Italian Inspired Soup

I found this lovely recipe on Pinterest a good while ago and decided to finally try it. I had all the ingredients and it came together so quickly. I didn't have Italian sausage so I seasoned my turkey like I was making meatballs with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and oregano. It came out great and made wonderful lunch leftovers!

Ingredients:

1 15-ounce can cannelini beans, drained
1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes, garlic, oregano, & basil seasoned
1 8-ounce can of tomato sauce, garlic, oregano & basil seasoned
1 pound ground sausage or turkey
1 small onion, diced
1 medium carrot, diced
1 celery stalk
1 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
1 cup ditalini pasta

Instructions:

In a large pot, season and brown the ground turkey. Remove from pot. Add onion, carrot and olive oil and saute for 5 minutes until soft. Add celery and garlic, saute about a minute more. Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, chicken broth, thyme, bay leaf, the drained beans, and the sausage and cover the pot. Cook for about 30 to 45 minutes over low heat, at a gentle simmer.

Southern Comfort: Biscuits and Gravy

Lately I have indulging in what I like to call struggle meals, Now I know what you,re thinking, biscuits and gravy is quite decadent, but I assure you it is. A struggle meal is when you create something from seemingly nothing because you haven't been able to go to the store.

For this meal the milk and flour were both past their expiration dates. I had butter from making desserts at Thanksgiving and sausage that had been in my freezer. Thus, biscuits and gravy were born and it came out delicious, especially for my first time making either. Both recipes were adapted from ones I found on foodnetwork.com. 

Biscuit Ingredients

4 cups self-rising flour, plus more for dusting
1 stick good butter, plus 3 tablespoons melted
2 to 3 cups cold buttermilk
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Biscuit Preparation

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Add the flour to a mixing bowl. Working quickly, cut 1 stick of the butter into the flour using the pastry cutter (or your fingers).

In batches, add in the buttermilk until the dough is cohesive yet still moist. 

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and lightly press into a 1-inch-thick round. 

Using a 2 1/2-inch biscuit cutter or a dry measuring cup, cut out 10 biscuits. 

Place the dough rounds into a heated, round cake pan, right up against each other, and brush with the melted butter. Bake until golden brown, 15 to 25 minutes.

Gravy Ingredients

1/2 lb roll sausage
1 Tb flour
1 cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Gravy Preparation

Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sausage, break it up with a wooden spoon, and cook, stirring occasionally, until well browned and cooked through, about 7 minutes.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer the sausage to a bowl, leaving the rendered fat in the skillet. Whisk the flour into the fat and cook, stirring, for about 1 minute. While whisking, pour the milk into the skillet and bring the gravy to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer gently for 2 minutes. Stir in the sausage and season with pepper. Split the biscuits in half and divide them among plates. Top each biscuit with some of the gravy and serve immediately.

Holiday Ham!

Usually I make my holiday ham (I'm calling it "holiday" because I've made it for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter) with brown sugar and pineapple. I pierce it with cloves, sprinkle it with brown sugar, pour pineapple juice over it and pop a couple pineapple slices on for decorative effect. Today I only had ground cloves and brown sugar, but I had recently received an email from Food & Wine that had a recipe for bourbon glazed ham. Bourbon and whiskey not that different, right? So I used Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey I had stashed away since this time last year, mixed it with the brown sugar and cloves, poured it on the ham, and baked it for 90 minutes at 400 degrees. Delicious!

Family Favorite

Ingredients

1 lb ground turkey

1 can of cream of mushroom soup

Salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste

Prep

Season turkey with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. You can add bread crumbs to keep your patties together better. Mix and form into 8 or 9 small burger patties. Pan sear the patties until brown and cooked through. While the meat is cooking, whisk together the soup with 3/4 can of water until smooth. Pour over patties in the pan and stir. Simmer until heated through. Serve with mashed potatoes or rice. 

Dessert: Peach Cobbler

Peach cobbler is one of my favorite desserts. You can get the recipe for my other favorite, pound cake, here. Something about warm peaches seasoned with cinnamon and nutmeg, topped with vanilla bean ice cream makes me feel so at home. Its a comfort dessert! Here's mom's recipe

Ingredients

3 large cans (29oz) peaches in heavy syrup
2 boxes of pie crust (2 per box-4 total)
1-2 sticks of margarine or butter
1-cup of sugar
1-tsp nutmeg
1-tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup flour
2-3 tsp vanilla flavor

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

Crust

Pie crust needs to be at room temp. Spread a heaping tablespoon of flour on a cutting board (or wax paper on a counter). Unroll pie crust onto flour and press out with a rolling pin or glass with shape of rolling pin. Place 2 crusts in bottom of 9x13 glass pan.

