maiden soupage, or a gleaming, golden bowl of Positivity

we broke in the Cuisinart with a tasty butternut squash soup!

the ingredients:

1 big butternut squash, and about a half of a medium-sized one (because it was older, and I was concerned the end of it was going a teensy bit soft)
olive oil, for drizzling
2 med white potatoes, peeled and diced
half an onion, diced
3 tbsp butter
3 local carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
vegetable stock
half & half
salt & pepper (we like kosher salt)
green curry paste

I halved and baked the squash (drizzled with olive oil) on a baking sheet at 400 degrees for about 50 minutes. then I let them cool, and M scooped out the seeds and then the flesh. in a big saute pan, I cooked the potato, onion, carrot, celery, and a pinch of salt in the butter until the onions were translucent, and then added about 16oz of vegetable stock. most of the recipes I read called for chicken stock, but we'd just bought a concentrated vegetable stock so that's what went in. *note, I know many people believe that you need to make the stock from scratch for it to really be good, and I won't dispute that the real stuff has tons of flavor, but sometimes you need to cheat and that's where we are.* I added the squash to the pan too, mixed everything together, covered and cooked it for about 40 minutes (until everything was soft), then turned off the burner and went to the movies to see Avatar.

good movie. I cried. see it in 3-D if you can.

I came home and set about spooning my veggie concoction, which had soaked up most of the liquid, into the gleaming, gorgeous food processor:



note for a moment how crowded our countertop is. dear, tiny little kitchen. husband said earlier today that one of his heartfelt wishes is that we don't have to use every spare bit of counterspace as storage in the house on Woodfin. here I am preparing to hit 'GO!':

here are some of the ingredients we used... the half & half somehow missed the picture:

after it was all pureed, which happened in two batches, I ended up adding about 2.5-3 cups of vegetable broth and about 3/4 to a cup of half & half to get it to the consistency I wanted. I added pepper, another good pinch of salt, and about 2 tbsp of the curry paste, for a smidgeon of heat and, um, curry flavor (because I love it). here's what it all looked like in the soup pot... delish, I tell you! and good for your soul!

I had mine in a cup, for I needed to down it quickly and head to my meeting (which was great... it was all about having hope and courage tonight, and being with my family there felt so good):

here I am enjoying the soup I made immensely:

husband added sriracha, goat cheese, and parsley to his bowl, and toasted some bread.

he had seconds, too.

mission accomplished! welcome to the family, Cuisinart food processor, you can stay! I have no idea where we're going to store you.

in other news, we gave our tenants notice today, so the countdown has begun to Woodfin! our renters have been so great, but I'm excited and looking forward to being back in the house and preparing it to be home to our family.

here's a song I love from the latest Mountain Goats record, The Life of the World to Come... M and I have both taken to this album, and J. Darnielle is a fascinating dude. (for a live recording of the song and a glimpse of J.D. in action. click here):

I love potatoes.

and today I managed to make a pretty rockin' potato soup. I read a few recipes online and concocted this one:

5 red potatoes
onion
2 smallish carrots
stalk of celery
2 cloves garlic
leftover 1/3 of a zucchini
1/2 can of kernel corn
shredded kale
3 c chicken broth
2 pieces bacon
2 tbsp butter
1/4 c flour
1 1/4 c milk
basil
dill weed
salt and pepper
chili oil

brown the bacon in a skillet. in the bacon grease, saute the diced onion, carrots, and celery. when they're almost done, add the garlic, saute for a minute, and turn off the burner. combine peeled and chopped potatoes, diced zucchini, the chicken broth, and the contents of the skillet in a soup pot; season with salt and pepper. bring to a boil and let simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked through. in the skillet, melt the butter, add the flour, and then add the milk, incorporating them all together. add the milk mixture to the soup pot, and bring back up to a simmer (the soup will start to thicken). add in the corn and kale, spices, and salt and pepper to taste. I wanted a moderate kick, so I added a dollop of chili oil at the end. serve with crumbled bacon on top, and cheese if you want it (it was actually so good by itself that we didn't go for the cheese... crazy, I know).

I'll happily accept other potato soup recipes, because I love the spud and all it stands for.

-m.y.

company ratatouille

so I've already written once about making ratatouille, which was yummy and flavorful and chunky-goulash-like. since we got a crazy amount of vegetables at the farmer's market last weekend, the pressure is on to cook and eat them all before time takes it's toll. we had such success with the last ratatouille night, yesterday I undertook Smitten Kitchen's version of rat-ta-too-ee-for-you-ee , altered to fit yoshimi's urgent need to use things she has in the 'fridge.

my ingredients:



I spent a goodly amount of time chopping vegetables. Smitten Kitchen tried to start out with vegetables that were mostly the same size so everything would look pretty and uniform in the casserole dish, but since I was using what I had on hand I just tried to work it out. it was during this activity that I saw the wisdom in husbin's desire for a mandolin slicer for Christmas. we will be updating our Amazon wish list.



