Cream of Mushroom Soup

Tonight is soup night. When the weather turns chilly and the leaves start drifting down quietly from the trees...when the wind blows a little colder, the sun sets a little earlier, the light is more golden, the acrid smell of burning wood melds with the sweet smell of damp leaves... it's fall. And fall means Thursday soup nights, my son's favorites.

This was actually, despite my deep love of mushrooms, my first attempt at cream of mushroom soup. No resource altered or guidance used. This is 100% me.

Ok, I know, the picture is terrible. My camera's battery decided to die right as I was being a genius, and ye old smart phone has only 8 megapixels. My bad. 

This is in no way, shape, or form fat free. It is lower in fat that the crap in the can and much yummier. 

Start with a bunch of different kinds of mushrooms. I used something like close to 2 pounds. 

See, mushroom-a-holic. 

I used Oyster, button, crimini and shittake. These were what was available at the local produce market. It's not mushroom season till March, so I make do.

You will also need:

1/2 and 1/2

Chicken stock or Better than Bouillon

Onion

Celery

Carrot

Garlic

Bay Leaf

Rosemary

Salt and Pepper

Butter

White wine

Milk 

Cut the onions into tiny bits, shred the carrots, chop the celery, rough chop the garlic, rough chop the mushrooms. 

Melt 2 Tbs of butter into the bottom of your stock pot (10 qt) on medium-high heat. Saute onion and garlic until onion is translucent. Add carrot and celery and cook for a few minutes. Add mushrooms mix gently so butter coats them. Add 1/2 c white wine, 4 cups of chicken stock, and 2 c milk. Add 1/2t rosemary and  2 bay leaves, Reduce heat to medium and watch carefully so the milk doesn't separate. Add 1 quart of 1/2 and 1/2. Heat through. Salt as needed (I used a lot). Soup should fill the stock pot about 3/4. 

Serve warm with bread and butter or a salad. 

And that's it. Super easy. Moderately healthy. Deliciously yummy. 

Honeyed Apricot-Peach Cream Cheese Tart

Yesterday I kept toying with the idea of whether I was really in the mood to make something or not. I have these lovely apricots and peaches and pears I bought last week at the produce market that are in need of being used before they go bad.

Gorgeous right?

So, this morning, I made a tart for breakfast. With scrambled eggs and sausage of course, because, well, it's Saturday which means I have to make a decent breakfast before running off to work. Any other day of the week would be an egg on toast. Weekends, working or no, I feel the need to make breakfast.

Maybe I should have waited until Sunday. I'm off Sunday. Oh well.

Assemble thine ingredients:

Fruit (I ended up using 3 apricots and 2 peaches very thinly sliced)

flour

sugar

1 stick butter

1 block cream cheese

honey

ginger

coffee. It's saturday morning. Coffee is a necessity.

Get out your handy dandy food processor. Attach normal blade that can take off your fingers and the flat top with the hole in it. Grab the cap too, because we are playing with flour and well, the whole kitchen does not need to be dusted...unless of course you want the family to think you slaved all morning, then by all means, dust away.

 Throw in butter(cold) and 1 1/4 c flour and 1/3c sugar. Keep the butter wrapper. 

Why?

Why, why, why. SO many questions!

Prepare for history lesson... commencing in 3-2-1...In the depression era, there was little money and little food. You had to *gasp* make use of every tiny part of the things you had because there was no room for waste. Think pinching pennies to the max. Using things like the part of veggies you trimmed off for broth, water for boiling used for bread or other meals, and butter wrappers are excellent for lubing up pans and dishes before baking in them. 

Keep you butter wrappers in a plastic baggy and use them, instead of a cooking spray to lube up your bakeware. Not only are you saving money, but the environment (less waste).

..End of lecture for today...

Turn on food processor and make lots of noise until it is blended and crumbly looking and the butter stops clunking around. No clunking is usually a good sign.

 Turn off noisy machine. Add water through the top hole 1 Tbs at a time, pulsing between each. Wow. That sounded dirty.

Keep adding water until it just barely comes together to form a dough.

Drag out a small baking sheet or jelly roll pan. Lube up with butter wrapper. NOW you can recycle it. It is paper after all.

Turn dough out onto pan and scrape together and fold once or twice, just enough to make it into a solid dough. 

You are supposed to chill the dough for an hour before using it. I spread it out onto the bottom of the pan and threw it in the freezer for 10 minutes while oven was heating.

