~ Monster Cookies ~

Today friends, I woke up with a hankering.  A craving really.  A craving for something else from my youth, that my parents never baked themselves.  I’m talking about Monster Cookies.  The first time I had these delectable treats, I was at my cousins’ house in Port Hope.  This was a great recipe for their house, since there were 4 boys living there and it makes 6dozen really big cookies.  My aunt Ginny thought that it was a good way to bake once and have treats for a while.  She would leave some out for eating, and freeze a whole whack of them.

Did you note that I said, “my aunt Ginny thought…”?  Yes, she thought they would last.  Let me tell you just how wrong she was: one of the boys (the eldest) had his bedroom in the basement.  The kids TV, games, and general playroom were also in the basement.  You know what else was in the basement?  A freezer.  Full of these highly-addictive treats.

Can you guess what happened?

In one afternoon the 7 of us (there were 4 of them, and 3 of us) cruised through pretty much every cookie in that freezer.  They are so good even when they’re frozen!  And no, none of the adults knew what we were up to, although I think they got pretty suspicious when we couldn’t eat any of our dinner.  ;)

Can you halve the recipe?  Sure you can – the measurements are easily divided.  But why would you?  Once taste of these bad boys and you’ll be so happy you have a bunch of them on stand-by in your freezer.

Before you ask – rest assured.  My freezer has a lock on it.

Ingredients

1 cup margarine, softened
2 cups white sugar
2 cups packed brown sugar
3 cups peanut butter
6 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons corn syrup
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 teaspoons baking soda
9 cups rolled oats
1/2 pound M&M’s
1/2 pound semisweet chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350°F
2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine, white sugar, brown sugar, and peanut butter until smooth.
3. Beat in the eggs*, two at a time, then stir in the corn syrup and vanilla.
4. In a separate container, mix together baking soda and oats until well blended. Once complete, add them a bit at a time to the sugar mixture.  I used a hand mixer until we got about 6 cups into the dough.  Then I was worrying about the motor, so I mixed in the last 3 cups or so by hand.  Do whatever feels most comfortable to you.
5. Stir in the M&M’s and chocolate chips. Again, I did this by hand.
6. Using an ice cream scoop (mine is 1/4 cup scoop, but a 1/2 cup scoop would yield the proper size.  Although, 1/4c cookies were plenty big enough for us!), scoop out dough onto your cookie sheet, placed 3 inches apart.
7. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool on cookie sheets for a few minutes, before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

The verdict?  A super-yummy cookie that’s so big the kids have a hard time eating the whole thing.  The adults though?  Not a problem for us.  I hope you love these as much as I do, and as my family does as well.

*Note: if you like to bake with your kids, like I do, but are nervous about letting them crack the eggs, here’s what I do.  First: I let them.  They have to learn how to do this sometime, don’t they?  Second: give them a separate bowl.  A glass or pyrex one so that they get the hang of the cracking on the side of the dish, and then show them how to gently force the egg apart.  By breaking the eggs into a separate bowl, it’s so much easier to get the egg shell out before it goes into your recipe.

~ Corn Flake Chicken ~

When I was a kid, I recall all kinds of people talking about cornflake chicken and how great it was.  I felt neglected because this was not a dish my parents were going to make for us.  (Remember?  I told you I grew up in the kitchen, with 2 parents who were dabblers in gourmet cooking.)  But now that I’ve written that sentence, I have this niggling feeling in the back of my head that in fact my brother did make this dish once.  I don’t remember eating it though; it’s likely that if he was old enough to be cooking, I was a vegetarian, and so did not eat the chicken.

Nevertheless, I find myself all these many years later with a freezer full of chicken and some men-folk in my house (did I tell you that baby #3 is a girl?!  I’m sooo excited about that!!) who love a good chicken leg.  For some reason, the memory of cornflake chicken came back fast and furious this afternoon as I contemplated what to do with the poultry we are scheduled to have for dinner.  With a smile on my face, I began to look for a recipe for this famous recipe.