I know. that's a lot of chopped up vegetable to go into one little casserole. that's what I was thinking, too. oy.

SK called for a tomato puree to go in the bottom of the casserole dish, but I had some vodka pasta sauce we needed to use so I combined that with about a quarter cup of crushed tomatoes. to that, in addition to the ingredients she listed, I added some extra vegetable bits I had after chopping (diced mushroom stems, red pepper, green onion).



I then arranged my vegetables as best I could on top of the sauce in the dish, drizzled with olive oil, and liberally sprinkled with salt, pepper, and a bit of dried thyme as I didn't have any fresh:



I cut out the parchment paper per SK's instructions, placed it in the dish to see that it totally fit, and was about to feel like a rockstar until I saw the little garlic cloves forlornly sitting there on the countertop and realized I'd forgotten to put them in. they're supposed to go into the sauce underneath all of the vegetables. my bad. so.... I chopped them up and sprinkled them on top. who's going to know the difference?



I once again applied the protective cover of parchment paper. which I did have on hand, thanks to last Christmas' challenging cookie experiment. into the oven with you, rat-ta-too-ee.



the leftover vegetables got chopped up and will most likely become a soup in the next few days... or a monster veggie fritatta...



and voila, fifty minutes later I took this out of the oven. even with mismatched vegetable sizes and non-traditional ratatouille ingredients like carrots and mushrooms, it came out looking nice and smelling awesome.




we took SK's advice and served it over rice, with a dollop of goat cheese on top. which was delish and, as far as I'm concerned, a crucial addition.



I just finished the leftovers and can vouch for it's 'next day' tastiness (especially with a bit of sriracha sauce). but the real moral to this story is... I love that there are so many recipes out there, and that they can be so fun and easy to adapt to what you've got and what you like.

tonight is Ethiopian cabbage again, by request. and spinach, because the freshness clock is ticking on those guys... brussel sprouts, okra, and green beans, I have my eye on you. and you, there, the globe-y green squash things, you're liable to be fried along with that okra if you'll just hang in there another day or two.

I've never been so full of vegetables. happily.

mixer is a-go-go.

for our first experiment, I tackled bread:



preparing to flip the switch... I'm still not sure the dough hook should have been used at this juncture, but it all turned out alright. I'll go ahead and admit I still need to read more of the manual.



about 2-2.5 hrs later...



25 minutes in the oven and voila:




notice how clean the mixer is in the above photo. I love the newlywed phase with gadgets, when you're still all 'oh, it's been dirty for 5 minutes! quick, grab a sponge!'.

since husby was leaving to go work in New Orleans for a few days, I made him dinner of sauteed asparagus, tasty veggie soup, and braided herb bread with butter. the bread came out pretty well - the consistency is good, I think, though I feel it needs a touch of sweetener. maybe next time I'll try adding honey or something. I'll tell you this, though, it's fantastic toasted and smeared with Rondele pub cheese. breakfast of champions!



and just because, here's my sweet boy nestling in the leaves outside:

the bells came over

and we had a totally fun belated birthday dinner for M:










somehow, we inhaled the food before I could get a few pictures, but our menu included chicken piccata (made by M himself), bird's nest pasta w/ homemade tomato sauce, steamed vegetables, and this awesome spinach salad that I can't wait to make again. I cut back on the bacon/bacon grease, used balsamic vinegar instead of cider, and since not everyone loves goat cheese as much as I do I served it crumbled on the side for individual sprinkling, but it was still a totally yummy salad that everyone seemed to really like.

the homemade tomato sauce wasn't on purpose. I had thrown butter and chopped up mushrooms in a pan with some chopped garlic, and discovered that the cupboard was bare of Diablo (devil) Sauce, our current favorite cheap & spicy pasta sauce by Francesco Rinaldi. I'd already been to the store and didn't feel like going again, so I started going through the pantry. into the blender went the following:

1 large can of peeled, crushed tomatoes
dried herbs: basil, thyme, oregano, pizza seasoning
celery salt
fresh ground pepper
red pepper flakes
a splash of red wine vinegar
a baby splash of chili oil
a couple of glugs of extra virgin olive oil

I blended the above together, then added a bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley and let that blend a bit. I poured the sauce from the blender into the saucepan with the mushrooms and garlic, and let it simmer for awhile. It was a smoother sauce than we're used to, but I've got to say we really liked it a lot and I hope to keep making it and trying new things.

for dessert, we had wild blueberry pie with almond crumble topping, which was really great and easy (especially since I cheated and used a store-bought crust. sue me!). a word to the wise - um, you really do need to let it cool, like the recipe says. especially before trying to put candles in it. I'll spare you the story of me throwing away the first batch of candles and furtively fishing wax out of my lovely pie. the topping on this dish comes out really crunchy with just the right amount of sweet, and rather than grab our usual Kroger brand ice cream I splurged on Blue Bell. this was the bomb with a nice cup of decaf:














it was a really wonderful night. we loved having you guys over! extra points and snaps for C, my brother-in-law's girlfriend, for loaning me the third Twilight book! yeah, I've already started it...


