Mama's Vegetable Soup

Mama was visiting last week.  There were so many things wonderful about that, and one of them was sharing some of her delicious cooking!  Even though I feel like a pretty experienced cook, there are definitely still some "watch and learn moments" when it comes to being in the same kitchen as Mama.

She came up with this recipe after I'd already grown up and left the nest.  I'd heard so many rave reviews from my Dad and siblings, though, that I really needed to know what this soup was all about!

One little note is, you can add more spice to this soup if you want to give it an extra kick, but we kept it at "just enough heat" so the kids wouldn't notice but it still added flavor.  Also, this is a nice, hearty beef & vegetable soup, but you could definitely omit the beef and add in some red kidney beans--that would make a delicious vegetarian version!

Start by searing the stew meat in the bottom of a large soup pot.  The chunks don't need to be uniform yet--they'll break up later.

After a good 15 minutes or so of cooking, Mama breaks them up.  If you have lots and lots of time for the soup to simmer (a couple of hours, or in the crock pot for longer) they'll do that themselves.

Then add in your chopped carrots, celery and onions.  These need a little sauteing before we add the liquid.

With that mixture goes the spices and bouillon. 

When your veggies are getting tender, add in the rest of the veggies!  Peas, corn, green beans.

Diced tomatoes and tomato juice (not flavored, if you please)...

Then put on the lid and let it simmer and simmer and simmer.  You could do this in a dutch oven or crock put to let it have lots of "low and slow" time, but a big soup pot on the stove top for about an hour will do just fine!

Mama's Vegetable Soup

1 lb stew meat

2 T olive oil

1 onion, diced

3 ribs celery, diced

3 carrots, diced

1 T garlic

4 beef bouillon cubes

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp oregano

2 bay leaves

2 cups frozen green beans

1 cup frozen corn

1/2 cup frozen peas

1 28 oz can diced tomatoes w/green chilis

46 oz tomato juice

Sear stew meat in olive oil and cook until tender.  Pull apart meat into smaller pieces.  Add onion, celery and carrots and cook until onions begin to be transparent.  Add remaining ingredients, cover and let simmer over low heat until flavors combine, about an hour.  Remove bay leaves before serving.  

*Can substitute 2 cups cooked red kidney beans for meat.  Just saute vegetables in olive oil and add beans with corn, etc.

Molten Lava Cakes

This photograph really could be more appetizing.  Sorry.  Blame it on being tired at the time.  Terrible photography aside, this is one of our favorite desserts.  Serve it to your honey for Valentine's Day!  It's the perfect romantic dessert, and it's easy to prepare, which makes it perfect for serving up a gourmet dinner for two at home.  It also works well for company, because you can direct your attention to your guests rather than to slaving away for a perfect dessert.  

These cakes are a lot more brownie-like in that the texture of the cake itself is crisp on the edges and fudgy inside.  And then in the center is a perfect amount of molten chocolate.  Let me show you how it's done.

Start by melting together chocolate and butter.

Keep the heat low and slow.  You can do it in a double boiler on the stove top or microwave at 15-30 second intervals.  When the butter is melted, turn off the heat (or take it out of the microwave) and let the butter work together with your mixing spoon to work a little magic on the chocolate.

Just stir it well until it's smooth and glossy.

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Next, beat together the eggs and sugar until it's a creamy yellow color.  You can use pasteurized egg product if you're worried about raw eggs in your chocolate lava.

Pour in your (cooled) melted chocolate...

and mix it in!

Finally, a little flour.

Mix.

Prepare buttered ramekins.  With this recipe, you can just do as many as you need at the time, because the batter keeps well in the fridge for later use.

I'm using a large scoop for equal portioning.  You can also use a measuring cup.

Fill the ramekins to within 1/2" or so of the top--you need some space for them to expand.

At this size, they bake for about 10-12 minutes.  You could also do muffin cups (use papers for easy removal), and they only take about 8 minutes.