My search started (and if I’m honest, ended) at my go-to site: allrecipes.com.  Dear Reader, will you allow me a moment to vent?  I do hope you don’t mind, I just need to gripe for a teeny-tiny second.  Here’s my beef: DO NOT rate a recipe 5 stars, and then in your comments list all your modifications which are so numerous that it is in fact, an entirely different recipe!!  Commenters on All Recipes do this all the time and it drives me to distraction.  Here ends the rant.  Thank you for being so patient with me.  :)

Anyway!  After reading through numerous comments, I compiled a recipe all my own.  Here’s what I did:

Ingredients

6-8 pieces of chicken, totalling about 3lbs all in
seasoning salt (I used Club House La Grille Seasoned Salt)
1 cup sour cream
zip lock freezer bag, sized large
6 cups corn flake cereal
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp onion salt
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp basil
1/4 tsp parsley
1/8 tsp thyme
1/8 tsp sage

Method

1. Once your chicken is thawed, sprinkle all sides with the seasoning salt.  Don’t be skimpy on the seasoning salt, but don’t go over board either.  You don’t want to end up with overly salty chicken.  Let it stand at room temperature for about 15 minutes.
2. Put 2 tbsp’s of sour cream in the bottom of your zip lock bag.  Place 2 pieces of chicken in the bag.  Add 2 more tbsp’s sour cream to the bag, and place 2 more pieces of chicken in the bag.  Continue the layering until you’re out of chicken.  Add the last of your sour cream to the top, zip up the bag, and shake it or squish it to coat all the pieces.  Allow to rest in fridge for 60-90 minutes (chicken needs to bake for an hour, so pick your time accordingly).
3. While the chicken is marinating, measure out your corn flakes and put them into another zip lock bag.  Close it up, and crush them in crumbs.  Really tiny, fine crumbs.  More like bread crumbs than cereal pieces.  The smaller you make them, the more will stick to your chicken making it crunchy.  You will end up with about 2 cups of crushed cereal when you’re done.  **side note: this is a fun job to get your kids to help with.  They will love crushing up the cereal in the bag, and it shows them how fun cooking can actually be.
4. Preheat oven to 350°F
5. Add your spices to the baggie of cereal and shake it up so that they are evenly dispersed thorughout.
6. Once the chicken is done marinating, bring it out and using tongs, take one piece at a time and put it in the corn flake & spices bag.  Turn/shake to coat. Place in 9×13 baking pan.  Repeat with each piece of chicken until you’ve used all the pieces.
7. Bake in preheated oven for 60 minutes, and serve.

We had ours with roasted potatoes, roasted peppers and steamed broccoli.  The verdict?  Really yummy.  Although, next time I think I’ll go the extra step of removing the skin.  We did find that the chicken was a little too greasy for us.  But otherwise, delicious!

Do you remember having corn flake chicken in your house?  Maybe you still make your family’s recipe.  Would you share your recipe with me?  I’d love to hear your recipe.

Family Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s day is next Tuesday.  And to be honest, it’s never been a *huge* focus for hubby and I.  He hates anything commercialized, and I don’t like being told what to do.  Valentine’s Day seems like a day where we are told by card & chocolate companies to buy their stuff (otherwise our partner won’t know we love them) and then to shower them with affection and preferably in naughty underwear.  You can see why this isn’t something that we’ve ever really been into, given my previous statement.  :)  And then of course, there’s the fact that St. Valentine isn’t really even about love at all, he was a priest who was beheaded the day before the old pagan ritual where the goddess Februata Juno was honoured.

Anyway!  Totally sidetracked…

The point I was starting out to make is that Valentine’s was never something that hubby & I made a big deal about before kids, so you can be sure we do not treat it as a mandatory date night now.  And so I’m thinking about what to do to honour my family, and have a lovely evening together, celebrating all the love in our lives.  So I started scouring the internet for ideas on what to serve…

My kids are not picky, and they’re very open to new foods and ideas, for which I am grateful.  I want to do something fun and different though, and I think I’ve come up with a great plan, thanks to Chatelaine.  It’s based around finger foods — love that!  And so does my family.  I especially love the Caesar salad rollups, and the chocolate fondue.  We’ll round out the meal with garlic bread (my eldest’s favourite food ever) and some chicken fingers for the kids, and wings for the adults, along with some veggie sticks.

I had thought about setting a lovely table with my china and getting the kids to make decorations…  and while I still love this idea, I think my family would be more into sitting on the floor having a “picnic” in front of the TV, watching a movie.  Maybe we can watch “Lady & the Tramp”…  it’s a perfect tale for kids on Valentine’s, don’t you think?

And so, what about you, Dear Reader?  Will you go out to dinner?  If you have kids, will you leave them with a sitter?  If you’re going to cook, what are you making?

m

~ Sunday Dinner ~ Roast Beef

Can I tell you a secret?  I…  I hate roast beef.  It’s true!  I do.  And mostly that’s because I really love my beef to be medium rare.  This is hard to accomplish with a roast beef.  Well, at least in my experience.  Nana used to start her roasts like, 6 hours before dinner and they were always really well done.  In my own kitchen I have not had a lot of success in making a roast that I liked.  My family is always happy, but I am left feeling completely underwhelmed.

