BON APPETITE - A Weekend Treat: Chili with Italian Sausage

             I admit, I'm a fan of chili year 'round. 

This recipe gets its spicy flavor from the Italian sausage.

                CHILI with Okra, Mushrooms and Italian Sausage

Three links Italian hot sausage, casings removed

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium sweet onion, chopped
½ cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 Portobello mushrooms, stemmed and chopped
2 cups frozen corn or two cups canned corn

1 cup frozen okra (optional)

2 - 14 -ounce cans pinto beans or kidney beans
1 - 14 -ounce can diced tomatoes
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream for topping (optional)


Directions:

Fry the hot Italian sausage, breaking it into small chunks and drain.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add chopped onion. Stir in the garlic, chili powder and cumin and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion begins to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms stirring occasionally, until just tender, about 3 more minutes. Add the sausage, beans, corn, okra, tomatoes, 1 1/2 cups water and 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then stir and reduce the heat to medium. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender and the chili is thick, about 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Top with the cheese and sour cream.  Serve with the tortillas if desired.

Lazy Summer Days of July

 I love when July marches in announcing "summer is at its best" with the clean scents of grass, new mowed hay, and fragrant breezes stirring the pines and cedar. The colors of the July flowers are brighter in the sunlight and smell even sweeter after a soft rain. The land is alive with the chirping of birds, the cry of the crows and blackbirds, and the rustle of the squirrels and chipmunks searching for seeds and food.  And oh, what fun it is to taste the first wild strawberries along the roadways or watch children pick daisies while they chant: he loves me, he loves me not!

 

"Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world."  -- Ada Louise Huxtable

WHAT IS SO RARE AS A DAY IN JUNE?

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days. . . 
     --From: The Vision of Sir Launfal by James Russell Lowell

Like a swindler playing shell games, May’s unstable weather finally allowed summer to emerge from beneath its ever changing days and nights of warm to chilly and rainy to clear. The sun climbed higher, chasing the cold from the winds. For those who wait all year to enjoy summers in Pennsylvania, June’s arrival heralds a kaleidoscope of exquisite scents, sounds and scenes.

There is nothing more uplifting than the first smell of clover-scented grass, the delicate fragrance of wild roses, or the aroma of rain-soaked earth mingled with new green foliage. Old, gray weathered barns, tucked among the distant hills, have overflowing mows of sun-kissed, sweet-smelling hay.

If you listen closely, you can hear the rustling of the pines, the singing of a meadowlark or catbird, and the humming of busy bees. In the evening, when summer breezes drift though open windows, they carry the lowing of cattle in distant fields, or the cicadas and crickets conversing on the lawns and in the bushes. Tree frogs and bullfrogs chatter and croak, and far off, a loon or coyote calls in a lonesome voice.

Along the roadways, blackberry bushes bow down with frilly white blossoms that will bear black, sweet, ripe fruit in July. High above, billowy white clouds skip across a sky of robin’s egg blue. In the tall grass, wild strawberries elbow for room with buttercups, daisies, and blue chicory. Mornings bring hummingbirds to perform midair pirouettes among the flowers, and when the sun has gone to rest, bats soar over the treetops and fireflies twinkle as they play a game of light tag.

June is a month when nature’s at its best and the scents, sounds, and sights of summer make us glad we are alive. Oh, “what is so rare as a day in June?”

Springtime in Reverse

“Children hold spring so tightly in their brown fists—

just as grownups, who are less sure of it, 

hold it in their hearts.”
—E. B. White

It’s finicky May when everyone is thinking of sunshine, spring, sowing seeds, and watching things grow. Despite the persnickety weather which plays hide and seek, revealing itself with a rainy, cold, or warm countenance, May is one of my favorite times of the year as the earth bursts forth with its many colors of green.

Traveling north from Texas to Pennsylvania over the last few days, I was able to see spring in reverse through the car’s windows as we flew by the rural countryside of seven states.

When we departed from Texas, the landscape was dressed in lush dark green colors. Mature leaves on the trees fluttered in the breeze. Roses bloomed, emitting sweet, fragrant scents, and verdant lawns gave off the old familiar smell of newly mown grass. The state is approaching early summer with temperatures soaring as the days fly by.

Oklahoma, “where the wind comes sweeping down the plains,” boasted meadows with Herefords and Angus grazing knee-high in the

spring grass. While In Missouri and Illinois—where miles of fields line the highways—crops are just starting to push their tiny heads through the rich soil.

In Indiana and Ohio, farmers on disc harrows kicked up dust as they tilled the earth in readiness for planting, still leery, still on the lookout for ol’ Jack Frost.

As we finally crossed Pennsylvania, we saw a whole palette of green shades—from the early lime green of new growth on the bushes, birch, and willow trees along Route 80 to the rich, dark emerald of fully emerged leaves on maples and fruit trees.

And somewhere deep inside of me, as I watched springtime arrive backwards, the farmer in me begged to be set free. I’m itching to check out the lawn and garden centers, nab a few favorite annual flowers, maybe a few tomato plants, and play in the sunshine and soil for a few hours.

Yes, it's finicky May!