Care Package

I'm going to a friend's house tomorrow to see her new baby and visit for a bit!  And of course, bringing the new mom of two some goodies......chicken tortilla soup and a pan of brownies. 

The great part is, I made the soup a couple of weeks ago and froze half of it, and still have some homemade tortilla strips.  Add a sandwich bag of shredded Mexican cheese an an avocado, and that's one less meal thst they have to make.  Because really, not much cooking going on for the first month of having two kids.  Ask me how I know.  ;)

Chicken Tortellini Soup

My first from-scratch soup made without a recipe!  Ta-Da!

First, I boiled a whole chicken.  Yep....just threw it in a pot with some onion, carrots and celery and filled it up past the chicken.  Oh, and I added plenty of salt, a small handful.  I'm usually guilty of not seasoning enough.  I boiled that chicken for about 45 minutes, then took it out and carved it.  And by carved, I mean pulled the meat off barbarically.  :)  I threw it back in the pot with some sauteed peppers and onions and cooked tortellini.  Lastly, I tossed in fresh baby spinach leaves.  Voila!  Lunch, with a ton of leftovers.  The only thing that I thought that it could use was some mushrooms.

Can't wait to make some homemade soup again.  This weather certainly calls for it.

Weekend Warriors

What a weekend in our kitchen.

First, let's talk about this pizza for Saturday lunch.  I had no idea that ricotta, arugula and caramelized onion would make such fantastic pizza toppings.  Unfortunately, you can't reheat pizza with arugula on top, because it wilts.  So we had to eat it all, tough break.

I made stuff for our freezer.  Three freezer bags of ratatouille, and this time I salted the eggplant slices first a la Alton Brown.  It definitely got some of the moisture out, making the finished product less "mushy."  It'll go great with a starch and a little grated Parmesan later.

Then it was time for a magic trick....turning a $4.23 whole chicken into two meals and then boiling the carcass for chicken stock.  (Thank you, rapidly approaching "sell-by" dates!)  And honestly, it didn't take very long.  I just sauteed some aromatics (in this case a whole sliced onion, a couple of carrots and some celery ribs) and added the carcass, covered with water and let it boil for an hour.  I'll strain the fat off the top tonight and put it in the freezer for some delightful chicken soup at a later date.

Now, I've got some overripe bananas to turn into muffins, and yesterday we went apple picking.   Thinking about what to make!  

Snow-Day Soup

While walking around the grocery store last week I got a weird craving--butternut squash and apple soup.  It was totally the power of suggestion, after hitting the produce aisle.

Then I got the flu and didn't get to making the soup until a week later.  Still, it was hot and delicious and went well with a grilled cheese sandwich for an easy Sunday lunch.  Made enough for the freezer AND sent some to my parents today.  :)

A Cheesy Day

Today's recipes are courtesy of my trolling around on Pinterest.  Cheesy Potato Soup and Spinach, Chicken and Pasta Casserole.

First up:  the soup.  The first instruction is to cook a pound of diced bacon.  OH YEAH!!!  The chopping was almost theraputic today, onions, celery and garlic and then, potato all having a turn on the cutting board.  Brian got a new peeler set for Christmas, and I didn't realize until today just how DULL our old one is!    It took forever to cook the potatoes because I didn't cut them up small enough, making our lunch a very quick one at that because we had movie plans.  It was delicious though, and there's enough for leftovers AND the freezer.  Hooray!

The casserole was good, but a bit of a pain to make.  The only reason it was a pain was our lack of planning, though.  Brian browned red onion in the oven while I defrosted chicken and frozen spinach.  And I'm making a decision:  no more frozen spinach in casseroles.  Or maybe at all:  why would you put yourself through squeezing all the moisture out of it with paper towels if you don't have to?  Peeling chopped spinach out of a paper towel is tedious, next time I'll just wilt some fresh spinach in a skillet and add it later.  The cheesy part of this casserole that I liked best was adding 8 oz of chive and onion cream cheese to the pasta, chicken and spinach.  It melted beautifully and combined with a can of diced Italian-style tomatoes to make a thick "sauce."  And the mozzarella cheese melted on the top was pretty fantastic, too.

Sausage Soup

What does one do with their newly honed knife skills?  Make a soup that requires lots of chopping, of course!

This is an Italian-style sausage soup, with garlic, onion, spinach, tomatoes, pasta and cannelloni beans.  The grocery store didn't have two pounds of sweet sausage, so we bought one hot, one sweet.  Even the stock was homemade this time!

It was a good soup, and made a ridiculously large pot.  I brought some to a friend who's due with her first child, a boy, any day now.

So that is three of the four soups on my Day Zero list.  The last one will be clam chowder.  Brian and I both adore a good clam chowder and have never made one.  Then there will be one more thing to cross off the list!

