercial orange sauce, salt & pepper, and a drizzle of balsamic glaze.  I set this aside and then sliced some cucumber into thin sticks for crunch and opened a bag of broccoli slaw.  I was now ready to assemble these delicious spring rolls.TurkeySpringRolls

First thing was to pull out a few rice spring roll wrappers.  These things are great…. just soak them in hot water until they are limp and you can wrap them around anything.  They are a little tricky when you first start playing with them, so be ready to have an extra or two on hand, just in case.

I laid out the soft wrapper and assembled each of the spring rolls by layering a little of the soft vermicelli, then the cucumber sticks, a bit of the turkey mixture, and topped it with the colorful broccoli slaw.  Once they were assembled, the creative part had to happen…. I had to roll these things into logs!  I started by pulling the bottom of the wrapper up and over the filling, then folded each side in, and rolled the whole thing into a log.  The first one was a bit funky-looking, but they got better as I went along.  NOTE: I had two spring rolls that each got holes poked in the sides from the broccoli slaw, so I just added a second wrapper around the original spring roll.  No biggie… 

Once all six rolls were done, I made a dipping sauce out of a mixture of apricot jam, balsamic vinegar, sesame oil, and a drizzle of honey.  Calling this a “dipping sauce” is sort of a mis-nomer… it was more like a “spooning sauce”, but you get the idea.  I could have made it runnier by warming the jam up a bit, but this was so yummy that I left it alone.  I liked the thick texture of the sauce when spooned onto (or into, after a bite) the spring roll, so it was all good.  I also sprinkled a tiny bit of sesame seeds over top to make it look pretty, but that was totally unnecessary.  These things were gorgeous in their own right.

Try this recipe sometime… you’ll be amazed, just as I was, at the fresh twist you get from using turkey in such a unique way.