Tag: meat

Joyce’s Sausage Pinwheels

My brother-in-law Merle was a regional credit manager for Phillips 66. As anyone in business will tell you, a sale is not complete until you have been paid. A credit manager’s job is to see that the company gets paid. This is not always easy. When Merle was transferred to a territory which included Alabama and Mississippi, he learned that the previous credit manager had asked for a transfer.

It seemed that a major petroleum jobber was persistently late on million-dollar invoices. The credit manager was just as persistent in reminding the jobber that Phillips expected invoices to be paid when due. Like one of “those good old boys” from back in the bayous, the jobber announced that he would be tempted to use the rifle hanging in the back window of his pickup the next time he heard another word about paying invoices on time.

I asked Merle how he handled the situation. “Well, the manager I replaced was a nice guy, and he wanted to keep both the customer and our sales department happy. The jobber was one of our biggest customers in the area. But he was earning interest on money that he owed Phillips 66, and Phillips could use that interest too.

“I spent a day looking over the filling stations in the area and decided that he needed Phillips just as much as we needed him, so I told him that if he didn’t start paying on time, I would stop deliveries until he got caught up. We got along just fine after that.”

As a mid-level manager for Phillips 66, Merle was expected to entertain colleagues and their wives from time to time. His wife, Joyce, had the job of providing the food. Here is a simple, savory appetizer that their guests always enjoyed, and Joyce shared it with Jerri.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp. baking powder
5 T shortening
2/3 cup milk
1 lb. pork sausage

PROCEDURE:

Stir the flour, salt and baking powder together in a mixing bowl and cut in the shortening with a fork or pastry blender as if you were making biscuits. Add the milk to moisten the dry ingredients. If necessary, add a little more milk or flour so the dough is moist but not wet.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead it briefly, just ten or twelve turns. Divide the dough in half and roll each half into a quarter inch thick rectangle. Spread the uncooked sausage evenly on the dough. Roll each rectangle as if you were making a jelly roll.

Cover the rolls and chill them for an hour to make them easier to slice. Preheat the oven to 400º.

Slice the rolls into quarter or half-inch rounds and put them a half inch apart on baking sheets. Bake the pinwheels for ten to twelve minutes until they are lightly browned. Serve them warm.

NOTES: Long after Merle retired, he and Joyce visited our cabin at Cable. As we drove Highway 63 north, Merle told us that he had checked a directory of Phillips 66 dealers after he learned that his sister was planning to marry a guy from Hayward. Until we crossed that beautiful river, he said, he had always assumed that Namekagon Oil Company was owned by Mr. Namekagon. The story still makes us smile.

Easy Leftover Turkey Curry

“Someone defined eternity as a ham and two people.” So wrote Irma Rombauer in Joy of Cooking. If you have cooked a whole ham and struggled to find ways to use the pounds of good meat and succulent bones, you will probably agree that she knew what she was talking about.

Jerri and I no longer buy whole hams. Our last one was a twenty pound country ham we brought back from Virginia, and I promised never to do that again. However, she still lets me buy the Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys, and occasionally I pick out a sixteen or seventeen pounder.

Which leads inevitably to another fundamental truth. It is very easy to get tired of leftover turkey before it is all eaten. Yesterday we finished the last package of leftover Thanksgiving turkey, ten weeks and four days after the bird went in the oven. Now we can start on the remains of our Christmas turkey.

With luck we will have finished them before the Fourth of July. Otherwise we may have leftover turkey salad sandwiches instead of brats and potato salad for our picnic.

Fortunately we have a lot of good recipes for leftover turkey. Here is the one we made with the last of the turkey from Thanksgiving. It tasted so good that I may use the same recipe to start on the Christmas turkey. It makes five or six servings.

INGREDIENTS:
1/4 cup butter
2 to 3 tsp. curry powder
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 T all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
Dash of black pepper
1 can chicken broth (a scant 2 cups)
2 cups leftover turkey, white or dark meat
1 tsp. minced lemon peel
2 T chopped pimiento or red bell pepper
3/4 cup long grain white or brown rice

For garnishes:
1/4 cup cashew pieces
2 eggs
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 flaked or shredded coconut

PROCEDURE:

Clean and chop the onion medium fine and cut the turkey into bite-sized pieces. Wash the lemon and use a sharp knife to shave and mince a generous teaspoon of the zest. Drain the pimiento or chop the red bell pepper into a quarter inch dice.

Start cooking the rice according to directions on the package and put two eggs on to boil. Cook the eggs for five minutes, turn off the heat and allow the eggs to finish cooking for eight or nine minutes.

Melt the butter in a skillet. Add the curry powder and cook it over moderate heat for two or three minutes. Stir in the chopped onion and cook until it is translucent but not brown. Use a wooden spoon to blend in the flour, salt, and pepper. Add the chicken broth and bring the mixture to a boil.

Cook for three or four minutes and stir until you have a smooth sauce. Add the turkey and shredded lemon peel and bring the mixture back to boiling. Remove it from the heat and stir in the pimiento or red bell pepper.

Peel and chop the eggs and put small dishes with the eggs, cashews, raisins and flaked or shredded coconut on the table so guests can choose the garnishes they want.

Serve over rice with a salad and bread.

NOTES: Naan bread goes really well with curries.

Substitute brown rice for the long grain white if you want a more nutritious meal. The curry goes well with either kind. Brown rice takes longer to cook, however, so start it before you begin making the curry.