Grilled Italian Sausage with Potatoes

Recipes you can't refuse!

My mother had her own way about her, the way she made you accountable that is. That accountability included us kids for sure but even her customers at the restaurant couldn't escape her primitive way of branding her restaurant and making them feel a part of her community. The way it was done before social media.

Actually anybody who didn't want to be left out of the special things my mother cooked understood the program. As the spirit would move her she would make the dishes my grandmother taught her. They were the dishes with their roots firmly embedded in the peasant culture of Naples Italy during the early 1900's. They were for the most part one pot dishes, incredible pastry and fresh pasta.

Growing up Italian, eating was akin to breathing. It took center stage over just about everything in our lives. Of course there happened to be a restaurant in our living room. What? You didn't have one of those? Most likely not, especially in the 1950's.

My mother didn't believe in advertizing and she enlisted her own brand of intimidation to brand and market the restaurant. She had a iron clad memory and she knew everybody's name and what their weakness was for the  special things she would make. Whenever she would make those one pot meals, traditional dishes considered the food of the peasants she would call the relatives...her brother Vic, DR Edward Bove, Joe Bove and so on.

However when she made the dishes more consistent with the restaurant menu, braciole, homemade pastas of all sorts and canoli just as an example things that we wouldn't have all the time. She would call her favorite customers who she knew were addicted to her food... if they didn't show up as she expected them to , they didn't get called the next time. That's how she kept them in line.

There was a favorite story of mine. One of our good customers was a Vt State Trooper, a red headed Italian. My mother would call the state police barracks and leave a message with dispatch that she was trying to reach officer Freeze. Soon after his cruiser would be in our driveway. He knew the call meant she had one of her homemade canoli's for him.

I know it's not in vogue to eat much sausage any more but a great sausage w/ roasted baby new potatoes and broccoli rabe is a great way to bring in the summer grilling season. Limit yourself to two sausages if that concerns you! Those of you who may be reading this in our hometown of Rutland Vt you were spoiled. We had fabulous bakeries with great bread and Mrs Bellomo's homemade sausage. There was a large Italian population mostly because of the Marble Business. There were builders, stone masons, doctors, great cooks, pharmacies, beer distributors, grocery store owners, scholars and our Aunt Teresa the countess of Grove street, well you get the point. Oh by the way all of those people were just in our family.

Eat well and live long. Mrs. Tom

Serves four

Grilled sweet or hot Italian sausage

w/ roasted baby new potatoes, fennel, radishes, sweet onions
and a sauté of broccoli rabe

 

8 sausages...maybe a couple extra just in case one of the neighbors drops by

12 medium baby new potatoes, marks removed and washed with the skin on

2 medium to large sweet onions/ quartered

2 stalks fennel/ trimmed and the bulbs cut into similar sizes with the onion and potato

12 large fresh radishes, trimmed and washed

3 bunches broccoli rabe/ blanched in boiling water

1/2 cup olive oil

7 large clove of fresh garlic chopped

3 sprigs of rosemary chopped fine

2 medium shallots/ chopped

2 qts of boiling water

pinch crushed red pepper optional

S&P

This is a new combination that I came up with this winter. Roasting the root vegetables available year round. In a large bowl place all the cut vegetables ( not the broccoli rabe) coat w/ just enough of the olive oil and add a little more than half the garlic, all the shallots, rosemary and S&P to taste. Toss the ingredients in the bowl until they are well coated and seasoned with all the herbs and spices place them in  roasting pan or I like to use my iron skillet. Into the oven at 325 for about 45 minutes shake them a few times so they roll around and both sides are seared by the bottom of the pan and roasted on the top. You can check the potatoes, when they are done your ready.

Get the grill ready! heat your grill to high and close the lid. When the clear liquid begins to surface on the sausage they are done.

While the sausages are cooking and the pan of root vegetables is about 10-15 minutes from done in a sauté pan use the remainder of the olive oil, add the garlic and brown it...then add the broccoli rabe, S&P to taste and the pinch of red pepper if you like.

Mrs. Tom Secret

Par boil the sausage in the boiling water for about 7-8 minutes this keeps them moist inside. Then char them up on the hot part of your grill. Accent them with your favorite spicy mustard!

