With Polska Kielbasa and a few simple ingredients, you can make a quick and delicious dinner that everyone will love. At one point in life I was in between houses and my BFF was kind enough to let me crash on the futon in her spare room. During this extended sleepover, my bestie Laura introduced me to her Kielbasa Pasta and I’ve been a fan ever since. A simple fresh meal that tastes great and makes awesome leftovers.

Ingredients:

1 13 oz. package of Polska Kielbasa

Large Onion (chopped)

2 cloves of Garlic minced

Large Green pepper (chopped)

Large Tomato (chopped)

One box of dry Pasta (Rotini works best)

Colby jack cheese shredded

Slice sausage on the bias and chop onion into medium sized pieces. Heat a large frying pan or dutch oven with a bit of olive oil. Cook sausage, onion, garlic, covered until onion is translucent. Add chopped up green pepper. Start the water for noodles. Add diced up tomatoes to the sausage pan when you add the pasta to to the water. Stir sausage mix while pasta cooks. When pasta is finished, drain and add to the sausage mix and remove from heat. stir to coat pasta. Plate pasta and sprinkle cheese on top. (I’m a cheese hound and get generous with it).

Sometimes you gotta go with whatever pasta you have on hand. Bowties are OK but Rotini is better.Also fresh mozzarella works great in lieu of shredded cheese. Laura says you can swap out pasta for potatoes too. This is just one of those great recipes you can make your own.

Kristmas Krak was my dad’s favorite Christmas snack. He would make a huge batch and bring it to every party and give it out as gifts. Enjoy your new addiction!

Ingredients:

1 box of Kellogg’s Crispix cereal (12 oz.)

12 oz. (2 – 6 oz. tins) of cashews

1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter (do not use margarine!)

2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed

½ cup light Karo syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon baking soda

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 250 °
2. Mix dry ingredients in a very large bowl.
3. In a large sauce pan, slowly melt butter then whisk in Karo syrup, and finally, the brown sugar.
4. When well blended, bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute.
5. Add vanilla and baking soda
6. Beat vigorously until light and frothy.
7. Pour Saucepan mixture over the cereal/nut mixture and gently stir to thoroughly mix together all the ingredients .
8. Spread mixture onto two large cookie sheets lined with parchment paper; gently breaking up the large clumps until you have a fairly uniformed layer on each pan.
9. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring the mixture every 10 minutes.  Swap the rack position of the pans each time you return them to the oven. Not doing so may result in one tray over-baked and one tray under-baked.
10. When mixture is completely cooled, transfer to the Krak to air-tight storage containers.

I’m thinking about doing cute mason jars full of the stuff as gifts for my UPS guy, folks at work and other friends. Merry Christmas everyone!