Tonight's Dinner

So do you ever find yourself with ingredients and no recipe instead of taking a recipe and shopping for the ingredients?

That's where today found me.

Last week, when Hurricane Ike struck, my friend Ashley gave me several packets of venison meat that her brother had given her a while back. She is not a fan of venison and her freezer was about to defrost without power ( I, however did have power!).

One of the packages was a section of jalapeno link sausage. YUMMY....!!

I had defrosted it a day or two ago with no real plan in place to prepare it.

As today progressed, I decided that I should probably use the sausage, so I began a search for a recipe in which to use it without having to go to the market to purchase anything additional.

My first stop is my standby foodie site http://www.epicurious.com/. As I searched their site, several pages of recipes using linked sausage popped up.

One of the first ones that sounded interesting was Potatoes and Sausage with Parsley.
Its a traditional Irish recipe and it sounded simple, comforting and I had everything in house to prepare it.


Ingredients

3 to 3 1/4 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 onions, cut into 3/4- to 1-inch pieces
1 pound breakfast sausage links, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 bacon slices, coarsely chopped
1 14 1/2-ounce can beef broth


Preparation

Arrange potatoes in bottom of heavy large saucepan; sprinkle with 1 tablespoon parsley. Top with onions; sprinkle with 1 tablespoon parsley. Top with sausage and bacon. Pour broth over. Season with pepper. Bring to boil over high heat. Cover pan. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer until potatoes are tender and sausage is cooked through, about 40 minutes.
Uncover pan. Boil until liquids are slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons parsley.

So it sounded simple, I had everything and I was ready to relatively soon....

My only reservation was my opinion that most of the Irish dishes that I have had were bland and limited on their depth and complexity of flavor. Remember, however, that the sausage was jalapeno flavored venison. So my fears of being bland were limited.

This dish was really quite good. It was warm, comforting and filling. The preparation was very simple.

I think the only misstep that I had was using more broth than what was required. The difference was that it was more of the consistency of a stew that a dish with a reduction sauce.

If I ever decide to host a St. Patrick's Day party, this item will most certainly end up on the menu of offerings.