Until tonight.

Now, I admit that it might have something to do with the cuts of meat that I use for roast beef dinners.  I tend to favour leaner cuts of meat, and in beef this often means “tough”.  My go-to cut has been eye of the round.  This is in part because it’s leaner, but too, it’s cheap.  And the Scot in me likes a deal.  :)  I have been hunting for as long as I can remember for a recipe that delivers taste, tenderness and the perfect amount of “doneness” to satisfy my medium-rare preference.

Tonight, I found that recipe.  Well, I found a recipe and followed a lot of different advice from several different commenters.  The original recipe can be found here.  So here’s what I did:

Ingredients

1 eye of the round roast, mine was about 3lbs.
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp onion salt
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp thyme
for the gravy:
drippings from the pan
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups water
1 tsp cocoa
1 tsp ketchup

Method

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Once the oven comes to temperature, set the timer for 20 minutes.  You want to make sure the oven is good and hot before the meat goes in.
2. While the oven is heating, mix all the spices together and set them aside.
3. Put the meat into a pan that fits perfectly, and sprinkle with the spices.  Rub the spices all over the meat, and make sure that the piece of meat with the most fat on it is on the top.  This will “baste” the roast as it cooks.  Do NOT cover the roast.  Leave it uncovered.  This allows the meat to sear so your outside edges are crispy and the meat inside is really tender, considering it’s a cheap cut of meat.  :)
4. Once your 20 minutes have passed, put the roast in the oven.  Reduce the heat to 475, and then cook it for 7 mins/pound.  So my roast cooked for 21 minutes because it was about a 3lb roast.  You did not misread that — cook it at 475 for 7 mins/pound.
5. When the time is up, turn the oven off.  DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR.  At all.  Keep that sucker closed, you got me???  You are going to leave it closed for 20 mins/pound.  So my 3lb roast needed 60 mins, but I actually left is shut tight until 1 hour 20 minutes.
6. Once the time is up, bring the roast out and allow it to rest.  I covered my roast with tin foil, lifted an edge of the foil and drained the drippings into a small sauce pan to make gravy with.  Seal the foil around your roasting pan and set the roast aside to rest.
7. While the roast rests, you’re going to make a gravy.  This works best if you have a 2-cup measuring cup.  To that 2-cup measure, add your cornstarch & flour.  Next, add some warm water.  Using the back of a spoon mush the flour & cornstarch into the water.  The goal is to get all the lumps out and make a smooth paste.  Once this is accomplished, add some more water and mix again.  You’ll keep doing this until you have about 1 1/2 of the mixture in your cup.
8. Place the sauce pan with the drippings in it on your stove over medium-low heat.  Once the drippings start to boil, pour in some of the water mixture – maybe 1/2-3/4 of a cup.  Whisk it in to the drippings, not stopping because if it reaches the boil without whisking your gravy may have lumps.  At this point, I started to worry that I had too much thickening in the drippings.  So I add about 1/3 cup of straight-up water, whisking that in too.  Next, add the cocoa and the ketchup — trust me!  It gives great depth to the gravy, not just in colour but also in texture and flavour.  The cocoa makes the flavours come together and adds an interesting complexity to the flavour.  If you’re unsure though, use 1/2 tsp.  Just don’t skip it all together, ok? (Shout-out to Jill for teaching me this secret.  Love you Jill!)  Whisk it all together.  Your gravy should be boiled by now — this means it will be thicker.  If you are not happy with the thickness of the gravy, add more water to thin it out or more of the cornstarch/flour/water mix to thicken it further.

Slice your roast and serve with garlic mashed potatoes, steamed carrots and broccoli.  And the gravy, of course.  :)

Enjoy!

Broccoli Chicken Divan

I know, I know…  when I started this blog it was because I was raging against recipes that were not really recipes, but rather a bunch of prepared ingredients thrown together and called a meal.  I remember…  and yes, it still bothers me that people call that cooking.  My friend Val makes dishes like these from time to time and I love what she calls it.  She says that she “assembled” it.  HA!  Isn’t that perfect?  I love it.

Don’t get me wrong — I too love the convenience of “recipes” like that.  And yeah, I have made dinners of chicken fingers and fries (with cut up veggies so there’s at least some semblance of health to the meal).  It’s not that I don’t do that.  It is that “assembling” as Val calls is, is not a recipe.

