Greek soup

My friend Christina made me Greek chicken soup which is very lemony and right now feels like the best thing I have ever tasted. When I get better, I'll have to investigate this as right now it is the thing that makes life worth living.

After three big bowls of this soup (straight out of the pot I reheated it in), I have determined WHY I love this soup. It's a liquid version of chicken with lemon-butter sauce/ chicken française. One of my favorite meals!

Preliminary internet search has revealed these recipes:
http://greekfood.about.com/od/greeksoups/r/Chicken-Soup-Avgolemono-Greek-Egg-Lemon-Chicken-Soup.htm

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/greek-lemon-chicken-soup/Detail.aspx


http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/353

Betty Crocker's lemon bars

Betty Crocker's Lemon bars

I have a love affair with my old 25th anniversary Betty Crocker cookbook.  It's a testament to the prepared foods so central to American household cuisine. The marketing guru that decided, "hey, let's make up a woman who's a great cook and have her be our branding device..." The cookbooks are an obvious attempt to develop trust in dear old Betty and I'm sure to get one you had to eat a boatload of Betty's scalloped potatoes and pancake mix...

But despite the falsity of dear Betty, I love the cookbook.

I let my daughter do most of the work for this lemon bars, and for once, I followed the directions.

Betty's lemon bars

1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel, if desired
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, butter and powdered sugar. Press into ungreased square pan, either 8x8 or 9x9. Bake 20 minutes. Beat remaining ingredients until light and fluffy, 3 minutes. Pour over hot crust.

Bake about 25 minutes or until no indentation remains when touched in the center. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.

Honeyed Fruit

As I was prepping the fruit salad yesterday, at the last minute I decided to make white wine-honey sauce for it. It's a French recipe I found online for a dinner party, that depending on the dryness of the wine used to make the sauce can be enjoyable for children and adults alike. But that's if you use a sweet wine, like a Vouvray. I, in this case, used a dry Reisling made by a friend. (I save my old wine bottles for him and he returns one from the batch filled with home brew.)

My original experience with this recipe can be found here:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/04/fruit-salad-with-honey-wine-dressing.html

I thought yesterday's version was worth noting, in part because of the local nature of some of the ingredients. The honey was local honey and the wine, as I mentioned, came from a friend.

This is the list of ingredients for the sauce:
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 tablespoons plus two teaspoons honey
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

It's all supposed to be mixed in the blender. I used a measuring glass and a whisk. And I didn't use as much sugar. I never do. After you mix it, you're supposed to chill it in the fridge for 20 minutes. I slapped mine in the freezer for ten.

My fruits, as mentioned in the earlier post about this meal, were the leftovers of a fresh pineapple, a banana and the last of my strawberries sliced.

What was leftover, I let soak in the fridge (with some sauce left in reserve and I'm thinking ice cream). That became my breakfast this morning.

Angel vs. the drumsticks

I have 14 drumsticks. Not my favorite thing to deal with. But my family eats anything... So... A gift is a gift.

I divided the drumsticks into two pyrex dishes. Seven in each.

Oven preheating to 300 degrees.

Marinade 1 "fruity":
A total of about 3/4 cups liquid...
- about half of that dijon apple vinaigrette left from the Dole Harvest salad kit
- about 1/4 of that chianti vinaigrette left from the Dole Italian salad kit
- about 3 tablespoons canola oil
- the remainder is apple juice

Add about 2 tablespoons fresh chopped rosemary.

Marinade 2 "savory":
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- seven leaves fresh rosemary chopped and dropped into the hot butter

Meanwhile, sprinkle chicken in the savory dish with four color organic pepper and garlic powder.

Pour on the sage butter. It didn't look wet enough so I went ahead and brush more butter directly onto each drumstick, probably bringing the butter total to 1/2 cup. Then, I added a lemon slice to each. I used a whole lemon in this endeavor, making sure I got all the lemon juice into the pan.

I covered them with foil and slipped them into the oven, intending to marinate every 30 minutes and uncover toward the end... whenever I determine that will be.

I believe I cooked them for about 90 minutes on 300 and then 40 minutes on 375 with the aluminum foil off.

My family ate them skin and all and the "fruity" ones were more moist.

Shrimp Scampi?

So we stopped at the Purple Cow Creamery since Little Miss got money from her grandparents for her kindergarten celebration.

