Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Cream of Spinach Soup

I really enjoy Mark Bittman's blog. He has a lot of good recipes and really good advice from time to time.
Last night I made Cream of Spinach Soup, which I got from his blog. It was absolutely delicious, and I will bet that the 1/4 cup or so thats left over will be on daughter # 3's mind as soon as we get home today.

1 # spinach (I used frozen. I would not recommend canned at all)
onions (he calls for spring onions or scallions, I had regular "spanish onions, and diced them up fine)
3 cups
homemade chicken stock
Bring to a boil, reduce heat to barely a simmer, cook about 10 minutes.
Add a pinch of nutmeg
Kosher salt
Blend the soup. (I used a hand blender, worked great)
Add a cup or so of cream, or as in my case, half-n-half

Slurp!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Chicken Stock

I made 5 1/2 qts of chicken stock saturday. I used a "recipe" (if it can be called a recipe, maybe its more of a method) from a guy named Michael Ruhlman, who is a food writer, and who has written a book called "Ratio" which I will be mentioning here on my blog in the following weeks.
Anyway, he suggests using a turkey carcass. I didn't have one, but I did have quite a few chicken backs.
When I make chicken, I frequently do not use the backs. Not much meat, WAY too many bones. I save them in a bag in the freezer, and when there's enough (backs and time) I make stock.
This time I used
Mr. Ruhlman's method and I really like it! Isuggest you try it too!

I have been on a "soup kick" for the last week or two, making vegetable soups, just adding some of this and some of that until it looks good. I will try to get a "recipe" written up for one or two of them so you can try them out.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

This is so easy and delicious!

You need a 9X13 pan. Set your oven on 350*. Take a stick of BUTTER and melt it in the pan. Now put brown sugar over the butter. "Some." I really don't measure it, just eyeball it. Enough to soak up most of the butter. Now, open a can of pineapple and drain it into a measing cup.
Your going to use a cake mix. Yellow cake. I like the "butter recipe" one. See how much water the recipe calls for, and use the juice from the can in place of the water. If there's not enough juice, add enough water to make up the amount.
If your using chunk pieapple, just distribute it evenly. If using rings, you may need 2 cans to make it look right. I like to add a marachino cherry to the centers of the rings when I have them.
Now mix up the cake as the directions say, spread on top of the pineapples, bake as directed, and when done, let cool about 5 minutes and turn out onto a cookie sheet.