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Recipe: Fridge Soup

It sounds like a hokey name for a recipe, but honestly it’s the easiest way to describe this soup. This recipe started when I wasn’t feeling so peppy this morning and wanted to make something that would be healthy, yet comforting… kind of like chicken-soup-on-steriods?

Here’s how it looked just before the arborio rice got nice and plump, thickening the soup…FridgeSoup yum!

I started with half a cooked chicken, some water, bouillon, and James River Rad Red Wine. I had pulled the chicken out of the freezer, so I let the beginnings of the broth cook and warm up the carcass/meat of the chicken. Once the chicken started to fall off the bone, I plucked it out of the broth and shredded it while I pulled the rest of the soup ingredients out of the fridge (hence the name of this soup). I added carrots, celery, spinach, and garlic, chopping everything into similar sizes so they cooked evenly. I also added a little salt and pepper to taste and then re-added chicken to the soup.

At this point, I had to decide if I wanted use pasta or rice… and I chose 1/4cup arborio rice. It was a simple choice but I could have easily chosen orzo pasta instead.

This was a great “feel better” kind of soup. Piping hot, it reminded me of chicken noodle soup, but gave me some different flavors from the red wine and the spinach that were pretty darn tasty. Maybe you can try it the next time you need a pick-me-up kind of soup?

For me, snow and soup go hand-in-hand… and apparently, that’s what we’re getting, weather-wise, to start Spring this year. Hope you’ll try something like this too!

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Recipe: Simple Shepherd’s Pie

Maybe I’m just strange, but I really love the challenge of making a totally new meal out of leftovers from a previous meal.  Such was the case with how this dinner came about.

I made shredded beef sandwiches for dinner on Sunday night and, since I used a large London Broil, had lots of cooked beef left over.  I was coming up with lots of different ways to use this meat but the decision was made for me when I got a huge response from my guys when I suggested making a Shepherd’s Pie.  Unfortunately, for me, my husband’s idea of a Shepherd’s pie was “meat, peas, gravy, potatoes”, so that became my recipe.

The first thing I did was start making the mashed potatoes by dicing a few potatoes and putting them into a pot of water to boil.  While they cooked, I layered the beef in a casserole dish and topped it with frozen peas.  Now all I needed to do was make a gravy so dinner wouldn’t just be dry beef and cooked peas.

Making a gravy is so much easier if you start with the cooking liquid of the meat you’re using – it adds flavor without having to rely on bouillon packets.  Sadly, I totally forgot to reserve the liquid after dinner on Sunday, so I had to start from scratch.  Not my favorite way to do things, but not a huge deal.  I have learned to love making gravy, so it’s always a fun creative way to add my own little touch to dinner.  I always start with a roux…. equal parts butter (fat) and flour, simmered long enough to cook off the raw flour taste.  Liquid is the next ingredient.  I typically stick with the idea of using red wine for beef dishes and white wine for chicken or fish dishes, but this is definitely something I don’t mind mixing up.  For this gravy, I used a packet of beef bouillon, water, and James River Meritage red wine (‘cuz that’s what was in my fridge… I could have just as easily found James River Merlot or a random Pinot Noir from a recent trip to the Hilton Head Wine and Food Festival).   I seasoned the gravy with salt and pepper, and let it simmer a bit until it was thick enough.  I then poured the gravy over the beef/peas already layered in the casserole dish and got to work on making mashed potatoes.ShepherdsPie

Please know… if you prefer using instant mashed potatoes, this meal will be just as tasty.  I’m not really a purist that has to make homemade mashed potatoes anytime I need them… I just don’t have any instant potato flakes in my pantry.  Who knows… I might have used them instead.  Honestly, I tend to make mashed potatoes often enough that I almost always have potatoes available in my pantry, so it’s just easier to make them rather than search for a packet of the instant stuff.

