Vegetable soup and dumplings (chicken and dumplings for the vegetarian)

I stopped in the store desperately searching for something to serve for dinner. I wanted something seasonal and something that feels like fall. Although the sky is blue and sunny, there is a fall chill in the air that makes me seek warm and comforting food. In the organic section were these beautiful carrots in a rainbow of colors with rich green tops. That was it! I was going to cook with those carrots tonight! I decided on vegetable soup with dumplings.

Making soup in only a few hours is hard because it doesn’t typically build the depth of flavor that I would like. Making vegetarian soup is even harder because meat adds a lot of flavor to soups. Here are a few tricks I've come up with to help solve this problem.

1)      Brown your butter
2)      Add nutritional yeast
3)      Add booze
4)      Add condensed soup

All of these things develop flavor in the soup that otherwise you wouldn't get to experience. Nutritional yeast is exceptionally helpful with "chicken" dishes because it adds a chickeniness that otherwise you'll be missing.

Soup Stock:

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 white onion

2 organic carrots

2 stalks celery

1 1/2 cups vegetable stock (or chicken free chicken stock)

1 tablespoon poultry seasoning

1 tablespoon nutritional yeast

8oz hard cider (4 for the soup, 4 for the chef)

8oz cream of mushroom soup

1 cup frozen peas

In a large dutch oven melt butter on low until pan is preheated and butter is golden brown. Add onions, carrots and celery and cook until they are slightly soft and browned. Add 1 1/2 cups of vegetable stock, poultry seasoning, nutritional yeast and hard cider. Allow to cook until vegetables are tender and alcohol is cooked out.

 

(this is a really good time to enjoy that cider!)

Add cream of mushroom soup, and frozen peas and allow to reach a boil again.
 

While soup is cooking prepare dumpling dough. In Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything he says "You can make dumplings with almost anything even flour and water. But I strongly believe they out to taste like something." I took that to heart when making dumplings adding soup stock and an extra punch of flavor with cream of mushroom soup.

When it comes to cream of mushroom soup I'm also pretty brand loyal to Pacific Natural Foods Organic Condensed Cream of Mushroom soup. This soup is so good that I will eat it on its own! If a condensed soup is so bad you can't eat it straight why put it into food?

 

Dumplings:

4 tablespoons softened butter

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon cream of mushroom soup concentrate

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon poultry seasoning

Stock  (about 3 tablespoons)

Cream softened butter, add eggs and cream of mushroom soup until just combined.

Sift together flour, baking powder and poultry seasoning. Add gradually to egg mixture. Add stock from soup one tablespoon at a time until dough looks like a thick pancake batter.

Add to boiling soup stock by dropping with a spoon and allow to cook covered for about 10 minutes. Flip dumplings and cook uncovered for another 5 minutes until dough is cooked through.

 

There you have it! A house that smells like fall, and a warm tummy from your apple cider consumption. :)

 

 

A Scone story- When mistakes make happy new discoveries.

Last night I made mini cream scones.This was the first time I’ve made scones in my stand mixer was amazed by what quick work it made of scone making. Before scones took forever to mix by hand with knives or a pastry cutter that they were slightly labor intensive, but still worth it. I’m just thankful it’s easier now. I can simply whip up a batch! (If you are mixing by hand, I’ve found the best way to go is to actually use your hands by squeezing the meal through your fingers to make the course meal.)

I’ve also made a mistake by not really following the recipe last night. I’ve made scones so many times that I figured I didn’t really need to read directions, and instead ended up with something kind of new.  A traditional scone requires you to chop the butter into small bits, and blend the chilled butter in with the flour to make a course meal first, and then add the milk or cream to your scone. I made a happy mistake last night by being lazy and not really chopping the butter up as fine, and adding the half and half in too soon while the butter wasn’t exactly incorporated into a course meal. It created scones that had layers akin to “Grand’s Biscuits” only with the flavor and crumb of a scone.  Because we were playing cards I decided it was best to do well of jam in the middle of each scone instead of serving jam at the table. Less mess with all the same flavor. They were gone by the evening end and left me wanting more today. So more I made.

