Monday, January 4, 2010

Soup Weather!

We had more snow on Sunday! A dusting, maybe a little more, but enough to cover, combined with the wind, it's been freezing cold and we needed soup here! This is the perfect chill chaser...




I can't follow directions exactly, never could. Just ask my first grade teacher, my second, my third, the list goes on. And I know this because it says so, in red, on all those old report cards my mother saved. But not a problem when it comes to cooking, it's usually fixable. I cooked the rice separately, but the mushrooms and leeks, in my case this time, shallots, sauteed all together. This time instead of the porcini powder, I used dried porcini's and reconstituted them in warm water, then used the mushroom broth in the soup as well as the chopped porcini's! Served with a quiche and a salad, easy dinner for a cold, snowy night!

Mushroom and Wild Rice Soup
Source: Martha Stewart Living - September 2003
Printable Recipe

1/2 teaspoon coarse salt, plus more for seasoning
1/2 cup wild rice
3 teaspoons olive oil
1 1/4 pounds assorted mushrooms, such as button, cremini, shiitake (stems removed), and chanterelle, sliced into bite-size pieces
Freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3 leeks (white and pale-green parts only), quartered lengthwise and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon Porcini Powder
1/2 cup sherry or Madeira
3 tablespoons soy sauce
6 cups chicken stock
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh, flat-leaf parsley

In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup water to a boil.  Add salt and wild rice. Cover; reduce heat to medium-low. Cook until tender, 45 to 50 minutes. Drain; set aside.

In a large saucepan, heat half the oil over medium-high heat. Add half the mushrooms; season with salt and pepper. Cook until browned and tender, about 7 minutes; transfer to a bowl. Repeat with remaining oil and mushrooms.

Reduce heat to medium-low. Melt butter; add leeks. Cook, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in mushroom powder; cook 1 minute. Add sherry and soy sauce; cook 1 minute more.

Add stock to pot; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms; return turn to a boil. Reduce heat to medium; cook 20 minutes. Stir in wild rice, cream, and parsley; adjust seasoning, and serve.

PORCINI POWDER (1/3 cup)
1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms

In a spice mill or coffee grinder, pulse porcini to a fine powder. Store in an airtight container at room temperature. You can use this in soups, stews, sprinkled on steak, in sauces, risotto. Adds a nice depth of flavor.

I made a quiche for dinner, it's easy, and you can throw whatever you have in the frig in and end up with a really good combination. This one had slices of tomato, cheddar cheese, broccoli, mushrooms and shallots. It was filled! and now my refrigerator isn't! Good way to use up whatever you have.




Mrs. Anderson whoever she is came up with the best idea since sliced bread. The pie shield. Comes in two sizes and it's so much easier than crimping tin foil around the crust. My edges always cracked off when I did the tin foil thing. Works great! You can see on the slice, I still have my edge!




 The basic recipe I use for quiche is here.



Sunday, January 3, 2010

Mosaic Monday! Breakfast!

Joining Mary at the Little Red House for Mosaic Monday! Check out Mary's blog and see all the Mosaic's this week!





We're having Sunday breakfast this New Year's weekend. Could be pancakes, maybe French toast, or a frittata. No one is awake yet, so breakfast will end up being more like a brunch. or not!

Back to work tomorrow after a nice long vacation. I could use another week!





Recipes from this picture include...

Frittata
Chocolate French Toast
Cinnamon-Bun Filled Pancakes


Wishing you all a very happy and a healthy New Year for 2010!

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Ringing in a new year...



Wishing you all a very happy and healthy New Year!





Kir Royale
Printable Recipe

Creme de Cassis (Blackcurrant-flavored Liqueur)
Chilled Champagne or Sparkling Wine

Pour 1-2 tablespoons Creme de Cassis into a flute glass, add more if you like a sweeter cocktail. Gently pour champagne on top. You can also add the Cassis after the Champagne.

Another nice cocktail is Champagne with Chambord Liqueur. Garnish with raspberries!

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

On the side...

On vacation from work all week, having a great time doing nothing. Or at least doing nothing much. Lunch and shopping is something, but today was nothing and I loved it. A perfectly quiet house, everyone was out and about doing errands. Just me and the three dogs! Big difference between relaxing and lazy! Not relaxing. Just lazy. Sometimes you just need a day like that! Did nothing. Until dinner.

My friend, Cindy, made a Sweet Onion Pudding this past week to great reviews and the picture she took of it has had me wanting to try it ever since she posted it. Was not sure how Miss Picky would like it, but everyone else here is sure to love!

So I tried it. I used two big sweet onions, sliced on a mandoline, and a little less butter. No heavy cream. Forgot to put it on the list. I used 2% milk because I couldn't send poor hubs out yet again! He's a sweetheart and doesn't mind errands, even though he knows ten minutes after he gets home, I'll have forgotten something. He's a good sport and he'll go. They already know him at the supermarket and bet that he'll be back! He usually is :)

We loved it. Miss Picky, of course didn't. But to her credit she tried a small piece. Barely. It was a nice side to brisket, instead of the potatoes we usually have with it!





