Is there anything better than fresh bread?

I love bread.  I seriously could probably live on bread alone (though with the existence of cupcakes, who really wants to live on just bread?).  My grandmother is an amazing bread maker.  I grew up spending weekends in her kitchen learning how to make bread from scratch.  She would make her bread and rolls - enough to feed a small large enormous army it always seemed - in her "big people" pans, and I would get to make my bread and rolls in little kid-size pans.  We made everything from white bread to oatmeal bread to dinner rolls to orange-glazed goodness.  It would take the better part of a Saturday, even though we started at the crack of dawn (pre-dawn, when she was baking without me underfoot; I don't think my grandmother has slept much past 5 a.m. ever in her life).  But the payout was always worth it - the scent of bread baking is a gift from heaven.  We'd chat and bake and when they were all done, we would of course enjoy a slice or roll, fresh and hot - so hot they'd be dripping from the pat of butter that instantly evaporated on contact.  Once everything was cooled, she would portion every thing up, and then make her deliveries.  Family, friends, neighbors - everyone was a beneficiary of my grandmother's kitchen.  They still are to this day.

So you can see where my love of bread was born.  Sadly, with college and then jobs, I got too busy to dedicate a day to baking bread.  Fortunately, my gram always kept (and keeps) my mailbox full of the good stuff a few times a year.  But the "domestic goddess" bug had been nipping at my heels for the past few years; I was itching to get back into the kitchen and start cooking, baking and creating.  I realized that it's important to make time for the things you really love doing.  So I started reading food blogs, magazines (Food Network Magazine and Taste of Home are two of my favorites), gathering recipes from friends and family and looking for new things to try.  You've been able to see a few of my creations here on my blog (more are coming, I promise; if anyone knows how to cram an extra hour or three into a day, that would be great, thanks).

With some of this newly-rediscovered culinary confidence and courage, I decided to try my hand at a few loaves.  I would love to have had a chance to do a few practice runs first with my gram in her kitchen, but logistics (Kentucky to Maine = a long trip for bread) nixed that idea.  So, after some reading and research, I just jumped in with some Artisan loaves; French Boule, to be exact.  And that jump was met by a hard, crunchy outer-layer landing, followed by a light-as-air secondary landing; in other words, yummy goodness.

Here are some pictures of some of my loaves, both white and wheat:

I have a few more I plan on trying over the next few weeks, including using some of these doughs for homemade pizzas, some quick breads, cinnamon rolls, and much more.  I'll continue to share them as I try them :)

Hope you enjoyed!

McCormick Recipe Inspirations!

Over the past couple of weeks, I've had the opportunity to do some testing for the new McCormick Recipe Inspirations that you can now find in your local grocery store.  Thanks to Gather.com and McCormick, I was provided with four packets of Recipe Inspirations and was asked to prepare the recipes and share my results.  The four Recipe Inspirations I tried and reviewed were:

Garlic & Lime Chicken Fajitas

Apple & Sage Pork Chops

Rosemary Roasted Chicken & Potatoes

Shrimp & Pasta Primavera

Here is a picture of the chicken & potatoes to whet your appetite while you read them:

Let me know if any of you try them (they have other Recipe Inspirations, as well) and what you think!

Coming up later today - my new bread obsession.  Stay tuned!

EatingWell Cookie Contest - you could win Cooking.com gift certificates

Do you have a favorite holiday cookie recipe?  Give it a healthy make-over and submit it to EatingWell for their 6th Annual Holiday Cookie Contest.  Here are the guidelines:

1. Replace as much of the all-purpose flour as possible with other whole grains, such as whole-wheat flour, white whole-wheat flour or oats.
2. EatingWell recipes do not use margarine or other partially hydrogenated oils.
3. We recommend limiting butter to about 1/2 teaspoon per cookie. You can reduce the amount of saturated fat in the recipe by substituting canola or nut oils for some of the butter in the original recipe.
4. Limit salt in recipes to 1/2 teaspoon or less per batch.
5. Use all sweeteners (white and brown sugar, honey, etc.) judiciously; less is better.
6. Steer away from ingredients containing artificial color or flavor. (Use natural versions whenever possible.)

The grand-prize for the contest is a $2000 shopping spree from cooking.com plus a year's worth of dairy products from Organic Valley (over $700 value).  Five runners up each will receive a $200 gift certificate from cooking.com.