We were on the way home and talking about the possibilities for dinner when my husband and daughter selected pasta. Now, I'm a once-a-week kind of pasta gal so I didn't really have interest in pasta. But I didn't have any better ideas so I asked the fateful question, "Pasta and red sauce pasta or pasta with butter/olive oil pasta?" To which my husband replied, "Oooooh. That would be good with shrimp."

Now, my anemia is proving a problem but I decided to be a good mom and said, "Tell ya what. If you don't mind waiting as long as it takes for me to make it, I'll make pasta with shrimp. But it might be 7 o'clock by the time I get it on the table."

"I'll help," he replied.

"I know," I said. "That's with your help. Otherwise it'd be breakfast."

Since I don't like shrimp, I got two small pieces of chicken out of the freezer for me and about 15-20 shrimp for them.

I sent hubby to the garden where he collected:
- chives
- spinach
- oregano
- parsley
- basil

I prepared the Le Creuset skillet with about:
- one tablespoon butter
- one tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- one clove sliced garlic

Simmered on low and added the herbs (and spinach) in ripped pieces. Once they got nicely cooked and aromatic, I added:
- the shrimp
- chicken
- the juice of about 1/3 a lemon (from my freezer and thawed in the microwave)
- another tablespoon butter

When I flipped the chicken I added to the "meats" in the skillet:
- about 1/2 teaspoon four color organic peppercorn
- about 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground garlic sea salt

Started a pot of spaghetti: half regular, half whole wheat

Once the chicken cooked, I added a can of peas to the skillet (ran out of frozen)

When the spaghetti finished, I drained it and returned it to the pot with the contents of the skillet and another teaspoon butter plus 1 teaspoon olive oil.

Then I mixed the juice from the remaining 2/3 of a lemon with a tablespoon butter (All in all the whole recipe was about 1/2 a stick of butter for 3 large servings and 3 small servings) over medium low in the skillet, stirring constantly until the color starts to change. Poured that over the pasta.

Dished onto plates, sprinkled asiago on top.

Lemonade

I made myself a glass of lemonade by juicing two lemons, added five crushed spearmint leaves from my garden, water, ice, and 3/4 tablespoon sugar.

Chicken with cornflake sludge

This is one of those meals that did not do what I intended.

Ah, well. Win some, lose some.

I started with a hint of butter and an equal amount of fresh-squeezed lemon juice, and a teaspoon of fresh rosemary snipped into tiny pieces.

I took some chicken, sliced into tenders, and had my daughter grind some four-color peppercorns and some McCormick garlic salt (packed in France, go figure). Added the chicken and some chicken broth. I cooked the chicken about four minutes on each side, then I coated with eggs, and "breaded" with crushed cornflakes, made more 50/50 lemon butter sauce and added some olive oil for a "frying" effect and returned everything to the Le Creuset skillet.

The cornflakes fell off.

I added a whole bunch of steamed baby carrots from the freezer, thawed in the microwave, added a few dollops of butter and some more chicken broth and placed the entire skillet in the oven.

Meanwhile, my husband is making cheapo mac and cheese from a box for a second side.

keep your fingers crossed. I'm going to need it.

The result: FABULOUS!!!

Pasta with spinach in herbed lemon butter sauce

Since last week's pasta in lemon butter sauce was so popular I opted to try and repeat the experiment.

I started with the Le Creset skillet, a tablespoon of butter, 1/2 a clove of garlic, juice of one lemon, two tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, handful of fresh parsley from the garden, and several tablespoons fresh chives from the garden. I stirred over low while it all cooked. I believe I added another tablespoon or so of butter to balance the lemon juice.

Next I added about 1.5 cups chopped spinach leftover from the omelet the other day and increased the heat. Then I added slices of Trader Joe's chicken sausage with apples. Let that cook until the sausage browned and the liquid started to dry up.

I made some whole wheat rotini, put them back in the pan with another two tablespoons of butter and a trickle of extra virgin olive oil. Then I mixed it the spinach mixture from the skillet. Voilà, c'est prêt.

Chilled Pear Soup

I wanted to make the chilled pear soup Eileen Bresslin prepared for us in our vegan cooking class at Northampton Community College. But I can't find it. Online or in my cookbooks.

So, I experimented.

I took a big can of pear halves and put them in the blender with the freshly squeezed juice of half a lemon. I added about a 1/2 teaspoon of ginger. I blended. I poured half of it into three bowls and transferred to the fridge to chill.

