OK, last week when I talked about chorizo and its delish soy substitutes, such as Soyrizo.

Incidentally, I called it a Mexican sausage, but I neglected to mention its roots in Spain and Portugal, where it’s a fermented sausage that gets its color from dried smoked red peppers.

In that post, I mentioned a recipe that I’ve been playing with lately. I hope you like it; it’s been a hit around South Whatcom Fire’s Station 22. It’s from a little cookbook my wife got me for our 15th anniversary, only I can’t remember the title and author.

For the sausage, I’ve been favoring the Soy Chorizo at Trader Joe’s ($1.99), but Isernio’s and Hempler’s make good pork versions with very little fat. When you can find it, Haggen and the Community Food Co-op occasionally make their own sausage in bulk, without a casing.

Chorizo and potatoes

Ingredients
1 pound chorizo
2-3 medium potatoes (russet or Yukon Gold), diced
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. oregano
salt and pepper

Directions
Warm a cast-iron skillet over medium heat, and add olive oil. Add the potaoes and fry until about half done, turning so they don’t stick.

Add oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Add chorizo and fry until potatoes are done.

Serve with salsa, guacamole (see recipe at this blog), chopped cilantro and warm flour or corn tortillas.

Variation 1
Increase olive oil to 3 Tbsp. and add 1 chopped medium onion and 2 crushed garlic cloves before adding the potatoes.

Add one chopped poblano pepper and one diced habanero pepper and fry over medium-low until onions begin to turn translucent. Then increase heat to medium, add potatoes and follow rest of recipe.

Variation 2
Once the recipe is complete, pour in 4-6 scrambled eggs. Do not stir, simply reduce heat to low, cover and let the eggs set. Spread top with grated jack cheese, if desired.

I have to admit I’m partial to Mexican cuisine.

Not Taco Bell Mexican, but the kind of food that takes hours or days and marries the wonderful flavors of the Southwest and Mesoamerica.

While I’m a fan of Diana Kennedy, many of her recipes require lots of effort and ingredients not readily available here.

Rebecca got me a simple cookbook and one of my favorite recipes is a simple fry of potatoes and chorizo, a kind of soft sausage. You can get decent chorizo from Isernio’s (Seattle) and Hempler’s (Ferndale), but they lack authenticity. The real McCoy is peasant food, made of such ingredients as (ugh!) pork snouts, lymph nodes and salivary glands.

But it tastes great.

Recently, in an effort to cut fat and cholesterol, I picked up a package of Soy Chorizo, $1.99 at Trader Joe’s. It looks and tastes just like the real thing. There’s also another brand, Soyrizo, that’s available at the Community Food Co-op for $3.49.

Best of all, it passed the firehouse test, drawing raves from Saturday night crews at Station 22.

I’ll post the recipe and its variations next week.

My apologies to those of you who written, wondering where the heck I’ve been for the past two months.

It’s been a busy several weeks for me here, what with vacations and lots of work generated by the snowstorm, the flooding and the inauguration.

And writing my column for Take Five.

Anyway, I had another one of those Caesar Cardini moments last week and thought I’d share it.

You know the story of the Caesar Salad, right? Cardini had people stop by and all he had in the fridge was — you guessed it — Romaine lettuce, eggs, croutons and Parmesano Reggiano.

So I had a duty shift last Saturday, 1800 to 0800, and my partner’s wife and young sons were going to drop by Station 22 for a bit. I wanted to make something interesting, and what I could find was some Isernio’s mild Italian sausage and some fresh yellow and orange sweet peppers.

Inspiration hit.

I put the sausage in the freezer for a couple hours so it would be easy to cut, then sliced it and put it in a deep-sided fry pan (cast-iron skillet would work) with some olive oil, a whole chopped onion and a couple cloves of chopped garlic.

Add fresh-ground black pepper and salt to taste.

Let that fry for a bit over medium-low heat. Then seed, core and chop two sweet peppers (red, yellow or orange … not green). Add those to the pan and continue frying.

