Maple Breakfast Sausage in the Thermomix (AIP)

I had some pork mince to use up and I wanted something simple and tasty to do with it.  

I found this Homemade Maple Apple Breakfast Sausage recipe 

over on Savory Lotus that sounded good.

As much as possible, I try to use my Thermomix and so I decided to do the beginning steps in that ...

Also, I didn't bother peeling the apple, I used more onion, more herbs and I used smoked garlic ...

Here's my list of ingredients:

500g pork mince

1 small red onion
2 cloves smoked garlic (or regular would be fine too)
1 apple, cored and quartered

a handful of fresh herbs (I used parsley, oregano, chives, thyme)
2 tablespoons real maple syrup
2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp ground sage
(oil for cooking but I did ours on the BBQ so didn't need any oil) 

Here's how I did it (in the Thermomix):

Put the onion, and garlic in the Thermomix.
Chop on speed 5 for 5-7 seconds. 

Scrape ingredients to bottom of bowl.
Add apple.
Chop on speed 5 for 3-5 seconds.
Add 5-10g of olive oil.

Sautee on Varoma temperature, 5 minutes, speed .

Let this mixture cool for a few minutes.

In a bowl, add pork, maple syrup, herbs and ground sage.  Mix well.  Once the Thermomix mixture has cooled to the touch, add to the pork and mix well.

Shape into patties of your desired size.

If cooking on BBQ ... heat it up (we have a gas BBQ and I make sure it is up to at least 200 Celsius).  Once it's heated, put the patties on the hot BBQ and shut the lid.  Set timer for 3 minutes.  Rotate patties (don't flip them yet, just rotate them so that the like 90 degrees) shut the lid. Set timer for 3 minutes.  Now flip the patties. Shut the lid. Set timer for 3 minutes.  Rotate patties again. Shut the lids.  Set timer for 3 minutes. The patties should now be ready.  Just cut one in half and make sure it's cooked through. 

I served with:
fresh spinach

chopped avocado
sautéed onions, zucchini and mushrooms

the mini-me ~ a bella russia original

last night we did pizza night with friends

it is tradition with these friends that you make your signature pizza on your first visit

so, last night ... it was Bel's first visit ... and she pulled off a ripper

THE MINI-ME

she calls it

You will need ...

Pizza dough
Tomato based pizza sauce
Kalamata olives, diced
Red onion, slivered
Feta cheese, finely diced
Broccoli, finely diced
Sun dried tomatoes, finely diced
Fresh parsley
Mozarella

Yogurt or sour cream
Garlic, crushed
Fresh chives, chopped

Here's how you make it ...

Mix yogurt (or sour cream) with garlic and chives to taste. Set aside.

From Bel ... and I quote "The key with the mini-me is the spacing and finely chopped-ness. It is a vegetarian dish from the backstreets of Florence. The recipe has been passed down through families over centuries and was initially dated back to some time near AD250."

Everything after her first sentence may or may not be fictional ....

Using your favorite pizza dough, spread it with a tomato based pizza sauce, evenly space all ingredients (as you will see demonstrated in the photo below). Top with a light sprinkling of mozzarella. Cook in pizza oven, BBQ or oven .... you decide.

Top with garlic chive yogurt ...

Tangy Olive Salad

This was a tangy little salad that I think would be fabulous as a bruschetta ...
on top of a nice piece of toasted turkish bread !!

I enjoyed it the other night as a side dish to tortilla espanola.
Rory thought it was a bit tart.
The kids ... well, my two are such little troopers.
They really do eat everything I put in front of them with very little complaint.
I was surprised to not hear one complaint about the raw onion in this ...
Alia did ask if the red stuff was tomato or capsicum.
Once she knew it was tomato, she had no other issues !!

I used this recipe as a base but adapted it because I couldn't find fresh parsley and had fresh chives in my garden ... Also, I used olives with pimento in them ... next time I won't.

Here's how I made it this time ....

1 cup green olives
1/2 a red onion
a few small spring onions
fresh herbs
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 tomato ( I may add two next time)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses

Chop tomato, onions and herbs and place in bowl with olives.
Squeeze the lemon into the bowl ... preferably using your handy dandy citrus press.
Pour salad onto a plate add olive oil and pomegranate molasses.

Serve ...

Soothing Your Borborygmi ...

Who knew that cinnamon is good for relieving diarrhea, cayenne pepper is good for indigestion, and fennel good for, ahem ... gas. Check out "14 Tummy Soothing Herbs" . You can thank my Mom for this tidbit of helpful information !!

PS - Don't know what Borborygmi is ? Check it out here ....