Cream of Mushroom Soup

Chris and I do our shopping on Sundays after church. I have found that often on Saturday I have a bunch of left over vegetables from the week that are about to expire. So I make what I call "Saturday Soup." I just throw all the vegetables in the Crockpot and hope it turns out well. Chris calls it "Wife Soup." Well one weekend I found that I had a whole lot of left over mushrooms and not much of anything else. So what do you do with a whole lot of mushrooms, some onions, a lemon and 1/2 cup of cream. I made cream of mushroom soup.  The really long vegetable in the picture is green onions. For some reason they are sold really big here and we usually have to fold them in half to make them fit in the vegetable drawer.

4 small green onions or 1 large, sliced

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 tsp thyme

1/4 cup of butter

2 lbs mushrooms, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons flour

3 cups chicken broth

1 cup of cream

Cook the onions, garlic, lemon and thyme in the melted butter until the garlic is golden, about 1 minute. 

Add the mushrooms, salt and pepper. Cook until the mushrooms are soft about 2 minutes. 

Add the flour and cook for another minute, stirring constantly. 

Remove from heat and add the broth. Return to the heat and cook on low for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Wisk in the cream, heat until warm. Do not let it boil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve. 

Roast Chicken

The flavor in this chicken was amazing. I didn't have fresh herbs so I used dried and it still came out great. 

Ingredients

1 roasting chicken

Salt

Black pepper

2 tablespoons dried thyme or 1 large bunch fresh thyme, plus 20 sprigs

1 lemon, halved

6 pieces of garlic

2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter, melted

1 large yellow onion, thickly sliced

4 carrots cut into 2-inch chunks

2 tables spoons dried fennel or 1 bulb of fennel, tops removed, and cut into wedges

Olive oil

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Remove the chicken giblets. Rinse the chicken inside and out. Salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Stuff the cavity with ½ the thyme, lemon, and garlic. Brush the outside of the chicken with the butter and sprinkle again with salt and pepper. Place the onions, carrots, and fennel in a roasting pan. Toss with salt, pepper, 1 tablespoon thyme, and olive oil. Spread around the bottom of the roasting pan and place the chicken on top.

Roast the chicken for 1 1/2 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh. Remove from oven and cover with aluminum foil for about 20 minutes. 

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Stuffed Acorn Squash

2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 large Acorn Squash
4 cloves of garlic
1 med onion, chopped
1 lb hamburger
1 lb mushrooms
1 med zucchini
1/2 cup red peppers, diced
1 (15oz) can of diced tomatoes, undrained
1 tablespoon thyme
1 tablespoon curry
pinch of nutmeg
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a 9x9 pan add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Place squash skin side up. I sliced off a thin layer of the bottom of my squash so that it would sit flat when I stuffed it. Add 1 inch of water. Cover and bake for 30 minutes.

Stuffing:
While the squash is baking brown hamburger with garlic and onions.  When the hamburger is brown and the onions are translucent, add peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, thyme, curry and nutmeg. Cook down then add diced tomatoes.

When the squash is done, turn them face side up and stuff with stuffing. Place back in the oven and cook for 15 to 20 minutes until the squash and vegetables are soft and ready to eat.

If you have left overs of the stuffing it is great over pasta for a second meal.

Coffee Cake

Coffee Cake

1 cup butter (room temperature)

2 cups white sugar

4 eggs

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 cups sour cream or plain yogurt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar*

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon nutmeg

1/4 cup butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch pan. I rub butter along the bottom and the sides. Then I use my fingers to rub the butter into the edges where the cube could not reach.

Combine the flour, baking soda, and baking powder; set aside.

In a separate bowl, combine the confectioners' sugar, brown sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. (This is the sugar mixture)

In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar, butter and eggs until smooth. Stir in the sour cream/yogurt and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and beat until smooth. 

Spread half of the batter into the 9x13 inch pan. Sprinkle a layer of the sugar mixture, then spread the remaining batter and top with the rest of the sugar mixture. Spread the melted butter over the top.

Bake for 1 hour  in the preheated oven, until cake springs back to the touch, or if you insert a tooth pick or chop stick in the exact middle it comes out clean.

Let the cake rest for at least 10 minutes before serving. While the cake is cooling is the perfect time to make a pot of coffee to go with it.

* I didn't have confectioners' sugar so I blended white sugar in a blender until it was powdery.

Banana Bread

When I visit my sister Regina she often says "Sis, I have some old bananas, please make me some banana bread." The bread is the best answer for those last few bananas that are over ripe. Don't throw them away. Make this banana bread or peel them and place them in the freezer until you are ready to make the bread.

Ingredients:

3 or 4 ripe bananas, mashed

1/3 cup melted butter

1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350°f (175°c). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Makes one loaf. You can freeze this bread and reheat it later. It makes a great snack. Sometimes we will eat it for breakfast. 

Baked Roast and Vegetables

1 Roast

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 lbs of sliced potatoes

2 sliced carrots

4 chopped garlic cloves

Season salt

Brown the roast on all sides in the olive oil to lock in the juices. Place in a 9 x 13 baking dish. Add chopped onions, carrots and garlic. Sprinkle with season salt. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 1 hour. 

Green Beans and Mushrooms

Chris and I are trying to add vegetables into our diet. He gave me a funny  look when I grabbed the giant bag of frozen green beans at Costco for Thanksgiving. Then one night he brilliantly came up with this simple recipe that we both love.

1 lb of frozen green beans
1 package of giant mushrooms, sliced into large chunks
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons of season salt

Heat oil in frying pan, add mushrooms and green beans. Heat on medium until mushrooms are done. Add season salt to taste.

