Week Night Dinner Adaptation

It's a typical Tuesday night at our house. I'm somehow behind on my "to do" list, but I managed to do some grocery shopping and I have main and side dishes planned for dinner. My friend is suddenly under the weather, so her two daughters are over playing with my older kids. With the big kids occupied, I sneak up to begin dinner prep.  I manage to get all of the ingredients out before the baby wakes up.


I get this guy into a chair, give him some finger foods, and spoon peaches and cereal into his mouth while doing dinner prep at the table. It's multi-tasking at it's best (or worst).

 Hmm..I think I need to use the bibs with snaps instead of aplix.

Tonight's menu involves two relatively simple dishes. The side is a tried and true dish we've dubbed "Green Bean Fries" that needs just three ingredients: 1 lb green beans, 1 teaspoon olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt. Bake at 450 for ten minutes, turn, bake 10 to 12 minutes more. (Borrowed from America's Test Kitchen.)


The second is the Italian Sausage and Red Peppers recipe from the Red Gold Tomatoes website. I adapted the recipe to suit the size of my family and our particular tastes. 
Here's the original recipe:

Italian Sausage and Peppers:

Serves 8

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 34 minutes

Ingredients

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 large red onion cut into two inch chunks

2 red bell peppers cut into two inch chunks

2 green bell peppers cut into two inch chunks 

1 pound italian sausage

1 (28 ounce) can Red Gold Whole Peeled Tomatoes

1 teaspoon oregano 

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

- In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium high heat. Add vegetables; cook and stir until onions are translucent, about five minutes.

- Add sausage and cook four minutes or until sausage is brown. Add Red Gold Whole Peeled Tomatoes, oregano, salt and pepper.

- Cover and simmer for 25 minutes, until peppers are soft. Serve with crusty Italian bread or over noodles or rice

Here are all of the ingredients needed for tonight's dinner (except the one I forgot - more on that later):

The original Red Gold recipe serves 8, so I first cut it in half to suit my family of 4. I then adapted the recipe based on ingredients available at Aldi yesterday morning, cooking time, and my kid's taste buds. I used the milder trio of peppers and kept the sausage the same because I knew that would be the most popular part of the dish. I also used red gold diced tomatoes with garlic and oregano because that's what I had on hand and I thought it would make for a lighter, brighter flavor.


My adapted recipe looked like this:

Sausage and Peppers Over Couscous

Serves 4

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Ingredients

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1 medium yellow onion cut into two inch chunks

1 yellow bell pepper cut into two inch chunks

1 red bell pepper cut into two inch chunks

1/2 green bell pepper cut into two inch chunks 

1 pound pre cooked sausage cut into chunks

1 (14 ounce) can Red Gold diced tomatoes with garlic and oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

1 Box any flavor couscous

Directions

- In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium high heat. Add vegetables; cook and stir until onions are translucent, about five minutes.

- Add sausage and cook four minutes or until sausage is warm. Add Red Gold Tomatoes,salt, and pepper. Stir.

- Cover and simmer for 10 minutes, until peppers are soft. Serve over coucuous.

I'm no cooking expert, but my love affair with Cook's Illustrated has changed the way I cook for the better,  encouraging me to slow down, plan ahead, and prep all the ingredients before hand. I used to miss key things like butter or milk at "room temperature" or have meat cooking and try to cut the onion in time to add before the meat overcooked. Prepping saves stress and time in the long run. Trust me.

Here's a step by step of my process. I'll admit that I only had a rough plan as I went along, but this is what adapting a recipe is all about!

 I cut the peppers, then rinse them to get all the seeds out.

 These are still a bit big at this point, but I eyed and trimmed as I went. Putting the peppers and garlic in a bowl together makes it easy to just dirty one cutting board and dump them all in the pan together.

 Next comes the onion.

 All done. I love it when a recipe uses mainly fresh ingredients, but doesn't have a long prep time!

 You want to trim your green beans ahead of time, rinse, then dry before adding olive oil.

 This guy came along to sample the sausage while I prepped. I got a picture of him, but not of the sausage!

 You can add aluminum foil to minimize mess. I forgot. Taking pictures distracted me a bit. Mix beans, oil, and salt together with hands, then add to the oven. Flip after 10 minutes. Cook 10 minutes more.

 Cooking vegetables, I realized some chunks were a bit big.

 I cut them and cooked until onions were translucent.

 I added sausage. Mine was precooked, so it didn't need to brown, just warm.

 I added the tomatoes and a generous sprinkling of salt and pepper.

 I covered and cooked, but would not do this next time. I think warming through would be enough, since I liked the tomatoes firmer in this version and they got a bit mushy after cooking. By the way, I"m using my universal pot lid and my cast iron skillet for this recipe. I highly recommend both.

 I used my phone for this recipe and somehow missed the recommendation to serve with rice or pasta. I was tired of pasta and didn't have time for rice, so Parmesan Couscous to the rescue! This takes about 6 minutes to cook and is delicious! You can find it with the rice at just about any grocery store. It's also a great healthy alternative to pasta.

 The finished dish!

I really loved the combination with couscous, offering something different from our usual weeknight combinations 

I love how bright and inviting this version looks compared to the original, one toned dish: 

Looking at the original, I thought we might need cheese to make it palatable for kids, but it wasn't necessary with the colorful, flavorful adaptation.

 Ella even tried some peppers (and liked them)!

 Tim loves the green bean fries so much, he eats them straight from the cookie sheet!

The real miracle - Ezra at a bite or two!


Healthy. Simple. Delicious. Just right for a weeknight meal!

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