Souper Saturday--Country Split Pea

Today's offering came from the New England Soup Factory Cookbook again. I will most likely be using this book fairly frequently this winter. The full name of the recipe is Country Split Pea Soup with Bacon and Potatoes. The author describes it as a "peasant-style recipe".

The recipe again called for sherry; it seems to be a favorite ingredient of the author, as it is in a number of her recipes. Unlike last time, however, it called for dry sherry instead of cream sherry. I don't know anything about sherry, and I'm not about to start a wine cellar in order to have the correct type for each of Marjorie Druker's recipes. So, again, I skipped it, and naturally we didn't know the difference. I don't doubt that it adds a little something to the flavor, and I'm not against using wine for cooking, I just don't keep it around.

Anyhoo, the soup was thick, hearty, and satisfying. Handsome and I really enjoyed it. It tasted just like a split-pea soup should, but I would probably skip the potatoes next time, personally.

And now for the ratings:
Handsome 9
Me 9
Firstborn 7
Skippy 5
Pinkerbelle 3

Average 6.6

One thing I like about many of these soup recipes is that they start out with lots of veggies...this one had celery, carrots, and onion, as well as the split-peas...and then you blend it all up with a stick-blender and the kids are none the wiser!

Livin' the Dream

I'm going to forego my Frugal Friday post today (I didn't really have anything to say about that anyway!) to highlight my nieces' blog Bringing the Highlands Home.

Two months ago my nieces Katie and Amy fulfilled a dream and moved to Scotland. They plan to be there for at least a year. They are renting a flat in Edinburgh and have part-time jobs, and in their free time, they travel. They just started a blog a couple days ago, so that will make it much easier for me and the rest of their family to follow their adventures.

(Hope you don't mind me using your photo, girls.)

I'm really so excited for them! Who hasn't thought about doing something like this, at least in passing? Once you're married and have kids, it just pretty much ain't gonna happen. I'm so proud of them for actually making it happen! I think even my sister is glad now, and hopefully isn't still worried that they will be kidnapped and sold into s*x slavery.

I went to Scotland with my dad and brother when I was 16. Just for a couple weeks, though, and staying with your dad's friends isn't the same as traveling around on your own and staying in youth hostels. Nevertheless, it was really cool, and seeing some of their photos of places I also visited brings back memories. Now, I'm just living vicariously!

Love ya, girls!

Awesome Purchase, Part Two

Last week in Part One, I revealed my armoire purchase and mentioned that on the same day I had bought something else but wouldn't be able to pick it up for a week or so. Today was the day, and here it is, my new china cabinet!! Excuse me for a moment while I go hug it.

I was browsing craigslist one day, as I sometimes do, for no particular reason, and came across this, just listed and on my side of town. This is a solid wood piece. It probably came from a real furniture store. Not Walmart or IKEA--I still love IKEA, but it's a long distance relationship, unfortunately. (You can see the color we are eventually going to paint the walls in the upper right corner.)


It has cool dentil molding (not dental, people, although it is from the Latin for tooth), and although I'm not sure it was intentional, there's even a little bit of distressing going on.


Look inside the upper doors...beadboard! Love it! There's also a groove in the shelves for displaying plates. I was thinking I would paint this, but it just occurred to me that this matches the color scheme of my kitchen table and chairs, so I don't know.


Inside the lower doors is a nice storage area with a shelf.


I will have to fix this: she dabbled the upper glass with white paint for sort of a faux frosted look. It's a little too faux for me, plus I want to display things. It's an easy fix, though; I just need to scrape it with a razor blade.


Also this. If you enlarge the photo you can see that she didn't paint the top. Shouldn't be too hard, I guess.


Do I need a china cabinet? Not neccesarily. Do I even have an obvious place to put it? Not really. But I couldn't pass it up. Why, you ask? Well, not only is it a quality piece of furniture, and already black, but it was only....

THIRTY. FIVE. DOLLARS. Thirty-five dollars!! Picture me doing the Cabbage Patch right about now. No, wait, that would not be a pretty sight.

Is there a prize for finding the bargain of the century, 'cuz if so, I just won it!

WFMW--Make Ahead Schoolday Breakfast

I have a favorite breakfast casserole recipe that everybody seems to love. One day I decided to make it in individual muffin cups to keep in the freezer. Then we can just heat one or two in the microwave for a quick weekday breakfast. It's a nice change from cereal, and probably a little better for the kids too.

Original recipe:
Egg and Sausage Casserole Serves 6

5 slices white bread
1 lb bulk breakfast sausage
1 tsp prepared mustard
1 c shredded swiss cheese
4-5 eggs
1 c milk
3/4 c light cream
1/4 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
dash nutmeg
1 tsp worchestershire sauce

Place bread in well-greased 9x13 pan to cover bottom, cutting to fit if necessary. Cook sausage in skillet until done; drain off fat. Mix sausage w/ mustard, then sprinkle evenly over bread. Sprinkle cheese over sausage. Combine eggs, milk, cream and seasonings. Pour over casserole. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 mins., or until set in middle.

My changes:
whole wheat bread
sometimes cheddar instead of swiss
omit cream, just use all milk

For individual muffin cups:
I am unscientific about it, but 1/2 lb sausage should be enough for about 18 muffin cups. I had reserved some sausage from the soup I made Sunday and threw these together very quickly and put them in the oven with supper tonight.

