We got fed Rotating Header Image

celery

Chicken wild rice soup and honey yeast rolls

Jan 17th, 2012
by erin.
No comments yet

Chicken Wild Rice Soup and Honey Yeast Rolls

Date: 1/15/2012

Recipe:

Soup: Ingredients:

  • Approximately 7 cups water, 6 tablespoons of “better than bouillion” vegetable broth mix
  • 2 cups finely chopped celery (when we have extra celery, we chop and blanch and freeze in 2 cup portions to have on hand for soups – so one of those bags went in here)
  • 1 carrot, shredded
  • Half an onion, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
  • 3 cups cooked wild rice
  • 1 pound cooked chicken thighs, cubed
Directions:
  • In a large saucepan, combine the first nine ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 30 minutes. (We did this part while cooking the wild rice)
  • In Dutch oven, melt butter; stir in flour until smooth. Gradually whisk in broth mixture. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Add mushroom soup, rice and chicken; heat through. 

Adapted from:  http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Chicken-Wild-Rice-Soup

Rolls: http://annies-eats.com/2008/10/29/honey-yeast-rolls/

Modifications: The soup recipe was pretty heavily modified, which is why I posted what we did. I followed all instructions on the rolls, but it didn’t take 2 hours for my dough to double.

Time to table: Soup took about an hour total, because the wild rice takes 45 minutes to cook – but since we combined that with the first step of the soup (simmering for 30 minutes) it wasn’t so bad. Rolls take about 3 hours including all rising time, maybe 30 minutes of active prep time total.

Servings: The 3 of us ate this for dinner, and then froze another dinner portion for all of us. There was enough after that still for one lunch and one toddler dinner. Probably would feed 6 adults. The rolls make 10-12.

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Love

Notes: I feel like we need a special category for these rare (but happened twice in a week!) triple LOVE meals. So I am making one, and calling it “triple love” (some are amended from my feelings on a meal during the first trimester of pregnancy. Another note – apparently we mostly love soup). I was VERY skeptical that this would live up to restaurant quality soup, but wow, it definitely did! This soup was absolutely delicious, and paired with fresh baked rolls? Can’t get much better than that on a cold January night! When Annie even chooses to eat the soup after eating an entire roll, you know it’s good. She eats so much better on weekends it’s ridiculous – the big difference being that we don’t give her snacks in the afternoon on weekends – shockingly that results in her actually eating dinner! Anyway, this meal was definitely a winner all around. Kind of surprising for us given the lack of cheese and cream involved!

Chicken Wild Rice Soup

Honey Yeast Rolls

Annie eating soup and bread

Muffaletta sandwiches

Jan 16th, 2012
by ben.
3 comments

Muffaletta

Date: 1/16/2012

Recipe: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/09/dinner-tonight-muffaletta-sandwich.html

Modifications: I didn’t use olives in the “olive salad”, which probably makes this not authentic but I don’t really care. Neither Erin nor I like olives. I also did not use the mortadella, because that is always the stuff that looks so gross at the deli case.

Time to table: 15 minutes prep, 3 hours waiting time.

Servings: 3 adults

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Like

Notes: I came by this recipe when Bill posted about their muffaletta experience a few months ago. I drooled over his picture for a long time before finally getting around to trying it ourselves and this was a fantastic sandwich. I wish I would have used more oil in our olive salad so that more would have soaked into the bread. Annie promptly took hers apart and ate just the meat and cheese first before going after the bread.

Muffaletta

Annie picking apart the muffaletta

Sloppy Joes

Jan 6th, 2012
by ben.
1 comment

Sloppy Joes

Date: 12/19/2011

Recipe: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/sloppy_joes/

Modifications: Much to Erin’s chagrin I used half ground beef and half ground pork, because I like pork. She was not a fan of this mod.

Time to table: 30 minutes

Servings: 4 adults

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: A bit of a delay on this post, so I don’t really have much to say about it. I liked this and would make it again in favor of the “not so sloppy joe” mix that Erin likes. I liked that this had some vegetables in it.

Annie eating sloppy joes

Sloppy Joes

Crockpot Potato Pork Hotdish

Dec 18th, 2011
by ben.
No comments yet

Crockpot casserole

Date: 12/8/2011

Recipe:
1 lb (16 oz) ground pork
2 cupd sliced raw potatoes
1 & 1/2 cups sliced carrots
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup frozen whole kernel corn
10 oz can tomato soup
1/2 cup water
1 tsp. dried parsley flakes
Salt and Pepper to taste

in a large skillet brown meat, onion, and celery. In a slow crockpot container – sprayed with cooking spray – combine meat mixture, potatoes, carrots, peas, and corn. Stir in tomato soup, water, parsley flakes, salt, and pepper. Mixed well. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

Time to table: 30 minutes prep, 6-8 hours cook time

Modifications: No modifications really, but I didn’t really measure out any of the vegetables, I just added what seemed like an appropriate amount.

