Cream of Fresh Tomato Soup with Parmesan Toasts

Today we warmed up with soup and toast for lunch. We had split opinions on the soup: David liked it and Kimberly thought it lacked a depth of flavor. Though allowing the toast to sit in the soup like a sponge before eating, really hit the spot for both of us. We'd love to try making the soup in summer when tomatoes are at their peak, and maybe tinker with the recipe a bit, too. The parmesan toasts will be a go-to recipe with soup or pasta.

Eat Well,

Kimberly and David

Easy Sticky Buns

Sunday morning seemed like the perfect time to break out a new baked good recipe. Neither of us had worked with puff pastry before and found it far easier than fillo dough. These were amazingly sweet (we omitted the raisins and pecans which may cut some of that, or not) but good.

Our three local taste testers loved them, one claiming they were the best sticky buns he'd ever had. When we make them again we need to keep a better eye on the oven. 30 minutes was too long for our little buns; most baking takes longer at this altitude, which is why we neglected to check on them much.

Eat Well,

Kimberly and David

Roasted Potato Leek Soup

We made this soup earlier in the month but were sorely disappointed with our food styling capabilities through the process. We give mad props to our coauthors of this blog, as we are striving to photograph like you...practice makes perfect (someday, we hope). The soup was so great, we were not at all phased by the prospect of remaking it and enjoyed it even more the second time around (when we had the creme fraiche to add).

This might be our new favorite cold weather dinner. It's thick and so comforting. Without some self control, and the expectation of a late evening guest's arrival (kim's sister), we could have eaten the entire pot. A lactose intolerant friend laughed at our mmmmm's, oooooh's, and awwww's as we swallowed every bite.

The roasting of the ingredients really makes this recipe easy. We'll have it on our go-to meal list throughout future Fall and Winter seasons for sure.

Eat well,

Kimberly and David

Happy Thanksgiving

I would love to eat Ina's Roasted Turkey Roulade today! I may have to make it once we return from visiting family for the long weekend...

Hope you all have a delicious, wonderful Thanksgiving.

Stephanie

I did quite a bit of cooking and eating last month - 'tis the season, right? Apparently I was so busy cooking and eating that I never got a chance to post! But enough of the excuses.
I really enjoyed cooking from Ina Garten's Back to Basics. When I saw the easy sole meuniere on page 130 I knew I wanted to try it. I was inspired to make this recipe by Julia Child's account in the book, My Life in France, of her first meal after arriving in France with her husband in 1948. She was so absolutely delighted by the sole meuniere:

"...after consulting the waiter Paul had decided to order sole meuniere. It
arrived whole: a large, flat Dover sole that was perfectly browned in a
sputtering butter sauce with a sprinkling of chopped parsely on top. The waiter
carefully placed the platter in front of us, stepped back, and said: "Bon
appetit!"

I closed my eyes and inhaled the rising perfume. Then I lifted a forkful of
fish to my mouth, took a bite, and chewed slowly. The flesh of the sole was
delicate, with a light but distinct taste of the ocean that blended marvelously
with the browned butter. I chewed slowly and swallowed. It was a morsel of
perfection."

It seems this may have been the very moment that Julia Child fell in love with French cuisine! Her description of the sole meuniere put me right there at the table with her at the restaurant La Couronne and I wanted to recreate the flavor of that first perfect bite.

I planned to prepare this dish for four people and purchased six fillets, thinking that would be more than enough for four servings. After I began preparing dinner I noticed that the recipe only serves two with two fillets per person. At that point I did not want to go back to the store though so I just went ahead with the meal preparation.

This meal was super easy to prepare and the bubbling brown butter and lemon juice made the kitchen smell amazing! The sole fillets were incredibly tender and so light and flaky that turning them over as they cooked in the pan was a very delicate process but I managed to do so successfully and only broke a peice off of one - not bad!
I must say, that the sole turned out really nice. Each tender bite was a close-your-eyes, melt-in-your-mouth, morsel of lemon and butter kissed yumminess!

To go along with the sole meuniere, I made the oven-roasted vegetables (pg 171). One of the reasons I chose this as a side dish is because I adore the way that oven-roasting brings out the flavor of vegetables. This particular recipe uses fingerling potatoes, green beans, fennel and asparugus. I chose to leave out the asparagus since I associate it with spring time and would prefer to use it when it is at its seasonal peak. Shaving parmesan cheese over the tender, roasted veggies and letting it melt for the last two minutes in the oven made this side dish extra special. The melted parmesan cheese became lightly crisp after it came out of the oven and began to cool and it added a sweet, nutiness to the vegetables. Also, if you have never roasted fennel, I would highly recommend it. The sweet, carmelized licorice-y essence of the fennel really complimented the potatoes and green beans!

bon appetit!

