Broccoli Cheddar Soup

 Overrun with broccoli? Craving something cheesy?  Try this Broccoli Cheddar Soup.         

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Ingredients

4 cups chopped broccoli

4 cups stock (chicken or vegetable)

2 bay leaves

1 cup grated carrots

1/2 cup chopped onion

4 large gloves garlic, minced

1/3 cup butter

1/3 cup flour

1 cup grated sharp cheddar

1/2 cup grated mozzarella or gouda  

1 cup 1/2-n-1/2

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp dried basil

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

Directions

1. Put the stock, broccoli, carrots and bay leaves in a pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 7-10 minutes until the broccoli is tender.

2. In a large soup pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic. Stir until the onions are translucent.

3. Add flour to the butter and onions. Stir until there are no flour lumps. Let the flour cook for a minute to reduce the raw flour taste.

4. Slowly add the stock and vegetables to the butter and flour, stirring as you go.

5. Turn the heat to the lowest setting. Add the nutmeg, cayenne, basil, salt, and pepper.  Stir well

6. Add the 1/2-n-1/2 and stir.

7. Sprinkle the cheddar and mozzarella in very slowly, stirring as you go. (If you dump the cheese in too quickly, you run the risk of having a big lump of cheese at the bottom of the soup.)

Red Simmered Chicken Wings

This is my oldest son's favorite recipes when he was growing up.  It is the easiest meal in the world to make. Just start some rice, start the chicken wings, and stir-fry whatever vegetables are handy as a side dish. A three course meal in under an hour.

Red Simmered Chicken Wings

Ingredients

• 4 # chicken wings cut into sections (save the tips for making chicken stock, if you are cutting the wings yourself)
• 4 scallions, cut in 1" slices on the diagonal
• 1/2 C soy sauce
• 1/2 C sherry
• 1 C water

Method

• Put wings, soy sauce, sherry, and water in a pot
• Bring to a boil
• Reduce the heat. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes
• Uncover and add the scallions
  
• Simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes more, stirring frequently to make sure each of the wings is uniformly cooked in the yummy sauce.

Many versions of this recipe call for brown sugar, but I have never made it with the sugar, and I'm pretty sure it isn't necessary.

 

 

Chocolate Chip Cookes with Honey!

I grew up eating chocolate chip cookies made with honey.  They were sweet, soft, and oh so delicious fresh out of the oven. I was surprised to find out that other people thought that Toll House cookies were good. 

Now, I like both kinds.

This is a recipe that my grandmother found during WWII rationing. They could get honey, but sugar was definitely harder to get. 

We always doubled the recipe.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/3 C butter

1 egg

1/2 C honey

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 C flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 C chocolate chips

 

• Cream butter
• Add honey and egg. Beat
• Sift dry ingredients together and add to mixture
• Stir in chips and vanilla
• Blend well
• Chill
• Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet
• Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes
   

Asian Slaw with Pac Choi

We can't seem to grow a decent cabbage in the greenhouses.  It's an embarrassment. However, we can grow pac choi. Pac choi has a few advantages over cabbage - crunchy texture, bright green leaves, no hard core in the middle. 

However,  if you have a cabbage on hand and find yourself without pac choi,  you can substitute one for the other and have a perfectly delicious slaw.

Most recipes for Asian Slaw use ramen noodles with the flavor packets.  The list of ingredients on the flavor packet is pretty terrifying, so I make the slaw without it.

Fresh Asian Slaw with Pac Choi

Salad:
1 # pac choi (the full sized stuff, not the baby), sliced thin (food processors make this so easy)
1 carrot, sliced thin
5 scallions, sliced
1 C microgreens, pea shoots, or bean sprouts

Dressing:
2/3 C oil (whatever type you like)
1/3 C cane sugar 
1/3 C rice vinegar
1 tsp. toasted sesame oil
2 tsp tamari

Crunchies:
1 packet ramen (any flavor because you are throwing it out)
1/2 C slivered almonds
1/2 C sunflower kernels (optional)

1. Toss the salad ingredients
2. Mix all the dressing ingredients in a pint mason jar and shake well.
3. Preheat the oven to 450. Break up the ramen. Toast the ramen, almonds, and sunflower seeds in the oven for 5 minutes or so, stirring half way, until fragrant and lightly browned. Let cool.

