Some meals and tastes are so ingrained in my past that to smell an old favourite cooking can take me right back to my childhood. This is one of those meals. It was a recipe that my aunt used to make on request and I seem to recall that it became a special occasion dinner, on the eve of returning to boarding school, or the first night of holidays for both my cousins and myself. Eventually it found its way onto our request list too so Mum would make it for my sister and I. She even made it in huge batches and froze it into bags for me to take back to university one time which made me immensly popular in my student digs!

While Mum was staying with us in the days after Amy was born in 2006, she cooked endless meals that just appeared in front of us whenever we were hungry. Its a wonderful gift to have someone you love prepare food for you when you are least capable of making your own and she really helped Ron and I through the rollercoaster that was Amy's first few weeks in the world. This visit was the same excecpt this time Mum had Amy at her feet in the kitchen! She still managed to make us a wonderful selection of delicious meals and like last time, she left her recipe binder with me so I can add some of our new favourites to our regulars. I will post some of these new recipes but I only had one request this time, sweet and sour sausage stew!

Sweet & Sour Sausage Stew.
The quantities are easily adjustable, more sausages, more sauce, more veg depending on how many you are cooking for and how many leftovers you want. The recipe as it is feeds 4.

6 pork sausages
2 onions
1 carrot
1 capsicum/pepper
1 small cucumber/ can be substituted for a handful of small gerkins if you like the flavour
1 can pineapple chunks

Sauce - I like to double this to make it extra saucy, depends on how much veg you use.
60mls water
60mls pineapple juice
60mls brown sugar
30mls vinegar
15mls tomato sauce
15mls soy sauce
10mls cornflour

Fry the sausages in a casserole pot until browned. Remove and cut into chunks.
Cut the veg into strips and gently fry in the casserole, add the drained pineapple chunks.

Combine all the sauce ingredients in a pot and heat, thicken with the cornflour and pour the sauce over the veg in the casserole. Add the sausages back, stir and put into the oven at a low temp 140degrees for about 30mins until bubbling and hot.

There is massive room for personal input with this recipe, more pineapple juice in the sauce if you prefer it sweeter, more vinegar and the gerkins if you like it sour. I like to double or triple the recipe and add lots more carrot and capsicum and then freeze it into portions for later.

Serve over steamed white rice.