For my homemade mashed potatoes, I use an old potato masher that my mom gave me instead of using my electric mixer – I like the chunky feel of the finished product better than the more whipped consistency I get when I put everything into my KitchenAid mixer.  I use varying amounts of margarine, Laughing Cow light original cheese, a touch of horseradish, salt, pepper, and maybe some milk.  It really depends on my mood when I’m cooking, so using The Force really comes into play on this recipe.   Once the mashed potatoes are finished, I spooned them on top of the casserole, sprinkled a bit of paprika for color, and then popped the casserole into the oven.  After 30-45 minutes in a 350 degree oven, this dinner is ready for the troops to dig in.

Feel free to experiment with this recipe to make your own family happy – if they like cooked carrots, feel free to add them.  Want a whole mess of veggies?  Go ahead!  Want to swap out the beef for chicken or a vegetarian option you like?  Try it!  There’s no “dinner police” who will come by and take your food from you, so enjoy coming up with your own options on this recipe.  I just like the tastes of beef, peas, and mashed potatoes all baked into a sublime concoction that makes my family happy.

Ultimately, that’s the goal… make something that will feed your family and keep a smile on their faces.  My heart is full every time my guys declare a “winner”… may you have the same experience with your dinners!

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Recipe: Weeknight Chicken and Potatoes

I really love meals that don’t take a huge amount of effort on my part.  The oven does most of the work and I just transfer things from one place to another until dinner just “comes together”.  Such was the case with this meal.

I started with a few potatoes.  Much depends on how many mouths I’m feeding at any given meal, but I usually try to stick with the “one-and-a-half potato per person” rule if I’m just roasting these bad boys.  I diced them into chunks and then diced a half an onion to add some flavor.  Once these were done, I tossed both in a bowl with some balsamic salad dressing and laid them out on a baking sheet to roast for an hour or so in a 375 degree oven.

Since the potatoes were going to take awhile, I started the chicken a little after I had the potatoes in the oven.  I had purchased “thin cut chicken breasts” from the store, with the intention of using them for my chicken prosciutto rolls, but totally forgot to pick up the Boursin cheese.  Instead, I had 6 lovely thin chicken breasts that I decided to simply saute on the stove top.  I seasoned them, using more of the same balsamic salad dressing that I’d put on the potatoes, and then added more salt and pepper for good measure.  Using a heavy skillet, I sauteed the breasts in a little olive oil and butter until they were nicely browned and cooked through.  Since there were six breasts in the package, I did them in two shifts so they didn’t crowd the pan and cooked more evenly.  Once the outsides were nicely caramelized and toasty, I removed them to a platter and popped some foil on top to keep them warm. Note: I also put the platter into the oven for about 5-7 minutes before dinner was ready to reheat just a touch.

With all the yummy bits that were left in the pan, I thought a nice gravy was in order to make dinner to come together.  I put a pat of butter and a spoonful of flour into the skillet and let the fat/flour combine and sizzle a bit to cook off the raw floWeeknight ChickenNpotatoesur taste.  I then added a healthy helping of James River Meritage Red Wine (I chose the Meritage simply because that’s what I had in the fridge… I could have just as easily switched out the red wine for James River Reserve Chardonnay.  Use what you have available or what you like best) and whisked the gravy together to incorporate the flavors and pick up all the bits that had been left in the pan from the sauteed chicken.  After tasting the gravy, I adjusted the seasonings with some salt, pepper, and dry Italian seasonings until I was satisfied.

Oh, and I had thrown some broccoli florets on top of the potatoes (after the potatoes were almost finished) so we’d have a green vegetable for dinner… this was purely for my benefit, since none of my guys have any interest in eating green vegetables unless they’re coerced.

For serving, I put a single layer of the roasted potatoes/onions on the plate and topped them with a chicken breast and some pan gravy.   Obviously, this picture is of the plate I made up for my son, since there are two breasts on the plate and not a speck of green to be seen.   It was a really tasty dinner, even if I was the only one to eat the green stuff.  Maybe you’ll have better luck with your family if you top their broccoli with a little gravy?

 

 

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Recipe: Pantry Spaghetti Sauce

I needed to make a quick and healthy dinner tonight and decided to simply search through my pantry and see what I could find.