Here is the recipe below:

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons chilled butter (3 tablespoons cut into pea size pieces and 3 tablespoons cut larger.)
1 cup half and half
Jam- either home canned for store bought works, but I find light sugar works best.

Sift together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add in chilled butter and mix a few times until about half of it is a course meal. Add in half and half and mix until just combined. Large chunks of butter will remain.

Turn out onto a floured board and form into four equal round balls. Cut through the center of each ball to divide into 4ths to make mini scones. Either keep triangle shape, or form into rounds and place on ungreased baking sheet.

In each scone make a small well with your index finger and thumb. Spoon in a dollop of jam into each scone. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

 Makes 16 mini scones.

Guess what I did this weekend? It involved me, findout what it takes to make a good mother, and 4 bottles of white wine.

Guess what I did this weekend? It involved me, finding out what it takes to makes a good mother, and 4 bottles of white wine.

 If you guessed starting to make white wine vinegar then you are right! I started down this rabbit hole on Saturday when I decided that I wanted to make raspberry sage vinegar for salad dressing. After looking at several recipes for raspberry vinegar they all required that a person make their salad dressing with white wine vinegar. Funny thing, I’ve never noticed white wine vinegar! I know I’ve had rice vinegar, white distilled vinegar, and white balsamic vinegar but never white wine vinegar.  I checked Costco and Cash & Carry and no one had white vinegar in the amounts that I needed make my salad dressing dreams come true. Then it hit me! I can make my own vinegar! So off I went, first looking for the “mother” but it seems that once a person gets a mother they can keep storing and feeding it, and they don’t need to buy more mothers, so no one in the local area sells vinegar mothers any longer.

I think it must have been amusing to the brew guy to watch the light turn on in my head and say “hey what stops me from using apple cider vinegar with the yeast already in the bottle?” he said to me “See that is why we don’t sell the mothers any longer.” So there I was, willing to add a little bit of apple cider vinegar to my white wine. So off to buy some cheap wine, good old Charles Shaw! But Also I decided to add some cheap Riesling as well to make it lighter fruitier white wine vinegar. It doesn’t matter if the wine costs a lot, it’s more about using what I think will taste decent.  

I started my vinegar with one jar of apple cider vinegar with the mother in the bottom of the jar, two bottles of cheap Chardonnay, and two cheap bottles of Riesling. I poured everything in a glass jar and now we are playing the waiting game. In about 8-12 weeks I’ll have white wine vinegar ready to use in all kinds of recipes. The best part is that right about then we’ll be coming into apple season, and I’ll be able to use my mother to make apple cider vinegar.  It’s also important to cover the crock to protect them from light.

                                                         The couldy color is from the "mother"

The only problem is that I have raspberries that are ready now and sitting in my fridge! I got so excited about the vinegar that I totally forgot about the raspberries. What to do with those before the vinegar is ready? I decided to try a few different things with these berries. The first one is allowing the berries to sit in a combination of white vinegar and water with herbs, the second one is even less vinegar,  and the third jar are raspberries that are being fermented the same way my pickles are fermented. 1 Tsp Whey and a bit of salt.  I’ve added herbs (you are looking at sage, tarragon, and an greek oregino) and garlic to these jars to add flavor. When I tasted the berries today it was amazing the flavor contrast between the jars. The vinegar really zaps the flavor out of the berries and compeats with it. It's the food version of someone screaming really loud when you are trying to listen to music.

Below is a phot of my kitchen (yes it's world's ugliest) and my strange fermented jars that my little girl is growing up thinking is normal and that everyone keeps in their kitchen.  The only problem is that jar is my pickle crock and pickle season is going to be very soon. So it looks like transfering a giant crock of cheap wine is going to be on my to do list today.

A Murder in The Kitchen- Based on a True Story

In a hot kitchen in the middle of summer a woman stood at the counter. She had been in the kitchen for hours, diligently working while her husband was out. She was exhausted, and sweat beaded on her forehead as she thought about what she was going to do. She had been angry for a long time, a quiet anger that no one knew was there, but deep in the pit of her stomach she knew that she could no longer endure anymore abuse.  After years of hoping it was going to somehow get better on its own, she had started to plot her course to take matters into her own hand. This wasn’t a choice she took lightly, and it certainly wasn’t going to make her life any easier but she knew it was something that had to be done and today was the day she was going to do it!

