Cozy Up With A Bowl of Winter Minestrone

January 23, 2012 By 2 Comments
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Philly got a bit of a present over the week­end in the form of freez­ing rain and snow galore. With the freez­ing rain that turns the hills of Man­ayunk into skid cen­tral, it was a week­end in for this gal. The Sous Pug didn’t fare well with the snow as he is now offi­cially com­pletely blind and could only slide down the side­walks and stand bewil­dered on the freez­ing snow banks that he bravely attempted to climb. He pretty much was ready to pack his toys and head back to Florida.The good thing about being a food blog­ger held cap­tive dur­ing a snow­fall is that one can play in the pantry for a bit.

One of my new favorites for win­ter is this com­fort­ing Win­ter Mine­strone Soup from Giada de Lau­ren­tiis. It was light­en­ing quick to make and per­fect to take off that icy chill. The one step you can’t skip is the parme­san rind – it’s def­i­nitely one of those secret weapons. I buy them from Whole Foods and keep them in the freezer for soups like this.  Grab a bowl of this soul sooth­ing soup and curl up on the couch.  It’s a recipe that you will find your­self mak­ing again and again.

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Tried and True: Short Rib Chili

October 24, 2011 By 3 Comments
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When I’m look­ing for com­fort food, one of the first things that comes to mind is short ribs.  As I joked this week­end, when peo­ple are prep­ping for hur­ri­canes and bliz­zards and stock­ing up on eggs, milk and bread, I’m look­ing for short­ribs and other fab ingre­di­ents for the slow cooker.

Recently, after a fab­u­lous Philly Food & Drink Writ­ers meetup at Daniel Stern’s R2L with Philly Home­grown and La Phemme Phoodie, I ven­tured down to the Philadelphia’s 9th Street Ital­ian Mar­ket for a lit­tle “culi­nary retail ther­apy.” I was brows­ing in Espos­i­tos and saw these gor­geous short ribs that were just beg­ging to be made and I knew the per­fect recipe – Giada de Lau­ren­tiis’ Short Rib Chili.

I’m still mas­ter­ing the “per­fect” chili recipe but I fig­ured that a short rib chili might be a nice vari­a­tion from the norm. This recipe does not dis­ap­point – the com­plex fla­vors hit all the right notes. I did not have New Mex­ico chilis on hand but since I wasn’t a fan of super spicy foods I fig­ured I would play with the fruitier Ancho chili which I have come to love and add a bit of chipo­tle sauce that I keep in the freezer. The short ribs were meaty and I don’t think I could ever go the way of a super­mar­ket short rib again after what I got from Espos­i­tos.   The dis­tinct hit of espresso in the back­ground just added to the fla­vor and cou­pled with some shav­ings of bit­ter­sweet choco­late on top and my own take on a creamy asi­ago corn polenta, it was com­fort food at its finest. Add a nice glass of mer­lot and this was per­fect for cozy­ing up on the couch to watch the pre­miere of ABC’s new drama “Once Upon A Time.” (Did any­one watch or was it just me?)

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Fall Flavors –Beef and Butternut Squash Stew

October 10, 2011 By 1 Comment
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Not only is Fall my favorite fash­ion sea­son, but it’s also my favorite sea­son for cook­ing and enter­tain­ing. I am a sucker for all things but­ter­nut squash, pump­kin, short ribs, stews, and other var­i­ous com­fort dishes.

This week­end, I decided to play with one of Giada de Lau­ren­tiis’ recipes for Beef & But­ter­nut Squash Stew. I added some red pep­per flakes for a bit of heat which played nicely with sweet­ness from the squash.  Another change I made is to omit the Marsala wine as I never seem to have that on hand. After cook­ing “Sous Pug” friendly meals for a while, I’ve learned that a swift sub­sti­tu­tion of beef broth works out well.  Finally, one fru­gal tip – if you see “Poul­try Blend” in the store when you are going to buy fresh herbs, grab it.  It often has the rose­mary and thyme along with some sage.  Such a great idea to com­bine the three!  Plus, you are pay­ing $2.99 for three herbs, not $2.99 for each pack­age, right?

