Just a little update 2/3/2010

I have not been doing as well as I wanted to with the recipes.  I did discover a possible way to keep my online recipes organized.  It is called Springpad.  I just started playing with it, but I think I like it.  Now I just need a way to not have to print out recipes.  I'd just bring my laptop in the kitchen, but I don't trust myself to not get it wet or sticky.

The peach trees and roses got pruned this week.  Hopefully we will get some nice big peaches again.

Here are some of Patrick's recent projects from his sculpture class last semester. (A steel 3-sword stand and a pair of cast bronze axes with really long spikes)

The best addition to the house was my Christmas present.

Potato Cheese Soup 11/14/09

Last winter my fall back for our Saturday soup was potato soup.  There were several variations, but the best one by far was a simple version made with the stock I made from the Christmas ham.  The simple substitution of the ham stock instead of my usual chicken stock.

With all the plans we had for today, I wasn't sure if we would have soup tonight, but the snow storm this morning changes our plans and you get another soup recipe.

I don't have any ham stock in my freezer, but I did have a ham hock so I tried a quick one.

Ham Stock
1 ham hock
handful of baby carrots (worked out to be about 5)
about 6 small stocks of celery (I needed about 5 for tomorrow's dinner so I just pulled out the little ones on the inside)
3 bay leaves

Fill a soup pot with water, add all the ingredients - no need to chop the carrots and celery as you will just pull them out later.  Cover the pot and bring to a boil.  Drop the temperature to a low/med and let simmer for several hours.  Pull out the hamhock and bay leaves.  Pull the meat off the hamhock and return to pot.

.....
I waited too long to finish this so now I don't remember what I did.  I probably cut up some potatoes, let them simmer in the ham stock.  Blended the mix and then added cheese.  I used velveeta in this one, it melts very nicely.  Add salt, pepper to taste and finish with a bit a cream or half/half.

The real point of this potato soup recipe was to try the quick ham stock option - well not so quick, but still good.

Peanut Curry Bisque 11/7/09

I found this recipe on epicurious.com under the name "Lightly Curried Peanut Bisque".  According to Wikipedia a Bisque is a seafood soup or smooth soup.  I did look into possibly adding shrimp, but I can only afford shrimp when it is a really good deal.  And good deals on shrimp doesn't happen very often in my land locked state.  I changed the name, because I always tend to change the recipe.  And while it might look like a lot of ingredients you could very easily just use 2 1/2 tsp of curry powder in the soup, plus salt and pepper.

My changes come from laziness in measuring (Rachel Ray doesn't measure!), needing to use something up or after a taste or a good smell I think, "hmmm this would be good with this and I have some."  The nice thing about soup is that it is very flexible :-).

A note about curry: Curry is a blend of spices.  Each company has their own version.  If you don't like one, try a different brand.  We discovered a spice store when we lived in Torrance, Penzeys.  They had bottles of each of the spices that you could smell.  I loved going there, but my sniffer would stop working about half way around the store.  We happen to have 3 of their 9 curry blends, and I used a little of each one - Sweet curry and Hot curry on the chicken; and Sweet curry and Maharajah in the soup.

This one turned out incredible!!!!! It doesn't look like it would be a full meal, but it was very filling.

2-3 Chicken breasts
Curry powder
2-3 Tbl butter
1 large onion, chopped
3 carrots (I did a handful of the baby carrots), chopped
3-4 stalks of celery (my celery was on the small side), chopped
1 1/2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp coriander
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp black pepper
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 box chicken broth
1 sweet potato, chopped
1 c. heavy cream
1/2 salt

Cover chicken breasts liberally with curry powder.  Bake chicken (350° for about 1 hour), chop into bite size pieces.

Saute onion, celery and carrots in the butter.  Add the curry spices let cook for 1-2 minutes.  Stir in the peanut butter until fairly blended.  Add the chicken broth, stirring to blend.  Let simmer for about 30 minutes.

Add the sweet potato and cook until the potatoes are tender.

Blend the soup (hand mixer or food processor).  Stir in the cream, salt and the chicken, heat the soup gently on simmer.

Next time I think I will use coconut milk with the cream, maybe 3/4 c. coconut milk and 1/4 c. cream.