Tempa

Homemade Chicken Stock becomes Italian Wedding Soup

I have to say, sorry Steph, but I am way more excited about Back to Basics then A Platter of Figs! I browsed through the cookbook and found so many simple and beautiful recipes that I know I will be trying lots of them. It felt way more accessible I think because I use tons of the ingredients that are in the recipes already.

I have always wanted to make my own stock so when I saw the recipe on page 61 I knew I was going to make it. I went to Target and got a 16 quart stock pot then to the grocery store to get the veggies and chickens. I already had tons of those nifty plastic containers at home so I knew this adventure was meant to be. I spent all day Saturday in the kitchen, it was amazing! I washed veggies, chopped them up, placed the chickens in the pot, nestled all the veggies and herbs around then poured in the water. It was fun taking pictures of the food for this blog...I felt like a real food photographer LOL. Wow was that stock pot full to the brim when everything was in!! I could only find a 16 quart pot and perhaps a 20 quart pot would have been better....I could not fit in the last onion it was soooo full!! I brought the stock to a boil....It did spill over some because it was so full. It made some pretty impressive sounds and bubbles as the chickens and veggies settled and softened over the 4 hours. My house was filled with an amazing fresh and delicious aroma : )

I knew that I did not want to just make the stock and that be the end of it....I wanted to try that delicious stuff right away! Italian Wedding Soup pg 72 was a perfect choice. 1) because most of the ingredients in the stock are in the soup so I just had to buy a little bit extra it made shopping easy and cheap...so many veggies!!. 2) because I knew I would really be able to taste the essence of the stock as it was the stand out ingredient in the soup! As the stock was simmering away I mixed and rolled out the mini meatballs, super cute!! I cut and prepped all my soup veggies(I opted for kale rather than spinach because I love the intense earthy flavor and hearty texture for soups better than spinach) and waited for my stock to be done!!

When the stock was done I used a ladle to scoop it out of the stock pot and pour it through a tight mesh colander into a glass liquid measuring cup. Then I poured from the measuring cup into my containers. There was no picking up that whole pot and pouring it into anything...disaster for sure! This was the easiest method for me : ) It made 4 full quart containers plus enough to make my soup that night!! It was a delicious pot of soup, I highly recommend this recipe. I only made half the amount and it fed me and my husband for 2 nights!

The stock that I did not use right away I refrigerated, then scraped off the fat layer the next day and put them in the freezer. Now I have stock ready for the holidays. I left one in the fridge and last night I made smashed yukon gold potatoes and mixed in the homemade stock...soooo yummy. One comment when the stock cools it is pretty thick...not like the stuff at the store. I would say before you mix it up it is almost like half set jello...freaked me out a little but if you mix it up well it is not as weird. It smells and tastes amazing...worth the effort. I will be making it again!

Amy

Homemade Pesto

Friday night we had our first dinner party in our new little rental home. We made the roasted butternut squash salad with warm cider vinaigrette (page 88) and the pesto (page 44). We decided to follow Steph's advice and halve the olive oil in the salad dressing, which worked very well. Everyone really enjoyed the meal and our guests kept complementing the food.

The salad will be a must have in the fall...we really loved it. Basil is at its best in the summertime, so we'll keep the recipe on hand and look forward to making the pesto from our own garden in 6 months or so.

Eat well,

Kimberly and David

In the Kitchen with the Barefoot Contessa

Photographs by Barbara Liberman via GOOP

Last week Gwyneth Paltrow's blog GOOP (which I totally LOVE!) featured a cooking bit with Ina Garten. Though they were cooking from Ina's new book, I still thought it'd be great to share the adventure of these 2 lovely ladies in the kitchen making goodies such as homemade ricotta.
Also, you can check out Ina creating the dishes from our monthly pick in her kitchen here.

Stephanie

blueberry sans-streusel muffins

French Toast Friday (unofficially) turned into a morning of muffins. I had planned all week to make Ina's Blueberry Streusel Muffins and awoke early, ready to get baking. I love to bake, especially when I can take my time and have no agenda for the day. Since Brian has class on Friday mornings my grand plan was to make muffins, sip my coffee and spend a leisurely morning watching a movie with my kitteh. And so I did. It was wonderful.

In order to make these easy, delicious, buttermilk muffins a bit more breakfast friendly, I opted to forgo the streusel topping (too much butter!!) and just added a sprinkle of raw sugar to give the top a little sparkle and a gentle crunch. I had actually forgotten that my initial intentions were to halve the recipe, since I had only 1 cup of blueberries on hand and proceeded to make a whole batch... so I decided to split the batter just short of adding the berries and came up with another muffin: cinnamon banana. I know that sounds a bit odd, but I was pulling inspiration from my favorite Mexican ice cream topping. They turned out pretty yummy, and filled the room with an amazing smell.

The movie was great, coffee warm, kitteh cuddly and the muffins oh-so-good.

