A Good Week for Cooking!

 

Blogging has been way down my list over the last couple of years.  Life has been busy and interesting.  I’ll not go into all the details except to say we’re hoping for a MUCH better 2023! 

Over the last couple of years we’ve had way too much carryout and not enough good old-fashioned home cooking.  Hopefully that will also improve in 2023.  At least over the last week it has.  We’ve made four new recipes, four old favorites and one blast from the past.  How did it go?  Well, one of the misperceptions I find is that folks assume since I’m a good enough cook I don’t have many failures.  And, truly I don’t wind up with many two’s.  But, I do have failures.  Usually they’re ok enough to eat the meal.  But, then the leftovers wind up in the trash.  Last week we had two such failures.  I’d read a recipe for a lemon/orzo/chickpea/spinach soup.  It sounded fresh and wonderful.  It wasn’t.  I listed it as “blah to the max.”  Then, there were the mussels.  Enough for a meal after we used some for cioppino.  Another blah to the max. 

Fortunately the other two new recipes were REALLY good.  One was the aforementioned cioppino from Taste of Home.  Another was a Monte Cristo sandwich – made with a Bisquick mix from Betty Crocker Right Size Recipes.  Then the blast from the past was a tomato basil soup.  I think it was my mom’s recipe.  It’s in a “cookbook” of recipes I put together about 15 years ago and has no provenance listed.  It’ll be a regular in our rotation going forward.  Particularly since I now know it can be served warm equally successfully.  And, last but certainly not least were the old favorites:  cauliflower cheese soup and barley vegetable soup, both from Park Tudor Treasures.  Plus Alex Guarnaschelli’s French Onion Soup with Short Ribs and a Kate’s creation chicken pot pie.

Let’s start with the Tomato Basil Soup since it’s SO very easy!

Tomato Basil Soup

Ingredients:

28 oz can of crushed tomatoes

½ c half and half

16 oz chicken stock

½ package basil ( we used about a handful of leaves)

½- 1 t sugar

 

Directions:

Combine everything in a food processor and process until smooth.  Refrigerate for a couple of hours to allow the flavors to blend.  You can serve this either cold or hot.

 

Chicken Pot Pie

 

Ingredients:

Shredded rotisserie chicken

Potatoes, diced and parcooked

Carrots, diced and parcooked

Mushrooms, diced and sauteed

Can of cream of chicken soup

Cream

Dry Sherry

Thyme

Gruyere cheese, shredded

Pie crust

 

Directions:

This is  one where you just need to put together whatever veggies you want with the chicken.  We were out of peas or they’d have gone in.  No parsnips either.  It’s pretty much a clean up the kitchen dish.  

You’ll want to dump the soup into a small saucepan.  Pour in about a quarter of a cup of sherry.  Then, enough cream to make a nice sauce.  Or less sherry and more cream.  Toss in about a couple of teaspoons of thyme.  Or whatever herb trips your trigger.  Then, a handful of the shredded gruyere.  Let that melt and toss in the chicken and whatever veggies you’ve cooked.  Pour everything into a pie crust lined casserole dish.  Crimp the edges of the crust and bake at 350 until the crust is nice and brown. 

 

Spicy Fresh Seafood Cioppino 

Ingredients: 

5 garlic cloves, minced

2 T olive oil

1 24 oz can tomato basil pasta sauce

1 8 oz bottle clam juice

1 c dry white wine or chicken broth (I used the wine)

Salt and pepper

1 t sugar

Crushed red pepper flakes to taste

1 t thyme

1 lb fresh littleneck clams (I was stuck with canned)

1 lb fresh mussels, scrubbed and beards removed

1 lb uncooked medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 lb uncooked bay scallops (I used a seafood medley from Trader Joes that also include calamari rings)

1 6 oz package baby spinach

 

Directions: 

Saute the garlic in the olive oil.  Do not let in brown.  Add in the pasta sauce, clam juice, wine and seasonings.  Allow it to simmer for 10 minutes.  Add in the seafood and cook until the shrimp is pink and the mussels and clams have opened.  Toss any that do not open!  Add in the spinach and stir to wilt it just a bit. Adapted from Taste of Home.  

