Hearty German Feast: Sausage and Mashed Potatoes with Glazed Onions

This week we tantalized our palates with a simple but highly satisfying, hearty meal. As a nod to our growing number of readers from Germany, we enjoyed a large steamy sausage and mashed potatoes with glazed onions. The most time consuming part was boiling the potatoes to creamy perfection. We left them cooking on high heat for approximately 45 minutes and made two potatoes per person. Once cooked, we peeled and mashed them, adding pepper and salt to taste. We bought the potatoes, sausage, and onion at TJs. The sausages that we cooked this week were the jalapeno chicken and the garlic chicken sausages. Both are repeat purchases, highly flavorful.

We cooked the sausages in a pan for a few minutes and then added sliced onions til caramelized to perfection. 
 
Note for our vegetarian fans: one of us is proud to announce her third week red meat free. 


Sorry, no beer for today: only Tazo Chai and TJ's Organic Green Tea. It is that time of the year--with finals approaching, we needed an extra kick of caffeine.

Food for Thought:
Given that this week we've been mostly consumed reading our classmates' drafts, we needed an escape from the banal to the fantastic in the form of Gunther. For those unfamiliar, Mr. Gunther is best known (to us at least) for his wonderful lyrical piece, "Ding Ding Dong," a masterpiece from his album "Pleasureman." Keep Gunther in mind next time you get the urge to reach out and touch someone's tralalala.

What's coming up? Feasts of the Russian and Latin American persuasion and much more! 

Curry Chicken with Rice and Avocado

 After a short respite from the blogging world due to a conference call in the northeast, we are back with a cooking vengeance. Since our travels prohibited a trip to Trader Joes this week, we made due with the contents of our freezer where we discovered with delight a hunk of curried chicken waiting to be devoured. Bought during a previous shopping frenzy at Trader Joes for a little over $6, it cooked quickly after thawing. We accompanied the chicken with brown rice, also previously purchased in a TJs in the northeast. The rice took just as long to engorge itself in its pan as the chicken took to come...to fruition, about half an hour (wink), don't be jealous. We further added to the flavor of the meal with some avocado slices, bought on sale at TJs. The creamy texture of the avocados contributed to how smoothly the food went down.
 
Overall, the chicken was not as delicious as the previous blogged about mojito salmon but it gets points for being easy to make and for its intense flavor. We would definitely repurchase it and recommend it for a quick and healthy meal after class. The entire meal took no more than 30 minutes to complete. Thaw the chicken in advance for faster preparation, but we don't mind taking our time, nice and slow.

What's on Tap?
This week's beer selection was a big disappointment. Again found in the interstices of our fridge: Oktoberfest by Josephs Brau Brewing Co. was very bland. Good for light beer drinkers, perhaps, but overall not very satisfying. ** stars (not disgusting but certainly not worth repurchasing)


Food for thought:
On one of our numerous drives, we discovered a song on the radio, Mr. Saxo Beat, by Alexandra Stan. The lyrics perfectly resonate with our current academic lifestyle that requires taking dance breaks to restore energy. As Gramsci says, studying is a job and a very tiring one.

You make me this,
Bring me up,
Bring me down,
Playing sweet,
Make me move like a freak,
Mr. Saxo Beat.

What can we make of this? We are not quite sure besides its literal connotation but we are subjecting it to intent analysis as we type, rigorous analysis, like children studying a dead thing, again from the wisdom of Nino, aka Gramsci.