Sweet Onion Pudding
Source: CindyMac (Adapted from November 2000 Southern Living)
Printable Recipe

1 cup whipping cream
3-4 ounces Parmesan cheese, shredded
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
little freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 cup butter
3 medium sweet onions, thinly sliced

STIR together first 3 ingredients in a large bowl. Combine flour and next 3 ingredients; gradually stir into egg mixture. Set aside.

MELT butter in a large skillet over medium heat; add onion, and cook, stirring often, 30 to 40 minutes or until onion is caramel colored. Remove onion from heat.

STIR onion into egg mixture; spoon into a lightly greased pie plate or 8-x8-inch baking dish.

BAKE at 350° for 30 minutes or until set.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Mushrooms! It's worth repeating ...

Nothing more delicious than taking fresh garlic bread, and using it to sop up all the juices from the dish of Stuffed Mushrooms. So I made it again! The store had the huge stuffing mushrooms, we could have made a meal on just the mushrooms alone, but why stop there? So we went with the theme, we had some Chicken Parmigiana along with it. Spaghetti Marinara and some string beans with garlic and oil! and a huge salad!








Garlic Bread is really easy. Just get a fresh baguette or an Italian bread, slice it lengthwise. In a food processor throw in about 5 or 6 cloves of garlic or more if you want it really garlicky. Sprinkle in some salt and pepper to taste, and then about a 1/2 cup or so extra virgin olive oil. Whiz it until it emulsifies, and then using a pastry brush, slather the garlic mix on both halves if the bread. Close the bread, and seal it in aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees F for about 15 minutes. Then open it up, sprinkle with a bit of grated Parmesan if you like, and broil the open halves until the top is golden brown or the smoke alarm goes off. Whatever comes first!



                               Serve with Stuffed Mushrooms to sop up the sauce.




I cheat sometimes with the Stuffed Mushrooms, I whizz the mushroom stems, a shallot and some salt and pepper in the food processor until it's really finely chopped, and then saute the finely chopped bit in a pan with some olive oil for a few minutes. I whiz up fresh bread crumbs from a baguette in the processor and saute that with the stem mixture for a few minutes more. Then stuff the mushroom caps with that mixture, and sprinkle a little olive oil in the baking dish. Mixed with the juices from the mushrooms while it bakes, makes a great sauce! The fresh crumbs make a lighter stuffing than the dried. and I don't pack it in, I just use about a teaspoon of stuffing in each large mushroom!

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Roasted Chestnuts!

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose...



So there is no open fire here, just an oven and a roasting pan. Jack Frost, well he was here last week. This week it's more like Missy Melted, as there is hardly a trace of the Blizzard that Jack Frost sent last week to the Long Island area! Jack is no longer nipping at my nose, I think it's actually sunny and pretty warm for a late December day.


This is what the weather is like today...



The exact same spot last week, same time of day!



                                                    
 What a difference a week makes!



 Here's what's left...
                                                              


That's all! and a puddle at the end of the driveway!

Joining Mary at the Little Red House for Mosaic Monday! Stop by her blog and check out all the Mosaics that have participated!



Roasted Chestnuts
Printable Recipe

Choose chestnuts that are smooth, shiny and heavy. Soft ones are rotten. Always score your chestnuts before cooking. Roasting time can vary depending on the chestnuts. Chestnuts are harder to peel once they have cooled completely. Boiling the chestnuts before roasting, softens the shells, and the chestnuts roast in only 12-18 minutes. If you're boiling them first, make the x's in your chestnuts before you boil them.

Be really careful when you score them!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Use a sharp paring knife or a serrated knife to cut an X into one side of each chestnut, be really careful doing this. They can be slippery. Boil the chestnuts in water for about 10 -15 minutes (optional, but I always do it this way to soften them, you can omit this part and just roast them after scoring them but they don't get as soft!)

Arrange chestnuts on a baking sheet or in a shallow pan, with the cut sides up. Roast in oven for 15 to 25 minutes, or until chestnuts are tender and easy to peel. Peel the nuts when they are cool enough to handle, and eat.

I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays! Wishing you all a very Happy New Year! 

 

Monday, December 21, 2009

Easy as Pie!

Pizza Pie! Homemade pizza. Somewhat anyway. We picked up two fresh pizza dough balls from the pizza place here. Intended to get to it on Saturday afternoon for lunch, but that didn't work out. I was very busy doing nothing. Waiting and watching for snow. It finally came, lots of it. So we made it for Sunday night. and just to keep with the sort of homemade, but maybe not completely, I made a pot of Rotini pasta. and threw in an envelope of Knorr's Pesto Sauce. Miss Picky likes that a lot. A salad and that was dinner after a very long morning of digging out of the blizzard that swept through Long Island, among other places. I had a lot for good intentions for dinner, but this was really easy and really good. Use whatever toppings you like!


                             Ricotta, Parmesan, Onion and Mushroom Pizza




Grape Tomato, Cheddar and Mozzarella Cheese Pizza



If you don't want to get the dough from the pizza place, I have a great recipe that's pretty easy and comes out great! Click HERE for the recipe!