Soup Night! (10/3/06)

First, looky what I found at the store..........spinach!


Spinach is back. Finally. I had heard that it might start showing up in the stores last week and finally found some on Friday. Too bad I jumped so quickly at this bag - I prefer the baby spinach and Wegman's had a supply when I went to the store last night.

This recipe is from Cooking Light, but I'm afraid our version was more like Cooking-not-so-light. I didn't realize this called for Italian turkey sausage and I bought regular Italian sausage. Sometimes CL recipes DO call for small amounts of the full-fat sausages.

Right off the bat I decided that I would double this recipe and it ended up being a very good idea. I love soup leftovers and besides, my boys have pretty big appetites these days, so I'm having to cook more to make sure there is enough!


The recipe ended up needing even more tweaking after I realized that it also called for canned tomatoes with basil, garlic and oregano. No problem, I just used plain diced tomatoes and added 3 large cloves of garlic (which I usually add anyway in recipes like this - you just can't beat fresh garlic), 1/2 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning and 1/2 teaspoon oregano. I purposely left out the fresh basil - simply because I was feeling cheap and didn't feel like shelling out the money for it.

Italian Sausage Soup

At first it didn't look like there would be enough pasta for my tastes, so I added another 1/2 cup. What I didn't do, however, is add more liquid to the pot, so the soup ended up a little skimpy on the broth base. I would consider adding more pasta next time - but maybe only an additional 1/4 cup, but I would definitely up the liquid too.

I'd love to try this with hot Italian sausage or a combination of hot and mild. And next time - turkey sausage. With the regular sausage, it upped the fat to 18 grams per serving, versus 7 grams. And there will be a next time - this soup will definitely be a repeater for us. It's tasty and a cinch to throw together. It also calls for ingredients that I almost always have on hand - a big plus for those last minute, "What's for dinner?" panics.

The apple muffins are still on the list for tonight (hopefully I'll post tomorrow), but I want to make sure to get this soup recipe up for Sweetnicks' ARF/5-A-Day Tuesday. With spinach and tomato and a side of red grapes, we definitely got on 1 or more of that 5-A-Day quota. And I submit it in celebration at the return of spinach. Check back with Sweetnicks later for the weekly round-up.

Tags: spinach, Italian sausage, soup, Cooking Light, low-fat, recipe

This and That

The kitchen was hopping again yesterday, but only one recipe was a new one.

Beef Meatballs

Early in the afternoon I put a pot of marinara on the stove to simmer all day long. Later in the day, I made a double batch of Cooking Light's Beef Meatballs. We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and I still have a sauce and 2 more meal's worth of meatballs left to stock the freezer.

Cranberry Whole Grain Muffins

The new recipe for the day was a batch of whole grain cranberry muffins from King Arthur. These have great taste - orange and cranberry are a classic combination - but they turned out a bit dry. My timer didn't get started right away, so it's possible that I overcooked them a bit. Funny though, lots of cranberry recipes, especially cranberry bread, I've tried have turned out dry. If careful timing doesn't work, I would consider upping the oil a bit.

Photo from Cooking Light
Overnight Apple Butter

Once again, I didn't get around to the apple butter and decided that I'd have to start it in the morning and let it cook all day instead of overnight. By the time I finish cooking dinner and cleaning up, I'm not usually all that fond of messing it up all over again. Plus, Desperate Housewives was on last night and we all have priorities, right? I considered skipping the apple butter altogether, but I still had quite a few apples left and they were looking a little bruised, so I trudged on. It's a really easy recipe and the boys have been clamoring for it.

I had planned to make apple muffins today, but as I was sending the apples through my nifty apple peeler, I realized that I only had one apple left after making the apple butter. So, I decided to make some cookies for our guests this weekend, but found I was out of peanut butter. Sigh. I'll make the cookies later tonight after I hit the store and I'll post them tomorrow, along with the apple muffins.

