affreca

Still on the stove, so I can't say if it is a keeper yet or not. Following the recipe at Cooking and Beer.

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 large leeks, dark green parts removed, diced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
3 cloves of garlic, finely minced (or more)
2 pounds Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced
6 cups chicken broth
1 can drained garbanzo beans
1/2 cup tahini (or however much is left in the bottom of the jar)
1 cup heavy cream

1) Melt the butter in a large dutch oven over medium heat. Once melted, add the leeks, and dried thyme. Season with salt and black pepper. Stir. Cook for about 5 minutes or until the veggies are tender. Add the garlic and potatoes, cook for 2 minutes before stirring in the vegetable broth. Bring the soup to a boil and then simmer for 20 minutes.

2) After 2 minutes, stir in the garbanzo beans and tahini. Simmer for 5 more minutes until the beans are warm and the tahini is fully incorporated.
3) Blend the soup until smooth and creamy with an immersion blender. Season to taste with salt and black pepper, and then add the heavy cream. Cook for 5 more minutes until nice and warmed through.

Chicken, Lentil and Barley Soup
Ingredients

1/2 cup dry lentils
1 cup sliced leeks or chopped onion (1 mid sized onion)
1/2 cup chopped red or green sweet pepper (1/3 green bell)
1 clove garlic, minced (2 cloves)
2 tablespoons butter
5 cups chicken broth (stock)
1 1/2 teaspoons snipped fresh basil or 1/2 teaspoon dried basil, crushed
1 teaspoon snipped fresh oregano or 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed
3/4 teaspoon snipped fresh rosemary or 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed (skipped, none in house)
1 1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken or turkey (chicken thighs poached in stock before started soup)
1 1/2 cups sliced carrots (3 carrots)
1/2 cup quick-cooking barley
1 14 1/2 ounce can tomatoes, cut up

Rinse and drain lentils; set aside. In a large saucepan or Dutch oven cook leeks or onion, red or green pepper, and garlic in margarine or butter until tender but not brown. Carefully stir in chicken broth, basil, oregano, rosemary, pepper, and the lentils. Bring to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes.
Stir in chicken or turkey, carrots, and uncooked barley. Simmer, covered, about 20 minutes more or just until carrots are tender. Stir in undrained tomatoes; heat through. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Another recipe. Despite the heat, I was craving a roast chicken. And I had overipe peaches to use.

2 potatoes
1 onion
3 peaches
garlic cloves
1 5.5 lb chicken
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp salt
1 tsp rose water

Cut up potatoes, onion and peaches, and place in bottom of roasting pan with garlic cloves (peaches on top). Place chicken on top. Melt butter, honey, salt and rose water in microwave and paint over chicken. Cook pan for 1 hour at 400 F. Pour out drippings to make into gravy. Nom..

2.5 lb bottom roast (partially thawed)
1 c soy sauce
1 c bulgogi sauce
1/3 c brown sugar
1/2 water
2 onions (finely sliced)
1 carrot (finely sliced)

Cut roast into 1/2 slices, brown. Add all to slow cooker, turn cooker onto low for 8 hours. Serve with rice.

Soup from last Sunday turned out pretty good. It's based on a recipe from My Recipes, alterations I did are included here for future cooking. I think next time I will double the recipe because this only produced five servings and Lawnchair liked it, so despite eating out twice last week, I had no leftovers to freeze. Also, ground lamb is sold around here in pound packages, so maybe even triple the recipe.


2 tsp olive oil
6 oz ground lamb
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp paprika
1 1/2 c chopped onion
3/4 c chopped carrot
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3/4 c brown lentils
2 c chicken broth $
1 c water
3/4 c light coconut milk $
1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes
sour cream
fresh cilantro leaves



1. Heat a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add oil to pan; swirl. Add lamb and spices; sauté 4 minutes, stirring to crumble. Add onion and carrot; sauté 4 minutes or until lamb is browned. Add garlic; sauté 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in tomato paste; sauté 30 seconds.

2. Add lentils; sauté 30 seconds. Stir in broth and next 3 ingredients (through tomatoes); bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 40 minutes or until lentils are tender. Top each serving with sour cream and cilantro.

Modified from Cooking Stackpole Style, page 143
1 pkg Hershey's kisses (with almonds)
1 c sugar
1 c butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond flavoring (I think)
2 c flour
1 c pecans (or other nuts)

Beat butter, sugar, vanilla and almond extract until fluffy. Add flour and nuts. Chill dough for a few hours. Break off a piece of dough (walnut sized) and wrap around kiss (unwrapped beforehand). Continue until all dough has been used. Even with the smaller packages of kisses, I still had leftovers. Bake 10 to 12 minutes at 350 F.

Last week was mostly headache free. I was blaming that on my latest pill, but I'm headachy today. We'll see if this is last week was the new normal, or today is. But like I said earlier, I do have the increased appetite side effect. The combination of lack of headache fog and hunger leads to cooking.