That's the vegan sample.

I added a quarter cup vanilla-maple- drinkable yogurt from Klein Farm to the remaining stuff in the blender and added the lemon juice from the other half of lemon. This also got sent to the fridge to be taste-tested at lunch.

The verdict from the family:
The vegan option is the most soup like, whereas the yogurt one is more like a dessert or a palette cleanser. Both are equally edible.

Rabbit with Sage and Lemon (Lapin à la sauge et au citron)

I bought a three-pound rabbit at the farmers market today. I thought I'd make 2/3 of it, but half fit better in my pan. I got the idea of making rabbit from my Venez Dîner C'est Prêt cookbook that Jessica brought me from France.

Now, I didn't read the recipe very closely and so it took me a while to realize I needed a beer, and not just any beer but a "bière blonde" (blonde beer).

The recipe suggests that one rabbit will feed four people.

Ingredients
1 rabbit cut in "morsels" (the butcher cut mine in four center sections and each leg)
1 lemon, not juiced
4 cloves of garlic, whole, in the "skin?"
8 fresh sage leaves
1 bottle of blonde beer
12 black olives
salt, pepper

Preheat oven to 410 degrees.
Arrange the rabbit (I only used half the rabbit) on a platter and salt and pepper it. Place in baking dish with the lemon in quarters (I sliced into eighths). Add the sage leaves and the cloves of garlic.
Add the beer.
Cook one hour, adding the olives at the mid-point. Cook until the meat is tender and the sauce caramelizes. If it cooks too quickly, add more beer. If it doesn't reduce enough, return to the oven.

I'm serving with broccoli sautéed in garlic and olive oil and fresh pineapple.

The rabbit disappeared. I think my daughter could eat two pounds of rabbit meat by herself. Tender, moist, but like buffalo wings-- a lot of work to get the meat off the bone.

The sauce had a lot of flavor for how simple it was.

How to recycle Chicken Franchese pasta

Between our daughter's birthday and our big dinner out the other night, we've eaten a lot of leftovers. Plus, last night I had a board meeting to discuss an endowment over pizza and homegrown salad.

So today I came home from the writers group meeting, hungry because I'd had a slice of multigrain toast for breakfast and some Entemann's mini-donuts and a couple carrots at the board meeting. I ate a slice of ring bologna to get some protein in my system. Then I followed up by heating my leftovers from Little Italy Food Center in Pohatcong, N.J.

I had Chicken Franchese, even though it was an Italian restaurant, because it's one of my all-time favorites and such a simple dish. It included two huge chicken breasts so I could have saved one and not been a glutton, but I didn't. I brought home the linguini. Today, I added some chopped fresh broccoli and reheated.

It was fabulous.

Tonight is Gayle's fundraiser for the Susan Kromen and Avon walks... I'll blog about the food there tomorrow...

Fruit salad with honey-wine dressing

Today I get to make my fruit salad with honey-Vouvray sauce. I probably spent $35 on this fruit salad, so it is not cheap. $5 worth of strawberrys, $5 worth of raspberries, $2 worth of pears, $2 worth of lemons, $1.69 can of peaches packed in juice, $12 bottle of Vouvray, and $8 bottle of honey.

Okay, so the Vouvray is leftover from an earlier day, and technically the recipe calls for dry white wine. But I like Vouvray.

And the honey was a total splurge, but I had to try it, just once... and this French dinner tonight is a special occasion (which I will be fed a multi-course meal for free).

And hopefully, there will be some fruit leftover for the family...

The recipe comes from the internet. I've never tried it. I think it's from one of the "about" sites. I discovered it last year when I went looking for something for one character to make in one of my novels... And this sounded perfect. And the lavender honey is my addition, since the character at hand is a chef, and he's working in a well-stocked kitchen of someone who loves food.

Fruit with honey-wine sauce
http://frenchfood.about.com/od/salads/r/bastillefruit.htm
The web site recommends this for all your "Bastille Day picnics." Yeah. Alright, well, the exact quote is: "Accompany this luscious fruit salad with a baguette, assorted cheese, and a spicy-sweet sparkling dessert wine for a lovely Bastille Day picnic." Ironically, I tracked the original recipe to double-check the fractions and it added a kiwi. A kiwi isn't very French now, n'est-ce pas?

