Gaspar's: Since 1923 ... talk about lean

I went to the doctor this week, and one of his staffers, a petite young lady in a blue smock, put me through the indignity of standing on a scale.

After acknowledging the weight gain -NotTellingHowMuch - and going through the 'How do you dos' with a new physician, we discussed exercise and diet, among other things. So, no carbs at dinner time, he says. If you do carbs, consume them before or by noon. 

With that fresh on the mind, I tried a veggie dinner that evening with a small portion of meat. It was okay, but disappointing. Am I going to be disappointed with dinner for the rest of my life? Thinking not.

Second evening after the doctor's visit, I came up with this. It's got carbs, but on a really low scale.

Start with enough water to cover the bottom of a sauce pan. No oil tonight, but there is one level spoonful of starch (Carbs! Yes, I know, but it's just enough to thicken the water. Spinkle in a lot of basil flake and two dashes of soy sauce.

The vegetables:  What we have here is fresh chopped red bell pepper, cabbage, poblano, carrot, onion -- small portions of each. Oh, and one large clove of garlic chopped to bits.

This stews in boiling water-based sauce.

There's also a couple of spoonfuls of diced  tomato and jalapeno that came from a can of Rotel.

The sausage, and this is pure coincidence. I picked a Portuguese sausage, Gaspar's. A smoked sausage from North Dartmouth, Mass., this is one lean link.

I split a link and toss it on top of the veggies to heat it up. Looks something like this, but I'm having trouble with getting enough light in my new kitchen to get a decently exposed photograph (gotta work on that).

This is no Polish-style sausage. I've come across very few sausages this low-fat, and it doesn't even advertise itself as being lean.

One suggested serving size, 2 ounces, has 9 grams of fat and 1 gram of carbohydrate. "Suggested serving size," we know what that's good for. This package is three links at 16 ounces.

So, what I'm really eating, one link, is closer to 5 ounces and just over 18 grams fat.

It's dry, not greasy. But well-flavored, and paired with these veggies in this sauce -- I'm just saying it was a big improvement over the previous night!

I heated two corn tortillas (instead of the usual three or four I might have with dinner). Turns out, it was very filling.

One other thing. I called up Travis Poling -- shout out to an old buddy from San Antonio.  I was at Total Wine, and I needed advice on a good porter ale. Travis writes Beer Across Texas. He's our expert on all things beer, and told me his favorite porter is Meantime, an English brand I could not find at Total Wine.

Second option was Fuller's. That they had. And it really went great with this dish. If you like porters and you're looking for a healthier dinner offering, this should make for a satisfying evening meal.

More about Gaspar's. Manual A. Gaspar moved to the United States in 1912 armed with recipes for making traditional "linguica and chourico."

The Gaspar Sausage Company Inc. has become the largest manufacturer of Portuguese sausage in the country, producing well over three million pounds each year.

Readily available at all major supermarket chains throughout New England, Gaspar's Linguica and Chourico can also be found in parts of New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida and Bermuda.

Buen provecho!

Los Galleguitos: real Spanish by way of New Jersey

I'm open to suggestions on what to do with Florida avocados. 
But that's another topic - more later.

So, two Asturians and one Galician get together in New Jersey in the 1960s and start up Los Galleguitos, a line of Spanish recipe chorizos.  I picked up a package of their 'chorizo primera' at a Sedano's (latin grocery) in Hollywood, Fla.

FYI, the province of Asturia is in northermost Spain. It's on the Atlantic Ocean side and faces the Bay of Biscay.  Galicia isn't too far away, also on the Atlantic side. It has a border with northern Portugal.

To my taste, Palacios (a Spanish import) is still the one to beat. But this one is decent, and by that I'm not sure if I mean I'm beginning to acquire a taste for the Spanish style chorizos or this Los Galleguitos brand is better than average.  I'm leaning toward "better than average," but I am getting used to Spanish chorizos.

There's no mistaking the differences between Spanish style and Mexican style chorizos. Mexican is usually fresh processed and soft; you still have to cook it. Spanish is pre-cooked, hard like a pepperoni and the spice mix is different.

There's something tangy about Spanish-style that takes awhile to get used to. Some are too tangy. I don't know how to describe them more accurately.  They almost have a citrus quality, but I couldn't point to one and say, "Orange!"  In any case, the Palacios won me over because it's so smooth -- that recipe doesn't have so much tang/tart to it.

Maybe another way to describe this is to use wines as an analogy.  Generally speaking, wines with too much tannin are less desirable. That's why wine tasters aerate -- get the wine to "breath" -- before drinking.

Los Galleguitos has that tang, but it's not as strong as I've found in some other brands. In other words, I can work with it.

I'm going for a Cuban sense of order with this breakfast (they like to separate their food items, whereas, Mexicans are more inclined to heap a lot of items together).

Low heat: take your time.  Okay, TRY to take your time.  Maybe you should wait until Saturday? Let the chorizo (chopped) simmer on a grill.  Three or four minutes go by, you're slicing onion, red bell pepper, poblano (you may have noticed by now that I never use green bell pepper), and add that to the heat.

You did put vegetable oil on the grill first?

Parallel to this, on a second heat source, your comal is hot and the corn tortillas as getting a tan. Freckle that flat bread up!

Last on the grill -- but not last on the plate -- is one egg that we'll cook over easy.  Otherwise, it's going to make a mess and confound our "separate but equal" presentation.

I like my eggs over easy almost running, so I flip them pretty quick.  No, they don't break.  It takes practice.

Now, about them Florida avocados. I've been buying them lately because the Hass avocados are so much more expensive here.  I'm used to Hass, never used a Florida until I moved to South Florida.  But they're not as buttery and making guacamole with these things is a challenge.  I think it's because they have more water content and this dilutes the potency you find in a Hass.

I have noticed that the Florida avocados hold up better in the fridge, though. Cover an open one with cellophane and it will last longer than a Hass.

Well, if I come up with a better recipe, I'll share it.  In the meantime, we have guacamole on the side! Pretend it's great.

I sprinkle a hard, salty latin cheese (cotija or something similar) over the egg ... and dig in.

Buen provecho!