Stuffed pepper soup

No funny story here. Just a simple request. A friend, whom I'm pretty sure I like much better than he likes me, made a comment to make a soup that I once made for him. Compounded by the fact that I will see said friend in Clemson this weekend, I thought it was fitting to once again show him just how much I like him by making this soup. Finkie - I hope this is the one you were looking for. It's not as easy as your velveeta shells & cheese and canned chili, but that dish is just gross and this one is actually delicious.

For this soup you'll need 4 green bell peppers, one medium onion, a few cloves of garlic, fresh herbs of your choosing, about 3/4 of a pound of ground meat, a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes, broth of your choosing and some little baby pasta.

First, go collect your fresh herbs. If you're lucky and smart like me, you have a backyard that's perfect for growing herbs (and a watering can that looks like a frog). We have a giant, unruly, rosemary bush. I snipped off about 2 inches of rosemary.

We also have a little herb box with some basil and greek oregano (and lavendar and sage, but I didn't use those). I cut off about 10 basil leaves and a inch of oregano.

If you're especially lucky, you'll also have adorable blue tailed lizards sunning themselves. I usually squeal at them and they run away,

Or the puppy goes after them and scares them away. Notice his summer fur cut complete with mohawk.

If you can't forage in your backyard for herbs, dried ones are okay to use. We actually have an entire garden box with peppers and tomatoes and cucumbers as well. Stay tuned for those goodies showing up later in the summer.

Now, onto chopping things up. I started with the garlic and minced two cloves.

Then I chopped the onion.

Then the peppers. I have a bone to pick with these peppers. I got them from the farmer's market at work. These were the only peppers he had and I knew they were cheaper than what I would get at the grocery store. Notice that they came individually wrapped in plastic. They are organic, I can only assume the plastic is to keep the pesticides from other veggies off these precious peppers. What gets me about this, is that most people who are into organic veggies are also into living a green life where they don't like to create excess trash. Wrapping peppers individually in plastic to keep them organic? Seems like a way to increase waste as well. There must be a better way. Anyway, I digress, off my soap box. I chopped these up into little pieces.

Now the herbs. I really like chopping/shredding fresh herbs. It makes the whole house smell so fresh. First the basil. Pile all the leaves onto each other and roll into a little basil cigarette.

Then, run your knife through the basil cigarette, creating ribbons. This technique is called chiffonade.

Now the greek oregano. I attempted to chiffonade the oregano but the leaves were tiny. So I just pulled the leaves off the stem and piled them up,

Then I ran my knife through the leaves until they were a size I liked.

Lastly, the rosemary.  I pulled the spiny little leaves off the stem and did my best to mince them. I find that rosemary leaves like to run around my cutting board, so I usually end up cussing at them or slicing a finger. Shockingly, neither of those events happened while I was making this soup.

Now for cooking, heat a large soup pot over medium heat and dump your ground meat into it. I used ground beef because I already had it in the house. The beef I used was a little fatty, but I elected to not drain the fat (side note, the Mister had some soup for lunch today and commented that it was a little creamy and couldn't pin point why. I think it was the beef fat. Not draining it was a good idea).

 Cook the meat until its done. You may be able to see the fat pools of deliciousness.

Now add the veggies.  Mix these up and cook for about ten minutes

Next, add the can of crushed tomatoes and 4 cups of broth.   I also added a bit of tomato paste because I wanted more tomato flavor.

Mix all that up and add your fresh herbs.  Now is also a good time to throw in some salt, pepper, crushed red pepper and any other seasoning you desire.  Turn up the heat, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer for about 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, add your baby pasta. I used pastina or little stars for those of you who didn't grow up with an Italian Nonnie and didn't realize that food items had non-Italian names until you moved away from Little Italy (aka Westerly, Rhode Island). Be very careful with the amount of pasta you add. The little pastas have an amazing property of soaking up way more liquid than you think they'd ever be able to soak. If you aren't careful, your soup will turn into a solid. I added 3/4 of a cup of pastina.