But why this ranty-like intro?  Well, because.  Tonight I made something for dinner that involves some prepared foods and – dare I admit it – even a can.  The verdict?  Well, I’m sharing it with you so I bet you can guess…  we loved it.  It was so good!  Now, I’ll admit: this recipe below is a mish-mash of a few recipes I found.  I made this one before, and it was at best, ok.  When I stumbled upon this one, I saw some potential for improvement and so I did some tweaking.  So enough with the preamble – here’s what I did:

Ingredients

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken
6 cups broccoli florets, cut into bite sized pieces
1 can “Cream of Chicken” soup
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonaise (not salad dressing or Miracle Whip to use a brand name)
1/3 cup water
3/4 tsp lemon juice
1/2 grated cheddar (I used 2-year-old cheddar, but whatever you have is going to be perfect)
2 tbsp butter
1/4 bread crumbs

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400
2. Cook your chicken in a frying pan until it’s almost cooked through.  It should be a little pink inside still so that it does not become dry when it goes in the oven for further cooking.  Cut the partially cooked chicken into bite sized pieces and place in your baking dish.  I used my corning-ware 2.8 ltr baking dish; it’s smaller than a 9×13 pan, but bigger than a 9×9.  Whatever you have will be perfect, trust me!
3. Gently steam your broccoli for about 2 minutes.  I did this in a pot on the stove with about 2 cm’s of water on the bottom.  I added the broccoli to the pot right away, turned my element to medium-high and once the water came to a boil, I gave it about 2 minutes.  You’re looking for that bright green colour, and the vegetable should still be very firm.  Drain the water from broccoli and add it to the casserole dish you’re using.
4. Next, in a bowl combine together the can of soup, the sour cream and the mayonaise.  Add the water and lemon juice and mix again.  Pour this sauce over the chicken & broccoli and stir.  Top with the grated cheddar.
5. Melt the butter and mix it with the bread crumbs to make a nice crunchy topping.  Spoon this over the top of the casserole.
6. Put the casserole in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes.  The sauce will be bubbly and thickened.

I served this with rice on the side, and it really was “Divan”.  HA!  See what I did there?!?!  All right…  I’m going away now.

Enjoy!

A Peanut Butter Cookie filled with Jam…

Friends,

I have had a revelation.  And it is in the form of a cookie.

Okay but here’s the back story: a very dear friend recently gave me a new cookbook called, “Milk & Cookies”.  It’s all cookies, all the time!  Love that!!  And one of the recipes is for peanut butter & jam cookies.  Basically you make the peanut butter cookie and stick 2 of them together with jam.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Right!  And everso tasty…  Problem was, I didn’t love the cookie recipe.  There was too much other stuff in it.  Keep it simple, is my motto when it comes to peanut butter cookies…  And so, I used my favourite recipe and sandwiched 2 together with grape jelly.

Mother. Of. GOD.

So good!  And I’m sure it was the breakfast of champions too!  :)  ’k, so here’s what I did:

Ingredients
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups peanut butter
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

Your favourite jam or jelly — I used grape jelly

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line cookie sheets with parchment paper
2. Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix until well combined.  Using a teaspoon, scoop out a small amount of dough and roll into a ball.  Place on cookie sheet and press down with a fork.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 8-10 minutes.
4. Allow to cool on cookie sheets for about 5 minutes before removing to cooling racks.
5. Once completely cooled, spoon a small amount of jam or jelly onto one cookie, and place another cookie on top.  Squeeze together and enjoy!

This recipe makes about 48 individual cookies, and 24 sandwiches.  I used smooth peanut butter, but I think crunchy might be great too!

Homemade Tomato Soup

YUM!!

Sorry, I got sidetracked.  But my God this is a delicious recipe that I just whipped up.  And I’ve got to share it with you.  Because the weather around these parts??  Crazy!  It was warm and lovely yesterday and Saturday; even Friday was a good day.  But today?  Ack…  cold, blustery & raining.  I needed some comfort food, without all the fat that normally accompanies that term!  So I whipped up this cream of tomato soup.  And…  Wow.  Not only am I comforted, I am beyond full!