I decided to try out some recipes for non-pie desserts for Thanksgiving. After brain storming, I decided I wanted to show off with phyllo dough (because it seems to impress people, but I am comfortable with it) and make some strudels. Except they all use only a portion of one roll, and that means one savory and two desserts.

The savory one started with a recipe and my memory of an amazing wild rice and duck savory I had in Madison a couple of Wiscon's ago. I altered the recipe by adding a couple of white mushrooms, some sliced shallots (fried in leftover chicken fat) and dried cranberries. For cheese I used parrano, because that was on sale at the cheese counter. I only added a third of the wild rice I made because it wouldn't fit. Oh, and I used Penzey's Mural of Flavor instead of Italian seasoning. If I was bringing it somewhere, I could easily make it layered in the casserole dish like I do with the spinach pastry.

For dessert, I made a raspberry and chocolate strudel. I followed the recipe mostly, swapping white chocolate for milk, since that's what we had. And skipped the zest, because I forgot to buy some.

I also made a gooseberry and cream cheese strudel. We have bags of gooseberries left in the freezer, so figured I should use some up. And I couldn't fit all the cream cheese mix in the strudel, so I should either split it among two strudels or make less next time.

So my second closest grocery store (Dillions, the Merc is closer, but only for fancy stuff) is being remodeled this summer. One of the changes has been that the Chinese takeout was replaced by a cheese counter. Which has lead to the buying of discount cheese whenever we're there. And after snacking on my favorites, we had a small amount of Provolone and Romano cheeses that I wanted to use up (so I can buy more gouda tomorrow). So as usual, I started googling for recipes. I wanted a vegetable side dish as we also had some steaks to grill. I settled on a recipe for provolone breakfast cakes, which I think is is some sort of variation of Okonomiyaki. Posting for future meals.

Provolone and Romano Cheese, 3 oz , shredded
Egg, fresh, 3 large
Summer Squash, 1 medium, shredded
Flour, white, .75 cup
1/4 cup (or 1/4th of a small onion) shredded
Salt , 1/2 teaspoon

Directions
Grate cheese (use either provolone or romano) into a medium-sized bowl. Add 3 large eggs and shredded medium squash. Shred your onion as well and add to the mixture and stir all together until all is nicely (evenly ) mixed. Add 3/4 cup flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt to taste. Mix all together.

Preheat pan a bit to med-high heat. For five servings, pour 1/5th of batter into a non-stick pan using non-stick spray to prevent sticking. Cook one at a time.

These cheesy egg "cakes" should turn a lovely golden to medium-dark brown--watch them and turn over when slightly firm (the egg portion) on top. continue to fry over medium heat nicely browned on both sides. Keep cake covered while cooking the entire time and to steam-cook squash.

Last weekend's Goat Cheese, Mushroom and Eggplant Pastry was very tasty, but the pork was edible. But the cooking urge was still strong last night, so decided to try a new recipe to cook while I was at work today. I found a recipe for sweet potatoes and chicken.. and altered it. As you do. Blogging now, because it was nommy enough that I will make again.

Orange Chicken (No actual oranges were used in this recipe).
5 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 carrots, sliced into 2 inch lengths
1 onion worth of dehydrated onions*

Place in bottom of crock.

2 leg quarters, split into leg and thigh**
1 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ginger
1/8 cayenne pepper

Mix spices and coat chicken with them. Place chicken into crock over vegetables.

3 small peaches, cut up
2 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp chicken stock

Place peaches over chicken, smooshing down so juice is released. Pour other liquids over mess. Cook on low for 10 hours (8 probably would have worked).

*You might be a cheapskate if you use an inherited dehydrated onions just because you have a jug of them
**Chicken legs are my favorite part of the bird, thighs are Lawnchair's, so we tend to buy bags of frozen leg quarters. Not quite to Jack Sprat levels, but it a couple has to find their compromises.

I successfully invented a recipe. I wanted to cook a special meal for Christmas, as we aren't doing much else for the holiday, so Lawnchair defrosted some ground lamb (bought cheap and frozen). I googled "ground lamb recipes", but was daunted by the variety of tasty looking choices. So I made something up.

1 lb ground lamb
1/2 onion (chopped)
3 cloves garlic
2 oz portabella mushrooms (sliced)
4 oz frozen peas.

Brown the ground lamb with onions and garlic. Add mushrooms at end. Take off heat. Add peas.

1/4 c butter
1 roll phyllo dough

Grease 9x9 pan (would have used my 9x13 pan, but cooked spinach pastry in that one). Layer the phyllo down layer by layer for half the dough, painting each with butter before laying the next down. Place the filling on top, then lay down the other half of the phyllo dough. Back at 375 for 45 minutes. Let cool and eat.