Kielbasa Smothered in Peppers and Onions & Simmered in a Dark Beer

Father Time fools us , and slides away undetected

I couldn't help after reading the post written by our friend Cindy last week about the passing of the third Gibb brother, how time has seemed to cheat us, all the while leaving behind wonderful memories, laughter and delivering crushing blows along the way. Time fooled us as kids into thinking that it was this cavernous space that would just last forever. Nothing conjures up old memories the way a great song does. Sometimes I can recall what I was doing when the song came on my transistor radio. The predecessor to the IPod. Who of our generation doesn't see John Travolta with a paint can in his hand and walking as only he could to the background of the B-Gees

Father Time: The personification of Time and the more friendly version of the Grim Reaper. Typically pictured as an old man with a white beard donning a cloak and often times carrying a scythe and hourglass. In ancient times he was known as Chronus or Saturn.

He symbolizes the flow of time and its effects. His old body is a reminder that time is the devourer of all things and that, like the sand in the hourglass he often carries, his life will run out, as all good things come to an end.  A recent interview with the iconic actor and activist Kirk Douglas at 95 years old. He was asked how he does it, he keeps going strong even with essentially the loss of his voice. He said I don't look to the future but hold onto the past, it fuels me.

I remember as a kid, how a day could feel like eternity. If you were looking forward to something a week away well that just could never come fast enough. Things were really so simple but we created a full complement of complexities. I remember that first bike and the building excitement that came with knowing you might get it. The endless wait for Christmas morning to come. The ability to be a hero to your friends if you had your own quarter at the corner store where you could treat everybody at the penny candy tray. Or if really lucky, enough money to treat yourself to an ice cold Hires Root Beer. Things were pretty simple but how could we know how it would all change so fast.

The years are gone in a flash like melting ice on a hot summer day. Where did they go? The penny candy a thing of the past, our kids unable to comprehend it. Somewhere along the way came that first kiss, you know the one, the one all others would be judged by.

Before you know it your kids are in college or just gone. You have forgotten that first kiss and what along the way seemed like a broken heart now begins to take a little sprit with it. If time has spared you and you never have had a broken heart then you probably have never really loved and I feel sorry for you. We feel a sense that time has cheated us towards the end masking itself all the while, as an endless journey.

Truth is I wouldn't have missed a minute of it, for it is here where my senses grew keener, my heart and love grew stronger. Now each day when I wake there is a whole lot of people who count on me and that strength. It's now not about my destination or what lies ahead but it's about my journey. Yes the days seem to run into each other, weeks, months and years are like one big run on sentence and pass without as much as leaving an indelible mark. One door closes behind us and another opens ahead of us. Peace to you all.

One of Mrs. Tom's favorite grilling items is:

Kielbasa Smothered in Peppers and Onions & Simmered in a Dark Beer

6 Kielbasa

1large Vidalia onion or yellow onion

1/4 bulb fresh fennel

1 large red pepper/ seeded

1 large yellow pepper/seeded

1 jalapeño pepper/seeded

2 tablespoons of butter

1/4 cup olive oil

2 table spoons prepared brown mustard

1 bottle of good dark beer

S&P Taste

6 buns

Fire up two zones on your grill to a medium heat and place an iron skillet on one zone. If you don't have a skillet you can use whatever heavy pan you have. Make sure your grates are clean.

Cut the seeds and extra membrane from the bell peppers, thinly slice the peppers, onions and fennel. Chop the jalapeño small, Careful not to touch your eyes or better still wear a pair of rubber kitchen gloves.

Put the butter and oil in the skillet, get it hot and add the onions and let them caramelize and then add your peppers. Stir them about and let them soften and caramelize, close the lid on the grill.  Now pour 1/2 can of the beer add the mustard and stir in. S&P taste. Move the pan to an indirect heat.

Place the Kielbasa on the grill and c lose the lid and turn them slowly for about 10-15 minutes letting them char on the outside. When they are ready add them to the vegetables and stir them in closing the lid on the grill and leave them another 10 minutes on a low or indirect heat. If you need to you may add more beer if they are getting dry or too dark.  Otherwise drink the beer!