Servings: 6 adult servings

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Dislike

Notes: We got this recipe from our neighbor Molly. I thought this was excellent and a great dish for weeknights as its quick enough to throw together before leaving for work in the morning and is reasonably healthy. Erin liked it fine, but wanted some sort of starch or carb to go with it next time. Annie had maybe a single bite. One of those nights.

Crockpot casserole

Smoked meatloaf with roasted sweet potatoes

Nov 15th, 2011
by ben.
1 comment

Smoked Meatloaf

Date: 11/9/2011

Meatloaf recipe: http://www.kickassbbq.com/smoked_meat_loaf.html

Sweet potato recipe: Source: Cook’s Illustrated

3 pounds sweet potatoes (about 6 medium), ends trimmed, peeled, rinsed, and cut into 3/4-inch thick rounds (see note)
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons apple juice
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon table salt
Ground black pepper

Instructions

  1. Heat packed light brown sugar, apple juice, butter, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until butter has melted and sugar is dissolved, 2 to 4 minutes. Tosspotatoes in large bowl with oil, salt, and pepper to taste until evenly coated. Line 18- by 13-inch heavy-duty rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and coat with nonstick cooking spray. Arrange potatoes in single layer on baking sheet and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Adjust oven rack to middle position and placepotatoes in cold oven. Turn oven to 425 degrees and cook potatoes 30 minutes.
  2. Remove baking sheet from oven and carefully remove top layer of foil. Return potatoes to oven and cook until bottom edges of potatoes are golden brown, 15 to 25 minutes.
  3. Remove baking sheet from oven and brush potatoes with half of glaze, flip slices over with thin metal spatula, and brush with remaining glaze. Continue to roast until bottom edges of potatoes are golden brown, 18 to 22 minutes longer. Remove from oven; let potatoes cool 5 to 10 minutes; transfer to platter and serve.

Time to table: 1.5 hours prep time, 5-6 hours cooking time

Modifications: I added 6 cloves of garlic to the meatloaf. Instead of hamburger we used 1lb ground turkey thigh and 1lb mild pork sausage. I used the pork rub that I used in the pulled pork we’ve made several times.

A note about the sweet potato recipe is that, in our case, it didn’t take nearly as long as they said to cook the potatoes. After the first 25 minutes they were done, but we had to cook them longer to cook the glaze, so you might be able to make the initial cook time shorter to save time.

Servings: 7 adult dinners

Ben: Love Love Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: My dad made this meatloaf over the summer when Annie and I were down at their place for dinner one day, and I knew I had to make it. I never really liked meatloaf growing up, but I’d never had meatloaf like this before. The smoky flavor combined with the pork rub and bbq sauce is amazing. I took the leftovers to work and made meatloaf sandwiches with cheese and sriracha and it was heavenly all over again.

We’ve had the sweet potatoes a couple times at Thanksgiving, from my brother-in-law Joe, so Erin whipped those up as a side dish. We had the neighbors over for dinner and there were still 4 slices for me to bring in for lunches.

I put the meatloaf on the smoker at 12:15 and by 5pm I still had 25 degrees to go, so I moved it to the oven to finish it off. The garlic still had a bit of a kick to it :)

Glazed Sweet potatoes

Annie eating meatloaf

Lentil Stew with Butternut Squash

Nov 11th, 2011
by ben.
No comments yet

Lentil Stew with Squash

Date: 11/8/2011

Recipe: http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/recipefinder/lentil-stew-butternut-squash-recipes

Time to table: 30 minutes prep, 6 hours cook time

Modifications: We used some sort of orange squash from our CSA, not sure what kind it was, but it was nearly identical to butternut squash inside. Looking over the recipe now I see that we forgot to add the parsley, whoops. Didn’t have any rosemary (and I wasn’t buying any for one recipe) so we used dried thyme and sage, like the song says.

Servings: 6 adult dinners

Ben: Like (surprisingly)

Erin: Like

Annie: Dislike, but had a few bites (turns out she likes it, but ONLY if she sees fresh grated parmesan on top before eating it)

Notes: I haven’t been a big fan of the lentil recipes we’ve tried in the past, so I wasn’t really looking forward to this, other than it used the squash we’ve had sitting around for a couple weeks. To my surprise and delight, this was actually pretty damn good!  We topped it with copious amounts of parmesan cheese and I used sriracha in mine, and it was great. Ours turned out very thick, which is how we like soups anyways, so that worked out well.