Either way, pull them out when they look like this:  crispy tops cracked open, revealing gooey chocolate goodness below.

To remove, (still warm!) gently go around the edges with a knife and turn it out onto serving plates.

Molten Lava Cakes

1 cup butter

1 1/3 cups chocolate chips

5 eggs (or 1 1/4 cups egg product)

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour

Melt butter and chocolate chips together and allow to cool to room temperature.  Beat eggs and sugar until creamy and pale in color.  Beat chocolate mixture into egg mixture.  Add flour and mix well.  Optionally, chill several hours or overnight.  Bring batter to room temperature before dividing into very well greased or buttered ramekins or muffin tins.  Bake at 425.  6-8 minutes for regular sized muffin tins; 10-12 for 7 oz ramekins.  Makes 4 large or 8 small cakes.

Food Storage Soup

Around our house this is called "dump soup". You would think I've made it before this winter, but despite the ridiculous easy-ness of it, I didn't make it until December! For shame!

But for those of you who, like me, thought this was too complicated because there's no recipe, I'm going to spell it out for you.

Base:
Can or jar of diced tomatoes
Beef bouillon
Water

Depending on how much of this you want will depend on the amount of tomatoes, water and bouillon. For our family of five, I typically only add one pint of tomatoes (or 10.5 oz can) and about 5 cups of water. I always add one more cube of bouillon than cups of water, so in a 5-cup recipe, I would add six cubes. In fact, I do this with ALL soups-- one extra bouillon cube. You'd be surprised what a difference that extra cube makes.

More basic ingredients:
lentils
small amount of meat (the lentils help the meat to stretch farther)
potatoes

The lentils are a great source of protein. They're cheap, healthy and have a long shelf life. Best of all, they cook up in no time! 20 minutes of lentil cooking results in soft lentils. Not like dry beans (a post for another day) which require pre-soaking or a "quick cook" method of at least 2 1/2 hours. Lentils are EASY. My family doesn't even like lentils.

Other ingredients:
green beans
corn
any type of bean, in fact
carrots
celery
peppers (haven't tried it yet!)
onions

Putting it together:
 We usually have dump soup on a night that meets several criteria. 1)I have lots of little leftovers in the fridge, like two carrots and a celery stalk. Or a cup of black beans. Or 1/2 cup of meat. 2) I only have 20-30 minutes to get a full dinner ready. and 3) it's cold outside.

I cook the lentils in the beef broth with the meat. Then I add everything else and simmer until tender, which usually takes about 20 minutes. During that time I make some easy biscuits or toast some bread.

And voila! Dump soup! A way to clean out your fridge, use your food storage, eat healthy and save money.

What's not to love?

Regular Biscuits (rolled out!)

This recipe isn't a new feature on the blog, but the old post lacks some important things in biscuit making.  It also doesn't have pretty little cut-out biscuits (or the explanation of how to make them).  I'm giving a demonstration to some ladies at church in a couple of weeks, and it inspired me to update the post.  So here you go!

Biscuits really are one of those simple, down-country, home-cookin' good eats.  There probably aren't many people who don't love a fresh, hot, flaky biscuit.  We all have our personal favorite toppings--mine is blackberry jam--but butter and honey is also a traditional favorite.  

To start, combine dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl.  Since I bake with powdered milk, my dry ingredients include milk powder.

Mix them together...

Then add the shortening and cut it in.  You can cut it in using a pastry blender, (pictured below) two knives crossing each other, or a fork.

When you cut in the shortening, you're working it in to all of the dry ingredients to distribute the fat.  It will help create that flaky, light biscuit you love by working it in now (before adding liquid).  The mixture should resemble course crumbs.

Next you add the liquid--water, in my case--just a little at a time.

Gently stir it together (counting sometimes helps slow you down; it took me 15 strokes).

Turn out the dough onto a flat surface lightly dusted with flour.

