Carrots with Rosemary Butter

This is a great savory side dish. I serve it alongside chicken 'n' dumplings, pasta, baked chicken...it goes great with just about anything and it's so easy and fast.

Ingredients:

3 c. carrots cut into sticks

1 1/2 Tbsp. butter, softened

1/2 tsp. rosemary, crushed

1/2 tsp. parsley

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. garlic powder

Steam carrot sticks to desired tenderness. Combine spices with butter. Add carrots and toss to coat. So easy, and so delicious:)

Make your own Sausage (Minced Mutton)

This is my first attempt at a blog post...ever. I hope I do not mess up Megan's wonderful blog! I really appreciate all her hard work in keeping this thing going. I use lots of her recipes (the one I keep making over and over right now is Chicken Soup with Lentils ...with brown rice instead of barley. All of my family, even the picky eater, loves it.)

I'm not a big fan of mutton except in its minced form. If you have a pretty good selection of spices, mostly ones you use for Thanksgiving-type foods, you can easily make your own sausage using mutton keema. This is adapted from a Jimmy Dean sausage copy cat recipe.

1 kg mutton keema
2 1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/2 tsp. dried parsley
3-4 tsp. rubbed sage
1/2 tsp. black pepper
3-4 tsp. dried thyme
1 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 1/2 tsp. coriander (dhaniya powder)

Combine all the spices with the keema. Mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate several hours (I usually let it set overnight). If your sausage mixture smells really fragrant, then your spices are probably fine. I usually cook just a tiny portion in a skillet to see if I want to add anything else before cooking all of it.

Cook it, then use it to top homemade pizza, make breakfast casserole, put in sausage potato soup, etc. This makes quite a bit of sausage, so after I cook it I freeze it in several smaller batches. Later I will post a recipe for sausage stromboli that my family loves. Enjoy!
Rachel R.