Tomato Soup

My willingness to eat tomatoes is very limited. I like them in ketchup, bbq sauce, salsa, pasta sauce and this tomato soup. It is seriously sooooo good.  It's silky, smooth, packed with flavor, good fruits (tomatoes are a fruit!) and veggies.  Just try it.  You won't regret it.

Ingredients:

   1 can of a 14.5 oz can of tomato sauce

   1 15 oz can of roasted tomatoes

   1 onion, diced

   1 cup chicken stock
   2 Tbsp olive oil
   1/2 cup celery, diced
   1/2 cup carrot, diced
   3 oz. cream cheese
   1/4 tsp salt
   1/2 tsp sugar
   1 Tbsp basil
   black pepper to taste


What to do:

   In a large sauce pan saute onions, celery, and carrots in 2 Tbsp oil. (the longer you cook them the smoother the soup will be.)  Once tender (or way more when we do it) add garlic and saute for about a minute.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, and broth.  Boil for a long time, minimum 25 min, again, the longer it cooks the better the flavors meld and the smoother the soup will be.  Add salt, pepper and sugar to taste.  Add basil and cream cheese.  Cook for about 5 more minutes.   Now, the equipment you have, or how chunky you like your soup will determine the next steps.  If you like it chunky.... your done. We have tried a food mill, that works too if you like chunks.   You can use an immersion or stick blender, or a food processor.   We like this soup to be smooth and velvety.  So, we put it in our Blendtec blender for about 45 seconds on high.   garnish with a little basil and enjoy.  Your Welcome.


If you are going to go all the way and do grilled cheese.. please do it right.   Use fresh french bread and garlic butter.  
   

Earls Potato Salad

    

In  June my family visited Whistler, British Colombia.  My family was kind enough to take the child with them when they went on a hike.  This left us to enjoy a day in the village by ourselves.  We decided to have lunch at Earls.   The whole experience was great and the food was fantastic and now has become a measuring stick of restaurant/ food quality for us.

 In order for the significance of this monumental event to sink deep, it is important to understand my extreme dislike for Mayo and or Miracle whip. Can't stand it.  I don't like the texture, flavor or even the smell of it.  As such, I don't eat traditional potato salad.  (Also, mustard, pickles and  hard boiled eggs also make me want to vomit.)   When I ordered my meal it came with two sides and I got the potato salad as one of them,  one because the others didn't sound to appetizing and what the waitress described didn't sound horrible.

It looked nothing like the yellow paste that is found at 4th of July parties and other summer picnics.   It had large pieces of potato, grilled corn, bacon, cheese, chives, and a mysterioso white sauce.  With trepidation I took a bite and was pleasantly surprised and continued till I ate the whole dish.  I set out to figure out what the sauce was made of.  Much to my dismay Earls wouldn't tell me.  But, the following is pretty darn close to what we ate there, and even if it isn't exact it is still so yummy.  For family dinner our fall back was bringing Jell-O salad (The yummy one described in a previous post),  but that is going to have to take a back seat for a while in lieu of this gem.   Enjoy.

  1 1/2 lb  baby/fingerling/ petite potatoes  (The small ones.  Do not use baking potatoes. The starch content is to high and will turn to mush.

  1 cups corn (frozen, fresh, canned - doesn't matter)

  3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed.  (pre chopped garlic works great too)

  2 tablespoons olive oil

  Salt and freshly ground pepper

  1/2 pound sliced bacon

  1/3 cup mayonnaise (I use light mayo)

  1/3 cup sour cream

  1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

   Dash dill to taste  (fresh or dried)

  1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

  2 Tbs cup melted butter or a few tablespoons of reserved bacon grease (totally optional, but it adds A LOT of yumminess to the salad)

  Sliced chives or green onions, for garnish

 Preheat the oven to 425 F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or tin foil and set aside.  Cut the potatoes in half or into bite size nuggets.  Mix the potato, corn, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper in a bowl.  Mix well, be gentle.  Spread the mixture onto the cooking sheet.  

 Roast the potatoes at 425 for about 30-40 minutes, or until they begin to turn golden. 

