Sticky pan-roasted sausages

Tonight I was back on track with the menu plan and made the sticky pan-roasted sausages as planned.  This recipe was in the October 2008 issue of GoodFood magazine.  The picture below is from the GoodFood website.

I've added fruit to my dinner before - apricots and lamb, apple and pork, apple and parsnip - but I have never tried grapes in a main meal before so I was looking forward to seeing what they tasted like.  When I think about it I don't think I've ever had them hot either.  The whole meal turned out really nice and the grapes, especially the red onions, were lovely.

I had one slight alteration to the recipe tonight - I had no red wine vinegar in so I ended up using sherry vinegar instead.  The recipe turned out really well and tasted lovely.  The smell of the fennel while it was cooking smelled lovely and I was dying to try it by the time it was ready.

The recipe states that it takes 10 minutes to prepare the meal and 25 minutes to cook it, giving a total of 35 minutes.  However, I found that it was a bit quicker than this.  I put on my sausages and did the prep (cleaning the grapes and slicing the onions) during the first ten minutes while they were cooking, so that saved a bit of time.  I reckon it takes 25 minutes in total if you do this.

We had it with leftover mash from last night which my husband heated up in the microwave.  I confess that the first time it was suggested by my husband that we should heat up mash in the microwave it did not appeal to me at all.  However, I don't notice any difference to the taste and from a practical point of view it works really well when you are trying to get dinner on the table in a hurry.

If I was to make this again I would use red onion as I think it would taste quite nice with grapes and red wine vinegar (or sherry vinegar if I still do not have any red wine vinegar!).

My sticky pan-roasted sausages didn't turn out too badly!

Cost - My sausages came from my local butchers and are their 'jumbo' sausages.  They cost €4.20.  I've estimated the cost of the mash, grapes, onions, fennel, garlic and sherry vinegar at €2.00.  This makes the total cost €6.20 for the meal that I made.

The same as with the gammon steaks, I reckon that you could make this dinner for a lot less depending on the sausages you use.  I know if I had used our butchers normal sized sausages that it would have been cheaper, however, I felt that the jumbo sausages would be better for the recipe given the length of time they are in the pan. 

Sticky gammon steaks

I must confess that ever since I found this recipe and put it on my meal planner for the week I have not been able to stop thinking about it!  So, it was with much excitement that I made the sticky gammon steaks from the Olive magazine issued in August 2005.  The picture is from the GoodFood website.

Instead of using a red chilli, I used some crushed chilli.  While this was quicker than deseeding and finely chopping a red chilli, my main reason for doing it was that I didn't fancy spending €1.99 on a pack of chilli's in Dunnes as I only needed one.

This meal is very quick to prepare and cook - 15 minutes in total - which makes it an ideal dinner for when you are short on time.  To save time with the preparation, you can use crushed chilli as I did.

As suggested I served it with steamed greens (Pak choi as shown in the photo) and some rice.  I broke off some of the pak choi and gave it to the baby to eat as finger food.  He also had a little bit of the gammon, but I didn't give him too much as I was concerned that it might have been too salty for him.

Cost - I am certain before I even start working out the cost of this meal that it is one of my more expensive mid-week meals.  This is because the gammon steaks that I bought  from my local butchers were €4.99.  I know that if I had gone to the supermarket I probably could have picked up some cheaper gammon steaks, however, when I saw the ones the butcher had for sale I had to have them as they were so meaty looking unlike the last gammon steaks I had which were fairly flat and round.  So, before I finish working out the cost of the meal, I would like to point out that this is one of those recipes that you could make for less depending on what gammon steaks you use.

Ok, that said it is time to work out the rest of the cost.  The pak choi was €1.99, the rice was 30 cent, the orange was 7 cent and I have allowed 40 cent for the honey, soy sauce and crushed chilli.  This brings the total to €7.75 for two adults, a toddler and a baby.

Suggestion - I think the same recipe would work quite well with chicken breasts or pork loins instead of the gammon steaks.  Using either of these instead of the gammon steaks would lower the cost of the meal considerably.  Another way of lowering the cost would be opting to use alternative greens instead of pak choi which are quite expensive.  I think that steamed sugar snap peas might work well.

And this is what mine looked like!