The Bison Girl :: a lifestyle of good cooking, good eating & living well

I am so excited today! Today I got to take a pasta dish I've made for a long time and upgrade it to bison! I've long had a Pasta with Sausage and Vegetables that I've made... every once in awhile I would substitute the Italian sausage for little bison meatballs, but it is just so much better with sausage. Well, this summer, we've finally introduced our Bison Italian Sausages at NebraskaBison.com, so I can finally start making this dish with Bison! There it is in all it's colorful deliciousness! And it's pretty straight forward to prepare. Ready? Great! For this dish, I've used the Hot Bison Italian Sausage that we've just released over at NebraskaBison.com. It has no MSG, no added nitrates or nitrites, no added preservatives and is ALL bison meat – no added pork or beef! Start by taking your frying pan and adding about a tablespoon of olive oil to it and turn on to medium heat. Add sliced onion and sliced green onion and 2 ful...

Last night about 8 o'clock I really wanted something I could knead for awhile. I'm certain that I'm in the minority in this, but there's just something about making things from scratch with my hands that is really satisfying to me. And I love kneading dough. It's a great stress / tension reliever... very peaceful for me. So... I went to Barnes & Noble and looked at bread cookbooks and pasta cookbooks and came back with The Pasta Book (Williams-Sonoma) . About this Cookbook I chose this book because in the first section there are detailed instructions AND illustrations for making pasta by hand. Something I've tried to do unsuccessfully a couple times already with the basic instructions that have come along with my pasta machine.  Additionally, this book has a number of tasty looking pasta recipes for using with the noodles you create, as well as even more recipes for cooking with dried pasta noodles. Even further, this book goes into things li...

So, my appetite for meatballs seems to only continue to grow, as you can probably tell from my Instagram feed . And bison just works so great for meatballs. The meat is tasty and it really kicks up any pasta dish. So, despite the fact, that I'm planning a pasta and meatballs lunch with my grandma and cousins this weekend, I decided to try a new meatball concoction for lunch today! I've been thinking about this for awhile, but just hadn't put it into action until now, but I wanted to try out making cheesy meatballs with a bit of a kick - and I really liked how these turned out! As usual, this recipe is super easy, and really doesn't take much... just a little time. And, although I usually bake my meatballs, in the spirit of trying new things, I decided to cook these in my cast iron skillet.

Did you know how very easy it is to have your own fresh noodles the next time you want pasta? I sure didn't! I've thought about getting a pasta maker for a long time, but only recently (when I had a Bed Bath & Beyond Gift Card) did I take the plunge. I bought a decent, $35 hand crank pasta roller and cutter which comes included with a spaghetti and linguine attachment.  Let's start with the finished product. I sure do love spaghetti and meatballs! I did a little research, and over the weekend decided I was ready to give it a try! Since I was going to be using homemade noodles, it didn't feel right putting from-the-jar red sauce over my hard work, so I decided to make a homemade sauce as well. Spoiler alert: I have never been able to make a proper red sauce. I don't know why. I have tried many different recipes and I never like them. It must be my lack of Italian blood. But! I did make delicious noodles (for a first try!) as well as awesome B...