My husband never ceases to amaze me. Yesterday afternoon I realized I'd had some fresh turkey brats in the fridge that I had better cook or else, and decided to turn them into a bean soup with the Orca beans my friend Anne brought me. Dinner had already been announced as steamed homemade chinese pork and shrimp dumplings on sauteed chard and choy. This is one of few recurring meals we have, and one of Bob's favorites. But he looked dismayed when I said the sausage might end up in a soup and asked what else could I do with it if we didn't have the dumplings? "Bangers and mash," I offered, certain he would refuse. He's never had that dish in his life, and he doesn't care much for sausage period--an issue since I love it. He thinks it's merely okay breakfast food and what you eat if you can't get bacon, and mashed potatoes are for Thanksgiving. He has very compartmentalized food reflexes. "That sounds great!", he said.
Well knock me over with a feather.
It's a little out of focus, but here's the dish I served him:
The brats came from an amazing little store that's about two minutes over the Canadian border that sells nothing but turkey products, all of which they make fresh daily in house. I stopped there on the advice of a friend with whom I'd been discussing my desire to reduce the fat content in my cooking. I was amazed to find a kielbasa that's really really good and needs make no apologies to the pork original, and a turkey version of just about everything else deli-meat. They also have a lot of British and American style pies and sausage rolls ready to eat, plus the bird itself in an array of fresh forms that you can
cook yourself.
The mashed potatoes were made with 2% milk and Smart Balance butter substitute. A bit of seasoning salt in place of regular salt helped enrich the flavor, and I topped the potatoes with diced sweet vidalia onions, chopped chives and parsley in oil and vinegar, a mixture that my unsophisticated, farm-girl Grammy used to serve sans-herbs with any mashed or roasted potato. It was in fact the only condiment in her repertoire. As a child I hated it because I hated onions, but looking back now I appreciate that Grammy understood the zing that acidity brings to food, and of course in my version the fresh herbs add class, color and complexity.
Bob LOVED it. So much so that he called from work this morning to ask if I had the ingredients to make it again tonight. "It's my new favorite comfort food," he announced. I loved it too. The sausage had an excellent flavor and texture. (Okay, one glitch: during cooking the skin kind of rolled up like a bad condom so I had to remove it, but the meat browned beautifully without it.) I have to say that while an expert foodie would have noticed the lack of luxury in the creamless/butterless mashed potatoes, the distraction of that delicious fresh onion and herb topping might have kept them at bay long enough to forget to look. And anyone else would never have guessed they were eating a deliberately low fat meal. With it's light to medium body and fresh fruit nose, a chilled Brun Beaujulais was the perfect wine partner.
Anyone else making an effort to cut back? What are some of your favorite successes?
