A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Presto Pasta Nights #45: Split Pea/Alphabet Pasta Soup

For the lovely Ruth at Once Upon a Feast's weekly Presto Past Nights blogging event, I made soup. Again. But really, can you ever eat enough soup?  It's filling. It's good for you. It's comforting.  That's a win-win.  This time it's a little difficult to see my pasta so I'll show another pic. 

Not only does this soup have split peas and alphabet pasta in it, it also has yellow and brown lentils, wild rice, and barley. Then, when I made it I added onion, carrot, green and red pepper, and celery which makes it vegetarian.  I haven't decided to go exactly back to strict vegetaranism but I have decided to make most of my meals non-meat. I have to have a little wiggle room for seafood and the occasional steak.  It's like any diet. Once I say "absolutely no more of that food will ever be consumed by me again" is the exact moment when I can think of nothing else and would walk on a bed of nails on my knees to get that, so knowing myself, I'm saying that I will eat much less meat than ever before.

Just FYI,  I didn't put all of those peas, lentils, rice, pasta, etc., together but I was glad when I saw it at the Amish Store in Branson and will be buying more.  They have several dried bean/pea soup mixes that are just wonderful. With the veggies I can saute at home and herbs I can add myself, it's a full but quick meal to put together.

The mixes can also be ordered directly online from The Amish Country Store.  Most of the products are made by Missouri Amish families.

Thanksgiving turkey redux: Turkey Orzo Soup

I can't believe it's been a week since I've posted!  Man, that just shows you what working the weekend and having a bad cold will do for you--makes you a lazy bones!  I've almost literally done nothing but work, sleep, and whine the last week.  I've had my cold since Thanksgiving and somewhere along the line I wasn't careful enough and gave it to Gene, who I think is sicker than I am, although I whine louder and you know what that means: the squeaky wheel is the bigger pain in the butt.

But we're finally both feeling a little better so I have no excuses but to get back to my life including cooking tonight instead of ordering out and today, with God as my witness, I will be working on my novel. That back-up cd hasn't seen the light of day in at least a couple of weeks and I originally promised myself it would be finished by the end of the year which is fastly approaching. Sigh.

But before I pull that out, let me tell you real quick about the soup I made the other night that was, as Mr Food says "Oooooohhhh, so good!", and another pasta soup for Ruth's weekly Presto Pasta Nights.  Check her blog on Friday to see this weeks round up! 

Thanksgiving Leftovers: Turkey Pasta Soup

Ruth over at Once Upon a Feast hosts a great weekly food event called Presto Pasta Nights.  She posts a round up every Friday of the previous week's great pasta dishes. 

I'm getting back into the groove of  pasta night with my turkey leftovers in a pasta soup last night.  It's all about the broth, comforting in its turkey goodness with an attention-getting mix of pasta shapes to devour.

One of the interesting little secrets about this soup was that I followed Gene's initiative and spooned it over some leftover dressing from Thanksgiving.  It may sound odd but it's really yummy, giving the soup just an extra weight and oomph, turning it from "just soup" into a full meal for Gene.

Home-made Noodles post Halloween

Mmmmm...fat, succulent home-made noodles just like Mom taught me.  Nothing better for these chilly fall evenings.  Now if those bums that call myself my family had saved me any on Halloween I wouldn't have had to cook a second batch! Kidding.  I did make a huge pot of chicken and home-made noodles for Halloween night but I'm nothing but flattered that they were all gone that evening.  Funny, and one of my brothers had even brought his own plastic to-go containers to scam leftovers with. Sorry, Kenneth!

So last night, Gene had home-made noodles AGAIN but this time I chose to make beef and noodles to give him a little different taste sensation.

What can I say? They hit the spot! 

I love this recipe because even though my mother and I had a rocky relationship most of my life, we were a good team in the kitchen. As I've said before, my mother was a wonderful cook and an outstanding baker. She had a cake decorating business out of our home and I was drafted at an early age, as the oldest daughter of five kids, to be her sous chef and dishwasher. As I aged I graduated in my duties in Mom's kitchen to being her baker, assistant decorator, and the fill-in chef for family dinners. That's where the noodles come in. They're not hard at all but writing down the recipe is. You know how it is with recipes you've made for years, so long and so naturally that you no longer measure anything or think about what you're doing.  It's the same with this but Halloween afternoon when I made them, I did try to pay attention and write down the details: 

Pampered Chef Party-- A Success!