At Proctor Gas we specialize in all the grills and tools you need to become a backyard celebrity chef. So stop in and say hello to Mrs.Tom and share your favorite recipe with her.

Eat, prosper and be well

Mrs. Tom

Black Pepper Encrusted Mustard Fried Venison

In for Mrs. Tom - Chef Peter Ryan
 

When we first moved to South Carolina in 1990 our family was invited to a traditional Plantation hunters feast and yes many southerners still own plantations, groups of them have turned many into hunt clubs of sorts. They talked about guns, family, food and college football most of them don't even pay attention to the NFL. It was here where we first discovered a southern dish that has become a Christmas  tradition for as many years at our house.

I grew up in a house with all women we flat out just ordered our food, nobody thought about shooting it. However we are in the South now and they shoot everything. Hunting wild game is akin to Church on Sunday and college football. I know we do both in the North but trust me there just are some things here that are indelibly etched into each and every generation unlike any place I have ever been.

I have always been a big sports fan and when I moved here I thought it was great to have two football teams that were on the national scene year after year, the Clemson Tigers and the Carolina Gamecocks, The "Cocks" as they are referred too around the State. I remember being torn about who to embrace. Coming from Vermont of course it was Notre Dame and Penn State but without any real blood in the games.

So I though thought it would be acceptable to embrace both teams at the same time. As I embraced the other favorite past time of my new home Golf I was called to the carpet on one beautiful day at the Reserve Golf Club a private club I belonged to. A place that at one time while on the drawing board, considered offering memberships to only locals in other words "none of us Yankee's" bless our hearts!.

I was getting ready to t-off the first hole and we were in a club tournament and I was playing with some members I didn't really know. As if my game wasn't challenge enough without getting called to the carpet on my first swing. It seems there was a distraction in my bag. A Clemson head cover and a Cocks head cover protruding proudly from my bag. What the hell is that? The ribbing started where the devil are you from?

Suffice to say by the end of the round I was ready to commit to one or the other of the teams as resting on the fence was just not acceptable in South Carolina it was important to choose a team and more important to harbor distain for the remaining University. It was the year that Lou Holtz came to South Carolina and the Cocks. So with my Norte Dame affiliation I sided with the stumbling Cocks. Today 23 years later, I live eat and sleep SEC and Gamecock football.

And oh yah the Christmas dish here ya-go y'all!

Black Pepper Encrusted Mustard Fried Venison

I suppose you need a good hunter in the family or a good beggar like we do every season. Actually no real southerner it caught without a freezer full of Venison most all year and in true Southern Hospitality they are willing to share especially if you promise to invite them over when you cook it.

It sure helps to get the most tender parts but if not pound it as you would veal, not too much just enough tom break it down. HOW MUCH YOU ASK? It's never enough. I eat two portions while I'm frying it too make sure I don't get left out, my boys eat it until it comes out their ears. The pieces should be about 1 and a half oz or 2 oz at the most pounded lightly.

Ingredients

·       Oil for frying in a iron skillet if you have one.

·       as much Venison as you can get your hands on covered in course black pepper (really covered well)
·       A whole container of French's yellow mustard.
·       Cover the venison with the pepper and gobs and gobs of mustard make sure it is totally covered with the mustard and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight or at least 4-5 hours.
·       All purpose flour

Heat about a 1/2 inch of oil in the skillet and dredge the venison in the flour still coated in the mustard. Fry about 2-3 minutes on each side place on a paper towel to absorb some of the oil.

Serve with:
Your favorite warm red cabbage and warm homemade applesauce Just writing this is killing me, I'm ready to start begging.

Happy New Year from Proctor Gas "the propane people" remember we have roots in the Rutland Area not just branches

Corn Soufflé

It’s that time again; we can put the costumes belonging to our little monsters and goblins away in the closet and begin the time honored tradition of giving thanks. Although family is always the first priority during the holidays to me Thanksgiving is about anyone who needs the camaraderie and sprit of this day of thanks.

When we look back at our predecessors we always see the thanksgiving table including many times a whole community that has come together to give thanks for the successful harvest, a simple but critical event in their lives.