Take a 28-oz. can of whole peeled tomatoes (or 12 fresh Roma tomatoes that have been blanched, skinned and seeded) and pulse the tomatoes in a blender until smooth. Add a 6-oz. can of tomato paste and blend that, then add the mixture to the fry pan and add a teaspoon of dried basil.

Let simmer, covered, for 20 to 30 minutes.

I served this over Basilla whole-wheat penne rigate. It was good with the Kraft Parmesan we had at the station, but was even better reheated the next day for lunch with some grated Asiago on top.

Here’s the ingredients, listed for ease:

1 package Italian sausage (about a pound)
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
3 tbsp. olive oil
28-oz. can who tomatoes( with juice)
6-oz. can tomato paste
2 sweet peppers (red, yellow or orange)

Two of the best side dishes for the holiday I’ve ever made came from “Fresh From the Farmer’s Market” by Janet Fletcher, a San Francisco Bay Area writer and chef. The book makes use of the region’s seasonal foods. I have made several recipes from her book and they are always fabulous.

The book was out of print for a while, but was reissued this year. Here’s a link to the book at Amazon.com.

A can’t-miss pair of side dishes is brussels sprouts with walnut oil and mashed potatoes and parsnips. I am a huge fan of parsnips’ complex flavor and the vegetable pairs well with potatoes in this recipe. It’s a bit heavy on the milkfat, but what the hey — it’s Thanksgiving.

They go very well with turkey, especially if you roast the bird generously wrapped in bunches of rosemary and/or sage.

These two dishes are sinfully easy to prepare. And you will swoon over them, I guarantee.

Brussels sprouts with walnut oil

Ingredients
1 lb. brussels sprouts
1 T. unsalted butter
1½ T. walnut oil
2 T. chopped Italian parsley
2 T. minced fresh chives
salt and pepper

Directions
Place butter, walnut oil, parsley and chives in a serving bowl.

Trim sprouts and cook in a pot of boiling salted water until tender, but not falling apart and mushy — say 10 minutes. Drain and return to pot.

Cook over low heat for a few minutes, until water evaporates from pan but don’t burn the sprouts. Shake the pot or stir while heating.

Place sprouts in the serving bowl and toss. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Whipped parsnips and potatoes

Ingredients
1 lb. parsnips
¾ lb. russet potatoes
½ C. heavy cream
2 shallots, minced
1 T. chives, minced
2 T. unsalted butter
salt and pepper

Directions
Peel potatoes and cut into ½-inch pieces.

Cut the parsnips lengthwise and remove the core, then cut into ½-inch pieces. Cook until tender in a large pot of boiling salted water — say 8 to 10 minutes.

Simmer cream, shallots and chives in a small pan for a minute, then keep warm without simmering while potatoes cook.

Drain parsnips and potatoes and place in a mixing bowl. Beat with an electric mixer, adding cream mixture and butter. Season with salt and pepper.

Now that the election’s over, I have a little breathing room and can catch up on a few posts that have been piling up.

First, a shoutout to James Valentine, corporate executive chef for Haggen Food & Pharmacy stores, who won a nationwide competition and was honored at the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival for his pear ravioli recipe.

According to a press release from Haggen, Valentine presented a demonstration of how to prepare his recipe – Northwest Anjou Pear Ravioli with Vanilla Chardonnay Buerre Blanc – during the festival at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Fla, in late October.

Here’s more of Haggen’s e-mail to me:

Valentine’s recipe won this year’s USA Pears recipe competition for chefs representing grocery stores.

His ravioli filling features Northwest Anjou pears with ricotta and mascarpone cheese. Valentine’s recipe includes directions for making ravioli pasta from scratch, as well as creating a buerre blanc that blends chardonnay wine with heavy cream and a whole vanilla bean.

