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.