Pueblo Pepper Jack Chowder

(image from jsonline)

Pueblo Pepper Jack Chowder
I found this one while scanning through the Milwaukee Journal recipes and marked it for a future trial.  Hmmm....it was OK.  Anything with Pueblo in the title gets my attention; however, this was medicore.  I like the Flying Star Corn Chowder a bit better, so I guess if I'm going to make something along the creamy and spicy corn soup lines, I would choose that one instead.

I used skim milk instead of half and half and just used regular baking potatoes.  I don't think either of those was the deal breaker in this recipe.  Eleanor isn't going to eat it since it has Pepper Jack in it, so I'll be eating this for a bit.

So...probably not card worthy, but it isn't as bad as some of my soup trials (like the blechy pumpkin and sweet potato and peanut butter adventure). The picture above from jsonline looks better than i thought the soup tasted.

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Chevre, Tomato, and Roasted Garlic Pizza

Anything with arugula is a winner in this house!

This pizza is from the James McNair book, Pizza.

I used chevre, roasted garlic and sun dried tomatoes to top the crust and served with arugula drizzled with lemon juice and sprinkled with salt and pepper.

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Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon Rolls by Alton Brown

It just warms me from the inside to smell these baking in the morning.  The problem with making them the usual way is that it would require me to get up in the middle of the night and do something like punch down the dough.  I have used the artisan bread and rolled that dough like cinnamon rolls to address that a bit, and then I found these. Another good hot breakfast idea with minimal morning preparation.

I didn't make the icing...that seemed a bit too decadent for a weekday.  I may just do that another time....
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Comet Cafe Chili

Comet Cafe Chili Recipe
 I'm a huge fan of chili....as you probably know from last winter.   I found this vegetarian chili recipe to add to my collection.  Eleanor is anti-spice and anti-tomato which is the reason I don't have chili once a week all winter.  It's just not fun to make something that 1/2 of us or 1/3 of us (depending on Paul's travel schedule) don't like. This recipe was so easy...there's really no excuse with recipes like this not to make dinner at home.  It's not too involved, chopping a tiny bit and opening cans are the only skills needed on this one.  Yet, it tastes good and is good for your body.  I made this after a late swim practice and it came together in 15 minutes or so.  Usually I buy white cheddar and grate the cheese myself, but this was a quick effort with cheese right from the package.  It works.  I did add the peanut butter mentioned in the recipe since no one here has a problem with peanuts.  I'm glad that I did because it's what made this recipe a bit different.

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Steeping Leaf Scones-Parmesan Berry

 I have mentioned the Teashop Girls book series in a past blog.  The books are a bit young for Eleanor now, but we both still enjoy them, in part because they are nice stories and in part because it takes place in Madison.

 The second one has quite a few recipes in it.  I always like a novel with recipes!
Parmesan Berry Scones:
2 c flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 c sugar
1/2 t salt (I omitted)
3 T cold butter
1 egg
2/3 c buttermilk ( I used skim milk with a squirt of lemon juice in it)
1 c grated Parmesan cheese
1 c stawberries
1/2 t secret ingredient ( I assume it's tea, I omitted)
1/4 whole milk (I omitted this as well) for brushing the top before baking
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Mix dry ingredients together first then cut in butter.  Stir in one beaten egg and add cheese and berries. Slowly add buttermilk to form a thick dough.  Knead and roll to 1" thickness and cut into triangles or rounds.  Place each on greased cookie sheet (I used silpat) and bake for 12-15 minutes. 

This is a nice combination of flavors....not too sweet.  We have made quite a few of the scone recipes from the book (Eleanor has been really into baking scones), and this is our favorite. 
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Creamy Curry Sweet Potato Soup

I found this recipe in the paper and noted that I would like to try it.  The flavors sounded good to me, and we are huge sweet potato fans in this house.  Eleanor's still recovering from her "Oklahoma diet" which included a bit fewer fruits and vegetables that she is used to having in her diet.  Not that I have anything against Oklahoma, it's just that the strange times the swimmers needed to eat didn't usually involve restaurants with fresh produce.  That's part of why this was a good experience for her....she now knows that she'll have to figure out a way to stockpile a few more nutrients in her room. And that's how you learn that sometimes you just have to eat what's there, even if it isn't what you would normally choose. 

Creamy Curry Sweet Potato Soup was one more recipe for her vegetable recovery week.  I had a huge bunch of cilantro left from something else (more on that another time), so it was the perfect time to make this. 

This recipe is from Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee, a place I have never been not being a casino fan.  I have never been to Oklahoma either, so I'm posting about a lot of things I don't know!  If you don't live here, you'll probably really enjoy saying "Pot-o-watt-o-me".  I know how to say that and I know how to make soup, so I have part of this going on!