It’s not surprising that the winning pear recipe came from the Pacific Northwest. Combined, Oregon and Washington comprise the nation’s largest pear-producing region. They produce approximately 84 percent of all fresh pears grown in the United States, and more than 94 percent of all winter pears (non-Bartlett varieties such as Bosc and Anjou). They also account for 92 percent of America’s fresh pear exports.

For more information about USA Pears, click on www.usapears.com.

Valentine is the corporate executive chef for Haggen Inc., which operates 33 supermarkets in Washington and Oregon under the Haggen Food & Pharmacy, TOP Food & Drug and Larry’s Market names. Headquartered in Bellingham, it is the largest independent grocer and sixth-largest private company based in the State of Washington.

For more information, visit www.Haggen.com.

NORTHWEST ANJOU PEAR RAVIOLI
WITH VANILLA CHARDONNAY BUERRE BLANC

4 Servings

Ravioli Pasta
1 Cup Semolina flour
1 Cup All purpose flour
¼ tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Olive oil
2 Large eggs
1-2 Tbsp. Water

Filling
2 Ripe Anjou pears
1 Tbsp. Olive oil
½ Cup Ricotta cheese
½ Cup Mascarpone cheese
¼ Cup Watercress chopped
¼ Cup Toasted Hazelnut chopped
1 tsp.Salt
¼ tsp Black pepper

Vanilla Chardonnay
Buerre Blanc
1 Cup St. Michelle Chardonnay
¾ Cup Heavy Cream
1 Shallot (large) finely diced
¼ lb Butter Softened
1 Whole Vanilla bean split in 1/2
Salt & pepper to taste

Garnish
¼ Cup Toasted Hazelnut chopped
1 Cup Watercress Leaves
8 Anjou Pear Slices

Ravioli Pasta
1.Sift together flours & salt in a mixing bowl.
2.Whisk together eggs, olive oil & water.
3.Form the sifted flour mixture into a mound on a flat surface, then form a well in the center.
4.Pour ½ of the egg mixture into the well, begin mixing with 2 fingers while supporting the mound of flour with your other hand. When egg begins to incorporate add the remaining egg mixture.
5.When all egg mixture is incorporated, kneed dough 8 to 10 minutes until smooth, dusting surface with semolina flour as needed to keep from sticking.
6.Form dough into a ball & tightly wrap with plastic wrap.
7.Let dough rest in refrigerator for 2 hours.
8.Make filling while dough is resting.
9.Cut dough into 2 pieces & roll into thin strips using semolina flour for dusting.
10.Roll pasta to 1/16 inch thick then place small dollops of filling spaced apart enough so you’re able to close & completely seal each piece.
11.Whisk together 1 egg & 2 Tbsp of water for egg wash.
12.Using a pastry brush lightly brush egg wash on outer edge & in between each ravioli. This is the glue that will seal each ravioli.
13.Fold over the outer half of pasta & seal each ravioli making sure there is no air trapped inside with filling, press edges down for a tight seal.
14.Cut strips into individual raviolis.
15.Can be frozen until ready to use.
16.When ready to cook place ravioli into a pot of rapidly boiling water 4 to 6 minutes until tender but still firm.
17.Drain & rinse ravioli, gently toss ravioli with Vanilla Chardonnay Buerre Blanc. Place in serving dish, garnish with watercress, Anjou pear slices & toasted hazelnuts.

Filling
1.Peel pears, remove seed & dice.
2.Heat olive oil in sauté pan, add pears, sauté over medium heat until they begin to soften slightly Aprox. 2 minutes, remove from heat & chill down.
3.Once pears have chilled down combine pears with ricotta, mascarpone, watercress, toasted hazelnuts, salt & pepper.

Vanilla Chardonnay Buerre Blanc
1.Combine the chardonnay diced shallot & vanilla bean in sauce pan. Heat over medium heat, reduce by ½ add cream & reduce by ½ again remove the bean & set aside.
2.Reduce heat & whisk in butter in small pieces until it thickens. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean & add to sauce. Season with salt & pepper.

* Be careful not to boil sauce as this will cause it to separate & break down.