1/2 cup dry white wine
3 tablespoons plus two teaspoons honey
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 pint strawberries, hulled
2 pears, cored
2 peaches, pitted
3/4 cup sweet cherries, pitted
1 kiwi (optional)

1. Process the first five ingredients in a blender until smooth. Chill for twenty minutes.
2.Cut fruit and toss with desired amount of dressing.

Now, I bought canned peaches because it is not the right time of year for peaches. For the same reason, I substituted raspberries for cherries. And I am not putting kiwi in a French fruit salad. I already mentioned that I have Vouvray and lavender honey... One review of this recipe suggested that the combination of honey and sugar made it way too sweet, and in light of the fact that I'm also using a sweet wine I will cut back on the honey. Maybe start with two tablespoons plus a teaspoon. But if I add sugar, I'm going to use organic sugar because it seems to have a better flavor. Okay, and my last comment is, am I the only person terrified to attempt "lemon zest?" I always skip it. I don't have a zester, though I do have a mini-grater... Maybe today I'll attempt it.

Fancy Dinner: Chicken Français

As I sit here typing, my house is filled with ricanant (giggling) as my husband gets my exhausted and overstuffed four-and-a-half year old to bed. We had "fancy dinner" tonight, as we call it.

I'm usually happiest on these nights. It means I'm putting an effort forth to do our favorite and our most elaborate foods. It means we're using the linens, the silver, the china... Even my pre-schooler gets a champagne flute, usually of apple juice but today we had Orangina.

I initially planned chicken for dinner, but I hadn't given much thought to exactly what recipe. I wanted chicken with grape nuts, but without the cereal I could not. I knew it would end up being chicken français or chicken with rosemary and pepper (both French style cuisine). Then I thought about adding a simple sautéed broccoli. And I noticed the Vouvray, all alone in my wine rack, the quality $10 a bottle Vouvray I can afford these days. If you're breaking out the table wine, might as well call an impromptu "fancy dinner."

And so it goes.

Now before you criticize my table setting, keep in mind, my kid did it. She set the table, selected the table cloth and even the napkins. We use cloth napkins every meal, so we've got quite the collection. The point of fancy dinner is to use the "good stuff" because my stepmother has instilled in me a sense of "what's-the-good-of-having-it-if-you're-not-going-to-use-it." That applies to everything except her living room rug. Family legend still tells of the day my husband spilled Coke on the sacred rug and my dad thought my stepmom would go get his gun(s).

Fancy dinner also reminds us all of our manners, makes us all slow down and enjoy the process of our food, and hopefully gives my daughter a sense of occasion, which should not be reserved for days labeled special.

I started this endeavor with about 1.25 pounds of chicken breast tenders, boneless and skinless. Yeah, I know that's not the cheap way to do it but meat is gross to me and the only way I can cook it is to pretend I'm a French chef.

Chicken Français from Cooks.com
1.5 pounds chicken;
2 eggs, lightly beaten;
3/4 cup flour;
salt and pepper;
2 TB oil;
2 TB butter plus TB more butter
Juice of one lemon

1. pound chicken cutlets until thin
2. dip in egg and dredge in flour, salt and pepper. (I skipped the egg and sprinkled fresh ground sea salt on one side, then ground peppercorn medley on the other, then dredged in flour.)
3. In large skillet, heat 2 TB butter and 2 TB oil. Cook chicken on both sides. Remove to platter and keep warm in oven.
4. Add TB butter and lemon juice to skillet. Combine and pour over chicken. Garnish with parsley if desired.

Now, I reserved some of the sauce. I tossed in about 1/2 a clove of sliced garlic, sautéed for a minute, and then added blanched broccoli. It tasted incredible.

Homemade Hummus

My daughter had another huge bowl of cream of wheat for breakfast, followed with some of my homemade granola at 9 a.m. We stopped by her daddy's office and got invited to share the leftover covered dish items from the luncheon yesterday, which included my spinach dip. Primarily, my family enjoyed ham and spinach dip (though I didn't touch the ham). My daughter ate at least a cup, if not two, of spinach without dipping it in anything.

My original plan for lunch had been peanut butter and jelly on the potato wheat bread my father-in-law gave us last week and carrot sticks with blue cheese dressing and fruit juice to drink. But the surprise lunch out got me thinking... I want hummus for dinner.