Stephanie

roasted butternut squash salad with warm cider vinaigrette

I purchased our new cookbook and made this meal the next day (Halloween night exactly... we decided to stay in and eat, go figure!). I had a butternut squash on hand, originally planning on turning it into a velvety soup, but after seeing this wonderful recipe, decided to alter my course of action. There were a few preparation steps, but completely manageable any night of the week. I liked the different flavors of the roasted squash, toasted walnuts, dried cranberries, and shaved parmesan coming together, bathed in a warm cider dressing. When I next prepare this (it may make an appearance on our Thanksgiving table) I will opt to use only half the amount of olive oil, though. I felt the excess oil drowned out some of the zippiness of the cider and vinegar.

For dessert I made these fun Pumpkin Whoopie Pies. I had never had a whoopie pie prior to this, so I didn't really know what to expect. They were super moist and it was more like eating two muffin tops with frosting smashed in between... not a bad way to end the evening.

Stephanie

November Cookbook - Back to Basics with Ina

Hello, Claire here. True confession - I was a major October slacker. I think the most frequent thing that I prepared in the Rhoads Abode was Trader Joe's organic spaghetti O's. You may judge me, now. We've just been so busy with work. BUT, that is partially why I chose this month's cookbook:

Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics: Fabulous Flavor from Simple Ingredients

I've always been drawn to Ina Garten's laid back yet classy style. I also like her view on food - let fabulous ingredients do the flavor talking! I want to get back to basics with simple but flavor-packed recipes.

In fact... I think I may run to the grocery store to prepare now!

Enjoy. :)

Orecchiette al Forno-sorry to be late : )

A Platter of Figs was an overwhelming cookbook for me. Everything sounded amazing and I agree that some of the ingredients seemed way out there and way out of my skill level. I was inspired by the recipes my fellow bloggers made. You helped me realize that there is something in here I can make, so thank you. I do not usually use recipes when I cook, just fly by the seat of my pants, so I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to do. It already feels like winter up here in Humboldt County so when I saw the pasta recipe on pg 260 in the Winter Menu section it really caught my eye. I love sausage and greens so that also helped me make my decision. I have used orecchiette in the past, but of course I went to 2 different supermarkets and no one had it in stock so I had to use some rotini I already had on hand. Also could not find rapini...probably because it is not in season yet LOL I felt like I was missing the whole point of the book but I went with spinach because it looked beautiful. I wish we had a Whole Foods here!!!

The pasta dish turned out really well even with the substitution of ingredients. I also cut the recipe in half because 2 llbs of pasta could feed an army! It was hearty, earthy and spicy and I cant complain about that combination. I also wish I could have found some fresh ricotta. I have never had it before and wonder if it would have made the dish creamier. I would say that was the main texture it was missing. I did not make my own sausage either. I opted for a hot pork sausage since I love spicy food and it still had a fennel flavor.

Thanks all you really inspired me with your well written posts and amazing skills. Sorry to be late on this post. I am really excited for Ina : ) : )

Dinner for a Tuscan

Yes, it’s November 1st but I cooked this meal last night, promise! I’m a procrastinator by nature… but I also did not find myself inspired by a platter of figs. I sat with it in my lap numerous nights trying to figure out what I wanted to cook. I felt intimidated by many of the ingredients: liver, pig’s ear, duck breast. The palate of the Bonura house is just not that fancy!

This cookbook is organized to cook with the seasons so it was important to me to find something within the fall menus. With the end of October happening this last weekend I finally settled on menu seventeen: Dinner for a Tuscan. I had big plans to cook the entire menu: green lasagna with greens, bistecca with fried artichokes and potatoes and castagnacia. I’m currently training for a half marathon and after completing10 miles on Sunday... there was no energy left to cook an entire menu. I decided to simplify: bistecca and for dessert sheep’s milk cheese with membillo (from a winter menu).

We headed to Whole Foods for the ingredients. We try not to eat very much meat and when we do eat meat we spend the extra money for the organic stuff. Since it’s just two of us, I had to significantly adjust the recipe as it originally made enough to serve 8-10. I couldn’t find baby artichokes so I took home small artichokes. Then we stopped by the cheese counter for our sheep’s milk cheese and membrillo. If you haven’t ever stopped to chat the with cheese dudes at Whole Foods, do it the next time you are there. They are happy to share their knowledge and slice up samples. We chose all Basque cheeses since I’m Basque: Petit Agour, Idiazabel and Abbaye De Bel’Loc.

The bistecca was a much simpler recipe than I had anticipated. Chris heated the grill (and singed all his arm hairs, sorry honey!) while I prepped the potatoes and artichokes. I didn’t let the steak marinate overnight or for a few hours but still found it to be perfectly delightful. It was also a mistake to use the small artichokes as the leaves proved to be very difficult to chew. The only other adjustment was chopped basil instead of parsley. Plating the dish on a bed of arugula with lemon slices as garnish elevated a simple Sunday night dinner. We found the potatoes and artichokes to be a little too oily for our taste. I did however copy this recipe to add to my recipe binder.


Onto November with a new cookbook!