Before I sign off for the day, I'm resurrecting this recipe as a submission to Sweetnicks' 5th "I'll Show You Mine, If You Show Me Yours" round-up. This time around, she's asking about our "go-to" dish for entertaining. I had a hard time answering this one. I tend to make something different every time I entertain, rarely repeating dishes for guests more than a couple of times. And then you have to figure in the seasons. My go-to dishes for summer are quite different than my go-to dishes for winter, for example. But, I had to pick one, so here it is. Beef and Chicken Fajitas with Peppers and Onions.

Photo from Cooking Light
Beef-and-Chicken Fajitas with Peppers and Onions

These are a big crowd pleaser. Not only are they delicious, but fajitas are an easy, tasty way to feed a large (or small) group and appeal to lots of different tastes. You provide the ingredients and the guests get to make their dinner to order. You can also do most of the prep work the day before, another big plus when you're entertaining. Don't forget to check in at Sweetnicks later this week for the round-up.

That's it for today.....see you tomorrow.............

Tags: meatballs, low fat, Cooking Light, marinara, apple butter, fajitas, recipes

What's for Dinner? (9/30/06)

Last night's whirlwind in the kitchen yielded a big mess, but also some pretty good eats too. Part of the reason for the chaos was that I had two new recipes that I used as building blocks, but the rest was sort of figured out on the fly. While it can be fun to cook on the fly, it can also lead to a lot of disorganization. In any case, dinner was a success and that's the ultimate goal.

I started out knowing I wanted to make a polenta dish with wild mushrooms. It was my intention to try this dish from Cooking Light, using wild mushrooms. It looked easy and tasty - great. Only my jar of Alfredo sauce in the fridge was moldy, I was out of Fontina cheese and I forgot to buy basil. Hmmmm. Not to be deterred, I scrounged up some sharp provolone and a bit of cream - I could still make a go of something tasty. The end result was very tasty, but the sharpness of the provolne overwhelmed the wild mushroom flavor, so my first choice, Fontina, would have indeed been a better choice with may just a touch of sharp provolone thrown in.

Polenta with Wild Mushrooms and Sharp Provolone

Collard Greens with Proscuitto and Red Onions

The collard greens were an impluse buy, mostly due to the lack of spinach in the stores. I had a notion that I wanted to use prosciutto with them, so I searched the internet and found this recipe on Epicurious that I used as a base - scaling it WAY down as we were only cooking 1 pound, not 4! Shockingly enough, DH liked these better than I did. They were pretty good, but there was something I didn't like - I'm not sure if it was the greens themselves or if something was lacking in the seasoning. The boys tolerated it pretty well and the youngest even proclaimed them very good - however, he needed encouragement to finish them all, so I'm not sure what he really thought of them.

Time to get back in the kitchen and get cooking again. Something tells me that tomorrow night will definitely be a leftover night............

Tags: polenta, wild mushrooms, collard greens, Epicurious, Gourmet, recipe, food

Pumpkin & Apples

Whew - yesterday's cooking kept me so busy that I didn't even have time to get it all blogged and ready for reading.

It's a cool, drizzly weekend here in PA, perfect time for baking. I picked up a couple of bags of apples at Wegmans this week and I need to make sure that they get used.

First up yesterday, apple pancakes. As I mentioned earlier, we have a running whole grains thread over on the CLBB. I knew I wanted to bake some muffins this weekend, but when I saw this recipe, I knew I had to try these - today!

Apple and Cinnamon Oatmeal Pancakes

These are delicious. I did not have Granny Smith, so I used Ginger Gold - I think a tarter apple like the Granny Smith would probably work better to contrast the sweetness of the pancake and the syrup, but I wasn't disappointed with the Ginger Gold - really any kind of apple would produce a tasty result.

The original poster is quite correct - these really do have the texture of a flat muffin and they are just as delicate too, so you need to take care in making these. I started out on an anodized griddle, but they started sticking too much, so I switched to a nonstick saute pan. I was limited to making 3 at a time this way instead of 6, but it made flipping them much easier.

For years I have seen no reason to invest in an electric skillet, but I think I see one now. Trying to cook pancakes on a stove is just not working for me. I need a larger workspace, but the anodized skillet not only sticks a lot for me no matter how much oil I use, it also doesn't heat evenly because of one burner being smaller than the other, etc. I've considered getting a nonstick griddle, but I think an electric skillet would provide nice, even heating. Time to go shopping.......

