Singletree Farms Polish Smoked Sausage

J&B Sausage Co. (also known as J Bar B) in Waelder, Texas produces Singletree Farms Polish Smoked Sausage.

This isn't their best product. I have doubts that I would even call it sausage. To their credit, I should mention that J Bar B also makes product for Earl Campbell, who puts out a spicy cajun style sausage I like in cajun rices.

This Polish smoked sausage, however, isn't really anything more than a long hotdog. If you need something to put in a footlong hotdog bun, this ought to do the trick.

It's quite a stretch, though, to call it Polish smoked sausage, especially in Texas where people know what Polish smoked sausage is. This is a hotdog. It tastes like a hotdog and it include chicken, pork and beef products. The chicken, and the notation that it's "skinless" is a dead giveaway that it's a hotdog.

I usually offer a recipe for some dish to make with a sausage I'm reviewing. But I will trust that you know what to do with a hotdog.

Learning about Colombian "chorizo"

Mr. Paisa Colombian style chorizo is made by Jim Food, a Venezuelan-owned company based in Miami. This brand name sausage is packed in Opa-Locka, Fla.

I am reluctant to call this a "chorizo," as that is a type of sausage name I reserve for Mexican or Spanish style sausages that are spiced and colored with some variety of dried red chilis.

It would be easier on consumers if Jim Food would call this "salchicha," also an acceptable Spanish words for sausage.But for Colombians (and I suppose Venezuelans), this is chorizo.

It has a different flavor profile, one that I had to experiment with. Since it is uncooked meat, I treated it like a Mexican chorizo, took it out of its casing and grilled with a little canola oil and some shallots, red hot pepper and mushrooms.

The result was palatable, but it wasn't great. Anyway, this is the dish:

According to Wikipedia, Colombian sausage is traditionally grilled and served with a side of arepa, which is something like a corn pancake with a gooey mozzarella-type cheese in the middle.

I found a really good looking recipe at GlobalGourmet.com. This one involves preparing a Colombian salsa called aji rojo. I'll have to try it sometime. It looks very appetizing.

Mr. Paisa is a rather ambiguous sausage. It says it has pork, green onions, spices and powdered garlic, among other things. The ones I cut open revealed a very coarse pork meat and pork byproducts. I wouldn't do that again. And I'm not to crazy about powdered garlic versus using fresh ingredients, but since there isn't any choice in Colombian sausages (you'll have to go to New York to find South American custom butcher shops), this will have to do.

The Colombian recipe at GlobalGourmet.com says Colombian sausages use garlic, green onions, cumin and cilantro. I've no way of knowing if Mr. Paisa had cumin, but it did have something.

I don't recommend chopping up this Colombian chorizo unless you've got some kind of sauce or salsa to put on it. Hence the aji rojo. Cut open and grilled, it dries out and its flavor profile as a stand alone is not impressive. But, guess what?

This sausage comes in a natural casing. You can just grill it a long time on a low heat. My third attempt at a tasty meal was my best effort. I had a pot of smoky, spicy red beans and that made the difference.

The sausage was grilled on low heat. Just kept rolling it around and kept it simmering. Again, I went with mushrooms, red hot chili and shallots for my veggies, but this time I had a pan that I poured the beans into and cooked them with the beans (red beans that were cooked with a chipotle chili, fresh chopped garlic and salt).

I boiled until the bean soup water that came with the beans was slightly reduced and I had a thicker, saucier gravy-style "soup" in the pan. It helps to mash the beans a little with a big spoon to spread the starch of the beans into the water.

I didn't cut open the sausage until it was cooked on all sides and served onto the plate. Now this is a Latin-style pork and beans!

Buen provecho.

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!

Palacios from Spain: OMG! This is so good.

I'm not often pleasantly surprised with sausages that I don't buy from Texas or Mexico, but I have to say this Palacios Chorizo Picante is 'oh my God' good.

I found a 7.9-ounce Palacios sausage at a Publix grocery in downtown Fort Lauderdale. I'd never seen it before and I was curious, so I tossed it in the cart and kept moving.

This is an import. It comes from La Rioja, Spain. That's a rural area to the far north that really isn't close to anything people here might have heard of except for maybe Pamplona. Yes? No?

The ingredients are about as simple as sausage ingredients get: pork, paprika, salt, garlic. It says it's all natural and has no preservatives; I guess salt as a preservative doesn't count in Spain?

Whatever. Did I mention I really liked this sausage? I mean really. This simple recipe is to perfection. Just the right amount of everything. I would totally buy this one again. It says it's "hot" but I didn't find that to be the case.

On the other hand, I paired it with a homemade guacamole that had some spicy poblano pepper as an ingredient, so that might have masked its heat. But I don't think so! Not that I'm holding that against it, obviously.