Grease muffin tins [**Note: be sure to grease them and grease them well! I wrote this post last week before I realized it was a themed WFMW and I spent nearly the whole week soaking and scraping trying to get my muffin tins clean because I forgot to grease them!] Tear bread into pieces to place in bottom of cups. Top with cooked sausage/mustard mixture, and sprinkle with cheese. Pour about 1/4 c egg mixture in each cup and bake about 15-20 mins. at 350. When cooled, pop them in a ziploc bag and toss them in the freezer. For breakfast, heat frozen 'muffin' in microwave for about 1 minute.


Visit Works For Me Wednesday at Rocks in My Dryer!

Eleven Years Ago Today

On 11/11/97, I became a mother. After four miscarriages, a lot of tests with no answers, and a lot of discouragement and despair, we finally gave control to God. Nine months and many prayers later, our perfect, healthy, eight pound boy was born. I had a fantastic natural birth, with a doula and a birth ball. I was at the hospital for only about three hours before he was born. He was my only hospital birth; the other two were born at home in water.


Today, he turns eleven. Believe me when I tell you what everybody else has already said--those of you with little bitty children will be completely blown away by how quickly time flies. He has been a joy and we are so proud of him!

HaPpY BiRthDaY, Firstborn!

Chicky-Poo and Banana Muffins

What is this? Is it this year's hot new Christmas toy? The next big decorating trend (move over, roosters!)? No, this is my new favorite kitchen gadget.


This is Mashy the Egg Masher. You can call him Chicky-Poo (a name my kids coined). I found him a few weeks ago at Homegoods. I make egg salad fairly frequently, and have always found egg mashing to be, not difficult, but kind of a pain. Nothing really did the trick for me...potato masher? too big; pastry blender? mine's a piece of junk. What I had been doing is the old-fashioned pastry "cutting in" method with two knives. I wasn't sure how good Chicky would be at his intended job, but at $1.99, it was worth a try.

Well, I am happy to say that Chicky does an egg-cellent job at egg mashing! Fantastic, really! And he's kind of cute and funny, too. Not only that, but he is multi-purpose. Last night I made guacamole, and, light-bulb moment!, I put Chicky to work. He smashed up those avocados with panache. This afternoon, I decided to make banana muffins, and there was Chicky looking at me hopefully from the countertop.

[I more or less used Lindsay's recipe; I used regular sugar instead of rapdura and skipped the crumb topping, but I did use coconut oil.]

Here he is gettin' down and dirty with the 'nanas (as you can see, one in particular was really ripe).


Here he is standing proud in the finished product...perfect banana mash.


Here he is keeping an eye on me as I mix up the muffins. I heart my vintage Pyrex mixing bowls.


And here he is getting ready to enjoy the fruit of his labors...with butter, please! Yum.

If you can find one of these little guys, add him to your staff.

Souper Saturday--Pumpkin Black Bean

I didn't realize until I typed out the title that this just sounds like a slightly modified version of last week's Pumpkin and White Bean. However, I chose it because it is actually very different. The recipe comes from Tammy's Recipes and she describes it as "a delicious black bean pastrami soup with pumpkin, tomatoes, onion, and garlic in a flavorful beef broth". She also says you can't really taste the pumpkin, so I figured it would be a good way to hide use some of the pumpkin I had from last week.


Tammy's Original Recipe

Yield: 10 servings

Ingredients:

1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons butter
4 to 4 1/2 cups freshly cooked black beans*
1 1/2 cups fresh or canned tomatoes, diced
3/4 teaspoon sugar
4 cups beef broth
16 ounces (2 cups) pumpkin puree
1/3 to 1/2 pound turkey pastrami, diced or chopped**
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Instructions:

1. In a 6-quart stock pot, saute the onion, garlic, cumin and pepper over moderate heat, until onions are translucent.

2. Add beans, tomatoes, sugar, broth and pumpkin, stirring to combine. Simmer uncovered for 25+ minutes.***

3. Add pastrami and vinegar and heat through.

Additional Notes:

*Can substitute three 15-ounce cans of black beans, rinsed and drained. The original recipe also said to puree the beans, but we like them left whole!

**I order my turkey pastrami thin sliced and then dice it for this. You could also use turkey ham.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I rarely follow a recipe exactly. Here are my changes:

a) oil instead of butter to cook the onion in
b) I used 2 cans of black beans
c) I used Trader Joe's concentrated beef broth packets (plus water to equal the 4 cups)
d) instead of turkey pastrami or turkey ham, I used Black Forest ham because that's what Trader Joe's had
e) used only 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
f) I pureed the tomatoes and beans, as the kids protest vegetable chunks

The family liked last week's poll, so I'll probably make that a regular feature. This week's verdict:
Handsome 8 "hearty"
Me 7
Firstborn 7
Skippy 4 "too meaty"
Pinkerbelle 10 (although her reaction did not support this...should be a 6, maybe)

Average: 7.2 but slightly skewed by P's false 10

Nobody knew there was pumpkin in it until Firstborn read the title of this post. They were somewhat taken aback, but didn't make a big deal of it. After all, they had already eaten it.

I thought it was very good, but slightly too acidic or tangy, hence my 7 rating. I would further reduce the vinegar next time, or cut it out all together.