Dinner at home with my mom

So philosiphizing has its time and place, but I think I'm more interested in talking about the actual food I make and eat. The inspiration for this evening's meal came from seeing mild italian sausage in the fridge and a recipe from a library book pairing meat and fruit. I was already thinking about this when my mom called around 5pm to see what my dinner plans were. It's been a while since I've been home and she wanted to spend some more time together. I told her that if she wanted I would cook and she could come home to share the meal.

I started by boiling a couple potatoes as I knew they would be nice mashed, next to the meat. My parents work at a residential school for handicapped children that has a barn, and the sausage in the fridge happened to be made with the meat from a pig raised there. I cut the long sausage into four sections and poked them full of holes with a fork before tossing them in a pan with melted butter. While they browned I cut up an onion and garlic to have ready. The sausges came out of the pan and went into the oven at about 325.

Now in the butter and sausage grease I sauteed the onions and garlic. Just as they were getting soft I threw in a cup of diced peaches and syrup with just a splash of orange juice and of course a little salt and pepper. I let this simmer for a while before pouring it over the sausages. I added a bay leaf and a little thyme, covered it all and stuck it back in the oven.

My mom had come back with some watercress she picked from the creek behind our house, so while she rinsed it and chopped it up, I fried a little garlic and chopped walnuts in butter. The cress was tossed in with a little salt and pepper and some ground cardamon.

In the meantime I steamed a little broccoli, just for kicks, and finally the potatoes were cooked. So the cress and walnuts went into the oven next to the sausages under peaches and onions, just to keep warm. I mashed the potatoes right in the pot and added a little creamy raw milk, a shake of pepper and some random German herb salt we had in the cupboard. And with the broccoli finished it was time to eat!

We filled up plates by the stove, got a glass of water and ate outside behind the house, looking down on the blossoming fruit trees in front of the firs at the edge of our property, as the evening sun went down. On the plate: Two mild Italian sausages with onion-peach sauce, next to/on top of mashed potatoes, a couple broccoli and a little pile of cooked watercress with walknuts. A nice meal that left us well full, but not stuffed.