If you have some extra butter (or wrapper), baste over top of dough. Toss in oven for 5-10 mins just enough to get the dough to harden a little. The butter will make it a pretty pale goldenish color.

While dough is in oven, thinly slice your fruit. And I mean thinly, or it will take too long to cook and you'll have burnt dough and raw fruit. No good.

Nuke your cream cheese in a microwave safe bowl for about 30 seconds. Enough to make it squishy enough to work with. Add 1 Tbs honey and 1/8t (pinch) of ginger. Mix.

Pull dough out of oven and dump on cream cheese mix. Spread evenly over crust with back of spoon. Layer on your fruit slices in whatever arrangement is aesthetically pleasing to you. 

I did rows... because I did. 

Toss back in over on TOP rack for 15-20 mins or until fruit is starting to shrivel a little. Using your fancy basting brush, baste honey (heated works best) over top about 10 mins into cooking.

While in the oven, scramble your eggs and fry up your sausage. And have more coffee. We need coffee.

And you are done. This one takes about an hour start to finish, so if you are working, make sure you start it more than an hour before work so you actually get some. 

Damned computer. Always get sidetracked...

Sweet Potato Quinoa Salad

It is friggin hot. I have been banished to the great state of Kansas for the month, and if you have never been to the midwest during summer, let me tell you again. IT'S FRIGGIN' HOT!

Don't ever come in the summer. Actually, there really is nothing here really anyway, other than a lousy football team and a baseball team that finally has started the grueling process of pulling their heads out of their butt-cheeks.

So today, it went from 108 to 97 which is cold, considering. Humidity is 400% but hey, you take what you can get.

Have I mentioned I miss home?

Tonight, amongst the groaning and moaning if ye old air conditioner, I chose to make something easy, light and yummy. Always yummy.

Dah, dah, dah!

Sweet Potato Quinoa Salad.

MMMMMM. Let me tell you how much of a hit this was, may I?

Too bad, I'm going to anyway. 

The kids liked it. 

.

.

.

.

Yes. Pigs did fly, actually. They wore silver sparkly capes and top hats with red plumes and were singing dancing queen. 

Oh wait. That was Priscilla Queen of the desert. My bad.

Anyway, this is super easy and not so hard on the a/c either. It's getting enough of a workout, let's not heat up the inside too.

You will need:

• Quinoa
• Sweet Potatoes
• Cilantro
• Bell pepper, color of choice
• Onion
• Tomato (roma is best)
• Avocado, ripe but not overly squishy. 
• Balsamic Vinegar
• Lime juice (preferably from real lime not plastic lime-looking container)
• Mushrooms (optional)
• Chili powder, salt and pepper

Add 1 cup of quinoa to 2 cups of water and 2 tsps of Better than Bouillon into pot. Chicken is fine unless you are veggie, then use the veggie version. Bouillon lumps are ok too. Bring to a boil, cover and turn to low. It should be done in 10-15 mins. 

Chunk up your sweet potatoes in bite sized pieces, and boil in another pot with a good pinch of salt.

While they are cooking, slice your onion in half, then cut into thin slices. Chop peppers and tomatoes and avocados into bits. Mushrooms into chunks. Cilantro chop roughly (aka dirty chop). Throw all of these in a good sized bowl. It makes a lot. 

Ok. Now clean up the mess from throwing. 

See cooking is fun! You get to throw shit, play with knives and fire, I mean seriously when can you have this much fun but in the kitchen?

                                      

The sweet potatoes will be done first. Drain them, rinse in cold water and dump into other stuff you threw already.

When quinoa has soaked up all the liquid, fluff with a fork and dump into the bowl. Add 2-3 Tbs of balsamic vinegar and the juice of 1/2 the lime. A pinch of salt, chili powder and pepper and if it is a little to vinegary to your taste buds and a teaspoon of sugar.

NOW you can mix it. The less you mix this the better. Avocado becomes all squishy with too much mixing. 

I served this with Broccoli Slaw. Quinoa is an excellent source of protein, therefore can be a meal in itself. If you are not vegetarian, baked or grilled chicken is an awesome addition. If you are using it as a main dish, double this recipe and add some good old bread and butter.