She could hear her husband put his key into the door, that familiar click of the deadbolt retracting. The knob turned and the door was shut gently behind him. She heard the clank of the keys fall onto the entry way table and his shoes drop to the floor as he moved through.   She could tell by the way he stepped that he was in a good mood, as he came towards the kitchen. He obviously didn’t know what was waiting for him just around the corner. She smiled with satisfaction knowing he was in for a surprise. One more step and he would be there.  And then he was there! With a look of shock and disbelief he stood frozen in his steps.

She pulled the hammer back and the kitchen echoed BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!  Deep red splattered across the kitchen counter, spraying in little droplets across her face and apron.  She could hear small drips as they ran down the cutting board and onto the floor. She picked up a bit of deep red flesh and examined it, satisfied with her work, and again she pulled the hammer back BAM! BAM! BAM! She inspected her hands as red streamed down her fingers. She enjoyed the sticky feeling on her hands, the deep inner parts of something now exposed. She smiled knowing that it was done! She has finally stood up to an evil that had distressed her for far too long and breathed a sigh of relief.  It wasn’t as hard as she thought it was going to be.  

She began to clean up the mess as she heard a voice calling from behind her.

 “Wow!” He exclaimed. “That is a lot of cherries honey! Let me help you clean up!”

 She took her hand off the cherry pitter and moved away as he started to dismantle it. It was time to start canning the sweet juicy fruit that started her journey away from the modern food chain.

Oh…You thought there was going to be a murder didn’t you?  In your mind you imagined a woman, taken for granted as she suffered through an abusive and destructive relationship ready to put an end to her abuser. But what you imagined was right! She is a woman who was in a destructive relationship, a destructive relationship with her food supply. A relationship where day after day she consumed food from distant toxic farms and factories, filled with science more than food. And although consumers have made it clear they would prefer their food to just be food, it has not phased the food science industry from inventing, and concealing this frankenfood in our food supply. And in a way there is a murder. In every person who removes even part of their families food out of the modern food supply chain a little bit of this system of abuse is put to death.  

I am happy to be part of this death, contributing every time I am able to pick up real food from local farms, and placing money and jobs back into my local economy. Every time I put food up on my shelves in glistening glass jars of fresh fruit and pickled vegetables my heart is warm with the knowledge of exactly what my daughter is eating. A movement of people that is no more political than it was 100 years ago when our grandparents and great grandparents did it. So today I write with cherry stained hands as I move forward in hopes that someday the memories of store bought jam, and vegetables swimming around in BPA liners will be a distant memory for our family.  So tonight I’m not just making a dish for the night, or an interesting recipe I found, but something much more important. Tonight I’m making food for my family, pure real food that I will store away for the entire year and keep my family fed on fresh real food far after the season has come and gone.

This is 40lbs of cherries canned

Wholesome food, dirty oven- my take on a plum tart.

   While walking through a local produce store I found myself next to a bin of fruit. I reached my hand in, and plucked out a firm and lovely plum. It was obviously not ripe yet, but they were so lovely I ended up with 12 of them. I took them home with intention of family to eat them out of hand. Little girl on the other hand seemed to have the attention to complain about how awful plums are. I now had 10 plums and only I was going to be eating them. Without a doubt they would go bad before I had a chance to eat them, so it was time for a plan B. Plum tart!

I first started out with a recipe from Ina Garten

But as you know already, I can’t follow a recipe to save my life. Faster than I was able to chop almonds I had adapted this recipe into something entirely different. The end result was a rustic tart made with wheat flour, oats and almonds and sweetened with honey. All the favors worked well together, and the wholesomeness made it a dessert that isn't horrible for you.

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees

Crumb topping:

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup oats
2/3 cup almonds diced fine
2/3 cup honey
1 egg
1 stick cold unsalted butter cut into pea size pieces

 Combine flour, oats, almonds, honey and egg and mix either by hand or with a stand mixer. Gradually add butter a little bit at a time until mixture is just combined and has a slight crumble. Because of the use of honey instead of sugar this mixture will be damper then most dough for tarts and crumbles.