********************


taken when we went to see our 3-D slasher movie the other day:





scary, right?


-m.y.

week in review... so far...

the best things:

- new workout pants! the ones I was searching for that don't make me feel fat! my husband even encouraged me to get TWO PAIRS PLUS A SHIRT! FYI, the Victoria's Secret at the Galleria is worth braving the traffic and bother of going there... it's got a brand new huge room full of workout wear! the only one in Texas, even... so they said...
- being introduced to the HBO series John Adams... shall I be as virtuous and wise a wife as Laura Linney?
- vegetable lasagna
- getting my defensive driving over with
-waking up this morning to lovely weather
-craft night with girls
- discovering new blogs to read
- yearbookyourself.com
- iced tea with sweet-n-low. 1 bag. I was on a splenda kick but this week it's all about the pink.
- awesome lab results from my physical! my cholesterol will roger rabbit all over your cholesterol, son!
- taking the first whack at killing the second mortgage
- the text message I got from M today that he was missing me... and I'm not even out of town.

the meh things:

- all of this national convention business. it's sparked some interesting dialogue between my husband and I, but I keep thinking they're all expensive pep rallies for grown-ups. these people aren't saviors, and it's hard to buy into any of this fully. it is, however, very nice to see some good public speaking skills in play.
- this is not a 'meh' thing, but speaking of conventions, here is a link to a wonderful pic of my brother, photo #6, at the RNC.  I may not know how I feel about politics from day to day, but I'm crazy about him.
- back to 'meh' - the list of things to do that mocks me.

the thing that isn't my favorite:

- taking the 13 year old dog in for a dental cleaning - which is on our plan - to be told that they found a scary mole to cut out of his mouth and biopsy - not on our plan - to test for malignancy. results to come in a few days. and then we got to bring him home, wobbly and pathetic, carry him into the house, and watch him try to sleep off a crappy day. not the easiest afternoon for his mom, either, who does live near reality and knows the way of things but doesn't enjoy the idea of losing this sweet, furry beast just yet. victory - she managed to keep from yelling at anyone and the slapped-together prayer for sanity and grace before going in to pick him up helped a lot (thank you, Father). he's much better today, by the way. because awesome is how he rolls and his humans sprung for the pain pills. even the cat seems to be acting uncharacteristically tender toward him... or that could be my projection. blame Disney.


*****

edit:  oh wow, I almost left out pictures... scandalous, since this has evolved into Pictures of Food We Make Blog.  So here is the other night's homemade pizza... the wheat crust came from here, but can it really be called Whole Wheat Crust if there's white flour in the recipe? At any rate, it was good... we topped it with some of our favorite cheap, spicy spaghetti sauce, bacon cooked and stripped of fat, and sauteed spinach w/ garlic.  it was tast-eee.

before it went into the oven:





and when it came out:





long live the almost whole wheat carb.

labor day weekend!!

this Labor Day weekend has been pretty awesome. it sort of looked like:

Friday after work: M and I worked out and agreed to our September budget (he did most of the prelim stuff, and I contributed), we called in an order to Niko Niko's for tasty Greek dinner, and then watched the movie The Savages.

Saturday: volunteering at The Beacon on the early shift with friends. a really great experience, and one we're hoping to continue regularly. it was very cool to be a part of such an organized ministry to help the homeless in this city. then most of us went to La Mexicana on Montrose for tacos and conversation. yum. M and I organized a grocery list and spent most of the afternoon stocking up our pantry and household while the dog went and got a much-needed haircut. I spent some time with my nose in Reaching Out, a book by Henri Nouwen. it's been the focus of our discussion in our class on Sunday mornings for the last few weeks, and I filled in as discussion facilitator this weekend. really intriguing, layered book, totally recommended. as is our habit when I'm in town, we hit the Saturday night meeting where I was reminded about the power of perspective and attitude...

Sunday: church! I love going to church, and sitting by M while worshipping is one of the times that I feel most centered and blessed and safe. the class I facilitated even went well! we had lunch with some dear friends and a couple new to the church, and as I napped later in the day M called my grandma to snag her recipe for homemade chicken and noodles... or dumplings. but they look more like noodles, and that's what I call them. he even chronicled his efforts, so we'll post our recipe here. I also made some unbaked cookies, adding peanut butter and using special dark cocoa (because I love dark chocolate)... they looked like little mounds of poo, but oh are they flipping good! we feasted on chicken and noodles and unbaked cookies while watching Gone Baby Gone, and afterwards M had to leave the room when I got hooked watching Diary of a Mad Black Woman (although even I had to abandon it when the lead lady loses her mind with her awful paralyzed almost ex-husband in that bathroom scene).