Today there are so many around us who may not have the same opportunities that some others may have. I can attest to the fact that over the years when able to provide just such an experience for someone who otherwise may be alone or even worse it gives real meaning and is the gift that Thanksgiving gives us all. The next couple of weeks we will share some of our favorite family dishes and what not to do with your Turkey.

1 2 inch deep  ½ size hotel pan

1 dozen eggs
1 qt heavy cream
Frozen corn kernels
1 cup of sugar

Place corn in pan filling the pan up to 2/3 of the way.  In a mixing bowl combine the eggs, cream and sugar whisk until pale yellow and smooth.  Pour mixture over the corn and stir it into the corn as even as possible.  Bake uncovered in a 275* oven for approx 2 hours until custard jiggles like jello and has a nice golden brown appearance on top.

This may be made up to two days ahead of time and warmed slowly in a 200 degree oven.

Pineapple Infused Apple Smoked Spareribs

Mrs. Tom wins Limbo contest

Mrs. Tom is flying high headed to the Hawaiian Island of Maui and has decided to pass on the space jump and opted for a smooth landing on the Island last Friday. We should be looking for a dish inspired by the Pacific Rim and some of Mrs. Tom’s festivities this week.

Extra Extra Mrs. Tom WINS LIMBO CONTEST in Maui! The island is a buzz talking about Mrs.Tom setting the bar for the weekly limbo event and Hawiian feast. After she feasted on the spareribs claimimg them to be the best she ever had.

She talked her Hawaiian host-chef into discussing the details of how he made those ribs. This is the last of the grilling season before we have to talk pumpkins and turkey sandwiches. So we finish the the season off with the king of all back yard grilling fare, ribs done Mrs.Tom's Hawaiian Style.  

Serves 4

¼ cup Asian fish sauce
½ cup fresh pinapple juice¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
3 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons fresh chopped garlic
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
2 / 3 and down spareribs

6 handfuls of apple wood chips soaked in water for 1 hour and wrapped in foil with holes poked in the foil.

In a bowl mix all the marinade ingredients

Cut off the excess flap meat and slide a knife under the membrane on each of the ribs and loosen so that the marinade can penetrate. In a tall kitchen bag doubled up place the ribs and marinade, tie the bag tightly. Let them marinade over night refrigerated. You can cut the ribs in half if the space on your grill dictates.

Light the grill and leave a low two zone fire for 10 minutes fro gas and 20 to 30 for charcoal, one side on low and one on medium heat. Fill a drip pan with water and place the wood chips wrapped in the foil on the back of your grill and close the top. Pull the ribs and let them come to room temperature while the grill heats up.

Reserve the marinade and transfer to a small sauce pan and reduce at a boil for a few minutes to use later as a basting sauce. If you have a charcoal grill you can spread some of the wood chips over the coals and add coals as you need them to maintain a low fire. Make sure you poke the holes in the foil with the wood chips.

Place the ribs bone side down on the grill on a low to medium heat. Leave the ribs for an hourbefore you begin to rotate and turn the ribs. Begin using the basting sauce and cook at a low indirect heat for about 4 total hours.

Mrs. Tom’s SecretRemove the ribs wrap them in foil and let them sit for 15 minutes. They should pull nicely from the bone and licking your fingers is suggested and acceptable.

Vermont Pepper-Pot Soup

 

We are entering the most beautiful time of the year here in Vermont. The trees are beginning their turn into a majestic kaleidoscope of color and wonder. Proctor Gas has never experienced a busier fall in our 45 years. We are thankful.

Mrs. Tom is busy installing fireplaces, wood and pellet stoves, propane generators, and lava lamps to heat your patio and still her favorite Proctor Gas product… the phenomenal line of outdoor Twin Eagle and Saber gas grills. Mrs. Tom likes to say that cooking is akin to love, passion and family. It is where it all comes together around the gathering of the table.

It’s time for apple picking and pumpkin carving and the emergence of very short spooks goblins and monsters lurking about our neighborhoods looking to satisfy their sweet tooth. Beware some will have large fangs! As we send our most special and prized possessions into the streets for Hollows Eve we all need to be frightfully aware and keep them safe from harm and accident.