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Slow Cooker Chicken and Pasta Soup

 Slow Cooker Chicken (Turkey) and Pasta Soup

I came across this recipe while looking for fun new recipes to try.  I'm usually up for making something in the crockpot, and a bowl full of broth and vegetables seemed to be in order after Eleanor had been travelling for a swim meet.  All those days of food on the road had her craving fruits and vegetables.

I used the leftover turkey from Thanksgiving that I had in the freezer to make this.   I'm anxious to make it again using "regular" chicken since it was a bit too smoky tasting this round.  The flavors were good though, so this one will be a keeper.

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Cream Puffs

Not sure what made us decide to make cream puffs.  They are a bit famous as a treat at the Wisconsin State Fair, but it wasn't Fair weather when Eleanor and I had this idea.  We had been thinking about making these for awhile, so on a recent Saturday with the only post swim practice plan being homework and cleaning, we decided to make these. And since Paul was gone it was more for us:)

We made pudding for the filling (a previous blog post from 7/21/11).  After I photographed these we had the idea of drizzling chocolate sauce over the top. Yea, that was a good idea.

The recipe we used to make these is the one in the cookbook Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook.
1/2 c butter
1 c water
1/4 t salt
1 c flour
4 eggs
Heat butter, water, and salt over medium heat until mixture boils.  Remove from heat.  Add flour all at once.  With wooden spoon stir vigorously until mixture leaves sides pan.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, until smooth.  Cool slightly.  Drop mixture onto cookie sheet (I used silpat) in 2 large mounds.  Bake 50 minutes.  Remove from oven and cut slit into each side.  Return to oven and bake 10 more minutes.  Turn off oven and leave the puffs in the oven for 10 more minutes.  Cool.  


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Sour Cream Apple Bars

Sour Cream Apple Bars

I guess I have been looking through the Ovens of Brittany book lately.  That was my reference when looking for something to make for a recent swim meet while not going to the store for anything.  When I found this I knew I had a match!  All the ingredients in my house and something a bit different.


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Cauliflower Pie

 Cauliflower Pie
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you already know that kohlrabi, celery root, and cauliflower are not favorites in this house.  They aren't disliked either.....but I have found a couple good recipes for each of these will go a long way for everyone's happiness.

I have used this recipe for years, and I decided to make it with some of the cauliflower in the freezer from this year's CSA.  Although I usually am a white cheddar fan preferring it over the orange-ish variety, I have found that this dish needs a bit of color to avoid the dinner being too white, so orange cheddar is perfect in this recipe.  It's recipe that works well with a few substitutions as well.  I have made it with some carrots and broccoli also.

Cauliflower is one of those things that just seems to go better with a little bit of cheese.




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Amy's French Toast

 This recipe is from our mutual friend, Amy.  She's the dirty snowball lady as well as the sausage and corn chowder chef.  She knows that hot breakfast is part of my day, so she passed this recipe on to me.  The original (or her version, anyway) calls for blueberries.  Eleanor has a bit of an aversion to blueberry stained teeth, so we changed this to peaches.  Amy noted peaches were good too.

I have made this a couple times without getting a picture, but I remembered this time.

loaf French bread
5 eggs
1/2 c milk
1/4 t baking powder
1 t vanilla
1/2 c sugar ( I used 1/4 c)
1 t cinnamon
1 t cornstarch
4 1/2 c fruit ( I used frozen peaches pulled out of the freezer right before adding the fruit)
2 T butter, melted (I didn't use)

Slice bread into eight 3/4" slices; arrange in shallow baking dish.
In medium bowl whisk together eggs, milk, baking powder, and vanilla.  Pour over bread turning to coat evenly.  Cover with plastic wrap and let stand 2 hours at room temperature or overnight in refrigerator. 
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Spray 13X9 baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
Mix sugar, cinnamon and cornstarch in a medium bowl; gently fold in fruit until well coated.  Spread into prepared pan; place egg soaked bread wettest side up, on fruit, wedging slices tightly.  Brush tops of bread with butter and bake 20-25 minutes until toast is golden and fruit is bubbling around the edge of the pan.  To serve place toast on plates and spoon fruit over the top.  Amy recommends sprinkling with confectioners' sugar.

I used 16 oz frozen peaches and would use more next time....like two bags maybe.  The recipe calls for 4 1/2 c fruit, and I think it would be better with that much.  The last couple bread slices were a bit dry. 

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Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies with dried cranberries and chocolate chips

So, have you discovered Stumbleupon.com yet? If not, you need to go and start stumbling.  Basically this website allows you to pick interest areas and then you click on the "stumble" button and the computer randomly takes you to websites that might interest you.  Totally addicting, but I have found some fun recipes and some fun crafts.