Sweet Potato Quinoa Salad

 1c Quinoa

2 Sweet Potatoes

1/2 bunch Cilantro, chopped

1/2 Bell pepper, color of choice, diced

1/2 Onion, diced

2 Roma tomatoes, diced 

1 Avocado, diced

3 Mushrooms, diced (optional)

2 Tbs Balsamic Vinegar

1 Tbs Lime juice (preferably from real lime not plastic lime-looking container)

1 Tbs Chili powder

1 Tbs Garlic

Pinch salt and pepper

Bring 2 cups water or broth to a boil and add quinoa. Reduce heat to low and cover pot. Chop sweet potatoes into chunk and boil in broth or water until barely fork tender. Assemble remaining veggies into bowl. Mix together vinegar, spices, and lime juice. Add potatoes and quinoa to veggies. Pour sauce over top and mix lightly. 

Mango-Chipotle Chicken Burritos with Black Beans

I cheated.

No.

I did.

I was craving some really fresh, summery, yummy mexican-ish type food.

I had chicken. I had tortillas. I had.... hmmmm....

Oh yeah. That random bottle of salad dressing my mom shipped to me along with the other 42 bottles I have. Something by Kraft called Mango-Chipotle. Hmmmm.

Chicken. Mango-Chipotle.

This works.

So...maybe a put it together yourself burrito?

As you can see it was kid approved.

Yup. That'll work. And we could totally use that dressing for a marinade/cooking sauce for the chicken. Oooooh! And we have an entire gallon bag of black beans, so we could make mexican style black beans.

OMG. It's healthy too! So much protein!

We like protein. Protein is good.

So let's get started

3 large boneless skinless chicken breasts, cleaned and laid out in either a glass pan or jelly roll pan lined in foil.

Smother chicken with dressing, slice up some onion and toss it in, and cover with another piece of foil. Seal the foil. This is important. It will allow steam to be captured which results in fabulously tender chicken cooked relatively quickly.

Throw in oven for 20 mins or so. Baste with dressing every 10 mins.

So that's twice. You'll be ok. It's easy to remember. Twice.

That's it?

Well... uh... ya.

That's it. So easy.

So.... There are several ways this chicken can go. If you are in a tropical mood, make up some mango salsa, cook up some coconut rice, and maybe make a small arugula salad with feta cheese and a vinaigrette.

If you are in a mexican mood, when it comes out of the oven, you can serve over black beans and rice with sour cream and salsa, OR....

Make up some black beans, grab out tortillas, chop up some lettuce, tomato and cucumber, and make a build your own burrito.

I took option 3.

So. I have a gallon bag of black beans in the freezer, mainly because I cooked them, then realized I didn't have any ziploc baggies in less than a gallon.

Sigh.

So. Defrost your beans, about a quart's worth depending on the number of people you are feeding, obviously. Or 2 cans.

Saute some onion bits. Add 1 tsp garlic powder or 4-5 cloves fresh and 1Tbs taco seasoning. Splash in some worcestershire sauce and just a drop or 2 of liquid smoke, if you have it.

Toss in beans and a little water with a chicken bouillon cube or 1 tsp of chicken(or veggie) Better Than Bouillon. Pre-made broth works well too. By a little I mean maybe 1/2 c. Add more if the beans suck it all up. You want the beans to be a little soupy.

Let them cook until heated through and broth is thick.

Meanwhile, check your chicken. If it is done, pull off top foil and put back in oven a few minutes to brown the top just a touch.

Assemble other ingredients on the table.

Cut chicken into pieces and transfer it, and onions onto a plate. Feel free to shred chicken, that works too. I cut mine into large slices and let the creators decide how they wanted to further alter it for their burrito.

To create burrito, layer chicken, beans, veggies, sour cream and salsa. Wrap and enjoy.

As you can see, my son opted for beans on the side and no onions or salsa.

What a bum.

Banana Butterscotch Streusel Muffins

You know those bananas you bought last week, 'cause you were craving bananas? You bought a bunch because it feels weird to buy just one or two, right? And then you ate only one or two and the rest just sat... and sat...and sat...

and now....

They are perfect for banana bread!

But wait! Banana bread so Boooooorrrriiinnnngggg. Snore.

What's that? You have other random baking stuffs in your pantry?

OOOOHHHHHH!

Well then, let's snazz up banana bread, shall we?

Stop licking the screen. You don't know where it's been.

No seriously. Stop.

So, how abouts we do butterscotch banana bread, maybe even with some coconut thrown in?

Yeah, see that's what I thought!

Let's start with those poor pathetic bananas.

They need a little squishing. But, I'm lazy, as we have found throughout our cooking journey together. I let my kitchen aid mixer do the work.

Generally, you should cream the butter and sugar together first, but, I got carried away. Toss the bananas in a bowl, peeled of course.

Now laugh. 'Cause they look like light yellow poop.

See?