Press dough into a 9 ½ spring form pan, or into a well-greased tart pan. Reserve about 1/3 of the mixture for topping.

Filling:

About 7-8 Plums cut into 8ths

I was playing around a lot with how to cut a plum without mangling it beyond recognition and I found the easiest way for me was to cut all the way around the plum into 8ths, and then use my knife to pop the first little segments out. After that it was easier to cut away from the stone and get the plum pieces out intact.

Arrange plum wedges around pan starting on the outside and working your way in. Eventually it will look like a pretty flower, or at least tidy. Then cover up your masterpiece with more dough evenly spread over the plum mixture like you are rolling over the Mona Lisa with a paint roller.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes. This oven is a little bit off on temperature being that it was manufactured by General Motors somewhere around 1950 so a good way to tell if your tart is done is if the plums are bubbling, the crust is golden and your house gives off that fresh from the oven baked good smell.

Photo of very old, very dirty oven baking tart above in the event you didn't believe an oven that old could still exist and work. The clock is always set to 5 past 7 although the second hand still ticks around the clock face, the time never changes, and you can tell how small it is by the fact that the pan you are looking at is a 9 1/2 inch spring form pan! But there is an even smaller oven below this one so I don't find I miss the cooking space very often.

Enchilada sauce adventures!

Let’s face it, life is busy! And because of it I’ve been spending a lot of time and money on convenience food and take-out meals recently to feed my family. It’s not only expensive, but it’s also a lot of frankenfood I am not exactly proud to put on my table. So to combat this issue I’ve turned to freezer meals as a simple solution to get real food on the table on nights that are too busy to cook. Recently I’ve made 10 pans of lasagna, and today made 10 pans of cheese enchiladas with brown rice. I was surprised by the sheer mass of food it takes to fill 10 pans of food! Huge portions of onions, 4 of cheese and an entire bag of Costco tortillas, but what amazed me the most was how inexpensive it was to make my own enchilada sauce. While calculating the cost of each unit of enchiladas I decided it was not economical to buy pre-made sauce. It would raise my cost per pan by more then I was willing to pay, and included more artificial ingredients then I was willing to eat. Instead I made this simple enchilada sauce below that I ended up very pleased with. Keep in mind this makes a lot of sauce! It will make about 6qts of sauce, but this sauce freezes well, or you can make 10 pans of enchiladas and still have about 16 oz. of sauce left over for another meal as you can see below.

It starts with a puree of chilies. The pepper used here is Chili Negro and can be found in most supermarkets, or Hispanic markets.  

1 table spoon olive oil
2 large white onion
4 gloves garlic
2 bags chili negro
2 cups water

In a large Dutch oven add olive oil and onions; cook until onions are slightly translucent. Add garlic and continue to cook. Seed chilies and put into pot. Add hot water and cook until chilies are soft and re hydrated.

After chilies are cooled pour into blender and blend until smooth.

To make the rest of the sauce:

Chile paste above
2 large cans tomato sauce
1 large tomato can filled with water
1 cup vinegar
1 tsp Mexican oregano
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp California chili powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Simmer until flavors are well combined.

This sauce was rich and dark. The pepper adds an almost raisin flavor with a slight sweetness and a mild heat. The seasoning adds earthiness and the tomato and vinegar add bright slightly tart vibrancy. I’m really pleased with this sauce and will use it again and again. The best part of it is though is the price! My sauce works out to be about 0.02 cents an ounce, whereas this Old El Paso sauce is .13 cents an ounce if purchased at amazon. It might not seem like a lot of savings when looking at it oz by oz but when you make 192oz of sauce this is $24.96 vs $4.41 (not including shipping of 12.57) and this is where our savings are! We are talking just a hair shy of 25.00 on savings just by making our own sauce- and the best part is, it tastes better!

I hope you enjoy. If you end up making your own sauce I would love to hear about it. Drop me a line and let me know.