First, I opened the freezer and found some meatballs that I’d totally forgotten. What goes best with meatballs in our house is spaghetti… but I didn’t have enough sauce to cover everything. I put the meatballs into a 375 degree oven and let them roast until they were browned and toasty. Mmmm…. now for the rest of the story…er… dinner?PantrySpaghettiSauce

To make the sauce, I started with some leftover onion (I had about 1/4 of a Vidalia onion left in the fridge),olive oil, and a touch of butter. I sauteed the onion and then added 2 chopped garlic cloves and about 2 cups of thinly chopped spinach.

Once the sauteed vegetables were soft, I added in a large can of crushed tomatoes and some red wine (like James River Cellars Rad Red wine), then let the sauce simmer for a bit. Salt and pepper, along with some Italian seasonings, had the sauce tasting really wonderful, but it was still missing something.

That something turned out to be a packet of pitted black olives. Once chopped, they added a fabulously salty bit of yumminess that took the entire dinner to a new height. I popped the baked meatballs into the sauce and cooked the pasta (I used about 1/3 of a package of vermicelli) so everything would come together quickly when we were ready for dinner. Hint: Stir in a few ice cubes in with the pasta in the pot when it’s cooked to your liking, to stop the cooking process. I’ve found that it also keeps the pasta from sticking together. Weird, huh?

I hope you’ll consider trying something like this for your next “quick” dinner… it’s amazing when things come together to make something so tasty AND healthy. Enjoy!

 

 

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Comfort Foods

Just a quick note to say that, in my humble opinion, there’s nothing more comforting than soup and a sandwich for dinner when you’re sick.

My darling hubby has a cold. He’s not sick often, but when he gets a cold, it knocks him for a loop. Because of that, I pulled out my favorite recipe for Chicken Noodle Soup (see previous post on this blog) to get him on the road back to “healthy”. This recipe is a classic… Simple, clean, and full of chicken soup goodness.

Try it the next time someone in your household is feeling under-the-weather. Add in an easy grilled cheese sandwich and you’ve got a great meal full of love. Doesn’t it just look like it’ll make you feel better??

Wishing you health as we head into the middle of March!

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Recipe: Easy Beef Stew

I love making a dinner that cooks long on its own…. something that takes short bursts of attention and ends up being incredibly tasty. This recipe could probably have been done in the crockpot, but I chose to start it in my large Calphalon skillet and just cooked it that way for the afternoon.

I started with two packages of “sale beef” – one was a packet of beef strips for stir-fry and the other was a packet of stew beef. Since I pulled both out of the freezer in the morning, I chose to slice the beef while things were partially frozen so the cutting would go faster. Once the beef was sliced, I sliced a vidalia onion and left both items on my cutting board for a moment.

Using my large Calphalon skillet, I heated one T of butter and one T of olive oil. When this was sizzling, I popped both the beef and onions in the skillet to brown. The kitchen started to smell wonderful, so I popped in three or four garlic cloves and then put the skillet into the oven at 350 degrees for an hour or so.

When I went back to the skillet a little later, the meat and onions had started to carmelize, so I added some James River Cellars Rad Red (you can just as easily use a Cabernet Sauvignon, a Cabernet Franc, or a Meritage for this dinner), as well as some salt and pepper, and popped it back in the oven. At the next look, dinner was looking a little soup-y, so I shook a spoonful of flour over top and stirred it into the sauce. Note: make sure to taste your food along the way – it’s much easier to adjust the flavors throughout the cooking process than to dump in a spoonful of garlic salt at the end.

When dinner was almost complete, I tossed in some frozen peas, stirred them into the sauce, and returned the skillet to the oven until the peas were cooked and dinner tasted “ready”. I warmed up some rolls, but you could also use pre-made rolls or breadsticks, depending on your family’s preference.

