ginger breakthrough

I think I discovered something brilliant. possibly.

a while back my ginger fell off of the top of the fridge into my freezer. I discovered it about a month ago. at the time, I couldn't think of a reason why I should or should not take the ginger out, most likely because I was contemplating something else, like where I put my jeans. (in the underwear drawer, btw.)

well, tonight I needed the ginger to make spicy sweet potato and coconut soup. the recipe required 2 inches of ginger peeled and thinly sliced. I personally hate doing minced or finely cut ginger because ginger, my friends, is a hairy beast. it is fibrous in such a way that makes it very difficult to slice it with any sort of elegance.

not so with frozen ginger! I was able to cut the knob into slivers of slices. so easy! so simple! I think that, from now on, I will put some ginger into the freezer maybe a day before I plan on using it. it will make my life a much better place.

my only concern is that there is some detrimental effect upon the ginger from the freezing. does anyone know of one? or some other reason why this is a really stupid idea?

penne with sweet pepper sauce and sweet italian sausages

This is another of my dad's old standbys. He actually used to make this at his restaurant. I made it more than a week ago, but I will try to remember the details.

To start off, bought some *sweet* italian sausages at the whole foods. Usually I get little ones - but these were twice the size! I put them in a frying pan with the heat on low. I turn them every 5 minutes or so. I later learned from Kristen that slicing them into quarters lengthwise cooks 'em faster and more evenly. gonna try that next time.

gina marie sliced a whole yellow onion and we also sliced (into long medium strips, not chopped) 2 red, 1 yellow, and 1 orange bell peppers. We added this along with a lot of chopped garlic into a big saute pan with some olive oils and put the heat on low.

once the peppers had softened I seasoned with some thyme and a little pepper. then I added half a can of low-sodium chicken broth and brought it just to a simmer and then turned the heat back to medium. I let that simmer until the broth had reduced a bit and added 1 can of diced tomatoes.

continued to let this all cook on medium low. towards the end I added half a stick of butter to the sauce. just let it melt and stir.



when my sauce was the consistency I wanted, I added some chopped fresh basil at the very end. The following pictures were to document my basil chopping method Stack up some leaves, roll them, then slice the roll-up:



Then I served it over whole wheat penne. (I made too much penne - one box would have cut it - also, generally I wouldn't use whole wheat for this -but it's better for you!) Also, served with parmesan.






Kristen made it awesome by bringing us her favorite bottle of french red. Excellent!




Vegan options: use vegetable broth, veggie sausages, no butter at the end