I received another pie pumpkin in the CSA box last week so I decided to try this recipe that I found while stumbling!  I cooked the pumpkin and then created this cookie dough. They were such a hit, that a second batch was made this week and I remembered to take a picture! Last week I made the cookies with pumpkin, this week I used squash...one more interchangeable use! Hopefully my loyal blog followers aren't getting overloaded on squash recipes...I know that I am starting to think we are going to all have an orange tint to our skin soon :)

This makes a lot of cookies, so I made about 2 dozen frozen dough balls for a later baking...I also added about 1/8 cup of flax seed meal to the recipe(ground flax seed) and the flavor wasn't altered at all.  Enjoy!

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Cranberry Lime Shrub Sparkler

 Cranberry Lime Shrub Sparkler
You have to admit that this sounds a bit intriguing!  I saw this on one of my favorite blogs which was Elizabeth's blog discovery, thebittenword .  These guys take cooking magazine recipes, try them out, and write their opinion of the recipe.  It's fun to see what they're making.

My plan was to make this drink for Thanksgiving.  That didn't happen..just 'cause a lot of things happened that prevented me from putting this together beforehand.  That's OK though since we have regrouped a bit and are now ready to try it. There were things that were  more important and this got triaged down a bit.

Eleanor was home sick the other day.  It was my usual day off, but I didn't really want to leave to run errands or do my usual workout, so I was looking for some home activities.  This had been a couple day run of the bug for her so the house was already clean (relatively speaking).  I had cookies to make for an upcoming swim meet and for an upcoming orchestra concert...that kept me busy.  But, I also had time to make the shrub.  It isn't that involved, but it's just on a normal day my choice is making dinner or making this frou-frou beverage, so I usually go with the dinner option.  This day, I could do both.

The shrub: Eleanor said it made her tummy hurt.  I kind of liked it even though it was a bit vinegary.  Paul had the vodka version and didn't like it.  Anyway, it was a fun experiment into colonial era beverages.


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Minced Pork/Turkey and Shrimp in Coconut Milk

We do like the Thai inspired flavors in a dinner. This is a quick one and gets three endorsements from our house. The original recipe calls for ground pork, but I used ground turkey and it was good.

1 can coconut milk

2 chiles, minced

1 T minced ginger

1 T minced garlic

Put above ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

Stir in:

1/2 lb ground turkey/pork

About a minute later add:

1/2 lb shrimp, peeled and finely chopped

Cook for 3 minutes or so and stir in:

1 T fish sauce

Serve with chopped scallions, cilantro, and limes over rice.

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Snack Mix

Bon Appetit Party Mix
Umm...can you say mediocre?

Admittedly I did not have the Terra Stix, but I think I'm done with this one.  I would much rather have regular 'ol party mix.  I just didn't realize Bugles were so darn salty.  And the peas...not so good.  I had to make two separate batches since the peas were roasted in a facility with tree nuts.  And, now I have a large bag of roasted peas I need to figure out a way to use.

I served this before Thanksgiving dinner since the smoked turkey is a bit unpredictable on its completion time...and we were timing dinner around THE football game (that was the Packers versus the Lions) . In case you don't know, the Packers are undefeated!


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Beet Pizza

I tried the Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day.  It's the variation on the bread recipe. I do like my "regular" pizza dough recipe a bit better but will probably use this on occasion for the quickness factor. 

I have mentioned in previous posts....we are huge beet fans in this house.  Put beets with goat cheese and it's really a winner.  This ideas is in the book; although I did not have quite as many beets as the picture in the book...so I'll have to buy more beets next time.

Eleanor said that she was happy the entire day thinking about this for dinner....it was really good!
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Multigrain Pumpkin Pancakes

This recipe was born because of my overabundance of winter squash. I called them pumpkin pancakes because that seems to me to be a more appealing name than Squash pancakes, but I used winter squash not pumpkin.  I have found that the two are very interchangeable, so you may use whatever you like! These are fantastic and we have gone through 2 batches in the last few days.

1 c flour
1 c whole wheat flour
1/4 c ground flax seed
1/2 c oats(either quick or old fashioned)
4 T corn meal
4 T brown sugar
3 t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
1 t salt
2 c milk
1/2 c pumpkin or winter squash puree
2 T oil
1/2 c egg beaters or 2 eggs

Blend dry ingredients. Blend wet ingredients, add wet to dry and cook on griddle.


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Corn and Sausage Chowder

Blackwolf Run Corn Sausage Chowder
Our mutual friend Amy had a facebook post that she had made this soup.  Elizabeth and I both wanted the recipe.  In fact, I was so anxious to make it that I did an online search for it and found this.