My favorite part of this dinner was the fact that I could be doing other things throughout the afternoon and dinner still turned out fabulously. The beef had a rich, deep flavor and the sauce that I had at the end was perfect when served over a baked potato (as pictured) or over pasta (as my husband preferred). Either way, dinner was a success and this recipe became an instant favorite. I hope you’ll try making this for your own family and see if it doesn’t become a favorite for you as well. Enjoy!

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NO-WINE Recipe: Golden Truffles

This is a recipe that I altered from something posted in Pinterest… it was originally posted with chocolate sandwich cookies (Oreos) and cream cheese, but since my love much prefers Golden Oreos, this was my altered version.  This is also an incredibly simple recipe – I wanted to post it before Valentine’s Day, but since M reads everything I write (sweet of him, huh?), I needed to hold off until after the holiday.  If you want to do this for your special someone, bookmark this link and make it next year.  I’m not going anywhere… maybe by then I’ll find a way to make truffles with wine?

Ok… on to the recipe:GoldenTruffles

Start with one package of Golden Oreos and one package of cream cheese.  Put both into a food processor and blend thoroughly until totally incorporated.  Since the mixture was pretty soft, I popped the newly formed truffles  into a bowl and let them rest for 30 minutes or so in the fridge.  Once the dough was nicely chilled, I scooped out VERY small mounds of this delicious mixture, rolled then into balls and rolled them in rainbow sprinkles.  I pressed the sprinkles into the dough so they wouldn’t drop off easily and then popped the entire batch into the freezer.  They looked lovely on the red plate I originally used, but the truffles seem to get soft and mushy pretty quickly, so the freezer was the best option for preserving.

I know this is a place for wine recipes, but I just couldn’t resist sharing this recipe – easy, sweet, tasty, and pretty.  What a great combination for Valentines… or anytime you want to show someone how much you care.  Easter is right around the corner – how cute would these look when rolled in Easter-colored sprinkles?

The only limit is your imagination – have fun with this recipe and I’m sure you’ll have people begging for more!

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Recipe: Breakfast Hash with Wine

People have been joking with me for years about pairing wine and breakfast… so that’s been my latest challenge.  To create a tasty breakfast food that somehow incorporates wine?  I couldn’t imagine it… until this morning.

I started with a pre-baked potato.  I diced the potato and began to saute it in a mixture of olive oil and margarine.  As it browned, I diced about 1/3 of a granny smith apple and added that to the pan.  In the meantime, I boiled water with a bit of white vinegar to cook a quick poached egg.   The picture on the left is of the potato/apple mixture as it cooked and browned.

To add a kick of flavor to this simple dish, I added 1/4 cup of James River Cellars Petit Verdot as well as a spoonful of House Sauce (from Take It Away in Charlottesville.  Note: this sauce can also be found at The Cheese Shop in Williamsburg).  The wine added a lovely tinge of pink to the potato and apple pieces and the House sauce brought its own smokey mayonnaise touch.  Using both in combination created a wonderful flavor that otherwise might have relegated this dish to the “ho-hum” list.

As I plated my breakfast, I sprinkled the potato/apple mixture with 1T of Asiago cheese crumbles.  I gently laid the poached egg on top and added a bit of cracked pepper.  It was amazing.Breakfast Hash

Nothing is “out of bounds” when it comes to cooking… try it and see how you like adding wine as a flavoring agent.  You might be inspired and totally surprised with a new favorite.   I certainly did!

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Recipe: Shrimp Puttanesca

I have to caveat this post by saying that this sauce is not a true Puttanesca… it has none of the tomatoes, olives, and capers one would expect in a traditional puttanesca sauce, should you place an order for this in a restaurant.  My darling husband isn’t a fan of olives and capers, but I was hungry for something along the same lines of a puttanesca sauce with shrimp, so this is the recipe that came about.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

