Cabbage Soup

My friends, I have been holding out on you.  I admit this.  I have discovered a fantastic use for cabbage.  I did not know this, but cabbage is apparently really good for you (see this blog, under "In Praise of Cabbage").  Before locating this soup recipe, my only way to prepare cabbage has been to stir-fry it in fat or oil until it collapses and sprinkle it with salt and pepper.  I like cabbage that way, but Justin was getting tired of it and requesting new ways of eating it or no longer buying it.  Fair enough.  Cabbage was 6lbs for $1 a couple of weeks ago and I couldn't resist the price.  I snagged one and then schemed.  I located this recipe.  Love. It.  I'm a creamy soup person and I especially love soups that are pureed or partially pureed that don't require heavy cream to make them creamy and delicious.  This soup is great - creamy yet made up of only vegetables and spices.  I doubled some of the spices and added bay leaves (LOVE bay leaves), pureed 2/3 instead of the whole thing, and cooked it for longer than the original recipe.  I've included all of my changes below.

Cabbage Soup

• 4 large carrots, thinly sliced
• 2 large potatoes, thinly sliced
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 medium head green cabbage, thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed
• 6 cups chicken stock
• 1 TB olive oil
• 1/4 tsp thyme [I did 1/2 tsp]
• 1/4 tsp basil [I did 1/2 tsp]
• 1 tsp parsley
• 1 tsp salt
• [I added 2 bay leaves]
• ground black pepper to taste

[I used the slicing mechanism on my food processor for all of the vegetables, since all of them call for "thinly sliced"]

Combine vegetables and spices and sauté in oil until cabbage collapses.  Add chicken stock, bring to a boil and simmer until vegetables are tender and puree-able, 20-30 minutes.  Puree about 2/3 of the soup using a blender or food processor [I found out the hard way, do NOT use a hand blender, it won't puree anything and will just make the soup look like it's straight out of the garbage disposal]. Serve.

Not a recipe, just SALT

So, every time we make something by hand that normal people buy in cans, like canned tomatoes, or dry beans, I feel so unhealthy adding what seems like loads of salt to it to make it taste just the way I like. I like flavour—beautiful, intense, wonderful flavour, and salt is method numero uno for getting it in my world. Sometimes I even throw a bit of fleur de sel on fruit if I'm feeling sassy. Call me Grandpa Workman, but I am unashamed.

Tonight, we had meal that Liz brought home from a group "freezer meal-athon." Everyone walked away with 8 different meals. Yippee. Tonight's treat was, for lack of better explanation, a tortilla torte. It was like flat burritos all stacked up on each other, layered-cake style.. Whole wheat tortillas, ground turkey, canned tomatoes, refried beans, cheese. Nothing weird, just good solid, burrito stuff. We served it in wedged slices with sour cream. It was just fine, and I'd recommend it for a fun meal that looks like a cake but tastes like a burrito. You could even frost it with the sour cream if you wanted. I digress . . .

Six hours later, however, I am still trying to get more water into my system because I'm so dried out and thirsty from the salt in those canned goods. We use only our own canned tomatoes and we cook all our beans from dry, then flavour them ourselves, so it's been a good spell since we've used canned beans or veggies for almost anything. I haven't felt this salted up for a long, long time.

I think I'll not worry about adding salt to my food from now on. I'm not trying to make it last forever on a shelf, I'm just trying to coax a little extra deliciousness out of its hiding place.

Yeah, it's a weird post for a recipe blog. Whatever. Go boil some beans (and add a quartered onion, a few cloves of garlic, and a couple of  tablespoons of salt. You'll thank me later.)

Waffle Brownies

Prepare yourselves.  This is amazing.  If you like the crunchy edges of brownies, this is for you.

First, prepare our Hutchings recipe for brownie batter (this is a half batch).

Then pour the brownie batter into your greased waffle iron (ours takes exactly 1/2 cup to fill it up).

Remove the waffle brownie when it's done, as indicated by your waffle iron, and admire (no really, if you let it sit for a bit it'll get crunchier than when you first pull it out).

Then top with your favorite ice cream (ours is German Chocolate Crunch from the BYU Creamery).

Warnings

• Adding chocolate chips to the batter will cause it to fall apart the moment you try and remove it from the waffle iron.
• These delicious treats give you the illusion that you should eat the entire waffle-sized brownie.  Break them up and eat piece by piece and stop before you're sick.  We each ate one waffle brownie and were sick to our stomachs.

Our (current) Favourite Granola

We are granola lovers around here, and we love it with fruit in place of the oil. The classic, of course, is applesauce, but we've also used pumpkin, and right now we're crazy about bananas. This little creation is like Banana Nut Bread, but in crunchy, wholesome granola form. It's great as a snack, with creamy whole milk, with yogurt, or just snitched right out of the container. It's that good. You can vary the nuts, of course, and use almonds or pecans or a combination of whatever, but, strange as it seems, I wouldn't do it without the sesame seeds. Somehow they just make it perfect; they are the je ne sais quoi of the granola.