Vanilla Bean Lemon Cupcakes- and the saga of the butter cream

I am a fly by the seat of my pants kind of cook, a pinch of this, a dash of that, season to taste, readapt. I have to admit I’m a whirl wind in the kitchen. But because of this I can’t follow a recipe to save my life! This style of cooking works well for most things, but not for baking!  So when I was asked to bring dessert for my Grandmother’s Birthday my panicked mind raced through what I could make for her. I have a very short list of things bake well, and figured no one wanted Italian bread for dessert. The last time I made a cake for her, it was a spice cake out of a box that we attempted to frost while not cooled totally, and it fell apart, melted frosting, crumbled cake, and at the end of the day a “scrambled birthday cake.”  This cake had to be better than that and it was with that memory that I decided it was time to finally face my fears of the cupcake.

Now to be honest I’ve never made a cake from scratch before! So I decided I would start my journey with a search for a lemon cupcake and came across an amazing blog http://quartercupkitchen.wordpress.com/ where there was a lovely lemon cupcake that was drool worthy! I made one change using a real vanilla bean instead of vanilla extract because I wanted the specks. I also adapted the language to read the way I read recipes when I cook, but this is really still her recipe.

Lemon Cupcakes (makes 28)

3 cups unbleached flour
2 cups sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter at room temp.
1 cup reduced fat sour cream
3 eggs plus 2 egg yolks
Scrapings of half a vanilla bean
Zest and juice from two lemons

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In an electric mixer combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Gently add butter, sour cream, eggs vanilla beans and lemon and mix until combined. Fill lined muffin tins half way full and bake 20-22 minutes turning once throughout.

Lemon curd- If licking the bowl is wrong, I don't want to be right!

First of all I have to report lemon curd is REALLY simple to make! I was really intimidated by it my first time around, but it's so simple you'll be amazed how quickly you say "wow that's it?"

The first recipe I made was out of a cookbook called, Let's Do Tea by Nada Lou and Verna Maire.

Mrs. Burn's Lemon Curd
Into a double boiler over simmering water:
3 beaten eggs
Grated rind of 2 large lemons and the juice
1 cup of sugar
Beat in gradually 1/2 cup real butter, softened.
Stir until thick and the curd coats the back of the stirring spoon. Store in the fridge.

This recipe is great, and simple- but it's really sweet! REALLY SWEET! and I don't know about you, but I really don't want super sweet lemon curd, I want lemony lemon curd. So I cut the sugar down to 2/3 a cup. But it still wasn't right. After making it about 5 times I've ended up with my own recipe below.

5 large eggs beaten
3 Large lemons, zested and juiced
1/3 cup of sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt (this helps bring out the flavor so you need less sugar)
1/2 cup butter cubbed and added in gradually

Cook in a double boiler (a fancy name for a bowl over a pan of boiling water) until the mixture becomes thick and coats the spoon. Store in clean jars, or tupperware in the fridge.

This was so good I have to admit that I licked the bowl  after I got all of this jarred and stored.

One Tamale, Two Tamale, Three Tamale Four!

I love a good tamale, I always have and I always will, but after becoming a vegetarian about 9 years ago I’ve been in search of good tamales and am always left wanting. Everyone seems to think vegetarians want spinach and feta in their tamales and I for one do not! If I wanted spinach and feta, I would be eating Greek food, not tamales. So today after finding a little impromptu kitchen inspiration, I made my own! I have to admit it took a while, and required a lot of different kitchen appliances, so I’m glad I made enough to freeze for later.  I also have to confess I don’t stock corn husks in my pantry, so I used parchment papers taken out in 4 inch sheets and cut in half.  

The filling was Tillamook Mexican cheese blend, and a  cilantro pesto I made for a cooking contest to go on something else, but after tasting it I knew it was meant to be in tamales!

Cilantro pesto:

1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup pumpkin seeds
3 cloves garlic
½ to 1 jalapeno (some like it hot!)
1 ½ cup cilantro
Juice of 1 lime
1 tsp lime zest
1 tsp salt
Enough water to blend smooth (1-2 tablespoons)

Give this a whirl in the blender until it’s a smooth green spread like pesto.