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Filed Under: Cooking In Stilettos, Food Network, Giada de Laurentiis, Recipe, Soup, Tried and True Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Tried and True: Chipotle Tamale Pie

September 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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Recently, I noticed that my DVR decided to record an episode of Sim­ply Deli­cioso on the Cook­ing Chan­nel.  Ingrid Hoff­mann was mak­ing a Chipo­tle Tamale Pie and I made a men­tal “must try note.”  Then, over Labor Day week­end, I picked up the fall issue of Pop­u­lar Plates Mag­a­zine and lo and behold there is Ingrid with the same recipe.  When some­thing crosses my path a cou­ple of times, I tend to pay atten­tion and decided there was no time like the present to give this recipe a whirl.

With the lat­est devel­op­ments of the Sous Pug (he is hav­ing sight prob­lems due to med­ica­tion side effects), I really wasn’t in the mood to do super com­pli­cated recipes but wanted to try some­thing dif­fer­ent and this fit the bill. I did a few mod­i­fi­ca­tions as I’m still a bit ner­vous about using ground turkey after the recent ground turkey recall and wanted to amp up the gar­lic fla­vor so I decided instead of just olive oil, I would use my pantry sta­ple – mojo de ajo – along with some of the roasted gar­lic from that. Also, I added extra toma­toes, fire roasted for a bit more zing, and some home­made Adobo sea­son­ing and it was a win­ning dish.

Try it this fall on one of those nights when you want to do some­thing other than your stan­dard com­fort food sta­ples – and make sure to tell us how it turned out!

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Leftover Ham — Make Nigella Lawson’s Cuban Black Bean Soup

April 25, 2011 By 3 Comments
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If you tried to do Nigella Lawson’s Coca Cola Ham over the hol­i­day and are stompin’ your stilet­tos won­der­ing what to do with the left­overs, well look no fur­ther – Nigella Law­son has the solu­tion – her soul sooth­ing Cuban Black Bean Soup.

This soup is so good that I’m con­tem­plat­ing roast­ing another ham – but this time with­out all the burns and drama of try­ing to get the ham out of the stock.  Who needs a hol­i­day to serve some­thing so del­ish, right?

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Cuban Black Bean Soup

Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson

Ingre­di­ents

  • 1 pound black beans
  • 5 cups water
  • 5 cups rich juices from Ham in Coca Cola (or chicken stock if you don’t have the coca cola stock)
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 3/4 tea­spoon cumin powder
  • 1/2 tea­spoon of ground coriander
  • 1/2 tea­spoon of Aleppo chili (optional)
  • 2 tea­spoons salt
  • Zest & juice of 1 medium lime
  • 2 cups of cooked ham, diced
  • Sour Cream for serving

Direc­tions:

  1. Place beans and water in a soup pot; cover and sim­mer about 45 minutes
  2. Add the coca cola (or chicken) stock and sim­mer till beans are ten­der, about an hour.
  3. Take 2 cups of the bean mix­ture and add to a food processor.
  4. Add the cumin, Aleppo chili, ground corian­der, lime zest and juice to the bean mix­ture and puree until smooth.
  5. Pour the pureed bean mix­ture into the pot.  Dip out about 2 cups of bean mix­ture and run it through a blender or food proces­sor to puree it; then put it back into the pot.
  6. Add the 2 cups of diced ham.
  7. Sim­mer about 20 minutes.
  8. Serve with a dol­lop of sour cream and enjoy.
     

Gather the Ingredients

NL BlackBeanSoup Ingredients thumb Leftover Ham Make Nigella Lawsons Cuban Black Bean Soup

The inky black good­ness boils and bubbles

NL BlackBeanSoup Bubbling thumb Leftover Ham Make Nigella Lawsons Cuban Black Bean Soup

Ahh­hhh – I love this toy

NL BlackBeanSoup NewToy thumb Leftover Ham Make Nigella Lawsons Cuban Black Bean Soup

Time to puree

NL BlackBeanSoup Spices thumb Leftover Ham Make Nigella Lawsons Cuban Black Bean Soup

The fin­ished product.