Cook the soup for 5 more minutes.  Give it a good stir before serving, the pastina tend to settle to the bottom.  I packaged my soup up for lunch so its not dressed, but this baby is yummy topped with parmesan cheese and some more basil. Enjoy!

Springtime Chicken Soup

Ah springtime! That wonderful season in which we're all rewarded for making it through the winter with wonderful things like asparagus and beers on a patio and daylight past 5 pm and pollen. Okay so pollen totally sucks, but most other aspects of spring are fantastic. I tried to harness some of my favorite springtime veggies into this fresh, springtime chicken soup. The artsy pictures are compliments of the Mister. He's really getting good with our new camera.

For this baby you'll need: a pound or so of chicken, a bunch of asparagus, a package of sliced mushrooms, two stalks of celery, two shallots, a few cloves of garlic, some frozen peas, some frozen lima beans, chicken broth and whatever seasoning you desire.

First, trim the fat off the chicken and liberally salt and pepper it.

Then, contemplate the best way to cook this chicken, ultimately deciding that your husband should grill it for you.

Have a good chuckle at the puppy hunting a burnt piece of asparagus that your husband threw off the grill from last week's grilled asparagus. The puppy later found this asparagus and did his best to eat it.

While the chicken grills, chop up the veggies. I started with the asparagus. First trimming the woody ends, then chopping into small pieces.

Then, the mushrooms. Even though they came pre-sliced, I chopped them a little smaller.

Next the celery. Just chop as per usual for soup.

Onto the garlic. I used three cloves and minced them.

Next, the shallots. I used two shallots and minced them as well.

Hopefully by now your chicken is done and looks something like this

Let it cool a bit and chop into chunks.

Now to cooking. Heat a bit of olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic and cook until you start to smell the garlic.

Add the asparagus, mushroom and celery and a bit of salt.  Cook for about ten minutes until the mushrooms start to shrink a bit.

Add the broth and chopped chicken. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer.

Add the peas and lima beans.  I didn't put many into my soup because I grossly overestimated the amount of asparagus I was using. Yes, that is one of the Ed Hardy glasses from last week. They're still in my house.

The soup is edible once everything is heated through.  I let mine simmer for 30 minutes because I was busy getting ready to head to Park Tavern with my visiting parents and the puppy.  After the simmer, I tasted the soup and it needed something extra. I started with some dark soy sauce and added about 1/2 a cup.

The soy sauce wasn't enough, so I threw in some sriracha as well. Probably about a tablespoon.  For those of you who do not frequent ethnic establishments, sriracha is a delicious Thai hot sauce made from chili peppers, vinegar, salt, garlic and sugar. Its pretty hot so use it sparingly unless you like hot food.

I let this simmer a bit longer and portioned it into my lunch soup servings and a big bowl of non-lunch soup. I think this made something around 8 servings.

CJ asked me what kind of soup this was when I was heating it up at work today. I couldn't come up with anything better than springtime chicken soup. Seems like a sad name for something that is actually quite good.

Recipe for Easter Dinner

No part of this post relates to soup. I suppose one part could because I did give an entire ham hock to KMS to make spilt pea soup, but there are no soup recipes here today. Instead, I present several components of a successful Easter Dinner. 
Let's start with the ham(s). I (somewhat foolishly) decided to make two 10-pound spiral hams because I was expecting nearly 20 people. Plans fell through for about 8 of them, so 12 of us were left to eat the hams.  Harley started waiting for these people hours before they were expected to show up, not that he can tell time.

Back to the hams, needless to say, there were leftovers. I placed the hams, cut side down, in my roaster pan and covered them in foil. Shockingly, they fit in the oven with one rack removed.  I cooked these babies for 2 1/2 hours at 275 then started to freak out that they wouldn't be done on time, so cooked them for another hour at 325.

Meanwhile, I prepared a wet glaze for one of them with apple juice, bourbon, molasses, brown sugar and mustard.

Measure 1/2 a cup of apple juice

Add 1/4 cup of bourbon.

Put both liquids in a small sauce pan over medium-high heat and boil until reduced to about a 1/3 of a cup. Fight the urge to make yourself a drink or just have some if you'd like. I found that this foamed a lot while boiling so you don't want to stray too far from the stove or else you'll have a boil over mess.