Edited to add (from Erin): We gave this soup to Annie for leftovers last night – she took one look at it and got PISSED – saying “nooo” and pushing it away, then saying “cheese? cheese?” pointing at the kitchen (where she’d seen the cheese out earlier). I informed her that there was, in fact, cheese IN the soup, but that wasn’t good enough. She took a little break to have a meltdown about this fact in her room, then she came out and asked for cheese again. In the interest of her eating SOMETHING, we grated fresh parmesan on her soup so she could see it and didn’t mix it in. She then proceeded to eat the entire bowl and ask for more. TODDLERS!!!

Lentil Stew with Squash

Corn & cheese chowder

Nov 10th, 2011
by ben.
1 comment

Cheesy Corn Chowder
Doesn’t look like much, but it’s fantastic.

Date: 11/7/2011

Recipe: http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/soups/corn-cheese-chowder/?print=1/#sizeFP

Time to table: 1 hour

Modifications: I added a couple stalks of diced celery because we had some for other meals this week.

Servings: 5 adult dinners

Ben: Love

Erin: Like/Love

Annie: Love

Notes: This was an awesome soup that I’ll definitely make again, I can’t wait for the leftovers tomorrow for lunch (We saved the leftovers for dinner tonight). We didn’t use bread bowls, but I can imagine that would be delicious. We had this for leftovers tonight and I made the mistake of crushing up some crackers in Annie’s bowl. She recognized the crackers and proceeded to pick the cracker pieces out and just eat those. Ugh.

Annie chowing on chowder

Cheesy Corn Chowder

White bean soup with andouille and collards

Oct 30th, 2011
by ben.
1 comment

White bean andouille collard stew

Date: 10/28/2011

Recipe: http://www.erinsfoodfiles.com/2011/10/slow-cooker-white-bean-soup-with-andouille-and-collards.html

Time to table: 40 minutes prep, 6 hours cook time

Modifications: We used ground andouille sausage instead of links because that’s all we could get at the grocery store. Not a big difference. We also topped ours with parmesan and added some garlic. Looking at the recipe now, I also realize that I forgot to use the red wine vinegar, whoops.

Servings: 8 adult meals

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Like/Dislike (didn’t eat it at dinner, but then ate some for lunch next day)

Notes: If we make this again I would saute the collard greens as the slow cooker doesn’t seem to soften them up enough. Other than that this was a tasty meal that gave us tons of leftovers for work lunches next week. It was a little spicy for Annie I think, when I gave it to her for lunch the next day I added some yogurt and that seemed to help.

White bean andouille collard stew

Potato leek soup

Oct 3rd, 2011
by ben.
No comments yet

Potato Leek Soup

It doesn’t show well, but this was delicious!

Date: 9/26/2011

Recipe: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/ham_potato_and_leek_soup/

Time to table: 40 minutes

Modifications: We used the leeks, but had some other stuff to use up so I threw in celery, onion, and sour cream since we didn’t have any cream/half & half. We didn’t use ham because we didn’t have any and I knew it wouldn’t need it. We also didn’t use any of the fresh herbs, but just threw in some dried stuff we had.

Servings: 2 adult dinners, 2 adult lunches, 1 toddler dinner

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Love

Notes: We used the immersion blender to blend the soup up, but we took some out for Annie before that as it’s easier for her to eat larger chunks. She surprised us and ate all of her serving and then we had no more to give her because it was all blended! This soup was awesome and I’m very much looking forward to making this and other soups this fall/winter.

Yummy potato leek soup

Yummy potato leek soup

Pasta bolognese

Jul 17th, 2011
by ben.
No comments yet

Pasta bolognese

Date: July 14th, 2011

Recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/spaghetti-bolognese-recipe/index.html

Modifications: I reversed the amounts of meat: 1 lb ground pork and 0.5 lb ground beef, just cause I like pork better. I also threw in some basil that we had and needed to use up. The directions say to simmer for 1.5 hours, but I liked the consistency after 45-50 minutes, so we went with that.

Time to table: 2 hours, over half the time is just simmering.

Servings: Probably had enough for 6 adults

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Love

Notes: This sauce was absolutely delicious. The butter and cream at the end just make it that much richer. At no point in the directions does it say to drain the fat from the bacon, beef, or pork, so this is an extremely savory dish. Annie seemed to like the food very much, but also seemed interested in playing so she didn’t take it down like other dishes she loves. We froze the leftovers because we already have plenty of other leftovers that need to get eaten and I didn’t want this to be wasted.

Pasta bolognese

Annie digging in

Pasta bolognese

Early stages with the bacon (and bacon grease!) and veggies for our base

Pasta bolognese

Finished sauce

← Earlier Posts