I started with a frozen package of Extra Jumbo Shrimp from my local grocery store.  I love to pick up packages of shrimp any time they’re on sale, so this is always a “go to” for me… especially since my husband and I both love shrimp.  I thawed and shelled the shrimp while they were still partially frozen, so they were easy to peel.  I also put a pot of pasta on to cook… cook as much as you’d like for your meal.  We like either bowties, rotini, or ziti as any of these hold the sauce nicely and are easy to eat with a fork.  If you like spaghetti or linguini, this would be a great recipe to use as well.ShrimpPuttanesca

Once the pasta is almost cooked, I warmed up some olive oil and then sauteed a large amount of finely chopped garlic and shallots until softened and lightly browned.  Into the pan, I then added two anchovy fillets (I used the ones packed in oil, because that’s what I had in the cupboard – I’ll use anchovies packed in water for the next rendition) and allowed them to melt into a sauce.  SIDE NOTE:  Anchovies are fun to cook with because they really do melt into the sauce when exposed to heat and bring a salty back note to any sauce.  I find them fun to use, as long as my family isn’t aware that I’m using them… they’re a little finicky about fish in their sauces.  Once the base of the sauce was cooked and the anchovies were incorporated, I added the shrimp.  As you can see in the photo, I sliced the shrimp length-wise so they would curl up and look pretty in the dish.  This also allowed the shrimp to cook pretty quickly and pick up the sauce even better than if they were whole.

With the shrimp were in the pan and starting to cook, I added some James River Cellars’ Chardonnay to fill out the sauce.  If I were trying to make a meal without wine (why would anyone DO that??), I’d simply substitute chicken stock for the wine.  I allowed the wine to cook into the shrimp and add a lovely taste to the seafood before topping the entire dish with some chopped parsley.  If the sauce is still a little thick, you can add more wine OR you can add a little pasta water.   The pasta water will end up thickening the sauce as well, so adding both is not a bad idea either.

For plating purposes, I drained the pasta and then tossed it into the shrimp and sauce.  This dinner was a huge hit and will definitely be seen often in my “easy/go-to” line up of recipes.  Try it yourself and see if you don’t add it to your own family’s favorites!

If you’re thinking about making a Valentine’s dinner, this is wonderful for a seafood lover.  Just add some crusty bread and a decadent dessert, and your loved one will be putty in your hands.  Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Recipe: Meritage Cheddar Bread

I pulled out one of my Bread Machine cookbooks recently and was taken with the idea of creating a wine and cheese bread. I had apparently tried this recipe before, as evidenced by some ancient notes I’d written, but was bound and determined to try it again. Since I had some extra sharp cheddar in the fridge and a small amount of red wine from work, I decided it was worth the time to see how this experiment would come out.

I started with a bottle of Veritas’ Vintner’s Reserve red wine. I had helped work the recent Governor’s Cup Seminar and was given the remains of one of the medal winners. This wine is a meritage-like blend that I really enjoyed, so it was a good wine to use, in my opinion. I wanted to use something similar to the James River Cellars’ Meritage and this wine fit the bill for me. I also had some extra sharp cheddar cheese that was leftover from a recent event at the winery, so I really was killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.

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As you can see by the photos across the top of the collage, I used my bread machine for the dough portion of this recipe. It made my life so much easier. Here are the directions for making this bread, using a machine such as the Zojirushi that I have.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup wine
2/3 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 1/2T margarine
1/2 t salt
3/4 t sugar
2 1/4 c flour
1 1/2 t yeast

Directions:
I put all the ingredients into the machine and allowed it to do it’s work. Once the dough was ready, I separated it into two sections and rolled each as if for French bread. I placed each length on my baking tray and allowed them to rise for 30-45 minutes. Once they had risen sufficiently, I sprayed them with water and baked them in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes or so. I also turned the pan around mid-way through the baking process and sprayed the loaves with water again. As you can see in the photo, the loaves split, so next time I’ll make sure to slice them a few times to allow for steam to vent.

This experiment turned out fairly well, although I might just let the loaves bake in the machine next time to see how they differ. This would be a nice base for a simple garlic toast to accompany a dinner or used as an appetizer under a fresh tomato/basil topping. Try it and see how you’d like to use it… I’d love to hear your feedback!