Chicken & Sweet Potato Stew

This may seem like a strange combination of ingredients but it is delicious.

• 2 Chicken thighs, cooked, shredded off the bone
• ½ onion, chopped
• 1 orange bell pepper, chopped
• 1 jalapeno pepper, chopped
• 1 Sweet potato, peeled and chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 can diced tomatoes with green chili
• 1 TBL tomato paste
• 2 TBL peanut butter
• 1 Cup red wine
• 2 Cups Chicken stock
• 1 tsp curry powder
• ½ tsp cumin
• 1 tsp Hungarian paprika
• 1 TBL brown sugar

Sauté onions and peppers and garlic in olive oil until transparent and caramelized about 10 minutes.  Add tomato paste and stir.  Add peanut butter and stir. Add wine, diced tomatoes, sweet potato and carrots, spices and sugar.  Simmer for 10 minutes.   

Add to crockpot with chicken and chicken stock.  After an hour add about a TBL of flour to thicken it up. Cook for about 3 hours.

Serve with yogurt and lime juice.  

White Bean & Ham Soup

I told myself I was going to blog more in Lent.  Not ranting but deep profound spiritual stuff.  I did pretty well on Ash Wednesday.  Then that was kind of the end of that.  I am writing Lenten Devotions for a Facebook Group on Fridays so that's something anyway.

So here's a recipe anyway.  

1 bag of dried white navy beans
1 sweet yellow onion, chopped
1 orange bell pepper, chopped
4 or 5 carrots, chopped
1 clove garlic, sliced
4 slices of bacon
1/4 Cup white wine
2 Tbl (or so) Balsamic vinegar
salt & pepper
1 Ham shank

Cover the beans with water.  Bring to a boil.  Let them soak for an hour or so.
Fry the bacon in a big ol cast iron pot.  Take the bacon out and use it for broccoli salad.  Saute the onions, 1/2 the peppers and garlic in the leftover bacon fat.  You might have to use a little olive oil if it's not enough fat.  When the onion is translucent, add the vinegar and wine and simmer that for a few minutes.

Add the beans in the same water they've been soaking in,  and the ham shank.  Add more water to make sure the beans are covered.  Bring it to a boil, then turn the heat down to a low simmer, cover and let it do it's thing for a few hours.  You can also add it to the crock pot if you want to go out and don't want to leave the stove on. 

After the beans are soft most recipes will tell you to blend half the beans and put them back in.  Well, I don't like the consistency of beans so I put an immersion blender in the pot and mush them all up.  Then I add the rest of the peppers and the carrots and keep simmering for another hour or so.  

When it's done, the ham should be fall off the bone.  Take it out, cut the ham up and put it back in the soup.  Really nice for a snow day.  Serve with corn bread.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

"Make me something spicy" says my sick daughter who is coming home for Thanksgiving.  This is what I came up with.

1/2 red bell pepper

1/2 green bell pepper

1 onion

1 jalapeno pepper 

1 clove garlic

Tops & leaves of about 3 celery stalks

4 skin on bone in chicken thighs

1 cup chardonnay

1 small can cream corn

1 small can tomatoes and chillis
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ancho chilli powder 
1/2 tsp Mexican oregano
1/4 - 1/2 tsp Chipolte powder*
  (I get all my spices from Penzeys)
2 T olive oil
4 Corn tortillas

Heat the pan.  Add 1 tbl olive oil to pan.  I use an iron cast kettle.  Dust the chicken thighs with a little ancho and chilli power, salt and pepper.  Brown them in the pan.  Cut off the parts of the peppers you wouldn't normally use and throw in the pan.  You can add the rest of the pepper later or use them for something else.  Cut the onion in 4 pieces and throw that and the garlic clove  and celery leaves in there, stir them around so they are covered in oil and chicken grease.  Add some salt and pepper and the rest of the spices.  Add wine and simmer until it is really thick and before it burns and sticks to the pan - about 10-15 minutes.  You have to stay and watch it.  Then add 4 cups of water, turn down to a low simmer, put the lid on and go take a nap for an hour or so.

When the chicken is cooked after an hour or so, take the chicken out and strain out the vegtables.  Take the skin and bone out of the chicken and put it back in the broth.  Now at this point you can saute the rest of the peppers and add them if you want a more chunky soup but I didn't do that this time.  Add the canned tomatoes and cream corn, add another cup of water, bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer for another half an hour.  

Preheat oven to 400.  Brush olive oil, salt and chilli powder on about 4 tortillas, bake for about 10 minutes.  Cut in strips when baked.  Put strips in a bowl.  Pour soup over it.  Good for what ails you.

PS If you can't handle the heat, leave out the jalapeno and the chipolte.  Ancho and cumin is not hot.

Carribean Black Bean and Pumpkin Soup

I found this recipe on the internet and made it tonight.  At first, I thought it tasted strange but the more I ate it, the more I liked it.  There are a lot of versions of this....