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 leek, chopped up
1 carrot, chopped up
28 oz can diced tomatoes
14 oz vegetable broth (poured into the tomato can to measure)
1/2 cup fat-free evaporated milk
salt & pepper to taste

Method

1. Heat olive oil in a large sized pot.  Add garlic to oil to soften and then toss in the leeks.  Sautee for about a minute.
2. Next add the carrots and toss to coat in the oil, garlic & leeks.  Add the tomatoes and vegetable broth and bring to a boil.
3. Once boiling, reduce heat low enough to maintain a gentle simmer (you may need to reduce again through the cooking process), stirring frequently.
4. Continue to simmer until the carrots are cooked through.
5. Remove your pot from the heat and pull out your immersion blender (still don’t have one?  Well, puree in batches then using your blender).  Puree the soup.
6. Return to heat, set on low, and add the evaporated milk, salt & pepper (I used 7 turns of my salt mill and 3 grinds of my pepper mill).  Cook on low for another 5 minutes or so, and serve.

This made about 6 cups of soup.  Of which I ate 3.  YUM!!  But I am so full now…  lol…  It’s a really good soup.  I hope you enjoy it too!

Mom’s World Famous Swiss Steak

With the cold weather here in earnest, I am looking for comfort foods.  One of my favourite meals when I was a kid was Swiss Steak.  Why it’s called “Swiss”, I have no idea.  Maybe because it’s red?  Anyway, whatever the reason, I can tell you: this is so tasty and so comforting to me that I just had to make it tonight.  Of course, it helps that I have a freezer full of random meats that I would not typically ever buy (Chambers delivery, remember?).  When I saw the boneless blade steak I thought, “that’ll be good for Swiss steak…” and got on the phone to my Mom.  She said that I could share her recipe with you, dear Reader, as long as I remembered to call it “World Famous”.  And so, here it is:

Ingredients

2 lbs of beef – blade steak, shoulder steak or any cheaper cuts that are marbled. Make it thick cut – 1/2 an inch at least.
pepper, garlic salt, to taste
2 tbsp olive oil
2 can tomato soup
1 cup beef broth
4 potatoes, quartered
1 onion, peeled and quartered
3 carrots, cut into chunks

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F.
2. Cut your meat into individual pieces so it’s easier come serving time. Season the meat with garlic salt, fresh ground pepper and Worcestershire sauce.  Mom doesn’t add salt because of the salt content in the beef broth. If you find that you need it, you can always add it at the table.
3. Heat oil in a frying pan large enough to brown the meat.  Once the oil is hot, add the meat and and brown on all sides.  Remove browned meat to casserole dish.
4. Arrange the potatoes, carrots and onion on top of the meat.
5. In a bowl mix together the 2 cups of beef broth and 2 cans of tomato soup.  Pour this over the meat and vegetables, and bake covered for 60 – 90 minutes.

This makes a great meal, and will serve 4-6 people, depending on who’s at your table.  My kids, for instance, really only count as 1/2 a person between the both of them.    It also makes a lot of sauce, which is great for pouring over the meat and veg, just like a gravy.  Thanks for sharing, Mom!  I know my dear Readers will love it.

Enjoy!

Beef Stew with Dumplings

Hello, dear Reader!  How have you been?  Long time since we talked, isn’t it?  I know, but you’ve been busy and I’ve been busy, and well, if you forgive me then I too forgive you.  Deal?  Deal.

We had our first real, stick-to-the-ground, snowfall here in my ‘hood yesterday.  And wouldn’t you know it, the white stuff was still here, on the ground, when we left the house for the school bus at 7:30 this morning.  As we stood waiting for the bus, I thought to myself, “A day like this calls for stew.  But what kind of stew to have???”  I had some stewing beef in the freezer so I dug that out and started searching for a delicious and different from my normal beef stew.  Boy-o-boy did I find that here…

Ingredients

for the stew:
1/4 cup butter
1.5 lbs stewing beef, cut into cubes
1/4 cup flour
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup red wine, divided (I used a South African syrah which is delicious all on it’s own)
2 cups beef stock (I used a Campbell’s tetra pak, and measured 2 cups)
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 drizzle balsamic vinegar (maybe 1/2 tsp)
1 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground pepper
3 or 4 potatoes
2 carrots
1 1/2 cups beef stock
1 1/2 tbsp corn starch
1 1/2 tbsp flour
6-8 mushrooms, quartered
for the dumplings:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
3/4 cup milk
1 tsp parsley

Method

1. Melt the butter in a large pot, over medium heat.
2. While butter is melting, add your stewing beef to a bowl and combine with the 1/4 cup flour to coat pieces.  Once butter is melted, add the meat to the pan, browning each side nicely.  Remove meat from pan.
3. