Here’s a menu, featuring kielbasa, that’s sure to warm your taste buds. Kielbasa is the Polish word for sausage. Perfect as an entrée as featured below, also enjoy kielbasa as an ingredient in pasta or rice dishes.
Healthy Choice Polska Kielbasa
Sauerkraut
Parsley Buttered Potatoes
Roasted Glazed Vegetables
Pear halves sprinkled with cinnamon
Apricot Bread
Milk
Coffee or Tea
If you’re pressed for time, try one of our Healthy Choice Flavor Adventures meals such as Apple Glazed Pork Medallions served over white and wild rice with a side of broccoli and julienne carrots, or a bowl of Healthy Choice Chicken and Dumplings Soup with a grilled Healthy Choice Honey Ham and Swiss cheese sandwich on Hearty 100% Whole Grain Healthy Choice Bread.
Warm up your kitchen ... with flavor, fun, and flair.
It is the perfect time to feature the smoky flavors of sausage as the center-of-the-plate meat, or as a flavor ingredient in soups, stews, pastas, and more. Already fully cooked, Healthy Choice Smoked Sausage or Polska Kielbasa makes it fast, flavorful, and easy! Here are some other ways to prepare our fully cooked sausages:
- Roast ‘em! Roast sausages in a 400°F oven for about 20 minutes to make them crisp and delicious. Pierce them before roasting, and turn them to make sure they’re evenly browned.
- Perk up your pasta. For pasta, add sliced smoked sausage to Healthy Choice Pasta Sauce, heat, then toss with linguine or spaghetti noodles.
- Jazz up your soup. A few chunks of smoked sausage taste great in many Healthy Choice Soups: perhaps Split Pea and Ham, Bean and Ham, and Country Vegetable.
- Out of bacon? Make scrambled eggs, omelets, or quiche with chopped smoked sausage instead.
- Perfect partners: sauerkraut, red cabbage, and roasted root veggies make delicious partners for smoked sausage!
Hard-skinned winter squash with its deep-yellow to orange flesh adds to the full flavors of hearty meals. When cooking from scratch, figure that 1 pound of squash makes about 2 cups of cooked, cut-up squash or 2 cups of cooked, mashed squash.
- Slice with ease. To make uncooked winter squash easier to cut, pierce the skin with a knife, then microwave it on high for about 2 minutes. Let it sit for about 3 minutes. Now you’re ready to slice squash into smaller pieces for boiling, roasting or steaming.
- Stuff a squash! Scoop out and discard the seeds and membranes of acorn or butternut squash, then arrange the halves in a casserole dish. Stuff each cavity with a mixture of bread crumbs, chopped nuts, dried fruit or chopped apple, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Pour a little water into the casserole dish, then bake it in a 350°F oven for about 50 minutes, until the squash is tender. Tip: Crumble Healthy Choice Bread for hearty whole-grain bread crumbs!
- Mash with panache! Remove the skin from winter squash, cut into chunks, then simmer or boil. Add a little ginger and a splash of orange juice and mash.
- Got leftover cooked squash? Add it to a hearty Healthy Choice Soup, perhaps Hearty Chicken, Country Vegetable, or Zesty Gumbo.
Sweeten your cooking with the naturally-delicious flavors of different varieties of apples and pears.
- Keep them appealing! To keep cut apples and pears from browning, toss them in citrus juice (grapefruit, lemon, lime, or orange juice). Now they’re ready for fruit salads or garnishes. For a vegetable salad, the acid in the vinaigrette or mayonnaise will keep them from discoloring.
- Add a sweet ‘n smoky flavor. Roast Healthy Choice Smoked Sausage with a mixture of sliced apples, dried cranberries, lemon juice, ginger, and nutmeg. Hint: it takes about 20 minutes in a 400°F oven.
- Combine for crisps and cobblers: sliced apples with sliced pears! For apples, Braeburn, Cortland, Galas, Gravenstein, Rome Beauty and Winesap varieties are good for cooking. For pears, Anjou, Bartlett, or Bosc: they’re all great for baking! Serve crisps and cobblers hot with a scoop of flavor — rich and creamy Healthy Choice French Vanilla Ice Cream.
- Great garnish! Chop a little sweet pear or tart apple as a delicious flavor and texture contrast on pumpkin or squash soup, or Healthy Choice Split Pea and Ham Soup.
Make a sweet switch. Scalloped, mashed, or baked, many potato recipes taste great when prepared with sweet potatoes instead. Use fresh sweet potatoes or canned varieties depending on the time you have for food prep. Be aware that canned sweet potatoes are often called canned yams, in the United States.
For a few quick and simple ideas for fitting sweet potatoes in:
- Simply roast them. Lightly toss cut-up raw sweet potatoes with olive or vegetable oil. Sprinkle with herbs or spices, and roast in the oven until they’re tender.
- Enjoy them as “baked spuds.” Bake raw sweet potatoes in the oven or microwave oven, and top with apple, peach, or mango chutney.
- Make an easy mash. Heat, then drain canned sweet potatoes. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, or ginger, then mash and enjoy!
Click here — for more ways to enjoy the hearty flavors.
