Andouille Sausage and Peppers

The week began with a list, as most weeks do, and the list got shorter, as most lists do. The week was a summer week, the kind where the light through the kitchen window arrives at a particular angle and the freezer hums in a different register depending on the temperature in the garage. I made notes in my prep notebook on Sunday afternoon, the way I always do: meal name, ingredient list, cost per serving, prep time, freezer instructions. Twenty-eight bags. Two hours and eleven minutes. A little slow this week, by my standards, but Brandon was helping and the conversation was good, and I have learned, slowly and against my own grain, that the conversation is sometimes the point and the time is sometimes a courtesy I extend to my husband for being willing to chop onions on a Sunday afternoon.

The recipe of the week was soy-ginger pork, which I have made some specific number of times in my life and have refined to a system that I now hand to other people in printed form. The version I made this week fed eight, cost under fifteen dollars, and required twenty-six minutes of active prep, which is within my requirements and not a coincidence. The vacuum sealer is the most important small appliance in this house and I will die on this hill. I have stopped explaining the freezer-meal philosophy to people who already follow my work, and I have stopped apologizing for it to people who do not. The philosophy is simple: tomorrow is coming whether you are ready or not. You can either be ready or not. I pick ready.

The children are doing what they do, which is the central report of every week of my adult life. Ethan is 21, in Manila on his mission, and his last email mentioned a chicken adobo so good he is going to make me make it when he comes home. Olivia is 19, at BYU studying elementary education — the path she chose at age seven and has not deviated from once. Mason, 16, is in Brazil on his mission. His weekly emails are short and full of jokes. He does not write much about the work. He writes about the food. Lily is 14, in high school, asking the kind of questions in Sunday School that make the teachers uncomfortable, which I find difficult and also, secretly, admirable. Noah is 12, the comedian, the performer — the kid who does an impression of my disappointed face in front of company, and gets away with it. That is the family report. I do not have a system for these reports. I just listen and remember and call back when I said I would call back, which is most of the time and not all of the time, and the difference between most and all is the territory of motherhood.

Grace would have been 9. I do not let myself imagine the alternate version. I keep her in the facts. I do not write about her every week. I do not avoid her either. She is in the kitchen the way the kitchen is in the kitchen — woven into the structure, not announcing herself, present. The photograph above the stove is the only one of her smiling, and it has watched me batch-prep more freezer meals than I can count, and I have stopped feeling strange about the parasocial relationship I have with a four-month-old who has been gone for years. She is my daughter. The photograph is what I have. I look. I keep cooking.

Brandon is asleep on the couch. The dishwasher is running. The kitchen is clean. That is what counts as victory in a long marriage.

The soy-ginger pork went into the bags on Sunday, but the recipe I keep coming back to when I want something just as fast and just as satisfying — and just as forgiving in the freezer — is this andouille sausage and peppers. It marinades in a savory, slightly smoky base that deepens during the freeze the way the best freezer meals do, and it reheats on a weeknight in the time it takes Brandon to set the table. I hand this one out in printed form too. Tomorrow is coming. Might as well have dinner ready.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs andouille sausage, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
3 bell peppers (red, yellow, and green), sliced into strips
1 large yellow onion, sliced thin
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
Salt to taste

Instructions

Make the marinade. In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, smoked paprika, oregano, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Set aside.
Brown the sausage. Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet or cast iron pan over medium-high heat. Add sausage rounds in a single layer and cook 3—4 minutes per side until browned. Transfer to a plate.
Sauté the vegetables. Add remaining olive oil to the same pan. Add onion and peppers and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 8—10 minutes until softened and beginning to caramelize at the edges. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more.
Combine and simmer. Return sausage to the pan. Pour marinade over everything and stir to coat. Cook over medium heat for 5—6 minutes, letting the sauce reduce slightly and coat the sausage and peppers evenly.
Taste and serve. Adjust salt as needed. Serve over rice, with crusty bread, or on its own. To freeze: cool completely, portion into zip-lock freezer bags, remove air, and freeze flat for up to 3 months. Reheat from frozen in a covered skillet over medium-low heat or microwave in 2-minute intervals, stirring between each.

Nutrition (per serving)

Andouille Sausage and Peppers — The Freezer Meal That Always Shows Up Ready