Today: yesterday, my husband decreed that I would be boss of today. woo-hoo! so far, I've worked out (okay, technically I only did half of The Firm Body Sculpt, but I was beat and it was hard and Jen is tough and... it's better than nothing, right??), had a goodly amount of coffee, eaten a lovely sweet potato, and gotten through three sections of an online defensive driving course. don't drive drunk, people! check your mirrors! watch that allergy medication, it could slow your reflexes! I'm hoping to make a pizza later, baking my own whole wheat crust and featuring sauteed spinach w/ garlic, and the hubby has encouraged me to take a gift card and go look for a pair of workout pants.. I want something really specific, and have had a hard time finding them. we also discovered that men's ties are excellent kitty toys. anyway, it's just been lovely. lovely lovely lovely. like this:









and now, without further ado, THE MAKING OF GRANDMA'S CHICKEN AND NOODLES (M will have to contribute here... because I was sleeping during a lot of this)

M:  Howdy ya'll, M here.  L asked me to provide a little detail to her tale of the noodles, which is uncharacteristically lazy very generous of her.  I began with a 3 lb whole chicken that we got at the grocery store for about $4.  I used a cleaver and a long-toothed knife to quarter it and cut back most of the skin, which took about 5 minutes.  Doing this myself accomplished two things: it cut the cost of the meal in half (as whole chickens are significantly less expensive) and it raised the "icky gross" factor high enough to guarantee that this will become something that "I" cook.  The chicken went in a stock pot with about 2.5 quarts of water, bay, salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste.  Boil for an hour.

M:  Something I've come to learn about myself is that I am a servant.  I just love doing things for other people, and their happiness is a reward that we both get to enjoy.  A great deal of this gets directed toward my wife, but lately it extends to the pets as well.  The other night I baked treats for the cat, and on this night we found out someone in our house luuuuuvs boiled chicken guts.  We even didn't buy a roast at the store the other day because it didn't have any good bones in it for the dog.  I think this may be the male equivalent to the "ticking clock."  I'll own up to that.

M:  2 cups of flour (sifted), 2 eggs (not beaten), 2 tsp salt (um...salty) and 2 Tbs chicken stock in a large mixing bowl.  Make a flour volcano using a bit of the flour and put the eggs and stock in the crater.  Turn on the kitchen faucet and leave it running.  Use your fingers to work the egg/stock lava into the flour, slowly destroying the volcano and adding the rest of the flour as you go.  If your wife isn't asleep you can make Godzilla noises.  Using a motion generally reserved for bathroom hand dryers, try to keep as much of the dough in the bowl and off your fingers and work it all into a ball.  Use the running faucet to wash away any childhood trauma you may have regarding sticky, encrusted hands.  

M:  In the bowl, knead the dough ball and add flour so that nothing is sticky.  Yes, sticky things are the Devil's province, but in this case they also make for bad noodles.  If the recipe calls for 2 cups of flour, get ready to use 3 cuz we're going for dusty, dusty food.  Tear off a few feet of wax paper and flour it evenly.  Then roll your dough into the shape of the imaginary country you are President of, about 1/8" thick.

M:  I said to flour the wax paper evenly.  If you only flour, say, half of your wax paper properly, then when you cut your thin noodle strips only half of them will resemble noodles.  The other half will stick and tear and mock you, which can be truly annoying to an imaginary President.  Let those little rebellious bastards dry for about half an hour.

M:  The chicken should have cooked down like this.  At this point I removed the chicken and tore it into pieces.  My grandmother used to skip this step.  It really comes down to personal preference, like if you personally prefer a bunch of bones in your food.  L is not a fan of dark meat, so I tore the breasts into much larger chunks than the rest; this makes it super easy to serve your more discriminating guests whom you may or may not have recently sworn eternal oaths to.  

M:  Chicken back in the pot, bring back to a boil.  You can add more water if you want, and now's your chance to add any onion or peas & carrots, that sort of thing.  Once boiling, add the noodles one at a time.  This is no time to make WWII bomber plane noises, as it will undoubtedly cause you to make a splashy mess on the stove.  

M:  L's Grandma said to boil for about 20 minutes, which is what I did.  The noodles were pretty good, especially after some salt and pepper adjustments.  I kept thinking I still had too much liquid, so I boiled them some more while we watched a movie.  About the time the first cop starts lying about what he knew about the dead informant, go check on the noodles.  They'll be perfect.

M:  Like I said, perfect.