Filling

Reserve about 1/3 cup of peach juice to mix with the flour for thickening. Place the peaches with juice, sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon in a large pot, heat on medium until peaches are soft. Mix juice into flour a little at a time so flour does not have lumps. Add to peach pot a little at a time stirring frequently until juices are thick (you may have to add more flour until its as thick as you like it). **Be sure to add juice into the flour or you will get lumps of dough.** Add butter or margarine after juice is thickened. Stir in vanilla flavor (taste and add additional ingredients as needed). Pour peach filling into pan. Unroll and press out 2 other pie crusts and place on top (it's ok to over lap crusts). Crimp together edges.

*Make sure you have foil in bottom of oven to catch drippings*

Bake 45-50 minutes until crust is brown, spread butter on crust and sprinkle sugar just before removing. Check to make sure pie crust has not burned.

Salads

I made this loaded potato salad for the first time on Thanksgiving; something different to go with our spare ribs. It's my own recipe just the usual ingredients for a loaded baked potato. I also made a spinach salad that I forgot to photograph, but was pretty tasty for our Thanksgiving feast. The recipes follow:

Loaded Potato Salad

Ingredients

6 red potatoes
1/2 cup mayo
3/4 sour cream
1/2 stalk celery, chopped
1/2 cheddar cheese, shredded
5-6 stalks of green onion, sliced
1-2 strips of bacon, crisp and chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

In salted water boil the potatoes until fork tender. Poke a few holes in them before cooking so they absorb the salt. (I usually do this the night before, allow them to cool, and refrigerate.)

Chop the celery, green onion, and potatoes, add them to a bowl along with the cheese, mayo and sour cream; Salt and pepper to taste and stir to combine.

Sprinkle with bacon and serve.

Simple Spinach Salad

Combine fresh spinach, dried cranberries, and sunflower seeds or slivered almonds with your favorite vinaigrette. That's it! Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Feasting

Ahhhh! I've missed blogging so! I've been busy with school: three classes and a thesis to write (I graduate next semester) on top of two jobs, I barely found time to cook let alone blog about it. At any rate the semester  is over (straight A's) and since my day job is at a university I'm on break til 2014 so here I am. In all the madness that is/was my life I did get a chance to try a few new recipes for Thanksgiving.

My sister came to town and we decided on a non-traditional meal of ribs, mac & cheese, brussell sprouts, loaded potato salad, and spinach salad. As well as peach cobbler and pound cake for dessert. I tried a new rub for my ribs and winged it on the brussell sprouts. The rib rub was taken from Bobby Flay on the Food Network website, here. It's a dry rub but I find that mustard makes the meat extra juicy and quite tender. Next time I'm going to leave out the cumin. The mac & cheese I make pretty much every Thanksgiving, but I don't think I've ever shared the recipe.

Ribs

Ingredients
1 rack of pork ribs
1-2 Tb of mustard
Rib Rub (recipe to follow)

Prep
1. Slather the ribs in mustard (I like whole grain, but spicy brown would be great too)
2. Pack on the rub (as little or as much as you like)
3. Rest the rack for at least an hour
4. Bake (unless you live in a climate conducive to grilling outside in November or you don't mind braving the cold for grilled meats) for 90-120 minutes at 350 degrees.

Rub

Ingredients
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon granulated garlic
1 tablespoon granulated onion
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon white pepper

Prep
1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Store in an airtight container.

Mac & Cheese

Ingredients
1 Box of elbow macaroni (I use Barilla because it has the ridges)
4-6 Cups of shredded cheese, sharp and mild cheddar, separated (The sharp cheddar is for mixing in and the mild is for on top. I've used colby jack or the Kraft triple cheddar mixture as well, but there is no substitute for the sharp)
1 Can Cream of Chicken soup ( I use Campbell's)
1 Can of milk (fill the soup can after removing the soup)
2 Tb of butter (not margarine or you can leave it out altogether)
Salt and pepper to taste

Prep
1. In a large pot, salt and bring 2-3 quarts of water to boil.
2. Empty entire box of macaroni into the pot and stir so the noodles do not stick.
3. In a smaller pot bring the can of soup and milk to a low simmer, whisking until smooth.
4. When the pasta is al dente, drain and place in a large bowl. Add the butter.
5. Pour a quarter of the soup over the noodles and add a cup of sharp cheese (here you can use up to 4 cups). Stir. Repeat until the soup and cheese are a ooey gooey mixture.
6. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
7. Pour into a 9x13 glass, baking pan and top with the remaining 2 cups of mild cheddar.
8. Bake at 350 degrees until bubbly and golden brown on top, about 35 minutes.