Here's the way I made it. 


1 onion, chopped coarsely

1 acorn squash peeled and chopped

1 Buttercup squash, peeled and chopped

1 granny smith apple, peeled and sliced

2 cloves garlic

1/2 jalapeno, sliced 

toss all the above ingredients with salt, pepper and a little butter and olive oil in a pan.  Roast at 375 for about an hour.   Puree the entire mixture together.  Put the puree in a pan and add the following ingredients

1 can coconut milk

4 cups Vegetable stock

2 Tb brown sugar

1 cup cooked black beans

Bring soup to boil, stirring and then reduce heat and cook about 3 minutes--then add

juice of 1/2  lime

chopped cilantro

Serve with a little cream drizzled on it.  I think I will make this again

Chicken and Dumplings Soup

I had a Jewish roommate back in my youth.  She talked on and on about her mother's chicken soup.  Then one day she decided she would make chicken soup.  She took a stalk of celery and a whole chicken and an onion and put in it in a pot and cooked it till the chicken was done.  It was the most boring thing I ever ate.  I don't believe that was her mother's recipe.

Well I'm not Jewish but this is some pretty good chicken soup.  It starts the way I pretty much start everything - onions and peppers and garlic.  I used a yellow bell pepper because the color looks so good.  Red will do as well.  Also a word about cumin - do not think cumin is just for chili or Mexican food.  It is a staple in Indian, North African and middle eastern cuisine as well.  It is very versatile.  Go ahead and put it in your chicken soup.  You will not be sorry.

1 yellow onion, slicked thin

1 yellow bell pepper, sliced thin

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 stalk celery, sliced thin

1 Cup carrots, sliced

4 chicken thighs, with skin and bone

1 Tbl flour

1 Cup dry white wine

1/8 tsp (or whatever) cumin

1/4 tsp sage

Salt

Pepper

Heat the pan.  I use a big whole cast iron pot.  Add about a tbl of olive oil.  Saute onions, peppers and garlic until translucent. Add Sage, Cumin and salt and pepper  Add the flour and stir until it's kind of gloppy.  Add 1/2 cup white wine.  Stir and cook a few minutes, then spread the onion and pepper mixeture of to the side of the pan.  Put the chicken thighs in the middle and brown on both sides - like this:

Add the rest of the wine, carrots and five cups of water.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, put a lid on it and leave it alone for 2-3 hours.  Your house will smell wonderful on a rainy day like today.

When the chicken is cooked, take it out, remove the skin, take it off the bone and put the meat back in the pot.

Make your dumplings--- I like mine pretty simple: Basically eggs and flour - 
 Beat 3 eggs with about 1/4 cup of milk.  Stir in 2 cups of flour - eventually it will get doughy and you will have to sick your hands in their and knead it a bit.  Divide it into little balls .  Turn the heat up on your soup until almost boiling, drop the dumplings in and let them simmer for about 10 minutes.  Your kids will fight over the dumplings.

Left over Ham bone? HAM STOCK!

Ham stock is wonderful.    

I won't even bother to make Gumbo without it. But even just to cook some beans and rice in ham stock really makes it so much richer.  And it's so easy.

I cooked a spiral cut ham for Easter dinner.  Spent a good amount of time trying to find the smallest one available but there's still a lot left over but the kids can take ham back to school.  So you cut as much ham off the bone as you can.  As you see, I left a lot of ham on it, it comes off a lot easier afterward.

Put the ham in a large stockpot and cover with cold water.  

Add some celery stalks - even the leftover leafy part from the celery you cut up for Easter dinner....a couple of pieces of onion, some garlic, I had a piece of red bell pepper that was getting soft.  

Whatever old veggies you have that you will probably throw out in a few days - throw them in there.  Add some peppercorns.  Bring it all to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer, put the lid on, and go take a nap for a few hours.

A few hours later, strain it, pour it in gallon zip lock bags, label and freeze it.  

You have this year's supply of ham stock.

Potato Leek Soup with Jalapenos

It rained all day today. Good day for soup. This soup is positively decadent. It was wondeful.
2 Leeks, sliced
1 potato, sliced thin
1 jalapeno, sliced thin
3 garlic cloves, sliced
1/2 stick butter
1 Tb flour
1 cup White Wine
1 Cup Chicken stock
1/2 Cup heavy cream
3 slices of bacon cut up
Salt
Fresh ground pepper

You can skip the jalapeno but I thought it was a wonderful addition...I had maple flavored bacon and it was all spicy and sweet...oh my it was good.

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium low heat. Add the flour and stir to dissolve. Add leeks, jalapenos and garlic, salt & pepper and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the wine, cook a few minutes, then add the potatoes and chicken stock. Lower the heat, cover and simmer for about a half an hour. Add the cream and simmer another 5-10 minutes. Serve with bacon. You want to make this REALLY decadent - Stir in a tablespoon of sour cream.

