Friday Friendly Food

We love pasta with peas, usually I make it with prosciutto or pancetta and a little cream but for Friday during lent it goes meatless. It also went without cream because I didn't have any. It's still a great dish! Here's what you need:

Olive oil

Dry white wine

1-2 onions sliced thinly

4 cloves garlic, crushed

I pint of grape tomatoes halved ( I had 3 plum tomatoes laying around that I added)

1 cup frozen petite peas

1 lb pasta

Grated cheese

Fresh parsley and basil chopped

Red pepper flakes, Salt and pepper

Heat pasta water. 

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large skillet and add the onions and garlic. Season and sauté until they wilt. 

Splash some white wine in the pan and add the tomatoes. Cook until the tomatoes start to collapse. 

Add the peas and chopped herbs and keep the heat on low while waiting for the pasta to cook. 

Reserve some of the water and add a bit when combining pasta to the sauce. Sprinkle a good handful of grated cheese on and serve. 

Broccoli Cheddar Soup is nothing new, you can google it and find a bunch of recipes. I like to add potatoes to thicken it.  This is how I make mine:

2 lbs broccoli cut up

2 onions diced

3 carrots diced

3 celery diced

3 garlic cloves crushed 

4 whole potatoes peeled

8 oz shredded cheddar 

2 qts Chicken stock

2tbs butter

2 tbs flour

1 cup milk 

Thyme, salt, pepper

Sauté onion, carrot and celery in a heavy soup pot until they sweat. Season with salt and pepper and add the whole potatoes and the broccoli

Cover with chicken broth, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Add thyme and check seasoning. In the meantime shred the cheese and gather remaining ingredients 

Heat the butter in a small pan and cook the flour for a few minutes. Whisk in the milk and add the cheese, whisk until smooth. 

Blend the soup as smooth as you'd like and return to heat. 

Add the cheese sauce to the hot soup and combine. It's not a pretty soup but it's delicious!

Before it was trendy, Kale Soup

I love this Portuguese kale soup, I haven't made it in forever. Decades ago I rented an apartment owned by a Portuguese family, everything they cooked (except for grilled sardines) was amazing and it was always a treat when they would invite me down or drop off a dish. I especially loved this soup, it's hearty, a little spicy and it features kale, which thirty years ago wasn't loved like it is today. There are a few different ways to make this soup, some use beans or tomatoes but this is how I learned to love it and a pretty close replica of what Maria made. 

Here's what you need:

2 onions diced

3 carrots diced 

3 celery diced 

3-4 potatoes peeled and chopped 

3 cloves garlic crushed 

1 bunch of kale

1 lb Chorizo, casing removed and cut in bite sized pieces 

2 quarts chicken stock

Salt and pepper 

Poultry seasoning 

Brown the sausage in a soup pot with a bit of olive oil, add all vegetables except potatoes. Cook until they soften and season with salt and pepper and a generous teaspoon of poultry seasoning. You can substitute with rosemary and  thyme if you'd rather, I really like the way the poultry seasoning works in this soup though. 

While that is cooking, wash and chop the kale, removing the center stem. You can also buy a bag of kale... Back in the olden days you couldn't. Add the kale to the pot along with stock. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. 

Add potatoes and continue to simmer until they are tender making sure you have enough broth to cover. Other variations include adding diced tomato and using beans instead of potatoes. Enjoy!

15 Bean and 2 Greens Soup

Here's a super healthy one for you! My excuse for soup today is that I'm feeling a little under the weather and even if it doesn't make me feel better, I won't have to cook tomorrow. I bought both of these this week:

A big giant bag of baby spinach and kale and these beans. I didn't plan on putting them together but it seems like a good match. Let's talk about beans and rules. Every bag of beans has the same directions; soak overnight or boil and simmer for an hour. I'm a big fan of rules but I am going to disregard bean rules from now on. They taste so much better if you just go ahead and cook them in the soup. I'm not even sorry. 

Here's what you need:

20 oz. bag of 15 bean mix

Big bag of greens

1 quart chicken or veg stock 

2 onion chopped

2 carrots chopped

3-4 celery chopped 

2 garlic cloves chopped 

2-3 TBS tomato paste

Herbs de Provence 

Salt and pepper 

Start the soup as usual; heat a bit of oil in a heavy soup pot and cook the vegetables until they start to soften. Season with salt and pepper, add broth and beans. 

Apparently these beans came with a ham packet... I'm going to take that out.  Add water or more broth if needed to cover beans. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for 1.5 to 2 hours until beans are tender, adding liquid as needed. While that is happening give the greens a rough chop. When the beans are cooked check seasoning, add paste, herbs and finally the greens. 

They will wilt immediately. Soup is ready, enjoy!

Tomato Leek Soup

I'm preparing for the blizzard that's coming today, not that I need a reason to make more soup. Typically I use regular yellow onion in this soup but I needed leeks for another recipe so I gave it a try. It's delicious but I need to remember to double it next time because it ends up being about 1 1/2 quarts in the end. 

Here's what you'll need:

8-10 plum tomatoes 

3 cloves garlic 

1 1/2 chopped leeks

Olive oil 

2 cups chicken stock

2 cups half&half

Salt, pepper, rosemary

Start by slicing the tomatoes lengthwise into 3-4 slices each. Lay the slices evenly on a parchment lined baking sheet along with whole peeled garlic. 

Season with salt and pepper, drizzle a bit of oil and bake at 400 for 30 minutes. While that cooks, clean your leeks. Cut off most of the green stalk, rinse sand from the outer leaves, slice them lengthwise and rinse again. Chop them up and let them sit in a bowl of cold water, swishing them to loosen any sand.    Let them sit a few minutes until the sand falls to the bottom of the bowl. Scoop them our carefully and drain on a towel. 

