I won’t soon forget the day we decided to make our first recipe from We Eat Together, the locally-produced cookbook that has been taking Edmonton by storm. A series of unfortunate events took place, involving a garage door frozen open, burst pipes, a flooded garage and ultimately, no water in our apartment building for two days. It was an inconvenience to be sure, but one that in the end reminded us how fortunate we are to have access to clean, running water most of the time.

Fortuitously, the recipe of sausages braised in red wine required minimal water, besides having enough to wash our hands and vegetables. We had picked up a package of leek sausages from Irvings Farm Fresh, as well as a bottle of en Sante Campfire Strong (sour cherry) wine at the Old Strathcona Market the day prior, and had some Valbella pepper bacon left over in the fridge. The recipe was easy to pull together, particularly because the majority of the work was done on the stove unattended, allowing the sausages to simmer and the flavours of the sauce to meld.

The result (even without the jelly, which I only realized we had mistakenly left out as I write this) was fantastic. We ate the plump, juicy sausages straight out of the pan, along with the meltingly tender mushroom and shallots that still had some bite to them. A side of rice would have been great to soak up the sauce, but on that night, we did without. The remaining Campfire Strong wine was, as expected, a fine accompaniment, but more so for me as I found it to have less of the aftertaste I usually associate with red wine.

Leek Sausages Braised in Red Wine

A great cold weather dish, I will be making this again, hopefully with some rice next time!