As Eleanor said, it has all good flavors mixed into one bowl of soup.  The sausage was a tiny bit spicy, the potatoes and evaporated milk a bit creamy, and the corn a bit sweet.

I will make this again, for sure!


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Winter Minestrone

 Winter Minestrone with Swiss Chard and Sausage

 I made a huge pot of this the day after I received both Swiss Chard and Kale in my Fall CSA box.  I altered the recipe a bit, adding summer squash and beans from the freezer, also from my CSA earlier in the year. This is a great, hearty winter soup. My daughter was a bit upset at the inclusion of squash and the inadvertent omission of pasta(when I made this, I omitted the pasta because it was going straight into the freezer), but the rest of us thought it was quite tasty! When I serve it next, I will cook some pasta so everyone can add as much as they would like.  A salad and some fresh bread rounded out a great meal.
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Asparagus and Chicken Carbanara

Chicken Carbonara
 Well, this was just an OK recipe. I had two chicken breasts left over from the Chicken Piccata, so I used this as the chicken and otherwise followed the recipe.  The recipe does have a warning that the meal becomes a bit pasty if not eaten right away, and I would agree with this. I don't think I would repeat this as it was too bland for us. Overall decent taste, just not to our liking!





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Buttered Maple Sauce

The waffles were served with buttered maple syrup sauce. Can it get any better than that? I won't even talk about that sugary mess that pretends to be syrup....ugh. I would have my waffles dry before I'd eat any of that corn syrupy mixture. Enough about that artificial food for now.

Just for variety, Eleanor asked me to try the buttered maple syrup recipe, so I did. She found it in the cookbook she gave me for Christmas, All About Breakfast and Brunch.

In a saucepan combine,

1 c maple syrup

1/3 c sugar

Stir constantly with a wooden spoon, bring to a boil and cook until the spoon spins a wispy thread.

Remove from heat and add:

4 T butter

2 T water

Stir briskly until the butter is melted and the sauce is thick and creamy.

Whisk 1 egg in a bowl until frothy.

Slowly whisk the hot syrup mixture into the egg. Rinse and dry the pan and put the sauce in it and stir until thickened.

This just looked too sweet for me...I just couldn't try it. She said it was good...and she swam well that day, so maybe all the sugar was put to good use.

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Breakfast Pizza Cups

Let's see how many times Elizabeth and I can rave over the book, Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a Day!  This recipe comes from their latest book, Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day.  Um, yea, this is a good book too.  It's a tiny variation on the other books.  Although my family prefers the pizza dough I usually make, it does seem like there is room for this one in my cooking repertoire as well.

I made them in greased muffin tins, just like the recipe suggests, and we ended up with these delicious and portable breakfast pizza cups.  Instead of cheddar I used a sprinkling of goat cheese...tasty variation.  I will make these another morning...they were good.
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Shrimp with Apples and Snow Peas

Shrimp with Apples and Snow Peas

The link to the exact page in my recipe book will give you all the information you need on how to make this recipe.  I do remember that I made it years ago, and I had a note on it that said it was good; but, I didn't remember it.  I guess that means it has been a long time.

Paul was gone the night I made this.  I served it over rice and really liked it; however, Eleanor gave it a so/so. 

There is a great description of it on the link, so read it if you're interested.  I liked the creaminess as well as the crunchiness.


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Mediterranean Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Mediterranean Stuffed Chicken Breasts

I found this recipe while doing an online search and thought it would be good for one of those....Sunday night meat and potatoes type meals.  The recipe served as a guide, since I didn't use the dried tomatoes in the filling and used bread crumbs instead of cornflakes.

It was fine...not great....not terrible...just an OK thing to have.  I probably wouldn't put this on any usual rotation but it was fine for a one time dinner.

Hibiscus Flower Enchiladas

Hibiscus Flower Enchiladas
I saw this in the recent BonAppetit magazine and was ready to try it.  I know.  I know.  It sounds really strange, but...whatever it is (different vacation, different workout, different book genre)...I think it's good to go outside the box.  We have an awesome chain of Mexican grocery stores here in Milwaukee, so this was the excuse I needed to go there and get some dried hibiscus flowers.

I know that this sounds unusual.  Some friends have commented that much of my blog is outside their comfort zone for cooking, so this must be way out there...'cause it's even a bit out there for me!  I wanted to make this since it does sound so intriguing.  I think that I would have tried it even before I started blogging, but thinking of recipes for posting just makes me even more adventurous than I was earlier in my life.

The blurb in Bon Appetit talks about this being a Oaxacan recipe.  Oaxaca is on my bucket list for trips, so maybe I'll get to experience this dish in its native place.  It's one of those places that has intrigued me since I read about it in the book The Night of the Radishes.    I like the bit about the flower growing supporting the people too.  Eleanor's violin teacher actually happened upon the night of the radishes a few years ago...very cool!