 Cook the bacon using your preferred method.  We cook ours in the oven on a broiler sheet.  When it is done, set aside about 1 TBS of the bacon grease if you are going to add it to the dressing, if not discard as usual.  Cut into large pieces, about the size of an adult thumb nail. 

In  medium bowl, mix together the mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon juice, dill, parmesan cheese and the melted butter or bacon grease.  ( I don't recommend using both butter and grease)  Stir well to combine.

When the potatoes are tender, remove from the oven.  If you used whole garlic cloves take them out and finely mince or smash them.  Add the garlic to the sour cream mixture.  If you used pre-cut garlic, disregard adding more garlic to the sauce.  Adjust seasonings of the dressing if necessary.

Mix potato and corn mixture with the now not so mysterioso white dressing.  Add bacon. Mix well....gently.  Sprinkle with chopped chives.  Serve warm, and if by some miracle there are left overs... eat them.    You can also share with your friends or chill and eat cold. 

 

Stuffed Chops

Gordon Ramsey would have approved of this meal.  It was so so good.  If we had more pork chops I would probably do it again next week.  It is essential to have a good sharp knife that has teeth.  

What you need:

Pork Chops  (most of the time you use a double chop to when stuffing, but we used single chops and it worked just fine.  A double chop is the thickness of two regular size chops.)  

Bacon

Smoked Gouda cheese

salt 

pepper

1)     Make sure your pork is completely thawed before beginning.

2)     Using your very sharp knife make a pocket in the side of the chop, the fatty side.  To do this insert your knife into the fatty side and keeping the insertion as small as possible wiggle your knife until you have a nice sized pocket.

3)  Crisp some bacon in a large frying pan.  Do not throw away the grease!

4)  Break the bacon into small enough pieces the get them into through the hole in the chop.  

5)  Stuff as much bacon and cheese as you want into the chop.

6) Over medium heat seer each side of the chop in the bacon fat.  About 2 minutes each side or until it has nice color.  reduce heat to medium low, cover and cook for about 5 minutes on each side. Let the pork rest for 3 minutes before cutting.  Cutting it to soon will cause all the juices to run out.

     Garlic Mashed potatoes

Potatoes

Garlic

sour creme

butter

milk

salt

pepper

1)  You can do this two ways.  Depending on the garlic you have.

       a)    If you have fresh garlic just toss 3 or 4 cloves into the boiling water with your cubed potatoes and mash it up like normal.

      b)  If you have pre-minced garlic.  Prepare potatoes like normal and just add about 2 Tbs of garlic during the mashing process.

2) add butter, milk and sour creme, salt and pepper until it is smooth and delicious.

Enjoy!!!

 

Carmel Corn

In my home growing up we would always have caramel corn and watch the firework on the 4th of July.  We didn't do it very often besides that so it brings back special memories for me.  Recently our good friends moved back to Pennsylvania for school and we made them a treat bag to eat along the way.  It is a long drive and a good supply of sugar is needs. Caramel corn definitely satisfies that need. 
(A candy thermometer is recommended but not necessary)

What you need:
5 Quarts popped corn
2 C brown sugar (remember brown sugar is to be packed when measuring)
1/2 C light corn syrup
1/2 c butter
salted peanuts

What to do:

Combine sugar, butter and corn syrup in a sauce pan.  Cook and stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves and mixture boils.  Simmer for 5 minutes.  If using a candy thermometer you should cook it to a soft ball.  Remove from heat, pour over popped cor, stirring until all corn is coated.  Add peanuts while stirring caramel mixture if desired.

Beef Tenderloin with Cheese

Big thanks go out to Casey and Kelly for the meat and to Rachel Ray for inspiring this meal.