I'll show some people pics later but I'll be honest they didn't come out well.  You know how we food bloggers are, we can capture the essence of cheese but not of Charles.  So hey, let's not feel bad about doing what we do better or best, right?

So for food pics, here's one of the overall food table:

Starting at the loaf of bread cake at top and going clockwise:  vegetable skewers, spinach dip, olives stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes, pepperoni bread, cheese, homemade-ish onion dip, and crackers. On the stove was a pot of homemade Chicken Noodle soup.  That seemed to go over well. I made 5 quarts and when everyone had left there was only one medium-ish individual bowl left of mostly broth.  My chicken noodle soup recipe can be found HERE.  Funny, the last time I served it was at a girls' night party. Hmmm...I have to rememeber it always goes over well.

The one sort of funny thing is that most of the veggies skewers weren't eaten.  Several people commented that they thought they were beautiful but I can't figure out if no one wants to be the guy to dismantle it, or what?  If anyone from the party is reading, let me know what you were thinking.  This is my favorite way to make a veg tray but when I do people always make a point of oohing and ahhing but not of eating. 

Directions for the veggie bucket set-up after the jump.

The cake:

From another angle:

I liked it once I got the whole thing finished and all of the stuff set up around it.  It's funny because I only see the flaws and all the trouble I had with it but a couple of people who were there didn't realize at first it was a cake and not a loaf of bread. That made my night!

With the exception of the salt cellar on the right, everything you see in this pic (okay except the platter and lines) is made of sugar. The cake is coconut layer cake with coconut buttercream filling, covered in fondant and hand-painted with a pastry brush.  The utensils to the left are sculpted from gumpaste.

Here's a close up of the vegetable skewers. This is my favorite way to make a vegetable tray--vertical!

Everyone just left. Everyone seemed to have a good time. Hope so. I know I did.  After the main presentation part of the Pampered Chef demonstration was over we basically sat and yacked about everything from eating rabbit and squirrels to Paris Hilton and her constant flashing of her squirrel. It was a bit of a running theme.

My friend Jennifer brought me knock off Paris Hilton perfume.  Ahhhhh, how much I loved it! Really. It's fun.  I love the thought of wearing the version she makes no money from.  Hee.  Jenn, you did mean for me to keep that, right?  Uhhhh, if not drop me an email. I just sort of assumed.

Ashley did a great job with the presentation and made fabulous Jerk (no men involved in case you were wondering like some of the rest of us) Chicken Salad.

Here's Ashley:

More tomorrow along with recipes for the coconut cake. Recipes are now posted. Click below. Also, there are more personal pics from the party on my personal blog, G's Spot.

UPDATE ON SHER'S CAKE:  UPS shows the cake as being scanned and leaving Springfield on the big jet 15 minutes ago and is scheduled to be on time for delivery by 10:30am in the morning. So far so good! Sher will let us all know the minute it arrives and what shape it showed up in.

UPDATE AGAIN ON SHER'S CAKE:  UPS shows it loggin in at midnight in the Kentucky depot and still listed for on time delivery.

LAST UPDATE BEFORE DELIVERY:  Sher's cake was logged in and then out again from Mather CA between 5am and 5:30am, then it arrived in West Sacramento at 7:05 and was then logged in at the truck for deliver by 7:15am this morning.  Wow. I'm impressed. 

UPDATE UPDATE:  It ARRIVED!  Go to www.whatdidyoueat.typepad.com to see Sher's reaction!

My 3-Bean Soup and Dr. Respiratory Love's 2 Soups: White Chili and Rip-Your-Butt

This is my 3-Bean soup with ham:

Made specifically for two reasons:

1) Went to get a massage and facial at 4pm so I knew I wouldn't be in the mood to cook.  This went in the crockpot at 12noon on high.

2) For Cyndi of Cooking with Cyndi's Thursday Soup or Stew event.  Check in with Cyndi to see her round of delicious and warming soups. She had several wonderful looking entrees last week.

And then there's Dr. Respiratory Love and his soups:

                        

By the way, Chris, turn around so we can see what the back of the aprons says...