I noticed the last time we were at Rick Bayless' restaurant  agua de Jamaica was being served  I didn't try it then, but may need to try it now that I bought a couple packs of the flowers. It's just an interesting thing...learning about the hibiscus flower and its use in cooking in other places. I found this link about the hibiscus...don't know that I believe all that is said about it, but I do think it must have some good property to it.  I have to say that I was a bit nervous about it after reading the quote about one man's meat is another's poison; however, I decided to ignore that gem and continue on with my dinner plans.

It's always good for me to head to an ethnic grocery store when I'm feeling in a bit of a rut.  I think that's one of the reasons I like living where I do.  Milwaukee has a bit of small town feel to it...like you can get downtown in a couple minutes and get free on-street parking most of the time...yet there are big city things here too.  We often will go to the Mexican and Asian grocery store on the same trip since they aren't too far apart.  We also have an awesome Italian grocery store and Indian grocery store.  It's fun to browse and to get some ideas.  It's hard to get new ideas if you keep shopping in the same aisles and look at the same cookbooks every week.....

I had a bit of an upper respiratory thing the night I made these, so I don't know if I had a problem from the hibiscus flowers or just from my symptoms...but I felt a bit itchy after eating these.  That does freak me out a bit as I read the quote about one man's meat being another's poison.  I had Eleanor's epi-pen ready to go.  That aside, I did like the taste and texture of these, but I'm not sure what my body is telling me.







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Chicken Piccata

One of the benefits of using RecipeThing.com is that every time you sign in, there is a random recipe on the home page. Recently, it was this Chicken Piccata recipe. The boys love veal piccata with the capers, but Meghan and I would rather not have capers. This recipe was a great option since I didn't "omit" the capers, they weren't part of this recipe!

I used fresh chicken breasts and they pounded out to be huge! Makes you realize how much you are actually eating when you eat a whole breast. In the future I will use Tyson "Perfect portion" chicken as it will be easier to pound out and will be a smaller portion. The kids had been at work together and had each had a snack so instead of eating 4 chicken breasts, we only ate 2...leftovers!

Everyone loved this recipe. I served it with roasted Brussell sprouts and sweet potatoes for a great Sunday meal.

• 2 thin chicken breasts
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 extra-large egg
• 1/2 tablespoon water
• 3/4 cup seasoned dry bread crumbs
• Good olive oil
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature, divided
• 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons), lemon halves reserved
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• Sliced lemon, for serving

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
   
2. Place each chicken breast between 2 sheets of parchment paper or plastic wrap and pound out to 1/4-inch thick. Sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper.
   
3. Mix the flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper in a shallow plate. In a second plate, beat the egg and 1/2 tablespoon of water together. Place the bread crumbs on a third plate. Dip each chicken breast first in the flour, shake off the excess, and then dip in the egg and bread crumb mixtures.
   
4. Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large saute pan over medium to medium-low heat. Add the chicken breasts and cook for 2 minutes on each side, until browned. Place them on the sheet pan and allow them to bake for 5 to 10 minutes while you make the sauce.
   
5. For the sauce, wipe out the saute pan with a dry paper towel. Over medium heat, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter and then add the lemon juice, wine, the reserved lemon halves, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Boil over high heat until reduced in half, about 2 minutes. Off the heat, add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and swirl to combine. Discard the lemon halves and serve 1 chicken breast on each plate. Spoon on the sauce and serve with a slice of lemon and a sprinkling of fresh parsley.

 

Roast Pesto Chicken

Roast Chicken with Pesto and Potatoes from Epicurious

 What could be better than pesto and chicken? This was fabulous! I served it with a side of carrots from the CSA and we gobbled it down. The chicken was tender and very flavorful and the potatoes with chewy on the outside and soft on the inside. 

One change I did make and would do again was to thicken the sauce to make more of a gravy.  I also stuffed the chicken cavity with  a lemon cut in half to help keep the bird moist. This also added a lemon flavor to the meat which was a nice accent to the pesto.

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Pesto Pull Apart Bread

 Another old recipe that I found when reorganizing. I guess being organized has its benefits. I don't think I have made this bread in close to twenty years and I'll have to check with Brian to see if the time frame is true.  If he remembers it, it is less than 20 years since I made it, otherwise, its been over 2 decades.  The good thing is that a good recipe remains the same over time, unlike most everything else!


I made this the night we had Italian Garden Soup, pesto being a common ingredient in both. I did use a square pan and some prepared pesto I had purchased for a last minute recipe that I had to whip up and I didn't have time to make homemade. If I use prepared pesto again, I will definitely use closer to 1/2 cup...or the pesto I used didn't have enough flavor. My batch had little to no pesto flavor, so I think I will try to stick to the original recipe in the future since I have always loved the results.