 

 We were given a bunch of meat and had no idea what to do with it, so I was searching foodnetwork.com and found a recipe for beef tenderloin with Gorgonzola cheese.   Neither Nikki or I had ever tried gorgonzola chese before so we went to Harmons to check it out.  In case you are wondering,   Authentic Italian Gorgonzola comes in two varieties; Dolce - meaning sweet; and Mountain - the sharper and firmer version. Dating back to ancient times, this member of the stracchino family is one of the world's classic cheeses.Almost spreadable, Gorgonzola Dolce is supple and luxurious with an unmistakable tangy creaminess. Its pale white interior is laced with streaks of blue, giving Gorgonzola Dolce a striking appearance to match its piquant flavor.  (Curtosey of foodnetwork.com)
                                          
If you like bleu cheeses, you might like it, but, we did not enjoy it.  So we were cruising the deli and saw two cheeses that looked promising.  One was a gruyere cheese, which is a type of swiss, and the other was a smoked Gouda cheese.  Both of which we tasted were amazing, so rather than decide between the two we got a little of both, and were ultra glad we did.


Here's how to do it.

Ingredients

• 4 (1 1/2-inch-thick) beef tenderloin steaks
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, eyeball it
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Gruyere or Gouda cheese

Directions

Let meat rest 10 minutes before beginning dinner preparation.

Place a large, flat griddle or skillet over high heat. When hot, using a pair of tongs and a folded paper towel, wipe cooking surface with oil and place steaks on hot pan. Seer the steaks, 2 minutes on each side. Reduce heat to moderate. Season meat with salt and pepper and cook 4 to 5 minutes longer on each side.
Preheat broiler to high.
Arrange steaks on baking sheet. Top each steak with enough cheese to cover the top. Place baking sheet 6 inches from broiler heat just long enough to melt the cheese.  Let meat rest 2 or 3 minutes, then serve immediately.


This was an amazing meal and would make it again with no reservations.  As you can see we at our dinner with some scones.  Real easy, get some frozen uncooked roll dough and thaw it out, smash flat and cook in hot oil.   Top with honey butter. (equal parts honey and butter mixed well.)

Harmons Meat Sale

For the most part we try and get the lowest price when we go shopping. That being said, you get what you pay for.  We bought some beef at WinCo a couple of weeks ago.... bad experience.  It was dry, huge chunks of fat and chewy.  Chewy meat is almost as bad as dry, burned meat.  However, I was at Harmons last week and they had a sale on their meat, 4 packages of meat for $20.  That may seem a little pricey, but for the quality of meat and the amount you get, it is not a bad deal.  The packages normally sell for 6-8 dollars.  That being said, I picked up some ground beef, a package of boneless pork spare ribs, and 2 NY strip steaks.  You can read about the spare ribs in the posting right before this one.  The steaks... were awesome.  Here is what we did,  cooking is just as much about being creative as knowing what to do.


What you need:
Steak
Butter
Garlic
Salt
Pepper

What to do:
The awesome thing about this is you can make it rich with garlic, or have just a hint.  Melt 2-3 tbs of butter.  Crush or finely chop 2 cloves of garlic, mix it in with the butter.  let this mixture cool before putting it on your steak or it will start to cook it.  When it is cool but not solid, pour it into a plastic bad, with the meat and let it marinate for 1 1/2 -2 hrs.  When you are ready to eat, heat a non stick pan, place you steak in the pan and you should hear a nice sizzle, let your meat cook on the one side until it has a nice seer on it, flip the meat and repeat the process.  The meat may be cooked to your desired temperature, if not, you can put it in the oven until it is done.  We also really like the steak just cooked with a generous amount of salt and pepper.  Enjoy!

Summer is coming

One of my favorite foods to eat in the summer is BBQ pork and corn.  It just screams summer.  With the weather getting warmer, and Nikki still not able to eat dairy, we decided to indulge in this dinner or BBQ spare ribs.  Now, we don't have a grill but the meat was so tender and juicy, I can't wait to eat it again.  One of the best things about this meal is how amazingly fast it is.  We cooked the ribs from frozen in 20 minutes, and they were so amazingly tender and moist.  Behold... the power of a pressure cooker.

What you need:
BBQ spare ribs
seasoning, what ever kind you like
BBQ sauce

What to do:
In the bottom of the pressure cooker add about 1-2 cups of water.  Pressure cookers need liquid to produce steam to create the pressure.  Season your spare ribs generously. We used the BBQ seasoning from McCormick.  Cook at high pressure for 20 minutes if frozen, 15 in thawed.  That's it... you're done.  We like to cover them in BBQ sauce, but if you want to you can just dip them, you can do whatever you like to them.