Soup du Jour

I love soup, especially when the weather's cool and/or icky.  Unloading most of the meat in our diets has made me revisit some tried-and-true favorites.  I don't use meat very often, but I do still use stock and broth, especially organic chicken broth.  So here's the Twinkle Twinkle Soup recipe, as enjoyed by all this week!  It was great at dinner, but was much better for lunch the next day, after the flavors had had time to get happy together. We had it with cranberry bran muffins, but the recipe needs some tweaking, so stay tuned!

Twinkle Twinkle, Little Soup!
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 large carrots, sliced
2 ribs celery, sliced
1/2 onion, diced
1 Granny Smith Apple, peeled, cored, and diced
2 bay leaves
1 tsp. poultry seasoning
2 quarts chicken broth or stock
1/2 c. frozen peas
1/2 c. frozen corn
1 c. stars pasta
Heat olive oil over medium heat in large stock pot.  Add in carrots, onions, apple, and celery.  Cook for a few minutes, until the vegetables begin to soften and get fragrant.  Add bay leaves and poultry seasoning, then add chicken broth.  Bring to a boil, then lower heat to simmer 20 minutes or so, until veggies are just tender.  Return to boil, and add pasta.  Cook for 5-6 minutes (or whatever time pasta directions call for), then add frozen veggies.  Stir to combine, return to boil, then turn off heat.  After about 5 minutes, frozen veggies should have thawed and be heated through, and soup should be cool enough to serve.  Enjoy!

Variations on a Theme of Saturday

We had roast beef hot-shots with green beans Saturday evening, by request.   Today I found myself with a fairly decent amount of roast beef and gravy left over, and some mashed potatoes.  There was enough for a meal...for some other, smaller family.  So here's the leftovers meal, resurrected with some fresh dinner rolls.   I used some frozen veggies and some fresh, but use what you've got.  That's why they're called leftovers!

Rerun Stoup
2-3 carrots, sliced
2 ribs celery, sliced
1/2 small onion, diced
1/2 c. mushrooms, chopped
2 bay leaves
Place these in crock pot with a little water...just enough to cover.  
Add leftover gravy, meat, mashed potatoes, etc.
Stir to combine.  Add enough liquid (water, broth, stock) to bring to desired thickness.  Turn on low and ignore until about an hour before dinnertime.  Add 1/2 c. each frozen peas and corn, stir, and continue to ignore.  Serve.


Sneaky Dinner Rolls (makes 2 dozen)
In bowl of electric mixer, combine:
2 pkgs. yeast (5 tsp)
1/2 c. warm water  (110-115 deg.)
1 tsp sugar
Let stand 5-10 min. until foamy.
**If using instant yeast, skip this step.  Just put the yeast with the flour and add the water with other liquids
Add to yeast mixture:
3 c. whole wheat flour
1/3 c. sugar
1-1/4 c. warm milk (110-115 deg.)
1/2 c. melted butter
2 eggs
Mix well, with dough hook, until fully combined and smooth.
Then add gradually:
2-3 c. all-purpose flour (just until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl)
1/3 c. flax seeds
When dough is fairly smooth, remove hook and cover bowl with plastic wrap.  Let rise until double - 30-60 min., depending on temperature and how happy the yeast are.  With silicone spatula, scrape dough out onto a floured board or countertop.  Knead a few seconds to form a soft ball.  Divide dough in half.  Form 12 even rolls from each half and place in 2 9x13 pans, 1 13x18 cake pan, or 24 muffin cups.  Bake at 350 for 15-20 min, until golden brown.

Sweet (and Spicy) Scents of Fall

Have I mentioned that I love fall cooking?   Today's celebration is apple butter!  There's a batch bubbling in my crock pot now, just waiting to be spread thickly on some soft home-made bread.  My house smells so good!

Apple Butter
10-12 medium(ish) apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
1 tbsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 c. sucanat

Combine all ingredients in crock pot.  Cook on low 8-12 hours, (depending on apple variety and desired texture), stirring occasionally.  Whisk smooth.

**This recipe is simple and infinitely adaptable.  You can use different varieties of apples - firmer ones (like Granny Smith or Honeycrisp) take longer, and you'll have chunkier apple butter.  Softer varieties (like Gala or McIntosh) cook more quickly and make smoother apple butter.  You can mix and match them with whatever you have.  You can adjust the sweetness, use all white sugar, all brown, or a combination.  You can use more or less spice.  You can cook it in a slow cooker and ignore it, or on the stove top and keep an eye on it.  It's entirely up to you...bon apetit!

Dairy Discoveries

I remember the day I thought my Grandma (the cook) was losing her mind.  She bought a yogurt maker.  After her first batch, she put it on a shelf and never used it again.  Why?  Because "milk just isn't what it's supposed to be."  Boy, was I confused.  I remained confused about that day until recently, when a friend introduced me to the culinary wonder that is raw milk.  If you don't know, raw milk is milk that is "sraight from the cow" - unpasteurized, unhomogenized, totally un-messed-with.  Lovely stuff.  So I did what any self-respecting farm wife would have done a century ago:  I made butter.  I also made yogurt, and have used the milk in two of my favorite bread recipes with stellar results.  Son-of-a-gun, Grandma wasn't losing it after all.  Milk really wasn't what it had been when she was growing up on the farm...what it was "supposed to be."  What a great discovery!