Ingredients:
1 clove garlic
1/2 t salt
1/2 c firmly packed basil leaves
1/2 c grated romano cheese
1/4 c olive oil

    OR 1/4-1/2 cup prepared pesto
pinch sugar
1 package yeast
1/4 c warm water
3 c flour

Directions:
Mince basil with garlic. Add romano. Place in bowl and gradually add oil, whisking constantly. Set Aside.
Place generous pinch of sugar, yeast and 1/4 c warm water in bowl of mixer, set until foamy.

Mix 2 cups flour with 1/2 t salt. Add to yeast mixture along with  basil mixture and 1 c water. Stir and add 1 cup flour gradually. Knead with dough hook. Place in greased bowl, cover, rise for 1 hour. Punch down,knead briefly. Divide into 14-16 balls. Fit around edge of 14 inch greased cake pan, leave room for rising. Rise 30 minutes. Bake for 35-40 minutes at 375F

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Italian Garden Soup

For those of you watching your waistline, this isn't exactly a low calorie meal, but it is definitely worth the splurge. This recipe has been part of my collection for at least 15 years, but I honestly lost it for a while since my recipes weren't very organized. During my recent reorganization I found it and wanted to make it immediately.

Full of sausage and laced with pesto, this soup is a hearty meal full of flavor. A simple salad and a bit of bread is all you will need and I recommend you double the recipe and freeze the leftovers. Don't add the pasta to the part you freeze, add it when you pull it out later, otherwise the pasta falls apart.


For those of you who shop at Costco, they sell Italian sausage in six pound packages. The day I made this soup I also made a double batch of Italian Gravy(see 9/21/2010 post). These two recipes took 4 of the six pounds...a great way to meal plan and stock the freezer!


Italian Garden Soup


Ingredients:
1/2 lb salt pork, diced, rind removed (can use bacon)
3 onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
8 c chicken broth
2 cans cannellini beans, drained
4 carrots, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1/2 c chopped fresh parsley
1 t dried rosemary
2 T olive oil
1 lb Italian Sausages
1 cup small pasta
2 c shredded spinach leaves
1/4 c prepared pesto
Fresh Parmesan

Directions:
   Saute salt pork in heavy large pot or dutch oven. Add onions and garlic and saute until vegetables are soft. Add chicken broth, beans, carrots, celery, green pepper, parsley, rosemary and bay leaf. Slice Italian sausages into chunks and saute. Add sausages, pasta, and spinach to soup and cook until pasta is tender. Add pesto and season with salt and pepper.
   Serve with parmesan
_____



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Gingerbread Muffins with Lemon Glaze

Gingerbread Muffins with Lemon Glaze
On a recent Sunday Eleanor decided to browse recipes for breakfast ideas.  Although I have fully converted to the hot breakfast idea, it is a bit tricky to come up with new ideas.  As with any meal rotation, we get tired of having the same things, so I was excited when she found a few things for me to make.

The gingerbread was a great idea for a rainy fall morning.  And the lemon glaze...really good.  We were remembering that we had made a gingerbread recipe a few years ago with a lemon cream cheese frosting.  My memory may be a bit foggy, but we are thinking that it came from the book The Tea Shop Girls by Laura Schaefer.  Even if the recipe didn't come from this book, we both read this and enjoyed the story, the setting, and the recipes. After finishing this book we had hoped that there were more by this author...and now there's a sequel.  I didn't know about the sequel until I was typing this blog post; I'm so glad to be blogging so I learned this.  Along those lines, we wish there would be more Callahan cousin books, and more Chicks with Sticks books......  And if we're wishing about books, I wish Eleanor got into the Trixie Belden series, but she never did.  Gleeps!

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Caramelized Onion and Garlic Pasta

 Caramelized Onion and Garlic Pasta

 Recently Brian decided to sign me up for a free preview of Taste of Home. Of course, the free magazine had a bill attached to it, I guess they think I MIGHT pay it to continue my subscription, but I am one of those people that  has stopped all subscriptions, including the newspaper. Anyway, I thought I would take a look and I was pleasantly surprised by the caliber of the recipes. In one magazine I found 4 recipes that made the "try" pile.

I made this on a Sunday night that was the end of a very busy swim weekend and it came together quickly.  I used half leeks, half onions and chopped regular tomatoes since I had them and not grape tomatoes.

The family all liked this but all felt the balsamic vinegar overpowered the dish. In the future I would use red wine. The other comment was that they would have preferred the onion mixture to be more saucy as the onions tended to clump.

This is definitely a twist on a typical pasta dinner...definitely will be repeated.

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Leek Tarts

It must have been a great year for leeks.  Wow!  We sure seemed to get a lot of them in the CSA box this year.  Leek soup seems to be my usual use for them.  I got a huge bunch last week in the box and decided I needed to come up with another use for them. I decided on leek tarts but really made them the easy way by purchasing some puff pastry.  Sendik's looks like the locusts have been through it lately with many items completely off the shelves; I'm attributing this to the Packers winning ways.  For awhile this fall the Brewers were still playing, the Badgers were doing really really well, and our Super bowl champions were winning and winning.  But, I'm not so sure what's going on now...but maybe it has to do with the Green Bay Packers.

Anyway, puff pastry sheets were out of stock but the puff pastry tart shells were still on the shelf, so I nabbed those.  Eleanor hadn't seen those before and thought they were about the most awesome thing.  I baked them and popped out the middles (which she got).  I sauteed leeks in butter slowly over low heat.  When the shells were done I sprinkled a bit of bleu cheese in the bottom and topped them with the leeks.

So, probably the soup is a bit healthier than the puff crust, but we did enjoy these decadent treats!

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Molasses Cookies

Another find in my Taste of Home magazine, these molasses cookies were in an article about baking and sending cookies to our Troops abroad. The recipe is actually called Giant Molasses cookies and it claims to make about 2 dozen cookies. Making average sized cookies, this recipe made just shy of 7 dozen! The recipe is easy to throw together and I decided to bake 3 dozen and freeze the rest.

When I freeze cookie dough I actually make cookie drops, freeze them on a cookie sheet and then put them in a ziplock bag. It is a little extra effort up front that makes cookie a batch of cookies in a couple weeks a breeze.  Below is a picture of the cookie drops ready to go into the freezer.

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Chicken Curry

How is this different than the chicken curry I posted on 10/10? Good question, since they are similar. That recipe comes together a bit quicker but I got this recipe from my friend Linda. I like them both but probably wouldn't make both in the same week. Curry recipes...always good to have a few in this house since we all like curry dishes.

The day before I made this I chopped about 1 lb chicken breasts into bite size pieces and marinated in plain yogurt (no picture since that is a bit ugly).

The spice list is a bit long, so I took a deep breath and combined them before making this so the recipe could come together quickly.

2 t cardamom

2 t cinnamon

1 t turmeric

2 t ground coriander

1 t ground cumin

1/2 t cayenne

2 large onions, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2" piece ginger, chopped

Saute onion, garlic and ginger in 2T oil until soft (about 10 minutes). Add spices listed above and cook 10 more minutes or so.

Add chicken/yogurt mixture and cook another 10 minutes or so. Add 1/4 c or so of water. Add 1 T shredded unsweetened coconut and stir. (The recipe from my friend had 1 chopped tomato added at this point, but I omitted it).

Add 1 T garam masala or curry powder and stir well(see below for more information.

Serve with:

Additional unsweetened coconut

raisins

cilantro

bananas

mango chutney

Also good: Peanuts and sliced apples.

I hadn't made this in YEARS but Paul and Eleanor both liked it (and so did I).

Curry powder and garam masala are both blends of spices, so they are different within each kind depending on what brand you buy. Either one contains some of the spices that I mixed together the previous day. I have read that curry powder and garam masala shouldn't be used interchangeably. I respect that opinion and would not interchange them if I was making an authentic dish. That being said, at our house, when dinner needs to get on the table quickly, I do use them interchangeably...GASP! It seems like garam masala has cinnamon and cloves while curry has turmeric. From my research for this post it sounds like garam masala is used at the end of cooking and curry earlier in the recipe preparation, in general.

The blend of curry powder I used is from an Amish store in Princeton, Wisconsin. When my co-worker Sue goes there to visit friends she likes to stop in the store and typically offers to pick up herbs and spices for anyone interested. It seems like I'm nearly always interested since plastic containers of both are inexpensive and fresh. I will give her a list, receive a plastic grocery bag from her with my requests, and owe her $5.00 or so. The curry blend is tasty too.

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Reorganizing the Recipes

Recently, Karen shared her method of collecting and managing her recipes. I thought it was appropriate that I share my method.

Several years ago, I found myself with a Recipe Card Box, a Recipe Book that was a ring binder, a Recipe Journal that I was given by a friend in France, and an online account at MyRecipes.com.  Whenever I went to find a recipe, I couldn't.  I would have to think back on when I acquired the recipe and usually I would remember which recipe system I was using and I could find it, but I was always searching and was often forgetting great recipes.

To try to streamline the recipes, I entered frequently used favorite recipes into Myrecipes.com. The website has an option to add your own recipes. I also started two other online files, the first held recipes from the website we had tried and liked which I labeled Keepers! and the second was filled with recipes I wanted to try.