Now all your ingredients are ready.  Just before serving, toss everything together.

Texas Hash

Okay, this isn't exactly a meal loaded with fresh produce. But my husband has been craving his mother's cooking since she passed away last year.

Here's her Texas Hash recipe.

Texas Hash

Sauté until yellow:

3 large onions, sliced

3 Tbs fat

Fry

1 lb ground beef

until brown.

Stir in and mix

2 C cooked tomatoes

1/2 C washed uncooked rice

       OR

2 C uncooked noodles

1 tsp chili powder

2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

Pour into greased 2 qt baking dish. Cover and bake, removing cover last 15 minutes.

Temp 350.

Bake 1 hour.

Curry with Butternut, Sweet Potato, and Carrot

We had a lot of butternut squash in 2019. And they lasted a long time. This is what one of them looked like in July of 2020.

With only 4 plants, we got nearly 40 squash, not counting the ones I gave away.  I was trying to think of something interesting to make with butternut, and my husband suggested curry.

I love curry.  It's food you can play with! I am a huge fan of condiments. When I was growing up, my midwestern, farm-raised mother would make curry sometimes. I think she got the recipe out of a magazine. The recipe suggested all sorts of condiments, and we pretty much had them all: chopped cashews, sliced bananas, chopped apples, raisins, chutney, pickles, coconut. Such a variety of flavors and textures.

When my husband and I took a class on Indian cooking, the instructor said that in India, a balanced meal is one that contains all the flavors: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami.  You can see that the condiments balanced the meal.

I didn't have a recipe for butternut curry, but that very day, on PBS, one of the cooking shows showed how to make curry with butternut squash, sweet potato (which we also grew too much of), and carrots.

They made the curry much like I have been making curries for the last 20+ years. I tried to write the recipe down as they made it, but of course they cooked faster than I could write, and I couldn't record the show, so I couldn't blame the show if it didn't turn out. (Also, I failed to write down the name of the show, so I couldn't blame them if I wanted to.)

Fortunately, the recipe turned out just fine. I've made it several times since then. In this picture, you can see that I used white sweet potatoes, which I liked for this recipe because they aren't quite as sweet as the orange ones, and there was plenty of sweetness coming from the butternut.

Curry with Butternut, Sweet Potato, and Carrot

1 small butternut squash, peeled and cubed

1 large or 2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 large or 2 medium carrots, peeled and cubed

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 C coconut oil

2 Tbs curry powder

2 Tbs flour

2 C vegetable broth

1 C coconut milk

Instructions:

1. Parboil the butternut, sweet potato and carrot for 10 minutes.

2. Saute the onion, and garlic in the coconut oil, for 5 - 7 minutes until the onions sweat

3. Add curry powder and flour to the onion. Blend over medium heat for 1 minute.

4. Add the vegetable broth. Stir into the curry powder and flour to make a sauce.  Stir over medium heat until it thickens.

5. Drain the butternut, sweet potato and carrots, and add to the sauce. Simmer 10 minutes to let the flavors combine.

6. Add the coconut milk.

Serve over rice, with lots of condiments!

Grammy's Potato Salad

 My mother-in-law, Gertrude (who her 20 grandchildren called Grammy), was famous for her potato salad. Everyone loved it at summer parties. And everyone else was afraid to make it. As my sister-in-law, Mary, said, "Some people have a knack for potato salad. Some people don't." 

Gertrude was not big on writing recipes down.  When I wanted to learn how she made something, I followed her around the kitchen with a pen and paper.

Put since my mother-in-law passed away last year, I've been trying to replicate this simple recipe. This is the recipe, written by Gertrude, and expanded slightly by me for clarity, although it still takes a little creativity to understand. (And she didn't mention the eggs, which were apparently obvious.)

Grammy's Potato Salad

5 pounds new potatoes

1/2 - 3/4 C onion, chopped

3-4 stalks celery, chopped

1/2 jar mayonnaise

salt and pepper

hard-cooked eggs, sliced

1. Boil the potatoes with skins on.

2. Cool to handle, peel and cut up

3. Place in a bowl and mix in onions, celery, mayonnaise, salt and pepper.

4. Decorate with sliced hard-cooked eggs