Chicken Soup

I love soup and chicken soup has got to be one of the easiest things to throw together... especially when you have some leftover chicken.  I roasted a chicken a few days ago and then promptly joined my little one in her cold.  You can go the harder way and make your own broth, and I do save chicken carcasses in the freezer for that purpose, but you can also use the chicken stock in a box variety and it does nicely for a quick dinner.  Last night I went with matzo balls instead of noodles.... feel good in a bowl!

For this soup I used:

1.5 - 2 quarts chicken stock, either a brand you like or homemade
2 stalks celery sliced
3-4 carrorts peeled and sliced
Leftover chicken shredded, about a cup
1 package Matzo ball mix (not the soup mix, just the Matzo Ball mix), I had this brand on hand
2 eggs (for the Matzo Balls)
2 Tbsp veg oil (for the Matzo Balls)

I made the matzo balls according to the package.  They are pretty good for a box.... and take 5 minutes to make, plus 15 minutes of letting the mix sit in the fridge.
Put the carrots and celery in the broth, bring to a boil, add the matzo balls and cook covered 20 minutes.
I added the chicken to the bowl and it was heated up by the hot broth.  This served 2 adults and 1 child with little leftover.

Dinner done in 40 minutes, with only about 15 minutes of time actually "doing" anything.  You could throw in more veggies if you like, sometimes I add some frozen green beans or peas, or leftover veggies if I have them.  With matzo balls I like to keep it simple with just carrots and celery.

I had 4 matzo balls and wanted more... but restrained myself.

Perfect dinner for a cold and rainy day, you could a salad to round out the meal a little, but being sick I wasn't much in the mood for that.

A little pick me up

I spotted these peanut butter goodies the other day and just had to try them.  Homemade peanut butter cup?  Yes please!

They may not be as beautiful as Katy's are over on No Big Dill, but I am pretty sure they taste just as good.

This bowl of wonderfulness is stashed in the back of the refrigerator.  If they make it through the weekend I may just have a few to share (with the mommies) at my play date next week.

14 pounds of apples

Another reason to love fall is apple picking!  Too bad the closest place to pick here in Portland is out in Hood River.  Good thing I got my apple picking fix in NY in September because a trip out the gorge isn't happening this season.  Oh well, I did get a big bag of apples from Dinihanian's Farm where we get our CSA.

14 lbs of apples go from this:

really about 3x this number of apples

I leave the skins on, and use a food mill after it's cooked.  

Beautiful!  No sugar needed.  

to 5 pints of applesauce in about an hour and a half.  

Wait... 14 lbs of apples only gets you 5 pints of applesauce?  Well you also get two of these!

Pedicure and Blackberries

A couple of weeks back I had my first pedicure in almost 2 years.  It used to be an indulgence every couple of months, but after having my sweet pea it fell to the bottom of the list when choosing what to do with my "free time".  Things like doctor appointments, groceries and haircuts were higher up on the list.  I finally got around to treating myself to the bliss that is a pedicure and flipping through magazines without a toddler demanding that I color or play trucks with her.  I came across an article about Dorie Greenspan bloggers in O magazine and a beautiful picture of a cupcake topped with a yogurt icing and blueberry pie filling.  The picture was so simple and alluring, a golden cupcake topped with pure white icing with a deep blue-black dollop of blueberry pie filling on top.  It's cited as an adaptation of a Dorie Greenspan recipe.  With a little guilt I tore recipe the page out and slipped it into my purse; sorry future readers of that magazine, you will miss out on the last column!

That recipe has been laying on my counter since then, begging to be made, but with all that canning just didn't happen.  Until today when I got a pint of big beautiful blackberries from our CSA, they were just begging to replace that pie filling and sit atop those cupcakes.  The recipe is simple too, no mixer required.  The only step that was a bit strange was folding in a half cup of canola oil at the end, which didn't really work and I had to just flat out mix it with a whisk to get it to incorporate.  I am suspicious that the original recipe called for butter and for some reason (does Oprah ban butter in her magazine?) it was switched to canola oil.  The results were good, not great, but very pretty!

