Birthday soup

It's my bff's birthday; aka "The Ogre", aka The wine guy at www.wineschool101.com, aka Chris

Anyway, food is a big part of our friendship so it isn't at all strange that I gave him a beautiful pot filled with beautiful soup as a gift. 

It's just my basic chicken soup with thyme but the dumplings in it are amazing. I can't take credit for them, it's  a recipe from America's Test Kitchen

What's a birthday without a treat? I made a batch of these chocolate peanut butter cookies too:

There is no way to make them look pretty  but they are so,so good. Here is a link to the recipe, they are no bake! http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/desserts/article/no-bake-chocolate-peanut-butter-cookies

 Happy birthday my friend!

Black Bean Salad

There's an over abundance of soup in the fridge right now so as much as I wanted to make black bean soup I opted for salad. I love how colorful this is, especially because CT is pretty colorless these days.  I'm not missing soup for a minute, this stuff is delicious. Anytime I can use lime and cilantro...it's a good day. 

Black Bean Salad

2 cans black beans drained and rinsed 

1/2 English cucumber seeded and diced

A handful of grape tomatoes halved

4 scallions sliced

A few small sweet red peppers chopped

A bunch of cilantro chopped

2 limes zested and juiced

2tbs olive oil (I used chipotle infused)

1 clove garlic grated 

Salt, pepper, and a pinch of chili powder and cumin

Make a dressing with the lime zest, juice, oil, and seasoning. 

Toss all other Ingredients together with dressing. So simple. 

Refrigerate for an hour or so and serve cold. 

Now onto feeding my creative soul! I am addicted to vintage embroidery patterns

And as hard as I try not to go to www.patternbee.com, sometimes I can't help it. So this came in the mail yesterday:

 I started stitching on some gingham last night, these will cloth napkins soon. 

And I also managed to finish this cute towel yesterday

Baking weather

If it's really cold and it's going to snow again, baking is happening. 

This morning I made a batch of blueberry and jam muffins. It's a pretty basic muffin recipe with the addition of homemade peach blueberry jam that I made last summer. 

1 3/4 cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

2tsp baking powder 

1/4 tsp salt

I egg

3/4 cup buttermilk 

1/4 cup canola oil 

Zest of 1 lemon

1 tsp vanilla 

3/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries 

Topping:

3tbs flour

3 tbs brown sugar

2 tbs butter

12 generous tsp of homemade jam

Heat oven to 400 and line a muffin pan with paper cups. 

Blend dry ingredients in a large bowl and wet ingredients in a smaller bowl. Combine wet into dry by gently folding. You want lumps, lumps make muffins...muffins. 

Very gently fold berries into mixture. 

Divide batter evenly into paper cups. Add a generous teaspoon of jam to the center of each muffin cup by making an indentation with the back of the spoon. 

Next cut the butter into the flour and brown sugar until crumbly and sprinkle over the tops. 

Bake for 18-20 minutes until golden. 

DIY Ranch Crackers

Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know I can buy crackers but what fun is that?? So, I had all of those oyster crackers leftover from Chowder Bowl Sunday and although they are good, they're really bland and no one would ever eat them. I was thinking of ways to season them and I remembered the dried buttermilk in my cabinet, ranch seasoning was meant to be. I can't remember what aisle I found it in but I grabbed it because I never have fresh buttermilk on hand and I figured it would come in handy someday.  This isn't really a recipe because I didn't measure anything but here's what I did:

4 packets of dried buttermilk (1/2cup)

A few teaspoons of garlic powder, onion flakes, paprika, cayenne, kosher salt, black pepper, dried parsley. I put it in my little spice grinder and that's it!

You can go in hundreds of directions with this by switching up the spices. 

You can use this for a number of things; dip, burgers, chicken, potatoes, etc. this is what I did:

Ranch Crackers

1 bag of oyster crackers

1/4 cup canola oil 

3 tbs ranch seasoning

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl mix crackers and oil until coated. Sprinkle the seasoning and mix again. Spread on to a sheet pan and bake until golden, approximately 10 minutes. Let cool and store in an airtight container. 

New in the shop today:

Fruity Faux Bois lunch bag!

Soup for days...and days

Clearly, I love soup. It's the best part of winter! Yesterday was Pasta Fagioli, a favorite in this house. Although I am not Italian by blood, I was raised Italian which is why I tend to make a lot of Italian dishes. There are many versions of pasta Fagioli and this is mine.

1lb dried white beans 

Olive oil

2 diced onion, carrot and celery

4 cloves minced garlic

1 box beef stock

1 box chicken stock

1/2 cup red wine

1 can crushed tomatoes

2 tbs tomato paste

Salt, pepper, red pepper flakes

1/2 box of ditalini pasta

Fresh parsley and basil

Grated cheese

The night before, soak beans in cold water. In the morning change the water and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until beans are tender. Set aside until you are ready to make soup. 

In a soup pot, Sauté veggies and garlic in olive oil until just tender. Season with salt and peppers. Add wine, scraping any bits from the pot. Add tomatoes (I used leftover marinara I had in the fridge) paste and stock. Bring to a boil and simmer 20-30 minutes 

Add beans to the pot and simmer another 10 minutes. At this point you need to mash half of the beans. I usually use my handheld blender but I was in a hurry and just used a masher, not as effective but it's ok. 

In another pot, cook the ditalini to the stage right before "al dente". That pasta is going to soak up a lot of the stock and you don't want it too mushy. Drain and add it to the soup pot. Turn the heat down low and stir frequently for a few minutes. Add chopped herbs and garnish bowls with grated cheese, a drizzle of good olive oil and a pinch of red pepper flakes. 

Today in the shop:

I've added 2 new items, it's getting there. Slowly. 

Etsy shop is back up!

It's taken me over three years to get back but it's happening...slowly! 

Some old favorites and some new items as well. 

Due to time constraints, I will be taking a new approach with the shop this time. I can't do any custom work this time around but will offer a bunch of new items that are ready to ship. 

As a thank you, the first orders in February will receive a small gift just in time for Valentine's Day. 

Lavender heart sachets...they smell so good!

Come visit me at https://www.etsy.com/shop/HomeEcNewHaven?ref=hdr