Kielbasa Bites

Here comes another super quick party appetizer recipe.,,,Kielbasa Bites!  This dish takes only about 10 minutes to toss together and you are done.

Add applesauce, brown sugar, garlic, and red pepper flakes to a bowl and whisk it up

Dice up an apple and cut kielbasa into bit sized pieces, add to the bowl and mix it up

Transfer all that to a slow cooker and set to high for 6 hours

The amounts in the recipe fit perfectly into my mini 1.5 qt slow cooker, but if you have a bigger crowd you can easily just adjust the amounts and use a larger slow cooker.

Here is your recipe:

• 1 pound kielbasa (cut into bite sized pieces)
• 1 apple (diced)
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 clove minced garlic
• pinch of crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

• mix applesauce, brown sugar, garlic and pepper flakes in a bowl
• add apple and kielbasa, toss to coat
• add mixture to slow cooker and set to high for 5 hours

Thanksgiving....with a twist!

Today I'm melding two things i love, Italian food and Thanksgiving!

The only time I have trouble sleeping at night is when I get recipe ideas running around inside my head, this happens to be the latest one, I call it Thanksgiving ravioli.  I am going to call this dish a success and it even received a stamp of approval from one of my official taste testers.  Now after reading this post if you are left thinking "I really want to learn to make my own fresh pasta"...you are in luck because I just so happen to teach classes on how to do it!

Now let's break it down...

A few days ago I roasted a couple turkey legs and made some cornbread stuffing, these will become the ravioli filling, those parts weren't nearly exciting enough for pictures.

I added some of my homemade kale powder to my fresh pasta dough...

Next I spaced out some of the chilled scoops of turkey, stuffing and cranberry that I prepared ahead of time on the dough...

Then covered them up with the second sheet of pasta, pressed out the air and started stamping out ravioli...

After letting the ravioli hang out in the freezer for a bit it was time to give them a quick 4 minute bath in boiling water...

After they finished boiling, drop them into a skillet with a little gravy and some reserved pasta water to thin things out a bit and they are ready for the plate....

Finished things off with a little fresh minced sage and cranberry reduction.