I'm very fortunate to have some wonderful friends who generously share their knowledge of traditional kitchen practices.  We also have German Baptist and Amish communities nearby, and many of those families are also using the same techniques and recipes they have used for generations, and they are happy to share them to keep the traditions of "real" food alive and growing.

So, about that butter...

I siphoned the cream off the top of the milk with a turkey baster, put it in a jar, and let it sit out on the counter overnight (12 hours or so.)  The next day, I poured it into the bowl of the Kitchen Aid mixer, put on the whisk attachment, and let 'er rip.  I found out that milk flies.  So I made a makeshift tent out of aluminum foil and put it over the top of the mixer and the bowl.  Much better.  About half-an-hour later, I had whipped butter in my  bowl!  I strained the butter through a fine sieve to separate the buttermilk, then chilled it.  It made its debut on the dinner table with baked potatoes the next day to enthusiastic praise.  I think that counts as a success story!

The New Breakfast of Champions

"Mom, you're awesome.  That's the bomb.  You're going to do that again, right?  Please?"  Music to my ears!  Needless to say, that one's a keeper; it's warm, yummy, and nutritious.  The magical concoction in question was groats from the crockpot, warm and waiting when the little darlings ventured downstairs this morning.  Added bonus:  I threw it all in last night before I went up to bed.  No hassle for me this morning!  I'm all for ANYTHING that reduces morning hassle.

The Breakfast of Champions 
     (I made 6 cups...you can adjust the amount to fit your needs.  Just keep a 4-1 ratio of water to grain)

1-1/2 c.  steel cut oat groats
6 c. water
1/2 c. sucanat
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and chopped


Stir all ingredients together in crock pot.  Cover and cook on low for about 8 hours.


*We ate ours with a generous dollop of plain homemade yogurt.  Enjoy!

Cold Weather Cook

I love summer, but I think I'd starve without "winter" cooking.  My absolute strong suit:  baking!  My Grandmother (the NOT southern one that was a really good cook) used to tell me "There's a proper way to do things.  It's not just throwing things in a bowl."  She was my go-to person when I was first married and learning to cook for everyday meals, not just follow recipes for special occasions.  In recent years, I've looked to the scientific culinary genius that is Alton Brown to learn more about how cooking works.  I've not made anyone sick yet with my cooking, but baking is definitely my forte.  Breads, quick breads, cookies, cakes, muffins...there's my element.  Most recently, I've been looking to eliminate refined sugars and flours in these goods without making them inedible. I've not had trouble finding taste-testers!

I've also been a fan of slow-cooking, both in the oven and in the crock pot.  This could get more tricky this year, as we've nearly eliminated meat in our regular menus.  I'll be playing with legumes, mushrooms and whole grains more, learning new things about seasonings and cooking methods to come up with hearty, warming winter meals.  It should be fun!  I'll post the stuff worth sharing, and would love to read whatever input you have along the way.

Here's to yummy, warm comfort food!

You Are What You Eat

We've established that I love to cook.  I'm harboring this fantasy of someday being able to do anything I need to in the kitchen with basic, natural ingredients.  I am proud of the fact that I can put dinner on the table without NEEDING a recipe to follow or a box to open.  As a family, we've been moving more and more away from processed foods and refined ingredients to whole, unmessed-with foods.  We buy organic when it's available and financially possible.  When it's not, I make whatever I can.  It's a fun challenge for me to make something I've seen in a store or a restaurant, and do it better.  Now, don't get me wrong; there are take-out menus stashed in a drawer in my kitchen.  Drive-thrus are not a foreign experience for our family, but they are (thankfully) a rare concession when time or poor planning gets the best of me.  I feel blessed that my kids recognize junk food when they see (taste, smell) it, and prefer "real" food any day of the week.  It's the exception, not the rule in their nutrition.

So...we aim to be healthier by eating healthier.  If we eat food refined and processed beyond all recognition, we can expect to feel un-nourished and unhealthy.  Better living through chemistry?  Not in my kitchen!

Branching Out

As my Kentucky-born Grandma would say, I do things in "fits." I read in fits, study in fits, practice in fits, cook in fits, clean in fits, write in fits...and occasionally, I have a "fit" when it's convenient to do so. It looks like today might be one of those days! As a Mom of six busy boys, and wife to a very busy liturgist, musician and teacher, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. I've been pitied for it, but here's the secret: I LOVE IT! I love to cook, I love to learn about food and cooking, and I take great joy in creating and perfecting recipes and sharing them with my family. Luckily enough, it's one of the few things I do well that has a practical application in my life!

So here's the plan: I'm going to cook, and hopefully keep an open forum about what's going on in my kitchen. I'll post pictures, recipes, links, technical tips, or whatever else seems relevant. And I'd love it if you'd do the same! Ready...Set...GO!!