You only have until June 4th to submit, so if you're interested, submit your entry here.  You can also read all the additional details and fine print here.  Good luck!

Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese - yes, please!

Is there anyone who doesn't love mac & cheese?  It's a great comfort food, all warm and creamy and cheesy.  When I ran across this recipe in a magazine that crossed mac & cheese with the classic flavors of buffalo chicken wings - I knew I had to try it.  So glad I did!  This was scooped up quick, with just a little taste left for lunch the next day.  Check out the recipe and my notes below.

Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese

7 T butter

1 lb. macaroni

1 sm. onion, finely chopped

2 stalks celery, finely chopped

3 C shredded chicken

2 gloves garlic, minced

3/4 C hot sauce

2 T flour

2 tsp. dry mustard

2 1/2 C half & half

1 lb. yellow sharp cheddar, cut into 1" cubes

8 oz. shredded pepper jack cheese

2/3 C sour cream

1 C panko

2 T chopped fresh parsley

1) Preheat oven to 350; butter a 9x13" baking dish.  Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil; add pasta and cook for about 7 minutes.  Drain.

2) Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add onion and celery and cook until soft, about 5 minutes.  Stir in the chicken and garlic and cook 2 more minutes, then add 1/2 cup hot sauce and simmer until slightly thickened, about 1 minute.

3) Melt 2 tablespoons butter in saucepan over medium heat.  Stir in the flour and mustard with a wooden spoon until smooth.  Whisk in the half & half, the add the remaining 1/4 cup of hot sauce and stir until thick, about 2 minutes.  Whisk in the cheddar and pepper jack cheeses; whisk in the sour cream until thick, around another 2 minutes.

4) Spread 1/2 of the cooked macaroni in the buttered dish; top with chicken and then the rest of the macaroni.  Pour the sauce over the entire thing.

5) Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a small skillet and mix in the panko and parsley.  Sprinkle over the sauce.  Bake until bubbly, 30-40 minutes.

A few things about this recipe.  First, as you can probably tell, it's not health food.  So you're not going to serve it every night.  But everyone needs something creamy and cheesy now and then; this will be it, I promise.  Second, when I hit the grocery store to pick up the few ingredients for this I didn't already have on hand, there was no Pepper Jack cheese in the store.  At all.  I honestly didn't think that was possible, but apparently, it is.  So I used Monterey Jack cheese and it tasted fine.  Pepper Jack will definitely give it an extra kick, though, and the next time I make it, I will be sure to have Pepper Jack first.  Also, use whatever chicken you have or want.  I used a rotisserie chicken because that's what the original recipe called for, but next time, I will just boil some chicken breasts and then shred them.  It's a little more work but worth it.  Also, be sure to use real panko versus breadcrumbs.  It gives a nice crunch and adds texture.  And last, about the hot sauce - 3/4 cup sounds like a LOT of hot sauce and I was a little scared.  But it really didn't end up being overpowering at all.  And I actually used a blend of two different hot sauces.  I had been to a home show awhile back, and they gave out free bottles of Texas Pete's hot sauce; I had both Original Hot Sauce and the Garlic Hot Sauce.  They have a great flavor, so if you're looking for some, you can check out their website and keep an eye out in the store for them.  Or even order from them online.

Let me know if you loved this as much as we did!

Cinco de Mayo fun!

I never need an excuse to cook, but sometimes I like one!  So when Cinco de Mayo rolled around a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to whip up something more authentic to Mexican cuisine than a taco.  After doing a little research, I decided to go with some chicken enchiladas (a recipe adapted from one I found on allrecipes.com), rice and refried beans for sides, and churros for dessert (the churros mainly as a nod to the yummy churros and great memories of visiting the Mexican pavilion at Epcot at Walt Disney World).

Here is the recipe for the Chicken Enchiladas:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 (10.75 oz) can condensed cream of mushroom soup

1 1/4 C sour cream

1/4 tsp. chili powder

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1 T butter

1 bunch scallions, chopped and divided

1 (4 oz) can chopped green chilies, drained

1 (1.25 oz) pkg. medium taco seasoning mix

1 C water

1 tsp. lime juice

1/2 tsp. onion powder

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

5 flour tortillas

2 C shredded mild cheddar cheese

2 C shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1 (10 oz) can enchilada sauce

1) Place the chicken in a stock pot and cover with water.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and cover; simmer until chicken is no longer pink (about 15 minutes).  Remove chicken from pot and shred; set aside.