(Psst...you think he'll fall for it?)

I love that he took me at my word and started putting pics of his food on his blog, here.

Take a look at the pics here and then jump over there to get his recipes.  You did great, Chris!

On the left, Cheesy White Chicken Chili, that I'm pretty sure was our friend, Corey's, recipe that we used to make 10(?) gallons of for Sertoma Chili Cookoff our last semester in Respiratory school (so much fun!) And on the right:  Rip-Your-Butt soup with plenty of....kicking...power.  Again, Chris has posted those recipes on his site. I've had both. They're wonderful!

Look Cyndi, 3 recipes for the "price" of one, plus a beefcake shot...hey now, am I there for you, girlfriend, or what?

You Guys "Done Good"

Aunt Miranda thinks I paid all of you to leave comments wanting her veggie beef soup recipe. Ha!  Yeah, like I'm really going to mail all those quarters. Dream on.  :-)

But guess what?

She did it! She wrote it out and we have it now. Right here on these pages.  The secret ingredient is:

Vegetable Beef Soup Warms You Up on Cold Days

With temps in the 30's most days, my bones feel chilled most of the time even with the furnace running.  I think it's more pshychological than physical so I needed something to make my head feel warm.  The answer? Soup. Something hearty and beefy to "thicken the blood".  Beef vegetable soup fits that need.

On a side note, let's see if we can encourage (in the comment section) Aunt Miranda to divulge her Beef Vegetable Soup recipe and maybe even a photo.  She has a killer veggie soup that is not one of those "clean out your fridge" recipes and it has a somewhat secret ingredient.  It's one of those subtle things where you say "This is the best veggie soup I've ever had...but I can't quite pinpoint why..."  And then when she tells you, you're like "Ohhhhhhhhhh yeeeeeeeeeeeeeahhh....I can taste that now. Normally I hate those but they taste great in this."  If you guys can whine, weedle, and wade your way into her heart (or guilt), I'll post her soup as soon as she sends me the recipe and pic.  Deal?

Seasoned with bay leaf and fresh rosemary, the soup is my addition to Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen's weekly herb blogging event.  Check in with Kalyn to view the round up all of the herby dishes being cooked this week.

Doctor's Kitchen Monday: Carrot, Chickpea, and Barley Soup with Tofu

I found this soup recipe in Shape Magazine this month and it really intrigued me. I've never thought of carrot or chickpea soup, let alone putting them together.  Along with the barley, just reading the recipe made me feel healthier and in the need of going to the gym to complete the day. So I did, right after I made the soup for mine and Gene's lunch.  It was excellent, deceptively hearty with tons of flavor. I confess, though, I did monkey, or monkAy as Jeff at C for Cooking says, around with the recipe a bit.  After my initial tasting, I decided I really needed a better bottom note to round out the flavor and got what I was looking for by adding a tsp of curry to the mix.  I also needed a little more protein since I'm chronically anemic and am constantly being reminded by my primary care doc to "eat more meat". Yeah, whatever.  Tofu works for me in this case.  As a side note, if you substituted vegetable stock for the chicken stock and left off the parmesan garnish, the recipe would be vegan.

  This is also my entry for Alanna of A Veggie Venture's "Soup, Glorious Soup" blogging event for the month of February, celebrating the warmth and nourishing qualities of soup. I heartily agree!  Nothing takes the chill off winter like a good bowl of soup. Check in with Alanna throughout the month to see the updated menu of soups being celebrated.

Got a cold? Got the flu? Manischewitz to the rescue!

Mmmmm....Matzo Ball soup...that's the ticket. It will surely cure what ails you. Simple, easy to digest, one of the simple things in life and full of chickeny stock goodness with a touch of fresh dill.  It the soothes the savage beast within me that screams "Why am I STILL FREAKING SICK??!!"  I don't know either but I'm really tired of this stuff.  Is everyone on the planet still sick with this respiratory stuff? I've had antibiotics and prednisone and, yet, I'm still coughing like a maniac.  Yowza.  Oh well. Enough complaining. For the moment.

This is my addition to Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen's Weekend Herb Blogging Event, being Hosted this week by  Coffeepot at Coffee & Cornbread. Clicke to see all the herby recipes in her round-up later this week.