Ok. now throw in 1/2 stick of butter and 3/4 c sugar.

Mix to get all mooshy. Don't worry, it'll be liquidy.

While it's doing its thing (if you are using a stand mixer), measure out 2 cups of flour, 3/4 teas baking powder and 1/2 teas salt. Mix together with a fork.

Add 2 eggs to butter-sugar-banana mix as well as 1/3c sour cream and a splash of vanilla, rum or almond extract. Any of the extracts are good, but each brings a different flavor. Coconut extract is yummy too.

Once it is all mixed well, add flour mixture and blend well.

Now add butterscotch chips and coconut if you so wish. I added coconut later, not to the mix, because I have non-coconut lovers in my house.

I know. Shameful.

Anyway. Grab out your muffin tins. These make roughly a dozen small or 6 texas muffin sized muffins. Spray them down with some sort of lubrication. Pam, butter, or whatever is in your misto bottle is fine.

Fill your cups almost to the top, a little more than 3/4 full to get that store-bought muffin top. If you want, sprinkle some coconut in the bottom of some of the cups before adding batter and a little to the top after, to mark which ones you did that to. This is how I got coconut into select muffins for my split house.

Pre-streusel topping.

Ok. Now. Before you put it in the oven, mix 2 Tbs butter, 1/4c oats, 1/4c brown sugar and if you have them, a few sliced almonds or pecan bits.

Note. Almonds are a superfood, so this addition makes the muffins healthy. :-P

Spoon topping over the top mounding it slightly.

Toss the pans in the oven for maybe like... mmmmm... 15-20 mins.

Go play on Pinterest or in my case, start dinner while they were cooking.


When the buzzer reminds you that there is something in the oven, remove them and let them sit until you can touch them and not receive 2nd degree burns.

Enjoy your caramelly, butterscotchy, banana-y goodness.

MMMMMMM.

Cherry-Peach Sticky Rolls

This is one of my grandmother's recipes. She makes it only for Easter and Christmas brunch, so it's a rare treat. The original, hand-written recipe is for orange-caramel sticky buns. I am fresh out of marmalade, but had some beautiful peaches and cherries from the produce market, so as I cannot leave anything alone, I altered her recipe just a tiny bit.

There are actually a lot of different things you can use instead of marmalade or peaches if those are not available to you when the urge to make something sweet and sticky for breakfast arises.

Options:
Any jelly or fresh fruit will work. Berries especially. Pineapple and cherries would be good, apples and walnuts, pumpkin and pecans, blueberries and a squeeze of lemon juice, shaved chocolate and hazelnuts. Note: if you use fresh fruit it will be not as sticky, but more like a traditional cinnamon roll that isn't rolled.

The other ingredients:

• 2 cans biscuits. I use Grands, but the smaller ones work too.
• Brown sugar
• Cinnamon
• nuts of choice; pecan bits, walnut bits or sliced almonds.
• butter, because you can't have good baked goods without it!

Equipment:

Bundt pan or if you don't have one, a loaf pan or other deep dish container will be fine. 

2 bowls: one for melted butter, one for cinnamon/sugar mix.

Cutting board and knife if you are using fresh fruit.

Ok got everything assembled? Fantastic. This will save you 42 trips to the pantry/cabinets getting stuff.

Assembly is easy. Cooking takes awhile, so plan at least an hour for these puppies to get all happy in the oven. 

First, slather some soft butter all over your baking container of choice.

Chop your fruit and sprinkle on bottom or drop tablespoons full of jelly/jam/preserves/marmalade along bottom so it covers in nice layer.

Sprinkle over nuts.

Melt butter in one bowl.

While it is melting, mix brown sugar and cinnamon in another bowl.

Get your biscuits unwrapped. I like the Grands style but you can use the smaller ones too.

Dip biscuits into butter then dredge in sugar mix. Place biscuit upright in pan.

Repeat a million times, or for, you know, however many biscuits you have.

Throw it in the oven at 300F for 45 mins then raise temp to 400 for 8-10.

Every oven is different. Mine is retarded so it takes awhile. 

When they feel firm on top, pull out of oven and place pan upside down on plate.

Let it sit for a few minutes. This will make all that yummy sticky juicy stuff run into the rolls.

MMMMMMMMM.

Ok stop drooling now. It's ok. It's almost ready. You can handle it!

Remove pan.

I wallop mine a couple of times to make sure everything is loose. 

Now you are all done! Isn't that easy? And it's pretty too!