The only thing I would like to tweak with these pancakes is the texture. Tall, fluffy pancakes are less attractive to me than the thinner ones. However, I don't know if that kind of texture can reasonably be expected with this type of pancake. I'm also very interested in trying a baked apple pancake - like this recipe from Epicurious.

Next up were pumpkin-apple muffins. Pumpkin and apples - what could be more representative of fall? The boys moaned several oohs and ahhs at the prospect of me making these muffins, so once I presented them as a possibility, there was no turning back.

Ann's Pumpkin-Apple Muffins

These muffins were a big hit. My only disappointment was that the pumpkin overwhelmed the apples. Perhaps using Granny Smith would help the apples shine through more. Still, I did get hints of apple here and there and these were delicious enough to make again. For the full original recipe, please see this post on the CLBB - it includes suggestions for turning these into a vegan recipe, along with other notes.

It was my plan to make apple butter yesterday too, but I was a whirlwhind/disaster in the kitchen last night cooking dinner, so the apple butter didn't even enter into my consciousness until this morning. No worries, dinner was a success, I just made a big mess getting it on the table and felt like I was having an out-of-body experience, watching myself whirl around the kitchen, trying to make sure we got dinner on the table before bedtime!

Last night's dinner brought two more new recipes to the kitchen with a baked polenta dish with wild mushrooms and collard greens. I'll post those later today or tomorrow, depending on how much time I have to devote to it.

On the menu today (to be posted in the next day or two): apple butter, marinara, beef meatballs, and cranberry muffins. Whew.

Tags: pumpkin, apple, muffins, pancakes, whole grain, vegan, Gourmet, Epicurious, recipe, food

Soup Night (9/29/06)

Feeling a bit better today, so I'm back to cooking. My appetite isn't completely back (hey, that's a good thing) and things are still a little off, but otherwise okay.

My boys both adore New England Clam Chowder and have been after me to make it for a long time. I don't have a tried and true recipe yet, so I decided to go with a recipe from Never Trust a Culinary Student. The recipe, from her studies at culinary school, was vague, but it gave me the basic building blocks I needed.

I think that New England Clam Chowder may be one of those recipes where less is more. Like homefried potatoes. My DH and I had a competition many years ago to see who could make the best homefried potatoes. The only constant was that it had to be Lyonnaise - with onions. We went nuts - putting in all kinds of herbs, spices, even hot sauce. In the end, we realized that all you really needed was onion, salt, pepper and butter (although technique was extremely important, but that's another story). Sometimes less is more. The same may hold true for clam chowder. There are ways to fancy it up that are perfectly delicious - for example, Cooking Light has a wonderful Southwestern version - but sometimes you just want the basics.

New England Clam Chowder

The trail version came out very well. It had that classic NE chowder flavor, but it also had a bit more color than some chowders. For one thing, I used baby red potatoes since that's what was on hand, and I left the skins on. Certainly not traditional. It worked pretty well, but I think a russett potato would hold up better in soup.

I didn't make a roux - instead I used a slurry of equal parts flour and water, whisked together. Not only did this make the soup simpler to prepare, it also lowered the fat content. I ended up adding a 1/4 cup of flour and it still wasn't thick enough for our tastes, though by no means thin. I'd like to figure out how to thicken it a bit more next time.

I have decided that using real cream in simple, creamy soups is a must. You can do a lower fat version, but more than likely, you're going to have to compensate by adding other ingredients to help boost the flavor. While that can be fine, sometimes you want the main ingredient to shine through - fat, though maybe not the healthiest choice, is still one of the best ways to boost the flavor of your main ingredients without competing with those flavors. And at a 1/2 cup of cream for 6 servings, this recipe is not exactly swimming in fat. In fact, according to Mastercook (a great way to organize your recipes on the computer), this recipe would qualify as low-fat, or pretty close, with 33% of the calories coming from fat.

I'll most likely be experimenting with other recipes before deciding on a keeper, but this was a great start.

Stay tuned for more to come from the kitchen this weekend......like apple butter, muffins and other tasty treats.

Tags: soup, chowder, clams, low-fat, recipe, food