And give it a couple gentle turns (DO NOT KNEAD) to help it hold together.

Then use your hands to form it into a rough circle, about 1/2 to 1 inch thick.  The biscuits will double in height in the oven, so take that into consideration.

Punch out shapes using a biscuit cutter (or a cup, or a mason jar ring).  Keep the circles close together so you use up as much dough on the first round as possible.  

With the scraps, just gently push them together.  Think Pangaea here.  You want the divisions to sort of remain--simply to avoid overworking the dough.  Overworked dough equals tough biscuits.

This recipe will give you between 8 and 12 biscuits, depending on desired thickness.  When they're all rolled and cut, place them on a greased baking sheet and bake.

Pull them out when they're very lightly golden brown.

Regular Biscuits

3 cups flour (can use whole wheat)

1 T baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup milk (or a little more, if needed)

*to use dry milk powder, add 1/3 cup milk powder to dry ingredients, and substitute water for milk in recipe.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Combine dry ingredients in medium mixing bowl.  Cut in shortening.  Pour in milk, a little at a time, and mix very gently until ingredients are just moistened.  Some dry spots are okay.  On flat surface lightly dusted with flour, gently form dough into oval about 1/2 to 1 inch tall, depending on desired biscuit height.  Do not overwork the dough.  Cut out biscuits. Place biscuits on greased baking sheet.  Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until very lightly golden.  Makes 8-12.

Perfect Brownies

These brownies are perfect.  There's really nothing more to say.  But if you must know, I guess I'll take you on a small journey with me through brownie land.

Bottom line:  a perfect brownie in my mind is wonderfully dense and fudgy in the middle, with a pleasantly shiny, slightly flaky top.  It also usually has chocolate chunks in it of some kind, but that's totally a matter of preference!  

Out of the box, my favorite brands are Ghirardelli and Hershey.  They're nice and fudgy and thick and chocolaty.  But I really wanted a homemade version so I could make it cheaper!  And whenever I wanted, even without the box.  

But I ran into a problem.  All of the "best" brownie recipes seemed to turn out cake-like.  Even if I go through great lengths to carefully melt butter and chocolate in a double boiler and gently stir in previously beaten eggs.  Don't take me there, man.  Let's throw some cocoa and eggs in a bowl and get a decadent brownie, shall we?

First, mix up the wet ingredients.

Then throw in the dries and mix until just combined.

Toss in chocolate chips or nuts if desired.

Pour it into a greased pan.

And bake in your preheated oven.  DON'T OVER BAKE.  Okay?  

Some people look for brownies pulling away at the edges.  Some do a knife check (a few crumbs, not completely clean).  And some (like me) just look for the middle to be set and not gloppy!!  Careful not to under bake either, though.  These are not heartburn brownies.  They are perfect brownies.  Capiche?

PS--the recipe calls for vegetable oil, but feel free to use butter if your little heart desires.  Also, don't shy away from using pasteurized egg product so you can feel all noble about letting your kids lick the spoon.  Just make sure to under-measure a little on the equivalent egg amount.

Perfect Brownies

3 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups sugar

1 cup flour

2/3 cup cocoa

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup chocolate chips, (or nuts, or whatever) optional

Mix eggs, oil, vanilla and sugar together in a bowl until well blended.  Combine remaining ingredients, except chocolate chips, and gently mix until just moistened.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Pour into greased 9x13" pan.  Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, or until done.  Do not over bake.  Allow to cool (or don't) before cutting into bars.

Easy (& Guest Worthy!) Spaghetti Dinner

Have you ever invited someone over for dinner and then realized you had no plans for what to serve?  I'm sure this isn't a new trick for many of you, but just in case it is, I thought I'd share what works for me.  