Heat a soup pot with a bit of oil, season and sauté leeks, add the roasted garlic and mash them as the leeks cook. 

Add the tomatoes and sauté with leeks for about 5 minutes, breaking them up with the back of a wooden spoon. Add 2 cups of stock, bring to a boil and simmer 10 minutes. Add 2 cups of half&half and simmer another 5-10 minutes. Remove from heat and it's time to blend the soup. I don't have a regular blender so I used my hand held emulsion blender. I think you'd be better off using a food processor or a regular blender because it took me forever to purée the tomato skin. 

You may need to add a bit more stock if it's too thick. That's it! It's so much better than canned tomato soup. 

Tomatillo Black Bean Soup

Yep, more soup but with a bonus corn bread today! I love to shop in the ethnic aisles of a store, there's such a variety of different things to try. Tomatillos are very intriguing to me lately. 

Here's what you need:

2 onions diced

2 celery stalks diced

2 carrots peeled and diced

1 cup of fire roasted corn or regular frozen corn

1 big can of chicken broth

1 big can of black beans

1 big can of tomatillos

1 can of diced tomatoes 

1 TBS tomato paste

Season with salt, pepper, cayenne, coriander, cumin and ancho chili powder 

Sauté the veggies in a soup pot until they get a little brown

Add the tomatillos and crush with a potato masher. 

Add broth, tomatoes, beans and season to taste. Bring to a boil and simmer for about an hour. 

If you'd like a thicker soup, you can crush up some tortilla chips and add towards the end of cooking. 

Cheesy jalapeño (yes, more jalapeños) corn bread makes a nice side for this soup. Use a basic cornbread recipe and swap buttermilk for regular milk, add a seeded and diced jalapeño and 1 1/2cups shredded cheddar. Melt 1 TBS butter in a cast iron skillet, pour batter in and bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes. Yum. 

No crafty news today, my girl had to go to the sewing machine hospital. 

Broccoli, lentil, and chicken soup

Yup, it's the day before grocery shopping, aka creative soup making. Today there were 6 leftover roasted chicken legs, a bag of frozen broccoli (purchased for days like this) and the usual soup ingredients. Broccoli and lentil  end up being a drab looking soup but the addition of Hungarian paprika and lemon zest gives it a nicer color and a bright flavor. 

Here's what you need:

3 onions diced

4 celery stalks diced

3 carrots diced

1 lb chopped frozen broccoli 

1 cup red lentils

2-3 cups cooked chicken cut up

8 cups chicken stock

1 lemon zested

1 TBS good paprika

1 tsp dried rosemary 

Salt, pepper, garlic powder 

 Start by cooking your mire poix in a small amount of oil. 

Once that cooks down a bit, throw in the broccoli and season with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Sauté for 5 minutes. 

Add lentils, broth and chicken. 

Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes 

Or until it looks like this:

Next, season with the paprika, lemon  zest and rosemary. I argued with myself about adding lemon juice and decided against it, the zest adds a nice subtle lemon taste and my taste buds like lemon more than most people's. 

Try it, it's a nice, healthy chicken soup variation. 

I almost forgot crafty news! 

I managed to crochet this wool beanie this week. 

I just love this seed stitch, it almost looks woven. 

Roasted Butternut Spinach Soup

Most of Thanksgiving leftovers are gone or frozen except for the roasted butternut squash and it's soup weather....no brainer here. I had a small bunch of fresh spinach that I sautéed with a little garlic the other day and it sounded good with the squash, it was a good call.

Here's what you need:

3-4 cups roasted butternut squash

1/2-1 C cooked spinach or 3 C fresh

Carrots, onion, celery diced

8 cups chicken or veg stock/broth 

Fresh herbs- I used sage and parsley

Season with salt, pepper, and dried rosemary 

Sautee mire poix until wilted, season, add squash and spinach for a few minutes. Add broth and bring to a boil. 

Lower heat and simmer for 40 minutes until it looks like this

At this point you can purée some or all if you'd like, I like it as is so I just added herbs and served with homemade croutons. So good!

Lentil, Sausage and Squash Soup

This soup started out of necessity, I made a big pot of chicken stock and I have no freezer room for it and there were two sad delicata squash begging to be cooked. I love a nice hearty soup that can count as the entire meal and this one fits the bill.

Here's what you need:

3 chopped onions

3 chopped carrots

3 chopped celery stalks

2 delicata squash roasted and chopped

1 lb bulk Italian sausage

1 can diced tomatoes 

1 lb dried lentils

2 quarts chicken stock

Salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste

Crushed rosemary

Start by roasting the squash, I didn't go too crazy here, just cut and remove the seeds, season and brush with a little oil. Roast at 425 on a baking sheet for 30 minutes. In that time you will have your soup all made and ready for the squash. 

While you are browning the sausage in a heavy soup pot, chop the usual mire poix suspects. Remove sausage and drain the fat. Add the onion, carrot and celery, season with salt, pepper, garlic and cook over medium heat until wilted, around 10 minutes. Add the lentils and canned tomatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer, add the sausage and finally the roasted squash. I just used a spoon to scoop it from the skins. Simmer for about an hour, stirring frequently to keep the lentils from sticking to the bottom. You may need to add a little more liquid. Season with some fresh chopped parsley and rosemary and check for salt. You want it to go from looking like this:

To more like this: 

This kind of soup is so much better tomorrow!