Steel Skills

On Thursday night I took a knife-skills workshop.  I've always wanted to take one, since my husband likes to poke fun at me because I used to only chop with a steak knife.  I'll be honest, I was pretty apprehensive of anything bigger!  As time went on Brian helped me get more comfortable with chef's knives but I still could use some more skills.

The workshop was 90 minutes long and was part demonstration, part hands-on.  I learned how to hold a knife so that it is an extension of your arm and isn't has hard on your hands.  I learned the proper way to dice  peppers and onions, and how to cut an onion with a little less crying.  (NO crying isn't an option for me.)  I also learned the correct way to cut up avocados and mangoes, two foods that I love but avoid because of the messy prep.  No more!

There were six people in the workshop including me, and together we chopped and made a tomato salsa and a guacamole with mangoes.  Delicious!  I came home with a big grin and a little leftover guac, and was thrilled to tell Brian how much I loved it!  He's taken a class there before, and now we want to do a Couples Night sometime.

Tomorrow night I'm making soup.  And I can't wait to chop all the veggies....by hand!

Soup#2: Bacon Corn Chowder

With the arrival of fall comes the cool air that makes me want to have soup.  So last weekend seemed like a good time ti to make a second soup in order to work on my Day Zero list.

This recipe came from Taste of Home online, but I found it on Pinterest.  It's a very simple recipe, and doesn't have a ton of leftovers.  The ingredients include celery, bacon, potatoes, cream style corn, onion, milk and salt/pepper. The first step, sauteeing the bacon, onions and celery on the stove made the house smell incredible. It came together quickly and made a nice lunch for a cool Sunday.  I did add a sprinkle of smoked paprika before serving to give it that extra oomph.

Italian Wedding Soup

From my Day Zero List, or 100 Things in 1,001 Days:


71.  Make four different kinds of soup from scratch that I have never tried to make before.


Soup #1:  Italian Wedding Soup


Got the recipe from allrecipes.com.  I've had this soup before and it's pretty simple.  Just spinach, mini-meatballs, mini shell pasta, chicken broth and diced carrots.   I briefly considered adding a can of cannelloni beans, but I know that Hubby doesn't like beans and I wanted him to eat some of this soup.  Plus we have a rule around here, the first time you make a recipe you do it as-is.  The next time around, if it's worth keeping, is when you tinker.  I'd say we obey it about 80% of the time.


 The most challenging part was dicing the carrots and making the meatballs.  I used to make my own meatballs to go with spaghetti and sauce all the time.  I'd make them just like I used to watch my mother make them:  mix the ground beef with bread crumbs, herbs and egg, roll out, and fry in oil.  Now she and I both buy the kind frozen in a bag, because they taste good and are really a timesaver!  As for the carrots, I don't have a ton of experience cutting up veggies other than coarsely chopped.  Hence, the reason for #42.  take a “knife skills” cooking class.

So there you have it, Italian Wedding Soup on a chilly winter day.  No wedding required!  

Autumn-in-a-Bowl

Last year, we had lunch at a friend's house in Pennsylvania while visiting family for Thanksgiving.  We had grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches, on french bread with sauteed peppers and onions, and butternut squash and apple soup.  Well, *I* had the soup.  Brian dislikes butternut squash with the passion of a thousand suns.  (Good.  More for me.)  Since then, I've craved the soup but haven't found it anywhere.

So while shopping yesterday, I decided to do something about that.  I know that no one else in my house likes butternut squash.  And you know what?  I don't care.  I can freeze some, and give some away.  Sometimes when you want something you just want it.  And I really enjoy making soup, there's something quite satisfying about chopping up ingredients and simmering for hours.  Simmering for hours????  This time, I let the crockpot do it for me.

So at BJ's Wholesale, I grabbed two boxes of already-cubed butternut squash.  (butternuts are difficult to peel, so if "Green Giant" did the work for me, I was all about it!)

The ingredients.  (Not pictured, six cups of  chicken broth)

The recipe didn't call for sweating the onions in butter on the stove.  However, onions sauteed in butter is one of my absolute favorite smells in the world, and doing so doesn't take away from the recipe.  Saute away!

Everything into the crockpot, and set for 5 1/2 hours on low.  At that time, the spices go in.  I added allspice and cinnamon as the recipe called for, but didn't have cloves.  And I couldn't resist a little tinkering:  a bit of sage and a little ground ginger.

Then it was time for it to be blended together.  A stick blender is a really handy thing, especially one that can be dismantled for the dishwasher.  :)

The end result:  perfectly delicious butternut squash and apple soup!

I really need to do this again soon....perhaps pork and black bean soup next time.  (Cooks.....we're always looking ahead to the next challenge!)