Sausage, Lentils, Leeks and Rosemary

My mom gave me Cooking with Shelburne Farms for my birthday last year. The author is a parent of one of her students. Shelburne Farms is a specactual public, working farm on the Webb estate right on Lake Champlain, in Shelburne Vermont. The Webb's were rich, probably still are, but at some point, I'm sure taxes were heavy and keeping up the land was tough and so a large portion of the estate has been opened to the public so every Vermont kid in a public school can go there for a field trip three times a year to pick apples, milk cows and watch maple sugar be boiled down into syrup. The main house is now a bed and breakfast and is a true relic of the robber baron era in this country in its opulence, yet it does have a subtle charm that the Vanderbilt mansions at the Breakers in Rhode Island lack. Although immense and no detail overlooked, the house meshes well with the landscape rather than overpower it, a typical Vermont display of wealth. Flashy, but not too flashy. You want to show off your sixteen cars and chandeliers, go to the Hamptons. Vermont is where people have always come to get away from hectic city life, not re-create it with hectic summer party lists and masses of mansions to visit.

The cookbook is what one would expect in a Vermont-themed cookbook. Cheese, butter, cream, cow meat, ham, lamb, apples, standard rural northeastern fare. I was flipping through it yesterday looking for a recipe for apple butter when I inadvertantly opened to a recipe for lamb sausage and lentils. My cupboards were down to the bare bones, almost all my can goods needed replishing, the only veggies I had were a wilted carrot that I could actually bend in half without breaking and half a leftover giant leek. Wondering what in the heck I would do for dinner that didn't involve ordering a pizza here was this recipe with exactly four ingredients, all of which I happened to have. Minus the lamb sausage. I had chicken sausage in th freezer. I do like lamb, but typically only eat it when I'm at a restaurant that specializes in it. It's also wicked expensive. And lamb is a baby sheep. That's also hard on the old conscious.

This nice surprise of a recipe turned out to be a piece of cake. I made it in batches. I finished the lentils and sausage, took a break to play a few games of dominoes with B then we decided to play a few tunes, so I popped it in the oven where it finished to perfection while we rocked out to some Pixies songs.

I didn't switch a thing in this recipe except for the chicken sausage for the lamb sausage. The rest of it is taken right from Cooking with Shelburne Farms p. 88 I'll write the original portions because it serves 4-6, I halved every ingredient successfully, which made about 3 portions.

2 cups small French green lentils
6 cups water
1-2 t kosher salt
2 springs fresh rosemary plus 2 t finely minced
1 pound sausage (the book recommends Merguez lamb sausage, I used hot Italien chicken)
2 medium leeks, white and ligh green parts only, halved lengthwise, thinly sliced and rinsed
2 T olive oil
1 T stone ground mustard
2 T cider vinegar
4 slices bread chopped into coarse crumbs (recommend crusty, country-style bread, I used whole grain, sliced sandwich bread and it still tasted fine)
optional: yogurt to stir into dish just before serving

Place lentils in the water with rosemary springs and salt. Cover and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 20-25 minutes until tender (they'll cook more in the oven). While lentils are cooking, preheat oven to 400. Split sausages open and remove casings. Pour 1 T oil in a saute pan over medium heat, add sausages and cook until brown. Discard all but 1 T of fat in the pan and add leeks. Continue cooking until sausage is browned and leeks are golden. Add cider and mustard and stir. Remove from heat. Drain the lentils reserving 1/2 cup cooking liquid. Add lentils and sausage mixture to baking dish. Mix bread with remaining T olive oil and minced rosemary. Sprinkle over the top and bake about 20 minutes.

Serve with yogurt or sour cream if you want.