This makes about 3-4 servings. It took all the self-discipline I could muster not to eat it all in one sitting.

Sunday Night in the Kitchen

I have two projects going on in the kitchen. It all began when I looked at my handful of beans in the garden and bell pepper tops I was cutting off and I started thinking about vegetable stock. Every time I roast any meat, I simmer the carcass and make stock. Turkey, Chicken, even ham. Ham stock is WONDERFUL in gumbo (it probably would have been good in the red beans and rice I made last week but I made pickled pork to go with it and that was probably enough).

I was looking around for ideas to put in the vegetable stock and saw the suggestion of squash peelings. Well, it just so happens I made butternut squash soup just before my daughter left to go back to college and it was wonderful. There another squash in the garden and I've been thinking of roasting and pureeing then freezing it for the next time I want soup. Why not do that tonight and use the peelings for veggie stock?
The reason I have been thinking about vegetable stock is that many squash soup recipes call for chicken stock and that seems kind of odd and defeats the purpose if you are trying to make something vegetarian with the squash soup.

So here's what I did for my vegetable stock. But really you can put ANY vegetables in ...this is just what I had.
I have a big cast iron pot. I put a little olive oil and sauteed one small yellow onion and a half a red onion that was in the fridge. I just like the taste of caramelized onions. You could skip this step.

From my garden, I picked a green pepper and cut out the bug eaten parts of a red bell in the garden. I have few red bells in the garden and I'm not wasting them on stock! But I did have some tops I saved thinking I would soup.My green beans are done for the summer but there were about a dozen so I picked them and threw them in there as well.

The herbs are almost done. So I cut a handful of flat leaf Italian parsley, some basil - both purple and green - flowers and all - it was going to seed and a handful of chives. I did not put dill in because that's pretty distinctive flavor and just didn't want that.

I pulled up some carrots that tasted too woody to eat raw - threw them in along with the green tops. From the fridge, chopped up some celery-including the leafy top. The great thing about this is that you don't have to chop everything all nice, just in pieces. Don't forget the squash peelings. You cannot peel a butternut squash with a peeler and do it with a paring knife leaves a bit of flesh on so that works really well for stock. Nothing gets wasted. And don't forget several cloves of garlic. Oh, yea and a jalapeno that had gone red. I like a little heat.
I threw the peppers and celery in first after the onions were transparent and added about 1/4 cup white wine and let that reduce. Then threw everything else in the pot . Added about 6 cups of water. Some peppercorns, some kosher salt. Bring it to a boil, turn it down to low, cover and simmer a couple of hours. Strain all stuff out of it (and put in the compost pile). I pour my stock into quart size zip lock bags, label what it is and the date and freeze it. Next time you make mashed potatoes try boiling your potatoes in that! Oh come on PLEASE tell me you don't eat that crap out of the box.
And here's the recipe for the squash soup. It's a little time consuming because I roast the squash first but it's soo good that way. That's why it's a good idea to do that on a lazy Sunday night and freeze it. I got the basics for this recipe from the Food Network but I thought it had WAY too many herbs and spices. They call that "complex" flavors. I call that too much crap. But I loved the idea of adding balsamic vinegar to the roasting sauce.

The first step - Roasting the squash
Preheat oven to 400 1 cube butter (not margarine - butter) 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar 2 Tbl Molasses 3 Tbl brown sugar (or more if you are like me) 1/2 tsp sage 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp ginger 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper 1/2 cup white wine So first, you peel a butternut squash, remove the seeds and chop into 2-3 pieces. Also, peel and chop an apple as well. An apple really adds to the flavor Toss them in a bowl with a little salt and pepper. Next heat the butter in a medium skillet over medium-high heat. When the butter ceases to foam and has turned a light brown, pull the pan off the heat and immediately add the sage, sugar, vinegar (stand back so as not to get splattered), molasses and spices. Mix well and let simmer over medium-low heat for 1 to 2 minutes to meld the flavors.

Pour the vinegar mixture over the squash and toss well, then transfer to a heavy rimmed baking sheet or baking dish large enough to hold the squash and apples in a single layer. Place in the oven and roast, tossing at least once, until very tender and caramelized, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Set aside until cool enough to handle but still warm, so the liquids are runny. Then puree it in a blender with the white wine

Part two - making the soup

1 yellow onion, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped (not necessary but I always throw in bell peppers. Did you know they have more vitamin c than an orange?)
1/4 cup white wine
2 Cups vegetable or chicken stock
2 cups, more or less water to thin soup to your liking
1/2 cup heavy cream

Saute the onion and bell pepper in olive oil. When the onions are transparent, add the wine and cook a few minutes until it reduces. Add the stock and simmer a few minutes, then add squash and apple puree. Cook for a few minutes, adding water if it needs to be thinned. Then back to the blender and puree again. Then back in the pan, heat it up, add the cream.

If this is way too healthy for you, it tastes really good with crumbled up bacon. Enjoy.