2) Preheat the oven to 350.  Combine the soup, sour cream, chili powder and cumin in a small saucepan.  Over low heat, bring mix to a simmer, stirring occasionally.  Once simmering, turn off heat, cover, and set aside.

3) Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the chicken, green chilies, taco seasoning, water, and about half the chopped scallions (the rest will be for garnish on top).  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Stir in the lime juice and onion and garlic powders; simmer for another 10 minutes, then remove from heat.

4) Stir one cup of the soup mix into the chicken mix in the skillet.  Spread the remaining soup mixture across the bottom of a 9x13" baking or casserole dish.

5) Fill a tortilla with the chicken mix and sprinkle with a mix of both mild and sharp cheddar cheese.

Fold the edges of the tortillas over the mixture in the middle, and then place seam-side down in the prepared pan, on top of the soup mix.  Repeat with remaining tortillas to make five total.

6) Pour enchilada sauce over the enchiladas.  Cover with the remaining cheddar cheeses (should have about 1.5-2 remaining cups).  Sprinkle with remaining scallions and bake in the oven until the cheese is melted and bubbling, about 25-30 minutes.

I apologize for the messy, half-eaten finished product picture, but that just proves how good they were!  I didn't even have time to take a picture before they were snapped up.

As I said, I served the enchiladas with Mexican rice and refried beans on the side.  It was a very filling and very tasty meal!

Read more »

Cookware sale - take a peek!

A quick break from cooking. ideeli.com has Farberware Millennium cookware on sale for up to 65% off.  There are some decent deals.  But the part that was most exciting to me was one of the Paula Deen items that is included in the sale: a 19 piece kids' baking set.

Getting kids into the kitchen early is so important!  It's great for their development, for bonding, making memories, teaching lessons, and so much more.  This little set is pretty adorable, and on sale for $18, which is less than $1 per piece.

If you're not already an ideeli member, you can sign up here - don't worry, it's free!  They do have an "upgrade" option if you want to be able to shop the sales early, but I've never bothered with it.  Free works for me :)  Check the sale out early if you're interested - stuff goes really fast!

And they're off! Derby party snacks.

I recently attended my first Kentucky Derby party, and it was a great experience.  Every detail had been thought of to make this party great: TVs to watch the races, race sheets to read up on the horses, Derby hat contests, race tickets, door prizes, Derby decorations and lots of food and drink!  Everyone also was asked to bring an appetizer or dessert to share and we were asked to bring an appetizer.  It took me awhile to decide on something, but I finally settled on these Tomato Bacon Cups.

Here's the recipe:

8 slices bacon

1 tomato, diced

1 sm. bunch scallions, finely chopped

3 oz. shredded Swiss cheese

1/2 C mayo

1 tsp. dried basil

1 (16 oz.) can refrigerated buttermilk biscuit dough

1) Preheat oven to 375.  Lightly grease a mini muffin pan (two if you have them, it'll go faster).  I hit each cup with a very quick shot of cooking spray.

2) Cook bacon until crispy over medium heat in a skillet; you'll need to crumble it, and it will be easier than if it's chewy.  Add the bacon to a bowl; mix in the tomato, onion, cheese, mayo and basil.

3) Separate each biscuit into it's natural halves; cut each half into quarters.  Roll each quarter into a ball and then use a rolling pin to flatten into a little disc.  Place the disc into one of the muffin tin cups; press into the bottom and up the sides of the cups, making a little mold.  Fill each of the biscuit cups with some of the mixture (for me, it was a couple of teaspoons each).  You could conceivably roll out all the discs, then go back and fill at the end; when I tried that, though, I found the biscuit was loosing it's shape and I had to re-form/re-roll again, anyway.  So I found it easiest to go one by one.  Whatever works for you!

4) Bake for 10-12 minutes in the preheated oven, until cups are golden brown.

The first few I made, I feel like I used too much biscuit dough (you can sort of tell in the picture above).  Originally I had been cutting each biscuit half into thirds; that's when I switched to quarters, and it worked much better.  Unfortunately, I guess my battery was low, because the pictures of those batches didn't end up on my camera.

These went over really well; so well, there weren't any left over to bring home from the party!  But I did snag one to test before taking (what if they were horrible?!) and I thought they were really good.  Just for something different, I might try cheddar cheese in a future attempt, or even some of those flavored mayos to give it a little something different.  Either way, I'd definitely take them to another get together, for sure.

