I’ve mentioned before that my gardening ability is pretty sad to say the least.
Part of that is due to my inability to figure out how much water to dump on my plants, and part of that is due to a thieving squirrel, who convinced me for most of a summer that my tomatoes were vanishing into thin air just before they were ripe enough to pick.
Thank goodness for good friends, local grocery stores and farmer’s markets now that I’ve mostly given up my goals of urban farming.
And with it being the time of year for gardens to begin bursting with lots of great veggies, I’ve started getting really impatient to put them on our dinner table as much as possible.
This week’s recipe is one that Joey and I decided to create while standing in the produce department of our local grocery store last week, so while I’m sure there are dozens of recipes much like it online, we really just made this one up as we went along.
A couple thoughts: if you’d rather make this a vegetarian dish, ditch the sausage and toss in some more veggies. The mushrooms give this a nice, meaty flavor all on their own. Also, once zucchini and summer squash is ready, it would be an amazing addition to this as well, cut into 1/2-inch rounds or half moons.
Summer Vegetables and Sausage
Ingredients
- 2 bell peppers any color
- 8 to 10 ounces grape or cherry tomatoes
- 8 ounces whole baby bella mushrooms
- 3 about 9 ounces bratwursts or sausages of your choice
- 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
- black pepper to taste
- garlic salt to taste
- onion powder to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Wash and prepare the vegetables. Slice the bell peppers into 2-inch by 1/2-inch pieces. Slice the mushrooms in half. Leave the tomatoes whole.
- Slice the sausages into 1/2-inch rounds. (We used a chicken, spinach and feta sausage that was out of this world.)
- Line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil and spread all the ingredients out on it. Drizzle with olive oil and then sprinkle on your seasonings.
- Use your hands to coat the ingredients in the oil and seasonings and spread everything out into as much of a single layer as you can.
- Bake for 12 minutes and then give the ingredients a stir. Bake for another 12 minutes or until the sausage is done all the way through and the tomatoes are starting to burst.
- Serve immediately.
We had leftovers of this and ate it a couple nights later after mixing it with a little marinara sauce and serving it over spaghetti. It was awesome.
There wasn’t much spring to enjoy this year, but at least that means summer gardens can get underway.
For my part, I’ll stick to keeping some flowers alive this year and get my veggies elsewhere. That sneaky squirrel will have to go bother someone else for his meals this summer.
This piece first appeared in print on May 24, 2018.
Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.
