Not-Quite-Sure Pasta

I subscribe to a couple of cooking magazines and this is a recipe that I tried from the most recent issue.

Here are your ingredients:
1 cup uncooked pasta
1 pkg (16oz) frozen veggies
1 T cornstarch
3/4 cup chicken broth
pinch of crushed red pepper
olive oil
3 T butter
1 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried parsley
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 can (4oz) mushrooms
1 small tomato, chopped
Green onions, chopped
Parmesan cheese, sprinkled

Get out your favorite pot and start boiling some water. Add a couple pinches of salt to flavor your pasta. I use only whole wheat or whole grain pasta now, Barilla is a good one!


Measure out your pasta and if a few happen to jump into the water of their own volition, so be it! Oh, I should mention, I doubled this recipe from the above list...


While your noodles are boiling, get your chicken broth ready. If you have the ready made kind, GREAT! I did not, so I was forced to use chicken blocks. Measure out the water and then pop the whole thing in the microwave to heat up. The heat softens the blocks and !presto! you have broth.


Bust out a good skillet and drizzle some olive oil in the pan.


Add a pinch of crushed red pepper to flavor the oil...this is amazing and was not in the original recipe!


Lest you think that I have a spotless kitchen and everything works out great. Check carefully under the handle of my pot. That would be smoke, copious amounts of smoke! The hubby was playing with the kids in the other end of the house and yelled "What's burning?" Ahhhh, keeping it real in the runway kitchen!


Here is our finished broth.


Add the corn starch to the broth. (I should confess that as soon as I snapped this picture the spoon tipped out of the container and the whole mess fell into the broth.)


Grab your flat whisk. What? You don't have a flat whisk? Oh my, run, don't walk, and get yourself a flat whisk. It is my FAVORITE kitchen tool, hands down. I'm not sure I made edible gravy without it.


Before whisking...


After a brisk whisk...


Now that your olive oil is hot and the pepper has flavored the oil, add your frozen (by all means fresh, if you have them) veggies.


The ingredients of our sauce. By now the pasta should be done. Drain it into a colander in the sink and use the pot for your sauce.


Melt the butter. Then add the mustard (I used one with horseradish in it, yum!), basil, parsley, and garlic.


Using your beloved wire whisk, give them a good brisk whisk.


Add your cornstarch/broth mixture slowly while continuing to whisk.


Check on your veggies, they should be cooking away at a pretty good clip.


The sauce will be thickening. Bring to a boil and stir for 2 minutes until it is thick enough to leave a little space when you scrape the bottom of the pan with your whisk.


At this point, add your drained noodles back into the sauce (former boiling) pan. Stir gently to coat the noodles with this beautiful sauce!


Now add your vegetables, they should have a little "char" on them which is just olive oily and red peppery goodness! Stir gently again.


Here is my daughter waiting patiently for this supper to be ready.


Grab your tomatoes and give them a chop. Again, gently stir to incorporate the tomatoes.


Add a few green onions and Parmesan cheese to the top.


This was supper: Not-Quite-Sure Pasta, slow cooked roast and pickled beets.


I call this recipe "Not-Quite-Sure" Pasta because the fresh from the stove taste was excellent. We all loved it. But the hubby reheated some leftovers and he wasn't impressed with it the second time around. So I'm not quite sure, I'll have to try it again. Give it a try and let me know how you like it!

Tortilla Cheese Soup (on steroids)

It must be winter, I seem to be making a lot of soup!! But, oh well, I love soup. I could eat soup every day for the rest of my life and maybe have the same soup twice a year. Back in my working days I used to frequent a chain restaurant just for their tortilla cheese soup which just had cheese soup and chicken in it. Really! That's it! So I had to soup it up (pun definitely intended) This is SOOOO much better! This soup-of-the-week is so ridiculously easy, you'll make it tonight! (and no actual 'roids were administered in the making of this soup)

First, gather up your ingredients:

-leftover cooked chicken, cubed or shredded (or a chicken breast you quickly cooked up), about 2 cups
-2 cups of corn, frozen will be fine
-salsa, at least a cup but more if you want
-2 cans cheddar cheese soup
-1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
-milk
-green pepper and onion, chopped


Drizzle some olive oil in the bottom of your pan and get the peppers, onions and chicken going on a medium heat. Don't scorch them, but let them know you mean business!


When the pepper and onions have softened a bit and the chicken has just a little sear on it, add your corn, beans and both cans of soup.