Over the years, Myrecipes.com updated their website, but in the process, many of my recipes were duplicated or moved.  I began to have as much trouble finding my recipes with this system as I had with the old system. On our first cold and snowy day last week, I set about to figure out a better system.

First I looked for a new online recipe file for my recipes from all the cards/books I  had with hard copy recipes.  I came upon RecipeThing.com.  I was able to cut and paste my recipes from Myrecipes.com fairly easily. Once I had done that, I emailed all the recipes to myself and created a backup file on my computer in the event the website ever closes.

The next challenge was how to create a database of all the online recipes I have collected over the years, from Myrecipes.com and other websites. Google Bookmarks was the solution.  I was able to make a List on Google Bookmarks and divide it into sections.  The sections were categories, ie Appetizers.

Now all the recipes I have deemed "worthy of a card", in Karen's lingo, are safely housed in one of two locations, RecipeThing.com or Google Bookmarks.  I know if I was given the recipe by someone else, it is probably on RecipeThing...otherwise it is probably on Google.

Now you may wonder what I will do with all the cards/books/journals...I still have them.  I still have recipes I haven't tried that I still want to try. Once I make the recipes, they will either become "worthy" and be entered online, or they won't and the card will be tossed.

While the day seemed to be "wasted" on this project, I am glad everything is more streamlined.  During the process I also came across recipes I haven't made in a while which will help with meal planning.  I also came across some recipes I thought sounded good that haven't been made, so I will have options when I get into a cooking slump.



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Quiche of a Different Kind

I have recently posted about my family's aversion to squash. Unfortunately, I have a lot of squash to use.

On a recent walk with Karen, she told the story of a friend who had her hardwood floors sanded and the company refused to take the sawdust away. Completely ridiculous! Her solution, since she couldn't just dump all the sawdust in her garbage was to add a cup or two to each bag of garbage that made it to the dumpster. Karen's solution to my squash dilemma was to use the squash 1/2-1 cup at a time by hiding it in recipes. Brilliant!

In addition to having a lot of squash to use, also have greens in the freezer to use up and way too many hot peppers. I set to work on a Quiche for dinner. I will admit that as I put this together, I was expecting a complete failure, but it was honestly delicious!

4 strips thick cut bacon
1/2 jalapeno pepper or 1 medium heat pepper
1 cup chopped and cooked mixture of cabbage and red cabbage
1/2 cup pureed squash
8 eggs
1/2-1 cup milk
shredded cheddar cheese
Ready made pie crust.

I sauteed the bacon and added the finely minced peppers toward the end of cooking. After lining the pie pan with the crust, I added the cooked bacon and pepper and the cabbage mixture. I beat the eggs with the milk and then whisked in the pureed squash, seasoning with salt and pepper.  I sprinkled the top with shredded cheddar cheese.

Meghan's first comment was, "you better not have ruined the quiche by adding squash". Even she thought the quiche was very flavorful and she couldn't "detect" the squash except by the color of the egg mixture. I was also a bit concerned about using cabbage(especially red) in place of spinach, but it worked...I wouldn't use more than a cup, but if you have stuff to use up, hide it in quiche!


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Tomatillo Guacamole

Last year the CSA box gave me ground cherries and I made luscious salsa...this year I got a larger variety of the paper-skinned dark shade family, the tomatillo.  I have never cooked with a tomatillo, so I set to work looking for a recipe.

This is from the New York Times and I made a bunch and will freeze some of it. I did alter the recipe by adding about 1/2 of a large onion for a double batch.

Because we like a chunkier guacamole, I only pureed part of the avocado, using a knife to cut up the remainder.

The double batch made about 2 cups of guacamole, the dish pictured above was gone in about 15 minutes.

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Squash, Chickpea and Red lentil Stew

Photo from Eatingwell.com

 Squash Chickpea and Red Lentil Stew from EatingWell.com


 I found this recipe and thought it might be a great way to use squash and get my family to enjoy it...they love lentils and garbanzo beans, so I thought I had a winner. While I found this quite tasty, no one else did. Jack and Brian ate it but Meghan felt it resembled baby food.  I served it over brown rice and because of my squash abundance, I doubled the recipe! The texture is a bit mushy and the flavor leans to the bland side but given the ingredients, this is what I had expected. Jack's suggestion, which I will employ with the left overs, is to add spicy sausage to give it a kick.

The moral of this story is most of my squash will have to be prepared to be used in pies and breads...I will keep those sweet acorns for lunches for me, but I guess the rest just needs to become puree. My version looked just like the picture above, but my kids didn't think the recipe was blog-worthy so they didn't want me to take a picture. To the author of the recipe and the photographer of the photo above, thanks, I thought it was pretty good!


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