SECOND CHANCE NEWSLETTER JULY 20

SECOND CHANCE NEWSLETTER              JULY 20,2003

New Shipment Has Arrived
         This past week's shipment is all on the shelves, with almost all the price tags in place. Come by to see what's up, have a cup of coffee, and visit.

Ebony And Ivory Italian Sausage
(Allen McBroom 8/2001)

Ingredients:
Four mild Italian sausages
Orzo pasta (1 cup)
Asiago cheese (3-4 oz.)
Fresh mint (10 sprigs)
vegetable oil (1/4 cup)
Apple cider vinegar (1/4 cup)
One bell pepper (any color. green used here)
Green onions (three)
Minced/chopped black olives (one 4.25 oz. can)
Sunflower seed kernels (1/8 cup?)

    Prep two plates by sprinkling them liberally with grated asiago cheese and fresh chopped mint. Spread the mint back to the rim of the plate, making a ring around a large, empty center.
    Slice four mild Italian sausages lengthwise (only halfway through, you want them to drain, not split in two), and start them simmering in a large iron skillet with about 1/4 cup vegetable oil. When the sausages are thoroughly browned, add one large sliced green bell pepper (less seeds/membranes) and three large green onions cut in six pieces. When the peppers and onions start to change color, add 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar to the skillet. After two minutes, scoop out the peppers and onions, and let them sit in a bowl to the side. Let the sausages continue to simmer in the oil/vinegar mix.
    Cook 1 cup orzo pasta. When al dente, drain, and mix in a 4 oz. of chopped black olives. Mix well.
    Spoon the orzo/olive mix into the middle of each plate, and spread it out to the edge so it meets the cheese/mint mix. Lightly sprinkle the pasta/olive bed with roasted sunflower seed kernels. Make a slight trench in the middle of the pasta, and put two Italian sausages into the trench. In the space between the sausages, spoon the peppers and onions.
    Garnish each plate with sprigs of fresh mint or parsley.
    The cheese will melt into the edge of the pasta, and the peppers and onions will have picked up a hint of the sweetness of the cider vinegar. The sausages should be cooked to the point where they appear almost dry inside the lengthwise splits. 3

         The orzo pasta, sunflower seed kernels, black olives, and oil are usually in stock at Second Chance Grocery.

Roman Holiday
         One of my favorite old movies is "Roman Holiday", with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. The chance of me taking a Roman Holiday in Italy this year looks pretty thin, but at least I can eat like I'm on an Italian vacation. Second Chance has a whole bunch (i.e., a lot) of Italian style products in stock right now. Some are ready to eat, others are core ingredients.

Sun Of Italy Soups   Minestrone and Wedding Soup are plentiful at the moment. These are traditional Italian soups in a 26 oz. can, and they are ready to eat, not condensed. These big cans are only $1.00 each. These are made by the Pastore Co. of Maryland, which makes only Italian foods. Their website is lacking in information, but they do have some delicious sounding recipes online. Here's the link: http://www.pastorefoods.com/
         If you're as curious as I was as to what "Wedding Soup" is, here's a link that explains it really well: http://www.italianfoodforever.com/recipes/soups/italianwedding.php
         As a matter of fact, this link is on a great Canadian food site called "Italian Food Forever" It's well worth a visit, and it's full of cool stuff and recipes. The link: http://www.italianfoodforever.com

Classico Creations Basil Pesto Good pesto is an essential for any Italian kitchen, and it's expensive to make. Fresh basil, pine nuts, and olive oil make the foundation of this wonderful Italian treat. Classico has made pesto easy, with a 10 oz. jar that SCG sells for only $2.25 (that's cheap). Add a couple of teaspoons to a saucer of olive oil, and you've got a great dipping sauce for fresh, hot bread. (A little goes a long way.) The other night I made twice baked potatoes and added a spot of pesto to the potatoes, and I think they were some of the best I've ever had. (Bake your potatoes, scoop out the skins, put the white part in a large bowl, add sour cream, salt, butter, and a little pesto, just enough to barely alter the color. Mix well, repack the skins with the mix, top with grated asiago or another hard, white cheese, and broil briefly to lightly brown the cheese. Ahhhhhh.....) The pesto is at the front of the second aisle, next to the pasta.

Classico Sun-Dried Tomatoes This powerful sauce is next to the pesto, in the same size jar. A mix of red, sun dried tomatoes, garlic, basil, onions, and red wine vinegar, use sparingly to add flavor to pastas, salads, shrimp, etc. A good article that points out the versatility of this little red jar can be found here: http://www.dxpnet.com/columnists/2-21-1236-1.asp This is an odd site called "Duncan Expose" that I didn't spend a lot of time visiting, but the Recipe Lady part had some good ideas.

Calabria Pasta    We have several styles of Calabria pasta, all of which are imported from Italy. It's all made from Durum Wheat Semolina.
         Orzo (used in the recipe at the top of the newsletter) comes in a one pound box for 75 cents. Orzo is a tiny little pasta, each piece being about the shape and size of a grain of wild rice. Orzo, in Italian, means "barley," but it's actually a tiny, rice-shaped pasta, slightly smaller than a pine nut. Orzo is ideal for soups and wonderful when served as a substitute for rice.
         Campanelle is a flute-shaped pasta, and again, a pound is only 75 cents. A recipe for a no-meat Campanelle dish can be found here: http://www.appletoncreamery.com/recipes/recipe.html
         Many other pasta shapes abound; farfalle, rigatoni, etc. Even is you don't like easting pasta, the shapes are pretty.

Mueller Pasta Mueller is one of the reliable stand-bys in the Southeastern US. Second Chance has many of the familiar pastas in the Mueller brand; macaroni, fettuccini, spaghetti, lasgna, etc.

DaVinci Pasta Another Italian import, DaVinci makes a Variety Pasta package (one pound.... 'magine that) of colored pastas. These are ridged macaroni tubes, some plain (white), some colored with tomatoes (red), some colored with spinach (green), to make the red, white, and green of the Italian flag. A really colorful mix makes a beautiful base for a cream sauce.

Updates
         The Second Chance Grocery website has been updated. The spice list is current as of July 20, 2003, and a complete listing of prepackaged spice mixes has been added to the site. Also, we've been getting letters from some of our customers, so we've placed those on the site, as well.
         We found out from a customer that the Wishbone Asian Sesame Dressing and Marinade has been discontinued by the manufacturer. We have a good supply in stock right now, but when it's gone, that may well be the end of it. We used it this Fourth Of July as a marinade for our shish kabobs, and were very pleased with it. What a drag to find a really good, tasty, affordable item, and then find out it's to be no more.   (*sigh*)

Thanks
         Thanks for subscribing, and for your support.
         If you have the chance, please come by to visit, have some coffee with us, and see what's new. Remember, "Friends don't let friends overspend on groceries."

"...."The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this:...... Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. 'The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
(Mark 12:28-31)

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."
(1 Corinthians, 4-7)

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