Banana Walnut Granola

5 cups rolled oats
3 cups walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 cup sliced almonds (or more walnuts!)
3/4 cup sesame seeds

2 ripe bananas
1/2 cup honey
2 Tbsp oil
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves


Preheat oven to 300˚F. Combine the oats, nuts, and seeds in a large bowl. In a saucepan, combine bananas, honey, oil, salt, sugar, and spices. Mash together with a fork or whisk, or do like I did, and use a stick blender. I love the vroot-vroot. Cook and stir until it's warm and gooey, then pour over the dry ingredients. Mix well with a large spoon, then spread over 2 baking sheets. Bake in the upper and lower thirds of the oven for 40 minutes, stirring every 10 and rotating pans at the 20 minute mark, until browned and starting to crisp. Let cool completely on pans, then store in an airtight container.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies in the World

A couple of months ago Justin went to a neighborhood party at which he tasted the best cookies he has ever tasted.  I was intrigued and asked him what made them so amazing.  He couldn't pin point anything in particular and just told me to get the recipe from our friend.  I didn't and time went on...after I had Vida this friend dropped off a plate of cookies for us.  I tasted one and couldn't believe it.  They were the best cookies in the world!  Simple chocolate chip, and I couldn't discern anything that made them special.  I meant to ask for the recipe but didn't and time went on...then one day I was making cookies with my sister-in-law and she explained she's been on a quest to find the best chocolate chip cookie recipe in the world and I exploded with excitement!  I know where to get it!  So, finally I asked for the recipe.  It's a very tricky recipe and I haven't gotten it right yet.  The trick is that it calls for cold butter and you never let the ingredients mix enough to have smooth dough.  You want it chunky.  This last time I think I left it too chunky.  Picture a consistency in between this and smooth:

And that's what we're shooting for.  I'd recommend halving the recipe until you get the consistency right.  I asked my friend how she does it and she said she pre-measures everything and adds everything sequentially to her Kitchen Aid mixer, without much pause.  She said she doesn't spend more than 5 minutes mixing, total.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies in the World

• 2 sticks butter, cold
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 cups  chocolate chips
• 2 cups walnuts (optional, but my friend always adds these)

Briefly mix sugars and butter.  Add eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt and baking soda; incorporate.  Add chocolate chips and nuts.  Bake at 350 for 11 minutes.

If you'd like to join the quest, please do.  Let us know how your attempts turn out!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

I got this recipe from Heather, originally from Vicki.  It's great by itself - but I also saturated it with Heather's chocolate sauce and topped it with Michelle's Cinnabon cream cheese frosting.  So good.  I halved each of these recipes to make a small cake.  And even then I only used about half the chocolate sauce - so maybe make less of that?  Or just save it and eat it on ice cream.  It's delicious that way.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup sour milk

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 4TB cocoa
• 3/4 tsp salt

• 2 cups finely grated zucchini

Cream butter, sugar and oil.  Add eggs, vanilla and milk and blend.  Mix dry ingredients separately then mix with wet.  Fold in zucchini.  Pour in 9x13 greased baking pan and bake 40-45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Poke holes in cake and pour in:

Chocolate Sauce

• 1 can evaporated milk
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Combine ingredients in saucepan and bring to boil.  Reduce heat and allow to thicken.  Remove from heat.

Frost with:

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8oz cream cheese
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 cups powdered sugar (or until the consistency is right)
• 1 TB milk

Combine ingredients in bowl and blend until smooth.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Soup

This pumpkin soup recipe is sooooooooo good.  I bought a big pumpkin for 10 cents a lb (they are now 5 cents a lb so I might just get another), cooked it up and made pumpkin puree just like I did last year.  I always pick highly-rated and most-popular healthy recipes from allrecipes.com and I always look at the comments.  Always.  The comments are extremely helpful, and even they are rated according to how good they are.  The comments at the top are the ones users feel make the recipe the best.  I added celery and a bay leaf to this recipe thanks to the comments and I think it made all the difference.  I've never had a soup that tasted so much like thanksgiving stuffing in my life - and I LOVE stuffing.  Marquie and Patrick were here and can testify of how delicious it is.  Replace the bouillon cube broth I used with James' homemade chicken stock and this soup would probably be the best soup I've ever had.  James and Liz - you must tell me if you make this with your homemade broth.

Pumpkin Soup

• 6 cups chicken stock
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 6 cups fresh pumpkin puree
• 1 med-large onion, chopped
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2-3 ribs celery, chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• fresh ground pepper, to taste
• 1 cup milk

Heat all ingredients except the milk in a large stockpot.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes [I simmered for about 2 hours because I had the time].  Remove bay leaf, puree in blender or food processor and return to pan.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for another 30 minutes.  Stir in milk and serve.