My husband bought sesame bagels over the weekend at the grocery store so hummus would be perfect. The carrot sticks will also go well. And the green pepper I bought a while ago will be a nice addition.

I discovered my hummus recipe online about ten or so years ago. A guy had made a chart of hummus and its variations. The basic recipe is as follows:

In the food processor, blend:

Three cloves garlic, minced;
16 ounces chick peas;
1/2 cup lemon juice or juice of 1/2 a lemon (I used all);
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds (fry briefly in skillet until aromatic) and/or tahini (I forgot the exact volume of tahini but I would say at least a tablespoon or two);
1 teaspoon salt;
1 teaspoon olive oil;
1/4 teaspoon cayenne;
cumin if desired;
parsley if desired.

Chill thoroughly before serving to allow flavors to blend.

Shopping tips...

Periodically, I'll try to share my shopping tips. Remember, every family is different and my techniques might not work for you, but maybe they will.

1. Never clip a coupon for something you normally wouldn't be tempted to buy. Most coupons are for convenience foods, foods that try to gain our children's loyalty or brands that remain expensive even after you save that dollar. I only clip coupons for items that would typically end up in my cart. 

2. If you primarily use lemons and limes for their juice, buy a bunch when they're cheap in the summer and freeze. It will destroy the texture of the fruit, but if you plan on using only the juice anyway... what's the difference? Hummus, lemon bars, guacamole, etc. Just need juice. Right?

3. On the topic of French wine... My French professor in college always said, "You can never go wrong with a Beaujolais" (for its price and flavor) as a basic table wine. I also adore Vouvray when the occasion calls for a white.

4. Know where you shop. One local supermarket near me has a breakfast cereal sale every few months. The cereal was priced something like 4 boxes/$10, I would save my cereal coupons for that sale. Also, there's a CVS within three blocks of my house. Every six weeks or so, they would put their generic diapers on sale (and I swear those things were just like Huggies) buy two get one free. I bought my diapers then (and enlisted relatives as needed when my customer limit was reached). On top of that, CVS had an additional deal with the bonus card that if you bought four packs of diapers, you got a coupon for a free pack. Granted, they didn't 'count' free ones toward the total, but even I'm not that greedy.

5. Know what you buy, why you buy it, and how much you really use. Conventional wisdom says "Buy in bulk." I don't buy into that. I buy bulk where it makes sense for me: cheese, toilet paper, toothbrushes, soap. But sometimes the big bottle of juice, or the pre-cut broccoli florets in the bag the size of potato chips, will spoil before you use it. I can't buy the cheap-o tub of organic spring mix at the warehouse store. Yeah, it costs as much as the one half its size at my supermarket, but it starts to rot the second I put it in my fridge. We use about 1/4 of it by the time it goes bad. Therefore, it's cheaper to use the smaller one. We don't waste any. How many things do we buy out of habit? Snack foods often fit in this category, as do expensive drinks. In many cases, there is a cheaper alternative that still pleases the palate.

6. Track what you buy, how you use it, and what items seem to serve the family best and which ones are splurges.

7. Determine what you use most and see if you can save money on these particular items. Like when I wait for the cheese sale...

8. The take-out trap. We all love take-out. Today I really wanted take-out. But as I'm broke... I managed to talk myself out of it. Sometimes, when I want take out, I indulge in a different kind of treat. Let's say I want Chinese. Instead of spending $30 on a restaurant, I go to the grocery store and allow myself a $15 budget (see, I'm still saving money). I check the frozen food aisle for a General Tso's Chicken or Sweet and Sour Chicken frozen entree or I get a big bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables and some chicken or I splurge on some funky sauces for the eggrolls I have in the freezer and make my own fried rice or egg drop soup. 

9. Avoid pre-packaged anything. Pre-chopped apples are the latest rage and this floors me. I like apples in their skins. It's like a handy carrying case. String cheese? Is this necessary? I have never seen someone refuse cheese because of its shape or because it wasn't fun enough. Little individual cups of yogurt? Get the 32 oz. Single serving drinks? Buy a thermos.

10. Cleaning chemicals. Other than my father-in-law's FANTASTIC homemade Windex, I clean 90% of my house with some combination of the following: vinegar, baking soda, and isoporyl alcohol. And forget expensive pretreaters for the laundry. I use a $1 bar of Fels Naptha soap. The same bar I bought around the time my daughter was born. 

There's my first ten tips. Let me know what you think. ;.)