This recipe is great served with Skillet Salmon

Home Made Tortillas

1/4 cup butter

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup hot water

Blend the softened butter with the flour until it looks like the consistancy of cornmeal. Add the salt. Pour in the hot water a little at a time until you have the right consistency. (Doughy but not sticky). At this point you could let it sit for 20 mintutes, but that is optional.

Seperate the dough into six balls. Take each ball one at a time and roll it out on the counter. Make sure you place plenty of flour under the dough and on the rolling pin. (If you don't have a rolling pin use a clean bottle in your cabnit). As you are rolling out the dough, flip the dough and roll it out until it is the shape you want. You want to get them as thin as possible with out it ripping.

Once the dough is rolled out, place them one at a time into a hot skillet. Turn constantly until the tortilla is slightly brown like the picture above.

These are real easy to make but make a big mess, so I like to make a double batch and use them for several recipes. Tortillas freeze well.

White Girl Enchiladas

I love Enchiladas. It used to be that at every Mexican resturant I would order chicken enchiladas with red sauce. The red sauce started giving me heart burn however, so I found a great recipe for green sauce enchiladas. Then I moved to Korea and cannot find enchilada sauce. I was delighted on a recent trip back to America when my friend Laura served us enchiladas in white sauce. I could eat them without them eating me and I could find most of the ingredients in Korea.

Due to the ingredients I had available I had to modify almost every ingredient in her original recipe, but this is what I did.

2 cups chicken or turkey
360 grams of plain yogurt (or one container of sour cream)
1 envelope of cream of mushroom soup
1 1/2 cups of water
1 cup of milk
9 or 10 tortillas (click her for my homemade tortilla recipe)
Lots of cheddar cheese

Bring the soup and liquids to a boil in a sauce pan. Stir the mixture until most of the lumps are out.
Add in the chopped meat and yogurt/sour cream.

You will layer the pan like you would for lasagna. Place some sauce on the bottom to keep the enchiladas from sticking to the pan. Then layer tortillas, sauce, and cheese, repeat tortillas, sauce then cheese two more times or until your pan is full.

Bake at 400 for 40 minutes.

The next time I make this, I will make it in the crockpot and see how long it takes.

If you are cooking this meal in America you may want to follow Laura's original recipe instead of mine:

3 lbs. cubed boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked

1 container of sour cream

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can cream of mushroom

1 8oz. can diced green chili's 

soft tortilla shells

shredded cheddar cheese

combine chicken, sour cream, cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, and green chili's in a bowl. In a baking dish, spread a thin layer of sauce on the bottom to prevent sticking, on the top of the sauce layer tortilla shells until covering sauce. Then add another layer of sauce and top with cheese. On top of the cheese add another layer of tortilla shells. Then add a layer or sauce, and top with more cheese. Bake, covered, at 350 for 40-45 minutes.

Be careful when buying yogurt in Korea. I use plain yogurt instead of sour cream because it is cheaper and I can buy it in smaller quantities. This time we accidently bought the wrong yogurt so our enchiladas had a sweet taste to them. Since I was using turkey it reminded me of cranberry sauce. 

Cinnamon Rolls - Easy

I love fresh baked cinnamon rolls. However I don't have much patience to deal with yeast. So I am thankful to my friend Cheri who made me cinnamon rolls one day that did not require yeast. Here is a recipe I adapted from ehow.com. If you go to their website you can see their step by step pictures. I am only posting the pictures I took of my rolls..


Read more: How to make easy Cinnamon rolls in 10 minutes | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_4686415_make-easy-cinnamon-rolls-minutes.html#ixzz15xkWGzKB

These are what they looked like fresh out of the oven before I put the glaze on. I don't own a cookie sheet so I used two glass pans. They fit perfectly into my roaster oven. I used the wire rack from my toaster oven as a cooling rack.

 Things You'll Need:

DOUGH

2 cups of white flour

3 teaspoons baking power

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 cup of butter (softened)

2/3 cup milk

FILLING

3 Tablespoons melted butter

1/4 cup of white sugar

1/4 cup of brown sugar

3 teaspoons of cinnamon

3 teaspoons of nutmeg (Optional)*

GLAZE

1/3 cup packed powdered sugar**

1 Tablespoon milk

1. Assemble all ingredients, big mixing bowl, measuring cup and spoon. Getting all your supplies together, makes for quick mixing. I measured out the dry ingredients first and set them aside because I only have one measuring cup.

2. DOUGH - Sift and mix all dry ingredients.

3. Add the butter to the flour mix. Mix with a fork or beaters until it is the consistency of cornmeal.

4. Add milk, the amount of milk tends to vary. Add until dough makes a soft ball, with a little dry flour mixture around the ball.

5. Roll out on a floured board, in a rectangular shape. Dough should be about 1/4" thick. Spread melted butter all over the top of the rolled dough.

6. FILLING- Mix the dry filling ingredients and spread them over the melted butter.

7. Roll the cinnamon buns,starting from the longest side, lengthwise. Roll tightly all the way up, slightly pinching the edges together.

8. Use a piece of dental floss or a sharp knife and cut the roll into 1" slices. I cut some thick and some thin. We decided that we like the thicker rolls better because they are soft in the middle.

9. Put on a greased cookie sheet, with about 1/2" between each cinnamon roll. Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes, or until slightly brown on the top.

10. After the cinnamon rolls have cooled, add a white icing to the top. Serve slightly warm and enjoy!

*Nutmeg is not in the original recipe I added it because Chris always asks for nutmeg whenever I add cinnamon and sugar to something.

** I did not have powdered sugar, but that is not a problem. I just took regular sugar and blended it in the blender.