Let me know if you try this, and how it turns out for you!

(If you need a mini muffin tin, check this one out - the one I used for this was a Wilton one)

It's been awhile...

Okay, so it's been awhile forever since I last posted, and I'm sorry!  It's been a little busy around here, and I haven't had as much time for blogging as I would have liked.  But I'm recommitting myself to finding the time to do so.  I've been very busy in the kitchen and I want to share some of the really great things I've found and tried recently.  I'm going to back up a little bit so that I can share a few things with you that I've cooked over the past couple of weeks, and then we'll be current going forward.

Thanks for those who are still hanging in there with me and checking in now and again!

Who doesn't like cookies?

Tomorrow will be a new soup (likely something hearty and warming since half the country is buried under a blanket of snow), but today I wanted to share a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that I tried recently.  It's a modified recipe of what's probably considered "standard", but the modifications make such a big difference!  Soft and chewy in the middle with a slightly crisper edge, and the top crackles open just like cookies you get in a bakery.

1 C butter, softened
1 C sugar
1 C light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 C all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. hot water
1/2 tsp. salt
2 C semi-sweet chocolate bits
1 C semi-sweet chunks

Preheat oven to 325 F.
Cream together sugar, brown sugar and softened butter until smooth.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time.  Stir in the vanilla.  In a separate small bowl or dish, dissolve the baking soda in the water.  Add to the batter, then add the salt.  Stir in the flour and chocolate bits and chunks (actually stir - don't use a mixer).  Use a spoon or melon baller to scoop uniform balls of dough; roll briefly between your palms to form balls.  Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 11 minutes.  They may not look completely cooked, but as long as the edges have a light brown tinge, they're done.  Let them cool on the cookie sheets for about 5 or 6 minutes before removing to racks or other container.

Week One - First Take

Yesterday I posted our first weekly soup recipe. We made it for dinner last night and the vote was - YUM! We did deviate from the posted recipe slightly as we went through the cooking process. First, we cooked 6 slices of bacon in the bottom of the soup pot until it was crispy and then removed to drain on a paper-towel covered plate. Then we sauteed the onion and celery in that instead of butter or oil. The only other change we made was to add an additional can of creamed corn; it looked like it could be just a tiny bit more thick. We then crumbled up the bacon and sprinkled on top with the shredded Colby cheese, some fresh ground black pepper and a couple of "Texas Toast" croutons. Served with some sourdough bread on the side, it was a very filling, very tasty dinner!

We had it again for lunch today, and it was still just as good!

Week One - Corn Chowder

The first soup we're going to try is a corn chowder recipe.

Ingredients:
1 C chopped celery
1 C chopped onion
1 (32 oz) carton reduced-sodium chicken broth
3 C potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can creamed corn
1 (2.5 oz) pkg country-style gravy mix
2 C milk
8 0z Velveeta, cubed
2 T butter
salt & pepper to taste
shredded Colby cheese, green onions, croutons, etc for garnish

Directions:
In a large soup pot, heat butter over medium-high heat. Add celery and onion; cook until soft and tender, about 5 minutes.
Add chicken broth; bring to a boil. Add potatoes; cook over low heat for 20-25 minutes, or until potatoes are soft, stirring occasionally.
Stir in both cans of corn; return to boiling. In a small bowl, dissolve gravy mix in the milk; stir into the boiling soup mixture. Add Velveeta and cook over low, stirring until cheese is melted. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Garnish with shredded Colby cheese, green onions, croutons, or whatever you might like.

Welcome to Soup's On!

I love to cook and bake, and am always looking for new recipes and things to try. For 2010, we've decided to try one new soup each week. So each week, I will post the new recipe here. After we try it, I will post the results on how it turned out for us and share our reviews - what was good and not so good, tips on prep, possible modifications for the future. I'm hoping that some of you will choose to try it, as well, and let us know how your families liked them. And if you made any changes that you thought were great, please share those, too!

In addition to the weekly soup, I will sometimes share some additional recipes that are new to us that we try. Again, I'd love any comments on how they worked for you, or what changes you might have made.

The recipes will be ones shared from friends and family, our own creations, and maybe even a cookbook or two. If you have any great soup recipes that you would like for us to try and then post (with proper credit, of course!), we'd be happy to! Just send me a message with the recipe, and we will add it to the list.

I hope you enjoy the soups and making them as much as we are!