Quick, take a picture of your accomplishment and post to facebook! your 1428 friends will be drooling on their screens!

Download Recipes Here

Strawberries 'N Cream French Toast with Bacon

Looks good right?

I had an epiphany yesterday when bringing home fresh strawberries and french bread still warm from the oven. You can see me in an 1800's style dress with a basket of fresh goodies right?

Ha!

Anyway, I thought... You know, cream cheese with those strawberries would be yummy... Ooooh! I could make a cream cheese filling for French toast and top that with fresh strawberries.

With this plan in mind, 5 seconds later, my children pipe up from the back seat. "Tacos sound good for dinner! LET'S HAVE TACOS!"
"But I was thinking french toast."
"I don't like french toast!" "I want tacos"
"Are you sure...? I have strawberries..."
"Ooooh! STRAWBERRIES!"

*shakes head*

So we had tacos. I didn't want friggin' French Toast anyway.

Tonight, I made dinner before they had the opportunity to tell me what sounded good.

See look at me being all sneaky and stuff. (They were outside enjoying the 2 seconds of sunshine we had today)

See my beautiful strawberries?

Unfortunately, we are going to have to murder them slightly to make dinner. But it's ok. They'll be yummy. I might add I bought this 3 pound container last night... and it's half gone. 

Nope. No strawberry-a-holics in this house. Not a one.

Ok. So let's start this the way I didn't cause I was being stupid.

Cut your now day old, lovely, crusty French bread into 1/4" to 1/2" slices. 

(insert french accent here) Lika dis...

Next, for this lovely loaf, get 2 eggs, some milk and almond extract. Or if you have no almond, amaretto will do in a pinch or if you have to, vanilla.

Yes, amaretto. No, the alcohol. Yes, seriously.

I used both. It was delish.

Onward.

Break open said eggs. (Do I really have to tell you this?)

Scramble the eggs.

(Insert accent here) Lika dis...

That funny looking thing is called a whisk. Forks do in a pinch. Don't panic.

Add milk. Oh. About...2 cups.

Add about 1/4 c of sugar, dash of almond or vanilla or amaretto or a combination. Whatever you have on hand. I wouldn't necessarily do almond AND vanilla, but almond and amaretto are very nice.

Sorry, no picture for that one, but trust me they are in there.

Whisk all together really well.

Do not put the whisk in the...sink.

Take it back out and wash it 'cause you will need to agitate (ooh big fancy word) the liquid to keep sugar suspended.

It's heavy. It likes to sink.

That's your physics lesson for today.

Next drown your lovely bread in the mix until happy (about 10-15 secs per side) and place on baking sheet. You will use said sheet later, again.

We wouldn't want you to have the whisk mistake again, no would we? See I warned you well ahead of time. Oh. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Less dirty dishes = happy cook.

Ok set the bread aside. If there is any dip left over, pour over the slices. They'll soak it up.

Get the bacon going.

MMMMMM. Bacon.

Time to murder the strawberries,

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ok. I'm done now.

Let's start the filling.

These are the ingredients in the filling. Plus a little almond extract. It ran away before I could take the picture.

Don't you hate it when ingredients grow legs and run off.

Grab the cream cheese. It's best if slightly soft. Makes mushing easier. Dump it in a bowl.

Add about 1/2c of yogurt, 1/2c marshmallow fluff and 2 Tbs sugar.

Squish together until smooth. Check on the bacon.

I cheated. I do that. 

Add almond extract. Mix in.

When it's done, it should look (insert accent here) lika dis...

So the bowl is messy. Cooking is messy. I'm a real cook, not food set person. 

Add a few chopped strawberries to the mix. I used maybe 4 little ones.

K. Throw it in the freezer to stiffen up a bit. 

Time to murder the strawberries a little. 

Chop them into bits. Check on the bacon.

Add sugar to make them happy. Add amaretto if you have no children to worry about. No intoxicating children, no matter how tempting to get them to sleep earlier.

Time to cook the toast. 

Heat up a skillet, griddle, or cast iron.

Slather it down with butter. 

Check on the bacon. Drain slices on paper towels. Throw on baking pan and into oven if they are done before everything else.

Cook on each side only until golden brown and return to baking pan. 

Once all of them are done, slide into the oven for about 7-8 minutes. 

Whew. Take a swig of that amaretto. Go pee. Dance a jig. Whatever.

Time to assemble.

Take one slice of toast and cut in half. Top one half with the filling from the freezer. Place other half on top. Cover in strawberries.

Grab some bacon and your good to go!