Winner, Winner, Chicken (Sausage) Dinner

Tonight I did Kitchen Challenge, Day 1:  Use a spice you’ve never used.  My spice choice was marjoram.  I’ll admit that I had no idea what it tasted like.  I actually had to look it up and found out that it is very similar to oregano.  Here’s a great website to learn more about it.

I googled a recipe, looking for one that’s easy.  Enter Martha Stuart and her Marjoram-Roasted Potatoes.  Like many recipes I “try,” I adjust them to what I think sounds good (and what I have in the house).  #usewhatyougot In this case, I wanted a full, easy meal and felt like chicken sausage and green beans would be a good combo with the marjoram potatoes. Therefore, they all got tossed into a one-pan (or two in my case) dinner.  Here’s the recipe, which I’m going to name Marjoram-Roasted Sausage, Potato, and Green Bean Bake.

Ingredients:

• 3lbs potatoes (I used red potatoes since that’s what I had)- cubed but not pealed
• 2 lbs chicken apple sausage (I think subbing any sausage you want will probably work just fine- although chicken sausage might be easier to get right now given the current run on staple meats- it’s the ONLY product I had delivered from Kroger out of the 20 item order I received on Sunday)
• large bag of frozen green beans (I buy the steamer packs from Sams and heated these for 2 minutes before tossing them with everything)
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp marjoram (you can also substitute oregano but chances are that’s something you have used before and wouldn’t help you much with Day 1 challenge)
• 2 tsp salt
• pepper to taste

Instructions

• Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees and line two pans with foil (because that’s easier than cleaning them in case your food sticks)
• Cut up the potatoes into cubes (if you haven’t already)
• Cut up the sausage into thin slices (this helps them get more crispy while baking, which my family loves)
• Heat frozen green beans for a few minutes to make them easier to toss with other ingredients.  You could use fresh if you have them as well, probably even canned.
• Toss the potatoes, green beans, and sausage with the olive oil, marjoram, salt, and pepper so they’re all coated in greasy goodness.  I divided this into two separate pans to allow everything to get a little more crispy.
• I cooked these for about 30 minutes and then tossed them and cooked for another 10 minutes.  As I’ve said, I like everything to get a little crispy and browned.  If you don’t want it like that, watch it bake it for less time.

Needless to say, dinner was a hit.  Every one of my children said, “Momma, this is soooo good.”  And, although we’d had a lesson on kindness tonight, I don’t think that’s the only reason they said it because Daddy liked it too.

Kitchen Challenge Day 1 was a success.  Here’s to a successful Day 2 tomorrow.