Meanwhile, mix together 1 3/4 cups of packed brown sugar,

A quarter cup molasses,

and a squirt of mustard.

Mix all this together. It will look like sludge.

By now the apple juice-bourbon mix should be reduced. Add it to the brown sugar-molasses sludge and mix well. Set aside until the ham is done.

Meanwhile, work on the other components of this perfect Easter dinner. I'll go next to mac and cheese. This Easter dinner was also slated to be a great mac and cheese cook off competition, complete with a score sheet

and awesome prizes, le crueset for the winner and Ed Hardy glasses for the loser.

However, we only ended up with two entrants (mine and Brian's) because plans fell through for our other friends who were competing. I think I won the contest, but only because Brian actually wanted to use the Ed Hardy glasses (which made me seriously think about my decision to marry him).

Anyway, onto my mac and cheese. I use 2% milk, butter, flour, randomly shaped pasta, a sharp white cheddar and a spicy jack cheese, some adobo sauce from chipotles and in adobo and bread crumbs.

Slice up the cheese into chunks. The smaller they are, the easier they will melt. You could shred/grate the cheese if you like.

Get some water boiling in a big pot.

Now, work on your cheese sauce. This sauce is the secret to delicious mac and cheese. Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a medium sauce pot over medium heat.

Add 4 tablespoons of flour,

Whisk together to mix. Continue to stir until the flour is all cooked, about 5 minutes.

Add about 2 cups of milk, stir to mix, and heat for about 10 minutes.

Add the cheese and adobo sauce. Stir continuously to be sure the cheese melts, nothing sticks to the bottom and the milk doesn't boil over. The sauce will thicken as it cooks. If it seems too thin, just add more flour and stir well to incorporate.

Meanwhile, your water should be boiling by now, so add the pasta and cook until al dente. I used a whole box of rotelle.

Once the pasta is done, drain it and transfer to whatever casserole dish you want to bake the mac and cheese in. I chose a cast iron dutch oven because I wanted mine to stay warm. Anything 2 quarts or bigger should hold this mac and cheese. Add the cheese sauce and stir a little bit to be sure all the pasta is covered. This will look soupy and that's okay. It will bake up just fine. Top with bread crumbs to make a crunchy top. Bake for 45 minutes at 350.

The final product will look bubbly and delicious.

Meanwhile, Brian was busy frying up some of his mac and cheese, since he's of the opinion that frying things always makes them better. They were pretty good, but the non-fried version of his was better (you can sort of see his dish in the background of the picture above).

So what next? I think 13 bottles of wine makes for a nice Easter. Though I do believe we only drank 4 of them and there were no 'water into wine' jokes.

A vegetable would also be nice. Nothing says 'Spring is here' like asparagus! CDC sponsors Farmer's Markets in all of its campuses weekly and I bought all the asparagus at the market at my campus on Friday. Yes, that's 7 buddles of asparagus.

Since the oven was busy with hams and mac and cheeses, the asparagus went on the grill. Seasoned simply with salt, pepper and garlic powder.  This platter is huge, though I know it doesn't show that way in this picture. This was more asparagus than I've ever seen in one place at one time. Thankfully, I ♥ asparagus so leftovers will not go to waste.

Now, back to the hams. They finally cooked and cooled. I poured the wet glaze over one and baked for another 20 minutes at 425 until the glaze was nice and bubbly.

Brian meanwhile coated the other ham in brown sugar and made a brown sugar-butter glaze. He poured it over the ham and it solidified into delicious ham candy.

Then I put out plates, flatware and drinks and waited for our friends to arrive.

Friends came, complete with some tomato pie, cheesy grits, more beer and many lovely desserts, all of which I neglected to take pictures of (because I'm really self-centered). We had a great time, with everyone who wanted leftovers taking some home. Then baseball came on and I nearly vomited at Beckett's awful first outing. Boston won in the end, but I do not like to see the ace have 5 earned runs against him. Oh well, at least Easter dinner was great!