With knowledge gleaned from both of our moms, both wonderful home cooks who also love to share their bounty, here are a few tricks for a quick and easy dinner worthy of company.  If you don't have what you need for this meal, just use it as a template--pick a theme and go with it.  Italian, Mexican, American--keep it simple, yet plentiful.  Most guests just appreciate being fed simple grub they didn't have to fix themselves and getting a little too stuffed on it.  

And don't forget to serve dessert.  That's always a crowd-pleaser.

For this meal, start off with the toasted garlic bread.  Take a loaf of french bread and slice it down one side...

Then spread a generous helping of softened butter and minced garlic.  You can mix the garlic and butter if you want, but then you're committed to using (or wasting) it all.  You can also use margarine or olive oil in place of the butter.  You could add herbs or spices.  Make it however you want.  This can go with lots of different meals, (soups, dinner salad, chicken, steak/roast, pork chops) so there's no one way to do it.

After spreading with the goodies, I like to fold it back together and slice it before baking.  I find it easier to slice while the bread is still nice and soft rather than making a big, crumby mess later.

Then wrap it up in foil and bake.  This version gets you a little toasty on the outside and plenty soft in the middle.  My favorite way to eat it, though, is done by spreading it all out on a baking sheet, buttered side up, and baking until it's nice and toasty.  My third son loves toasty bread, so he and I get a good helping of bread when I make it that way.  But this is Cast-Iron Man's (mr. pots. get it?! hubby needs a better nickname. another time. ) favorite way to eat it, so that's how we roll.



If you're feeling like preparing for another crazy day, make a bunch and throw them in the freezer wrapped in foil. 

Okay.  Simple side salad.  Cut the bottoms off of your heads of romaine/green leaf/red leaf lettuce.

I sometimes cut off the tops, too, if they look a little rough.

Here's a little secret:  if you slice up the rest of the lettuce with a serrated knife, it has a nice "fancy" look to it.

Then throw it in a colander (or bowl of a salad spinner) and rinse well.   

When considering the salad, stick with your theme.  Make a taco salad and serve it with burritos.  Or a fresh garden salad with hamburgers.  One last thought:  if you pick a good dressing, it makes a simple salad something worth talking about.  For our spaghetti dinner, I picked our favorite Caesar dressing.

Toss with the dressing, then add your toppings.  If you do all the work for the salad yourself, it's a little friendlier for feeding a crowd.

Toss it all together and chill until dinner.

Now for the pasta.  If you add a good dash of salt to the water, it'll boost your flavor a bit.  Bring the water to a boil.

Add the pasta and cook until al dente.

And don't cringe here...keep it simple and add your favorite sauce (from a can, a jar, your freezer, whatever) and heat it through.  

A good sprinkle of cheese (various kinds work here; I used parmesan) adds a little flavor and keeps things simpler at serving time.

And just before serving dinner, mix up some brownies, toss a few chocolate chips into the batter, and put them in the oven.  Enjoy dinner and the aroma of chocolate wafting through the house.  Then serve up some warm brownies with ice cream.  

Easy Spaghetti Dinner
(serves 6-8)

1 loaf french bread
4 T softened butter
1 T (6 cloves) minced garlic
1 head lettuce
salad fixin's
1/4 to 1/2 cup dressing
1 lb spaghetti
salt, to taste
1 jar/can sauce
1/2 to 1 cup grated cheese (parmesan, romano, mozzarella)
1 brownie mix
oil and eggs for preparing brownies
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 gallon ice cream

Slice french bread in half lengthwise.  Spread with butter and garlic.  Fold and slice.  Wrap in foil and bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes, or until warmed and slightly toasted.  Cut and rinse lettuce.  Toss with dressing and toppings in large serving bowl.  Chill until dinner.  Bring 2 quarts water to boil.  Salt water, if desired.  Cook pasta in boiling water until al dente, about 9-10 minutes.  Drain.  Mix with sauce and cheese.  Serve dinner while it's hot!  Prepare brownies according to package directions.  Serve warm with ice cream for dessert.