Charlie's Potato Soup

I made this soup last night for Charlie (he wanted me to get the canned stuff!!!). Now that I have a recipe he can make it himself!

 Charlie's Potato Soup 

1/4 to 1/3 lb bacon
1/3 to 1/2 large onion
6? medium potatoes
2 cups water
1/2 cup half and half

Fry the bacon on medium low until crispy. Add onion and cook until soft. Add the water and use the Cuisinart blender to mix all. This is tricky with so little water so if you can double the recipe it will help. Add potatoes and boil until soft. Add half and half and enjoy!

Swedish Wedding Meatballs

I plan to serve meatballs at the wedding reception. Maybe meatballs are an old fashioned idea but they remind me of the "good old days". Certainly the recipe I started with was retro- as it came out of the First Pres. Church cookbook from the 70's. The same recipe was submitted by 3 women and contained 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, allspice and mace. I looked on the internet and in cookbooks, some recipes called for 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg and allspice. I cut out the mace and then added it back in, I tried recipes with baking powder and ground pork not sausage. For weeks Gordon and Marielle have endured meatball recipes. Tonight Marielle said without any humor "I am not going to eat any more meatballs- I'm done."

I finally came up with the perfect combination (I hope!). If you come to the wedding you'll get a chance to tell me. Just so you know...Marielle couldn't help herself. She had a few meatballs tonight.

Swedish Wedding Meatballs

(for a crowd) 

2 eggs

1/2 cup cream

2 slices of good white bread, crust removed and torn into pieces

1 lb Jimmy Dean Natural Sausage

2oz finely chopped onion

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon mace

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1 lb 85% ground beef

Sauce:

1 cube butter

1/2 cup flour

1 can Swanson's chicken broth

1 1/2 cups half/half cream

1 teaspoons Lowery's seasoning

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

1-2 teaspoons Kitchen Bouquet 

Whisk the egg and cream together in a medium bowl. Add the bread and set aside. In a standing mixer beat the pork, onion, nutmeg, allspice, mace, pepper, salt and brown sugar on high for 2 minutes. Add the egg mixture after making sure it has no bread chunks remaining. Mix for 1 minute. Make sure the mixture is homogenous. Add the beef and stir until just mixed. Dip a tablespoon in a bowl of cold water and scoop out a generous tablespoon of mixture. Place it onto a broiling pan. Convection roast or bake the meatballs for 25 minutes. Add to the sauce.

Sauce: melt the butter, add the flour and cook for 1 minute. Add the rest and cook as you would a gravy. Add more liquid if the gravy is too thick.

Chicken Cacciatore

Chicken Cacciatore

2 Tb. olive oil
1 whole chicken cut up (breasts, thighs, drumsticks, wings)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 green bell pepper, thickly sliced
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 cup red wine
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 cans diced tomatoes
1. In a deep skillet heat olive oil. Season chicken with salt and pepper and add to pan, skin side down. Cook over medium heat, turning once, until lightly browned, about 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate.
2. Add the onion, peppers, and garlic and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 10 minutes. Pour in the wine and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes.
3. Add chicken stock and tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Return chicken to pan, skin side up, and bring to a simmer. Cover partially and cook over moderate heat for 45-60 minutes, until chicken is cooked and sauce is noticeably reduced. Serve over pasta or rice.

Chicken sausage sliders

I had Chicken Sausage Sliders at the Morning Glory restaurant in Ashland several months ago. They were so good that I emailed the restaurant to see if they were going to have them on special again.The chef replied back that she would put them on the menu anytime as long as I gave her a days warning. She also told me that they had water chestnuts, garlic, ginger, onion, oyster sauce and topped it with an Asian Slaw Sauce. Armed with that information here is my own version...after a few tries!.

Chicken Sausage Sliders

1 lb. Jimmy Dean Sausage
2lb. boneless chicken
can of water chestnuts or 1/4 of a jicama
2 tablespoons? of ginger
2 cloves of garlic
Grind the chicken or buy it ground, add the jicama, ginger and garlic when you grind. Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Asian Slaw

2 parts peanut butter

1 part oil

1 part sweet chili sauce

Mix and stir in thinly sliced and chopped cabbage, grated carrot and green onion. The cabbage mixture should be thickly coated with the peanut sauce. If not, add more sauce. 