We made another of our old favorites recently.  It's Alex Guarnaschelli's French Onion Soup with Short Ribs.  It's a long, complicated recipe and is totally worth the time it takes.  For me it pretty much sets the standard.  But, I'm not going to try and add the recipe to the blog.  Here are our photos:

LOTS of garlic in with the onions

The recipe calls for Korean short ribs but they're hard to find so I instant pot traditional short ribs.

Alex calls for 1/2 cup of shredded gruyere on each crouton.  She's exactly right!

You put the onion short rib mix on top of a handful of shredded gruyere.

Then, you pour in this magnificent broth.  

And, top it with a lovely broiled cheesy crouton of French bread.  Heavenly!

 

 

French Onion Soup - My Way

I remember the first pecan pie I made.  I started by pulling out about a dozen cookbooks and opening them to the pecan pie recipe.  Dark corn syrup, light corn syrup, light brown sugar, dark brown sugar, three eggs, two eggs... As many variations as there were cookbooks.  So, I sketched out what I thought I'd like.  I'm a dark brown sugar kind of a gal.  We don't even buy the light brown stuff.  Insipid in my opinion.  Half and half on the dark and light corn syrup.  And so on.  Once I had a recipe created, I made the pie.  It was exactly what I was looking for. 

Now, Connie's asked for homemade french onion soup.  My favorite of all time is at a little place called Bijou.  Lebanon, IN is about 30 minutes north of Indianapolis up I65.  Bijou is a little gem of a restaurant on the town square - which is actually the Boone County seat.  Candace Winter and her husband Kerry Even run the place.  She's the chef and he's the everything else.  The food is incredible as is the service.  It's a treat to go there.  And, I can't remember when I've not started with some of Candace's amazing french onion soup.

So, here I am competing against one of the finest chefs around.  That's why I've not made my own.  Hers is SO much better than any I've ever had.  But, my wonderful hubby rarely makes a request for a specific food so here I am.  I've read enough french onion soup recipes to fill a cookbook.  Some recommend beef broth, some consomme, some chicken broth plus one of the others.  Then, there's the white wine versus red wine conundrum.  And, what kind of onions?  Mercy me, so many choices.  Consequently, I've done a typical Kate move.  I'm making six onion french onion soup!

What did we think?  I'll make this again in a heartbeat.  Actually, there's enough of the onion mixture left to make four more bowls so I'll be making this again right away!  The biggest difference we noticed was the lack of saltiness.  The flavors of the onions really shone.  Using a smaller amount of cheese than the normal slab allowed one to get a bite of soup, bread and cheese instead of doing battle with a glob of melted cheese.

French Onion Soup
serves 8
Ingredients:
2 T butter
2 sweet onions
2 yellow onions
2 red onions
2 leeks
1 bunch green onions
1/3 c Penzey's freeze dried shallots
32 oz homemade chicken stock (or chicken broth)
8 oz consomme
12 oz beef broth
6 oz white wine
2 t dried thyme
slices of baguette about 38" thick (it may take two per bowl)
shredded romano cheese
shredded gruyere cheese

Directions:
Melt the butter in a large skillet.  Slice the onions.  I cut them into quarters then sliced them very thinly.  Dice the green onions.  Saute them in the butter on very low heat until they are very soft but not caramelized.

See how the volume of onions in the pan shrank as they cooked down?

Add the chicken stock, consomme, beef broth, white wine and thyme to a large pot.  Cook on medium heat for about 30 minutes to allow the flavors to blend.  Add the onion mixture and heat through

Warm oven safe bowls under hot running water.  Dry the bowls and fill 3/4 of the way with soup.

Mix the grated romano and grated gruyere.

Top each bowl with a slice of bread or two

then a generous handful of cheese. 

Put the bowls on a large rimmed baking tray and place under the broiler.  Broil until the cheese melts.