After making the pesto, I adapted a recipe off of the side of my Masa bag- it was pretty easy to make, no more difficult than whipping up a batch of brownies.

Basic tamale recipe:

2 Cups Masa Harina
1/2 Cup Organic vegetable shortening
1 Cup Lukewarm vegetable stock
1 Cup Lukewarm Water
1 Tsp Baking powder
1 Tsp salt
More water if needed to make tamale dough thin.

I mixed all the ingredients together with my stand mixer (I’ve used hand mixers, and just my hands too. Both of these methods work fine.) Because the vegetarian filling doesn’t hold the same bulk as a meat tamale I like to make my tamale dough a lot thinner so that it doesn’t end up overwhelming the filling. This is a problem I’ve come across many times.

Get your steamer basket or rice cooker going, and start an assembly line to make your tamales. I like mine to go Wrappers, Dough, Pesto, 2 cups shredded Mexican cheese blend, bowl to put finished product in.

Spread 1 heaping tablespoon of dough onto wrapper and spread thin leaving about 1/4 an inch top and bottom. Spread 1 tablespoon of pesto on dough, and sprinkle on about a tablespoon of cheese. Fold in the center of the tamale and then fold top and bottom up. Set in bowl sitting slightly upright.

Repeat

Repeat

Repeat

As you can see this is what makes this recipe time consuming.

Steam each batch of tamales for 10-15 minutes until tamales are done. The dough will still be soft when you take them out, and will harden up when they are cooled. If you are using parchment paper, they will stick some to the wet paper, so as soon as they are firm peel the parchment away.

Sorry for the lack of photos. I wasn’t planning on blogging about this because it’s a little more complicated than the simple food I normally make. But this was too good not to share. If nothing else hopefully you make some cilantro pesto to thrill your taste buds!

Sweet potatoes- Not just for Thanksgiving chili

When I came across this website http://www.ncsweetpotatoes.com/blogger-recipe-contest/ I thought it was a great idea because the sweet potato to me is really an unsung hero in the kitchen. They are sweet, nutritious and have a great texture and have a versatility that really allows them to be added to a wide verity of dishes. I often add sweet potatoes in vegetarian dishes when I need more depth of flavor and a nice meaty texture. This chili is my hand down favorite recipe to use sweet potato in. It’s vegetarian, but I promise meat eaters will be happy to eat it. It’s all in the way the potatoes are diced. One sweet potato is diced up very fine so it breaks down in the chili and melts into the sauce. The other sweet potato is left to shine as a meaty component of the dish.

2 sweet potatoes diced (read special directions on how to dice these)
1 cup cooked and drained pinto beans.
1 cup cooked and drained kidney beans 
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 white onion chopped
1 red pepper, diced
1 jalapeno diced
1 large can crushed tomatoes
1 can petite diced tomatoes
2 cups water
1 handful or 2 tablespoons of diced cilantro
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
A large splash or about 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons butter
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste

For the garnish (We do this when we are serving chili at a party along with corn bread and corn chips)
1/2 red onion diced
1/2 red pepper diced
1 jalapeno diced

Special Directions:

Peel two sweet potatoes, dicing one into bite size pieces, the other sweet potato dice into very fine pieces. This is a very important step to this recipe and should not be skipped.

 Combine all ingredients into the crockpot and season with salt and pepper. Set on high and let cook for about 8 hours until everything is tender and the smaller sweet potatoes have become very soft.

I feel like there should be more directions to this recipe, but that’s it!  The labor of this recipe is really only in the chopping. It also tastes even better second day, and after freezing as it breaks down the sweet potatoes in the sauce a little bit more, so don’t be afraid to double this recipe!  

This is a great link for picking out the right sweet potato- http://www.ncsweetpotatoes.com/sweet-potatoes-101/sweet-potato-varieties/ I like O’Henry for this recipe.

Mushroom stroganoff- a broccoli adventure

I came across a recipe contest from www.gratitudegourmet.com in regards to a vegetarian or vegan recipe using broccoli. This really got me thinking about how I eat broccoli. I basically only eat it four ways.

1)      In a stir fry

2)      Roasted in the oven with olive oil

3)      In a baked potato.