This meal! It turned out really well. I'd rank it in my Top 10 of all the meals I've blogged about to date. And it's so simple! Let's start with cooking a pot of brown rice. That will take 45 minutes to boil, so don't even bother starting the protein portion of your entree until you've had the rice cooking for about 30 minutes.

But here is what you can do in the meantime. Take a quarter section of a Florida avocado (those big light green ones), and a quarter section of an average size tomato, and about a third-cup's worth of fresh onion, a tablespoon-sized section of poblano pepper and a thin slice (less than quarter-inch thick) section of lime.

Put all this in a blender, except for the lime section; just squeeze the juice out of that into the blender. Add about four good shakes of salt, put the lid on and blend. Now put your guacamole in the fridge.

Here's the Incredible Trio: a two-inch length of Palacios sausage, one egg and two healthy looking scallions.

By the way, these proportions are a meal for one. Double the quantity if you're inviting company.

Heat a sauce pan. Put your section of sausage on a cutting board and dice it up fine (almost to pea size bits).

Now that your sauce pan is warming, pour in about a third-cup water and a slice pat of butter and then toss in the sausage and get it to diffuse its grease and reddish coloring (paprika) into the water-butter mix.

Quickly chop up the scallion. Just as the water boils, toss in the scallion and stir a bit. Do not let your fluids dry out, make sure that heat is medium.

You want just enough grease and moisture to crack in the egg, so it doesn't stick. Toss the yolk or don't, depending on your taste and health concerns. Stir until the egg is no longer watery.

I served the rice on the bottom from center to one edge, and layered the chorizo-egg-scallion over the rice.

Guacamole is on the side. I had mine with a porter beer, but I could see going with a red wine or sangria or just a fruit flavored water.

What do you think? Come on! You've gotta try it.

Buen provecho!

Fish & smoked sausage noodle soup

I can't say it enough, it doesn't take a big budget to make a big budget meal.

A can of sardines, a package of smoked sausage, some chopped onion and a packet of shrimp-flavor Ramen noodles and you're there.

Whoa! Did I say Ramen noodles? Okay, now I know (I know!) there are people out there that went through some lean times and were stuck eating Ramen noodles every day. I've heard about them. I've even heard it said some have sworn that once they started making a living wage they would never, ever, ever, ever ... EVER! eat Ramen noodles again.

Okay, so to you Ramen noodle haters -- hey, I felt that way about pizza for years -- I say to you, pick a different noodle. But my point is this is a low-budget meal.

So, calm down. Let's get started.

Open one can of sardines packed in olive oil; how painful was that to your wallet? Chop some onions, the quantity depends on whether you're cooking for one person or two, and whether either of you really likes onions, or not so much.

For the sausage, we're going to use Meyer's Elgin Smoked Sauage with Garlic. Why? Because I can, or could until I ate my supply of Meyer's. But any kielbassa style sausage with garlic will do.

Meyer's is called Meyer's Elgin because these sausage makers are from Elgin, Texas and Texans tend to identify Elgin with sausage. Their website is called 'cue-topia because they like to make cute with the word barbecue, as in the Utopia of BBQ, and not to be confused with Utopia, Texas, which is 177 miles southwest of Elgin and an entirely different story altogether.

Boil the Ramen noodles with the shrimp flavor seasoning and chopped onions. That takes, what, seven minutes? Now take your diced sausage bits (one or two links, depending on how fond you are of meat byproducts) and toss them in the soup, let that simmer for a couple of minutes to get the grease flowing.

The last item to go in is the sardines. You just want to heat the sardines, so turn the heat off and let the heat you already have simmering do all the work. This should take all of 60 seconds.

And serve!

Now don't that look great? It's righteously tasty, too.

Notice that I didn't even break up the sardine. It's about as whole as I could get it coming out of the can.

Oh, yes, and there's a salad involved. I made a big salad. It had romaine lettuce, tomato, chopped bits of dried fruit (apricot and plum), sesame seed, garlic croutons, olive oil and a twist of lime juice.

Buen provecho!

Kiolbassa expands Costco distribution

San Antonio-based sausage manufacturer Kiolbassa Provision Co. got into an additional 55 Costco stores in the upper Midwest by the end of July.

Kiolbassa previously sold its products in 17, Costco stores in Texas.

“This is three times as many Costco buildings as we are currently in, so it’s a huge opportunity for us,” said Michael Kiolbassa, president of the eponymously named company. “Our plant is capable of producing probably about 5 million pounds more than we’re producing, so there’s plenty of capacity to grow.”

The recent additions expand the company’s presence into the states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas and Kentucky.

In May, it started distributing at 73 additional Sam’s Club stores in the upper Midwest and in the Southeast. It had been selling at 17 Sam’s stores before then.

Kiolbassa products are now available to about 1,255 stores. The company now distributes in 20 states.

Kiolbassa said the family-owned company has had an annual growth rate of about 17 percent for the past 20 years.

The company’s 25,000-square-foot Texas plant expects to produce 10.5 million pounds of sausage this year.