NL BlackBeanSoup Final thumb Leftover Ham Make Nigella Lawsons Cuban Black Bean Soup

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Filed Under: Comfort Food, Food Network, Leftovers, Nigella Lawson, Recipe, Soup, Tried and True Tagged With: , , , , , ,

What’s Cookin’ — Chipotle Spiced Shortribs

September 2, 2010 By 1 Comment
WMW-ChipotleShortRibs

Check out a great recipe that is per­fect for fall weather – Chipo­tle Spiced Short­ribs over at the lat­est edi­tion of West­ern Mass Women Mag­a­zine.

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Soup’s On: Lemon Chicken Noodle Soup

February 20, 2010 By 4 Comments
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One of the chal­lenges I face is when one has left­over rotis­serie chicken, what do you do?  There’s only so much chicken salad that a gal can make. Well, faced with a par­tial left­over chicken tak­ing up valu­able real estate in my refrig­er­a­tor, I thought “Soup”.  How­ever, I was not in the mood for my nor­mal South­west­ern Chicken soup.  Sadly, I found myself in a win­ter recipe rut.  My tried & true recipes were not an option and add a case of the win­ter blahs and I found myself in a win­ter recipe rut. 

Giada de Lau­ren­tiis had a recipe for a Lemon Chicken Soup with Spaghetti but since I’m not much of a spaghetti fan (don’t ask – it’s a child­hood thing), I looked in the pantry and sub­sti­tuted egg noo­dles.  I also added the zest of one lemon and some gar­lic and cel­ery and I found a new spin on an old favorite. 

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Lemon Chicken Noo­dle Soup

Recipe adapted Giada de Lau­ren­tiis, Food Network

Ingre­di­ents

  • 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
  • 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (about 1–2 lemons) [I used one lemon and the zest]
  • 1 dried bay leaf
  • 1 (2-inch) piece Parme­san cheese rind, optional  [I just added some extra parme­san]
  • 2 medium car­rots, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch pieces
  • 1 rib of cel­ery, sliced into moons
  • 1 gar­lic clove, grated
  • 1 cup (about 2 1/2 ounces) spaghetti, bro­ken into 2-inch pieces, *see Cook’s Note [I used 2 cups of egg noodles]
  • 2 cups diced cooked rotis­serie chicken, prefer­ably breast meat
  • 1 cup grated Parme­san cheese
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
  • Kosher salt

Direc­tions

In a large stock­pot, bring the chicken broth, lemon juice, lemon zest, bay leaf, and Parme­san rind, if using, to a boil over medium-high heat.

Add the car­rots and cel­ery and sim­mer until ten­der, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Add the pasta and cook until the pasta is ten­der, for 4 to 5 min­utes, stir­ring occa­sion­ally. Add the chicken and heat through, about 2 to 3 min­utes. Remove the bay leaf and the Parme­san rind and dis­card. Stir in 1/2 of the cheese and the pars­ley. Sea­son with salt, to taste. Ladle the soup into serv­ing bowls and sprin­kle with the remain­ing cheese.

*Cook’s Note: You can use any short pasta from your pantry as a sub­sti­tute for spaghetti.

Gather the ingredients

LemonChickenNoodleSoupIngredients thumb Soups On: Lemon Chicken Noodle Soup

That bay leaf looks lonely among the chicken broth, gar­lic and lemon zest/juice, no?

LemonChickenNoodleSoupBroth thumb Soups On: Lemon Chicken Noodle Soup

No thumbs were butchered when slic­ing the veg­gies *phew*

LemonChickenNoodleSoupVeggies thumb Soups On: Lemon Chicken Noodle Soup

Warm Com­fort At Last – SO Good!

LemonChickenNoodleSoupFinal thumb Soups On: Lemon Chicken Noodle Soup

 

 

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Filed Under: Comfort Food, Food Network, Giada de Laurentiis, Leftovers, Recipe, Soup, Tried and True Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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