4)      In soup

It made me realize it's reallytime to expand the ways I cook broccoli. I started thinking about what I think of when I think of broccoli, warm comforting soups on cold nights, steaming baked potatoes in the dead of winter. To me broccoli is a comfort food, so what better way to serve it then in mushroom stroganoff?

Serves 4 adults

4 servings of Egg noodles (or 1/2 small package

2 tablespoon Coconut oil or butter

2 tablespoon flour  

1/2 sweet white onion

2 cloves garlic

10-15 button mushrooms diced chopped into small chunks

2 cups vegetable stock

2 cups fresh broccoli florets broken into small pieces

1 tablespoon fresh parsley

1 cup Greek yogurt

Cook 4 servings of egg noodles in boiling water until nearly tender. Drain and set aside.

While noodles are cooking:

Add oil and flour to a heavy bottom skillet. Cook for about 3 minutes until flour is no longer raw.

Add onion, garlic and mushrooms and sauté for 5 minutes.

Add 2 cups of vegetable stock and season with salt and pepper.

 Allow pot to simmer for about 15 minutes until flavors come together. Stir in broccoli and allow to cook for about 3 minutes, or until broccoli just turns bright green.

Stir in egg noodles, parsley and Greek yogurt and serve warm.

This stroganoff turned out filling, hearty and full of flavor. The meat in this meal isn't really missed due to the hearty meaty flavor and texture of mushrooms.

Vegetarian Red Cabbage Borscht A.K.A Purple Soup!

We started a spending freeze today- where we don’t plan to bring out the debit cards, or cash in our wallets or anything not vital, pre-planned, or required for us to get to work for the rest of the month. Because of the spending freeze, it means making smart choices with the items that we have on hand to maximize flavor, and taste. I decided to start this freeze off with a beautiful hearty soup. Red cabbage borscht!  A flavorful tasty and warm soup perfect the last little bit of winter. This soup is made with pickled beets, shredded red cabbage, orange juice, potatoes and celeriac. It’s topped with two tablespoons of sour cream for a stick to your ribs feel and a little extra protein. My daughter liked it because it was purple, and purple is of course a princess color. I have to be honest, I like it because it's purple too!

In a large Dutch oven combine:

1/2 TBSP butter

1/2 TBSP coconut oil

1 small white onion diced

1 large carrot peeled and diced

1 celeriac peeled and diced

Cook until onion is translucent

Add 2 cloves garlic minced

1 small head of red cabbage shredded

2 small peeled potatoes

1 granny smith apple peeled, cored and diced

Add:

4 cups water

2 cups orange juice

1 can pickled beets diced and their juice

2 TBSP apple cider vinegar

1 TSP caraway seed

1 TBSP dried dill

1 bay leaf

Salt and pepper to taste

Allow this soup to simmer for about two hours until all the flavors are melded together and an amazing soup forms.

On a side note relative to the soup above, for soups like this I fell head over heels in love with my Staub La Cocotte Dutch oven. It allows me to simmer my soup on low, and keeps all of the heat and broth inside the pot. There are times I want a broth reduced to concentrate the flavor, but this is not one of those times. I put so many flavorful things in this soup that I wanted to keep as much flavor in the soup as I could. I’m not a champion of expensive cookware, or kitchen toys, but I believe every home cook should have a heavy enamel coated cast iron Dutch oven for soups and cooking beans. There are of course less expensive brands to start out with, such as Lodge that will do the trick. I promise once you go cast iron though you will not go back to a lightweight aluminum pan for simmering soups.

Pomegranate molasses

Every month I’ve been trying to challenge myself to cook something I’ve never made before. I typically decide on something that would be a challenge for me, or that I’ve failed at before. This month after reading a recipe that called for pomegranate molasses, and realizing I could make it, I decided that would be fun challenge for the month. It might have been a little premature calling it a challenge though because, it was so crazy simple to make that I am scratching my head and wondering why I haven’t been making it for years!( I’ll have to come up with another challenge later on this month. )

It all started with coupons from PomWonderful for $1.00 off any product. Thanks to my local supermarket having juice on sale for .99 each this means I had a free 8oz container to work with. Not only was this crazy simple to make, but it also was nearly free! Now to figure out how to can this beautiful creation because it would make a wonderful home made gift.