I'd like to try the original version of  her french yogurt cake to compare.  The flavors in the cake were great: fresh from the lemon zest and the ground almonds added a nice nutty flavor.  The texture was a bit dense (no mixer?).  The icing made from greek yogurt, lemon zest, vanilla and gelatin was pretty but also had a less than perfect texture.  I expected a smooth but firm icing, and it was a bit grainy from the gelatin, but that my be my fault.  I bloomed the gelatin in cold water, my package didn't have directions and I think I should have used warm water.  It was grainy going into the cold yogurt and didn't get any smoother with mixing.

Overall I like this recipe and will try it again, but I think I will beat the sugar/yogurt/eggs to get some lightness in them and then fold in the flour and oil next time, or try melted butter instead of oil.  

Canning weekend

I love canning and I think it's so under valued these days.  I grew up with my mom canning in the summers.  She was mostly a jam maker, and never missed making at least enough strawberry and raspberry jam for our family for the rest of the year.  I clearly remember going off to college and having store bought jam for the first time, realizing how lucky I was to have enjoyed my mother's jam all those years (actually I thought, "This stuff is garbage").  Now I know that was cafeteria grade jam, but there is just no comparison in my mind between store bought and homemade.  As long as you use good fresh fruits, homemade jam is far and away superior to my tastes and you can control how much sugar you are adding.  My mom also made the occasional pickles and sweet pepper relish, as well as a sweet chili sauce that I have never been able to find a store bought replacement for.

I made a big batch of strawberry jam back in June when the local berries were at their peak, and I was lucky enough to have my Mom make it with me while she visiting.  This past weekend our family went blueberry picking and came home with 12 pounds of berries.  So blueberry jam was on deck, as well as some new recipes for blueberry syrup and blueberry butter.  The jam came out perfect and now I have 9 jars to enjoy for the rest of the year.

The "Blueberry Bonanza" recipe that yielded the syrup and butter was less of a success but still pretty good.  The recipe cooked down the berries for a few minutes, then separated the juice from the solids.  The juice was used to make a syrup, for pancakes or ice cream.  The syrup actually jelled up a little, instead of remaining syrupy, so that was less than perfect, but the taste is good.  I cut down on the sugar in the recipe by about 15%, and I think next time I'd cut out more because it turned out a little too sweet for my taste.  It will definitely get eaten at home, but won't be gifted to anyone.  On the other hand, I love the Blueberry Butter results!  The solids (and some juice that doesn't completely drain by gravity)are cooked down with some lemon zest, cinnamon and nutmeg until it's a spreadable consistency.  I can't wait spread some on my morning toast... just waiting to finish up the open jars of jam first!

Also on this past weekend's canning list were some Dilled Beans.

I had an over abundance of green beans from our CSA this past week so I decided to add in some yellow wax beans and try out another new recipe for dilled beans.  Pretty much a dill pickle on the green beans.   Fingers crossed for a good result, I'm letting them pickle awhile before I open a jar.

Hoping to get raspberry and blackberry jam put away before the end of the summer, and for those I can pick from our own raspberry bushes and the "wild" blackberries that grow all over around here!  I also would like to make some straight up dill pickles.  I saw some pickling cukes last week when I was picking our CSA... so I may have to get those this week and do some more canning this weekend!

Making my own

As much as I love a nice slice of toast hot and buttered, I don't like to keep butter on the counter, especially in the summer.  So we use that spreadable butter made with Canola oil, nice buttery taste and spreadable right out of the fridge.  My favorite brand, with the least number of "other" ingredients on the label:

It still has a fair number of ingredients beyond butter and canola oil.  I've been thinking more and more about trying to eliminate those additives from my family's diet, and this seemed like something that I could totally make. So after a little research I decided to go with a 50/50 (by volume) mix of butter to canola oil. That's 2 sticks butter to 1/2 cup oil.  

I started with 2 sticks of regular salted butter at room temperature (I cook and bake with unsalted, but for spreading I like salted butter).

I put it in the food processor and let it rip until it was all smooth

I then drizzled in 1/2 cup of canola oil while it was running and ended up with a really loose and soupy "butter"

I spooned it back into my original container and popped it into the fridge to set up. 

The result was great!  It's solid after chilling and spreads right out of the refrigerator.  I'd say the only downside is washing the food processor, took a bit extra soap to get that greasy butter off.  The taste is good too, just like butter except a bit lighter.  It also cuts the saturated fat down, which can never be a bad thing for your health.  I figure it's about half the price of buying my favorite brand, which makes everyone happy!  Also, I can reuse that container that fits perfectly in my refrigerator's butter tray.  Yay!