Mrs. Tom has a great fall soup to go with all that candy!

Vermont pepper-pot soup w/sweet or hot sausage, broccoli rabe, potatoes and finger size apple dumplings

Make a Roux

1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter

3/4 cup all purpose flour

Salt & Pepper

Melt the butter over a medium low heat and then whisk in the flour and incorporate until smooth, let it cool to room temp
 

The Soup Ingredients

1lb sweet ground sausage or pulled from the casing

3 medium size russet potatoes peeled cut into ¼ inch squares blanched and reserve the water

1 small can white kidney beans with liquid

2 shallots sliced thin

1 bunch broccoli rabe chopped
¼ cup fresh oregano and basil chopped

3 boxes organic chicken stock or your own

6 table spoons olive oil
Teaspoon red pepper flakes
S&P taste

In a heavy sauce pot put the oil, heat then add the shallots. Cook for 3 minutes and then add and brown the sausage, the broccoli rabe, crushed red pepper. Then add the blanched potatoes and fresh herbs. The kidneys beans with the liquid and then the reserved water from the potatoes.

Now add the stock and bring to a simmer, then whisk in the rough until it is all incorporated. Spoon in the dumplings.

The Apple Finger Dumplings

1/2 cup butter
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour or unbleached white flour, sifted
1 1/4 cups water
2 large eggs
1/2 cup chopped chives

2 apples peeled and cored chopped fine

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in flour and cook, stirring constantly, pressing out any lumps with a spoon. When the mixture is smooth, add the water, stirring to blend well.

Remove from the stove and mix in the eggs and chopped chives, apples making sure that the mixture is uniform in consistency. Allow the mixture to cool.  

Bring two cups of chicken stock to boil. Ladle a rounded spoonful of dumpling batter into the stock to test. If it separates in pieces, blend in as much additional flour as is needed to keep the dumplings whole. Add the rest of the batter by spoonfuls to the soup and cook for 20 minutes, or until firm.

Serve immediately with the soup.

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Mustard Fried Pork Tenderloin on Apple Compote

3/13/50...3/4/70

Remembering Harmon J Bove Jr.

The Quintessential All American Boy

This is a look back by Mrs. Tom's brother Peter. It was March 8th 1970 and the sports page of the Burlington Free Press was filled with the usual stories except for one. Big George Scott had led the Red Sox past the mid-west all stars whoever the heck they were. Billy Kidd was getting an award for being crazy on a pair of skis. Austin Carr broke the NCAA single game scoring record with 61 points to lead Norte Dame over Ohio University.

However the major headline on this day was a Tribute to Harmon J Bove my beautiful cousin. Jules Brulater the sports writer for the Press wrote, "this is the hardest column I have ever had to write". Harmon was 19 and gave his life for his country in a war we still have trouble understanding. Harmon was like a brother to everybody he meet. Brulator wrote that he gave warmth, knowledge, advise and true friendship to all that came in contact with him.

Harmon was arguably the best athlete in Vermont upon his graduation turning down a full scholarship to Nebraska (the defending National champions) to play football and signing with the Houston Astros right out of high school. Harmon and I graduated high school in 1968 he in Burlington and I Rutland. It was 1968 and the war in Vietnam was still raging away and we were losing our children at an awful rate of attrition. It is well documented that the war was not very popular especially on college campuses. Where I was fortunate to find myself. Harmon was all about duty, honor, country.

Harmon was called up to the big league soon after arriving and putting on a Houston uniform. In typical Harmon fashion he didn't want the guard to interrupt his focus with the team so he joined the Marines. He marched bravely into the darkness to fulfill his duty. I never saw him again, he didn't get to play on that big stage that awaited him on a warm spring day.

I don't think Harmon was afraid of anything with the exception maybe of our Aunt Elmer. It was 1966 and Harmon came to live in Rutland for the summer where we both worked for our Aunt Elmer at the 7UP bottling plant in Rutland. Harmon and I became very close that summer. We both shared one real fear, the wrath of Aunt Elmer. She was a women rooted firmly in a man's world in the late fifties and early sixties. She ran a bottling plant with a iron fist. When she was riled up she could expound with a profound rhetoric akin to any railroad conductor.

