Sausage, Kale and White Bean Soup

It's beautiful and sunny outside as I put this post together, but Friday night after I got home from work, it felt like it was never going to stop raining, and for me, a rainy day means soup time. Soup has always been a comfort food for me, probably since my mom practically raised us on soup (refrigerator soup was all but food group).

This is a recipe I make at home every time we are craving a slightly spicy, hearty soup and it only gets better the next day as the flavors blend together, so I make a big pot, and we eat it for days!

  

Ingredients:

1 lb spicy pork sausage (I used loose, but you can remove the casings of links if that's all you can find)

1 large (Vidalia) onion, medium dice

2-3 medium white potatoes, 1/2" dice

2-3 cloves garlic, minced or microplaned

1 dry bay leaf

2 quarts chicken stock or broth (or a combination of both)

1 big bunch kale

1 can Great Northern white beans

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

pinch of red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

In a heavy bottomed pot, over medium high heat, render the pork sausage until brown and cooked through, there should be enough fat in the sausage that you dont need to add any extra to do this.

Stir in onions and bay leaf and cook until translucent and lightly browned. Add the potatoes to the pot and stir to coat. Add in garlic and stir quickly to cook for about 10 seconds, being careful not to burn it. At this point stir in someof the broth/stock and deglaze the bottom of the pot, using a wooden spoon to scrape up the yummy brown bits. Add the rest of the liquid and bring to a simmer.

          

         



Meanwhile, wash yor kale leaves and remove the stems. The easiest way to do this is to fold the leaves in half lengthwise down the stem and just tear the leaf portion away from the stem. Then run your knife through the kale to chop roughly into approx. 2" pieces and set aside.

Drain and rinse the beans and set aside.

  

Once soup has reached a simmer, cover and cook about 10 minutes, or until potatoes are cooked through. At this point add your beans, kale, turmeric, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.

Return to simmer and cook until greens are soft and bright green. At this point you may serve or allow to simmer as long as you would like, it only gets better with time!

My First Quilt

A couple weeks ago I broke down and bought myself a nice sewing machine, a gorgeous Janome DC2011 and I can't wait to use it for everything I can think of.

So, I've finally gotten to start piecing the top for my Windy Days Quilt, a super cute quilt pattern that I stumbled across on Pinterest several months ago. I've dabbled in quilting some blocks in the past, but never made a whole quilt. I decided this would be a good choice for my first quilt since it looks like a pretty simple top to piece and the small size isn't overly daunting.

I'd bought the fabric almost as soon as I found the pattern, and it's been sitting in the box it came in ever since, so I was very excited to finally dig in! So far, I have the four large pinwheels done and four of the small, but I'mnot sure I'm happy with the color combinations, and I might switch them around a little.

  



   Anyways, stay tuned for when I get a little more time to work my first quilt!

Off the Cuff Chicken Paprikash

Ingredients:
3 chicken breasts, boneless, skinless
1 package wide egg noodles, cooked and drained
1 large (Vidalia) onion, medium dice

2 cloves of garlic, minced or microplaned

1 can chicken broth

1/2 cup white wine

1/3 cup paprika

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

8oz sour cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Set a medium saucepan of salted water on to boil. When it comes to a boil carefully drop in chicken breast and bring back to boil. Cook chicken breast for 10-15 minutes, or until no longer pink in the thickest portions (don't be afraid to cut into them to check, the chicken is being chopped/shredded anyway). When chicken is cooked, remove from water and allow to cool enough until it can be handled. Once cool, chop or shred with a fork into small, bite-sized pieces and set aside until called for.

In a large saute pan over medium-high heat, melt butter and vegetable oil. Saute onions until lightly browned and translucent. Add garlic and stir quickly for 5-10 seconds, being careful to not burn. Add white wine and scrape the bottom of the pan with the spoon to deglaze.



When liquid has reduced, but onions are still moist, stir in chicken and cook for a few minutes. Stir in chicken broth and bring to a simmer. Once liquid has reduced slightly stir in paprika and sour cream, season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 1-2 minutes and then serve over cooked egg noodles.



        

Voila! Dinner time.

I hope you all enjoy this easy (and tasty!) dinner as much as we do. : )



Mongolian Beef Lo Mein

A few months ago, I stumbled upon a recipe for Mongolian Beef on Pinterest. It turned out to be delicious, and easy, served over rice. I then began adding extra vegetables to make it a bit more of a balanced meal. Today, however, when we hit the grocery store for supplies, I realized that I could substitute noodles for the rice, and oh my goodness did that realization pay off.

So, today Mongolian Beef Lo Mein was born.

Ingredients:
1 lb steak, 1/4" slices
¼ cup cornstarch
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon ginger (microplaned, or minced)
2-3 cloves of garlic (microplaned, or minced)
½ cup soy sauce
½ cup water
½ cup dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 bunches green onions (sliced into 1-2 inch sections)
1 medium onion (sliced)
2 cups matchstick carrots
1 package flat, wide, lo mein noodles
Vegetable oil for frying

Instructions:

Slice the beef into thin 1/4" slices and toss in cornstarch. Set aside for 10 minutes DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP.

Set a medium saucepan of salted water over medium-high heat to boil for the lo mein noodles. Once the water boils, add noodles and cook according to package directions (mine cooked for 5 minutes). Drain and set aside.

In a small sauce pan over medium heat, add 2 teaspoons vegetable oil and cook ginger, garlic, and red pepper flakes for 10-20 seconds, be careful not to burn it. Stir in soy sauce, water and vinegar and bring to a simmer. Stir in brown sugar and return to a simmer. Continue to simmer for 3 minutes and then remove from heat and set aside.

Heat about 1/2" of oil in the bottom of your wok over medium high heat. Add beef in batches so as not to crowd the pan and fry until brown, about 4 minutes. Remove from pan and drain on paper towels.

Once all the beef is cooked and set aside add onions, green onions, and carrots. Stir fry until onions are translucent. Add beef and noodles and toss. Add sauce into the pan and cook until sauce begins to simmer.

         

    

Finally, enjoy!

Vacation, a New Year, and Some Delicious Beer Bread

My goodness, I wrote this post well over a month ago and never got around to putting it up. Here it is, in all its neglected glory.

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Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? It seems like between the holidays, final exams and trying to stay sane, the last month or so has flown by.

We had a pretty relaxing holiday. We flew to Arizona to visit my Dad and had a lovely Christmas dinner with my Aunt and Uncle and all their kids and beautiful grandkids. We, of course, drove to the Grand Canyon to look down into it for 10-15 minutes and take some pictures and then the last two days we spent at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas and relaxed. The view from room's our terrace overlooked the famous (and beautiful) Belagio fountains, when we managed to pull ourselves away from relaxing in the beautiful hotel room we spent our time exploring the shops, other casinos, and of course the Ferrari dealership right on the strip (we also had the best Thai food EVER in a sketchy looking strip mall). All in all it was a wonderful trip, but one red eye flight and a train ride later, we're home and back to real life, cleaning, laundry and falling alseep watching TV on the couch.

Real Life:

So, I've been wanting to try this recipe for Honey Beer Bread for a few months and I didn't get around to it until just now. We went to a friend's house for low key New Years Eve (some nibbles, some Trivia and then we headed home at 10:30) and they happened to serve a version of the bread there, and man was it fantastic.

So here are some photos from my own attempt.

Yummmmm