Add enough milk to cover everything. It will look disgusting, but keep stirring and it will get better...I promise. Keep your heat on medium, you don't want to scorch the milk and cheese soup. I've done it and it was gross.


When everything has heated through, and there are little bubbles bubbling up on your soup, pour in your salsa, use as much as you like. Remember, if a little is good, more is better! (And that you can't take it out once you put it in.) Well, somewhere in the middle is where you want it, I guess.


Give it a good stir to incorporate the salsa and this is what you've got! Chunky deliciousness!


Usually, I serve this with some tortilla chips on top with the shredded cheddar cheese, but we're fresh out of chips. Here was lunch on a cold wintery day: tortilla cheese soup, honey whole wheat bread and apples. (I seem to be eating a lot of apples as well as soup this winter....hmmm.)


Ahhhh, the money shot! Now that is some soup! And there were no leftovers in the house that day...

Chicken Noodle Soup

Today we are revealing the secrets behind the magical elixir that is homemade chicken noodle soup!

First, we start with our aromatics: onion, carrots and celery. This is about the only way I like celery, souped up! And, of course, you can't have a decent soup without copious amounts of butter. You will NEVER find yellow plastic, I mean margarine, in my kitchen!


Chop up your veggies and get them simmering and sparking in the butter. Medium heat is enough to get them started. We aren't making Cajun chicken soup!


Add salt and pepper to taste. Remember, this is soup, so use a little more than you think you should!


Let them sweat away in the butter bath until they change color.


While this was happening I put two loaves of 100% Honey Whole Wheat bread together to rise.


Next, fetch from your freezer the liquid gold. "What is the liquid gold?" you ask. Ahhhh, the liquid gold is the pan drippings and juices and chicken meat from your last roasted chicken that you saved and froze for just such a time as this! Dry, hard cubes of chicken flavoring...eat your heart out!


Just drop it right in there and let it melt away and savor the aroma!


There we have all the nice chicken bits.


Ahhhh, now that looks divine!


Now you want to add some water, because that much chicken goodness undiluted is toxic. Add some, see how it looks, maybe add some more. It's up to you and your kettle.


For seasoning, I use three bay leaves. Just throw them in...


Run down to your freezer and fetch your bag of homemade egg noodles. What? You don't have bags of homemade noodles in your freezer? You poor thing, we'll have to show you how to have these little babies on hand for the best fettucini and soup you've ever eaten. If you must, buy noodles, but make sure they are egg noodles! You, and your soup, deserve it.


Simply egg and flour...yummmm.


Add the noodles and then add more water, if needed. Enough so that you can't see a noodle poking out of the soup. These babies will expand and take in water. A fact my dad did not know during his first attempt at beef noodle soup. We ate beef noodle porridge that night!


Let the soup bubble, but don't boil it. Egg noodles cook rather quickly so stick around the soup pot. Notice the seeming reduction in liquid...


When ready to serve, pull out the bay leaves. No one likes to chew on pieces of hay in their soup.


Hmmmm, didn't I put three leaves in here? Well, I guess I'll offer a prize to whomever gets the third bay leaf in their bowl!


Here's my supper: soup, apple, and onion parmesan biscuits. The biscuits were an experiment, a successful one at that, so I'll share them the next time I make them.


The money shot. This soup is absolutely wonderful, I guarantee it! It will make a lame man walk! Or, at the very least, get you a backrub from the hubby...ENJOY!

Egg Baskets

This is our second favorite breakfast, Egg Baskets! They are ridiculously easy to make and fun to eat. Here's how to make them:

For each egg basket, you will need two slices of deli ham (other thin sliced meat will work just as well), an egg, a 1/2 tsp of milk or cream and some salt and pepper. That's it!!


Nestle the two slices of ham in a muffin tin, making a space in the middle.


Carefully crack open an egg into the space. I prefer farm fresh "brown betties" myself and when I get my own chickens that's what we'll always have. But for now, I have to rely on the efforts of the chickens of others...


Add a pinch of salt.


And a twist of pepper.


Pour about a 1/2 tsp of cream or milk into each cup.


They are ready for the oven!


Bake them in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Ta Da!! Egg baskets!

Loosen them gently with a fork and remove. Serve piping hot because no one likes cold eggs! (Even if they have a cool name like egg baskets.)

This was my breakfast...DELICIOUS!