Here is the recipe: (I kind of winged it)

8oz Pomegranate juice

2 Tablespoons sugar

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

Add Juice and sugar and lemon juice to a sauce pan and cook on high until sugar is dissolved.  Reduce the heat to medium and let cook for about 1 hour until it is reduced down to thick syrup.

That’s it! After that I poured it into a little jelly jar and put it in the fridge.

I couldn’t help myself! I started by placing it in a little orange seltzer water and it was delicious.

I also added it to the soup I needed it for and WOW! It added a subtle sweetness, instant flavor and instant depth to the soup. I was so impressed with this stuff I can guarantee you I’m going to start making it all the time!

A Bonus soup recipe!

Middle Eastern Chickpea soup-

1 large red onion

3 cloves garlic chopped

2 cans chick peas drained

1 red pepper roasted (or 1 cup of roasted red peppers chopped if buying jarred)

1 roasted eggplant (or 1 cup roasted eggplant chopped if buying jarred- often found in the European section of markets)

1 can petite diced tomatoes

2 tbsp. tomato paste

8 oz of water

2 tbsp. Lemon juice

2 tbsp. pomegranate molasses

 A large handful of parsley diced thin.

I put this into my crockpot with a generous portion of salt and pepper and I’m expecting it’s going to be pretty good when we serve it tomorrow.

Potpie- And a little bit of courage

I enter cooking contests now and again- sometimes because there is an amazing prize like a Kitchen-Aid mixer, or a trip to California, but more often because it challenges me to make something that I’ve never made before, forces me to flex my cooking muscles a little bit, and challenges me to make something that has stumbled me in the past. One of those major stumbling blocks in my culinary world has always been pie crust! Chewy, heavy, dense pie crust has always been all I’ve managed to turn out, but it’s never really bothered me because honestly, I don’t really care for pie, with one exception. Potpie! Potpie is one of those amazing dreamy rich comfort foods that I love, but always top with mashed potatoes due to my crust fears. When the Today Show asked for our best potpie recipes I decided it was time to face my potpie dilemma head on and find a way around not only not being able to make a decent crust, but also not enjoying crust. The solution I came up with is this: Greek Pot pie! With puff pastry atop a savory Greek inspired filling I couldn’t be happier with my dish. Plus my daughter ate something chocked full of strange vegetables just because it had the word pie in it. Even though the Today Show didn't choose to feature my recipe, facing my potpie fears, and getting my daughter to eat more vegetables makes me a winner with this recipe anyway! And I will be adding this to our dinner rotation.

Greek Potpie:

2 TBSP olive oil

1 white onion

2 cloves garlic

1 eggplant diced small

1 yellow squash diced small

1 portabella mushroom diced small (or 1 cup baby portabella mushrooms)

1 cup frozen spinach

1 Tbsp. dried oregano

1 Tsp. fresh dill

1 Tbsp. fresh parsley chopped fine

1 can garbanzo beans drained

1 can petite diced tomatoes

1 1/2 - 2  cups vegetable stock

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Salt and pepper

Buerre manie of 1 Tbsp butter, 1 Tbsp wheat flour kneaded together

4 oz reduced fat feta cheese crumbled (or as much as you like!)

1 sheet puff pastry

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

In a large Dutch oven heat 2 tablespoon of olive oil. Add onion and cook until softened, add garlic and cook until fragrant. Add all other vegetables and herbs, season with salt and pepper and cook for about 10 minutes until the vegetables release their juices. Add canned beans and tomatoes. Add just enough stock to resemble a very chunky soup, and the juice of 1/2 lemon.

In a zip lock bag knead together 1 Tbsp butter and 1 Tbsp wheat flour. When well incorporated scoop out of bag into soup. Stir into soup and let simmer until stew is just thickened. Add crumbled feta cheese.

Place thawed puff pastry on lightly floured surface and roll out until it’s just a little larger than your pan

Scoop stew into a pie dish or tart pan and cover with puff pastry dough cutting away extra.

Bake in oven for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.