It was a hot summer Saturday and the plant was closed, except for the anticipation of a truck load of sugar that was to arrive. Aunt Elmer left Harmon and I alone to see to it that the sugar made its way up the small conveyor and to the second floor of the plant. There were 100 bags to arrive and they weighed 100 pounds each.

While waiting for the truck to arrive , we became board. So we started to use the conveyor like a skate board something that had just been invented. Well sure enough the conveyor stopped running and we were scared to death of what Elmer would say when she returned to find the sugar on the main plant floor. So Harmon and I carried 100 bags of 100 pounds of sugar to the second floor. I will never forget it! There was still the dilemma of the conveyor and confessing to its demise.

It seemed this might be one of those times where discretion be the better part of valor and a small white lie would be of no consequence, so we told her that just at the end of the mission to hoist the bags to the second floor the conveyor stopped working. She walked to the room under the stairs and flipped the breaker and the bloody thing started right up!

They named the football field after Harmon and numerous foundations shot up in his name. In his compelling accounts of the Vietnam War. Gene R Dark dedicated his book The Brutality of War to Harmon Bove. The images are so vivid that they tear me apart thinking about my beautiful cousin, who's courage and kindness serve as my reminder all these years later. It was March 4th 1970 he was 10 days short of his twentieth birthday on a foreign soil, Quang Nam Province in South Vietnam. It seems surreal to me but I'm sure not to the men who stood beside him. In the many tributes I found about Harmon, One of the men that served next to him said "he just wouldn't stay in the rear"

 



 

Apple Time and Tonya

 

As promised here is a little more complicated apple celebration, but worth every minute of the preparation. The Mustard Fried Pork is a traditional southern dish done on the plantations and always with venison, so feel free to substitute the venison if you have it. My brother and his family serve it every Christmas Eve.

Mustard Fried Pork Tenderloin on Apple Compote with black pepper cider sauce

This dish can all be prepared ahead of time.
 

Ingredients:
2 pork tenderloins
1 cup of brown veal stock ( ask your favorite restaurateur if he will sell you a cup or get more and freeze the rest in an ice cube tray)
 4 tablespoons of apple cider jelly
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup crushed black peppercorns
3 lbs fresh picked Vermont apples seeded, quartered and peeled
1/4 cup dry white wine
      pinch of fresh ground nutmeg1/2 cup all purpose flour
      Jar of French's yellow mustard
      oil for pan frying

Mustard Fried Pork:

Cut the pork into rounds 1 1/2 inch thick and lightly pound them. They are tender so no need to pound thin like veal, just a few gentle thumps. Now coat the pork with black peppercorns. Be generous with the pepper( not to worry trust Mrs. Tom on this) Then dredge the pork in the generous gobs of mustard until the meat is totally and evenly coated. Refrigerate at least 3 hours or even better over night.

Fry just before service. In a hot skillet or fry pan pour enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan... heat the oil to fry temperature, test by popping some flour in the oil to make sure it is ready to sizzle. Take the pork from the mustard and dredge through the flour  and into the pan. Fry about 90 seconds on each side.

Apple Compote:

In a skillet melt a tablespoon of butter and sauté the apples  until they have are soft. Add two tablespoons of cider jelly and the white wine, stir until the jelly melts and let it simmer slowly. Pour in the 1/2 cup of heavy cream, stir until the apples are well coated. Season with S&P and nutmeg, reserve warm or at room temperature.

Black Pepper Cider Sauce:

In a small sauté pan combine the cup veal stock and 2 healthy tablespoons of cider jelly. Over a medium high heat reduce until 2/3 of cup remain. Be careful the sides of your pan don't burn because of the sugar in the jelly. Whisk in the butter and a tablespoon of black peppercorns. If it gets too thick add a little warm stock.

Presentation place the compote in the center of the plate and lay the pork around the base of the apple almost standing like an Indian t-pee, then drizzle your sauce around the base of the mixture. I won't tell you to consider sautéing a little warm red cabbage sautéed in bacon fat because the fat police will have my head but the combination is epic!