Fry up the chicken sausage into patties and top with the Asian slaw. I like it either with or without a bun.

Change is good but I hate it!

Gordon is gone during the week now, Charlie will be leaving for college in Sept. I think I'm going to change this blog too. It's getting boring posting typical meals. When I create something interesting and new-- then I'll post it. 

On Saturday, Gordon and I found ourselves alone for dinner, so we cooked up some seafood. Gordon sauteed some scallops in lots of butter. I couldn't stand to throw out all the good scallop juice so I insisted in making a quick cream sauce. I think I put some kind of seasoning in it but I have to update that after I talk to Gordon.
Later I pan fried some very fresh snapper, dipped it in egg (with water) then in flour spiked with Tony Chachere's creole seasoning and smokey paprika.
I decided-- it doesn't matter what you do with seafood as long as it is fresh. Sorry I didn't take any photos. I was too busy enjoying the moment!

Veggie Chili

I made a regular chili (hamburger, sausage, some left over peperoni, left over pepper jack cubes, onions, a can of beans, tomato sauce) and added frozen corn and peas when it was done. It made it colorful.

Chef Salad

Waiting for dinner

oven fried chicken breast

Marielle's cone (from Tuesday)

Oven fried: one piece was sprinkled with Tony Chachere's Original Creole seasoning (while cooking). The other piece I drizzled honey mustard sauce on top (after cooked). I just made the honey mustard sauce for the first time and it tasted great.

Honey Mustard Sauce

about 1/3 cup honey

about 3 tablespoon stone ground mustard (think dijon)

2 squirts of french's mustard

left-overs

We need to clean out the frig!

BBQ chicken breasts

4th of July BBQ

Grandma's steak, she had to have another plate for the salads!

Charlie's creation

"I'm pretty old and have never had a homemade cone before"

Grandma and Gordon had T-bone steaks, Charlie and I had hamburgers and Marielle had chicken. Side dishes were bean salad and potato salad. Marielle made homemade cones so we finished it off with homemade ice cream in cones.

Marinated Bean Salad

1 can green beans
1 can garbanzo beans
1 can red kidney beans
Assorted red or orange sweet peppers and red onion to taste

Marinade:
1/4 cup of sugar
1/3 cup of oil
2/3 cup of vinegar (for this recipe I used 1/3 cup red wine vinegar and 1/3 cup white vinegar that had
tarragon added to it)
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon celery seed

Mix together drained beans, onion and peppers. Pour over mixed marinade. Let stand 1/2 day or overnight, stirring occasionally.

Vanilla Ice Cream

4 cups of 1/2 and 1/2

2 cups of whipping cream

2 Tablespoon vanilla

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sugar
Makes 1/2 gallon

Pizza night

at Zola's Pizzeria in Brookings Harbor.

Smokey Salmon

Marielle missed the BBQ salmon we had last week. She saw it on the blog and thought it looked good. So we had a repeat... and it was good the second time around. We had cherries Gordon picked up at a roadside stand in California.

 During dinner this buck tried to get a drink out of the pond filter puddle- even after I yelled at him. Gordon says he'll be on the menu this fall. I took this photo of him the day before. He has no fear at all.

Ham and cheese sandwiches

Timmy the Cat got to lick the turkey carcass clean. He thought he had died and gone to heaven.

Dinner at Grandma's

Marielle took these photos of dinner at Grandma B's. Marielle had the shrimp omelet and Mom and I had ham and beans with a shrimp salad on the side.

Turkey Soup

Roast Turkey

While our turkey was roasting in the oven a live turkey wandered through the yard eating bugs.
A little while later a doe showed up to take a nap in the shade of our tree. When I opened the window to take her picture she seemed to be saying- You woke me up!

munchies

I went grocery shopping and afterward we munched on fresh raspberries, lemon- ginger cookies, and bowls of Cheerios. Nobody was hungry for a real dinner.

Mexican salisbury steak?

Smokey Salmon Omelet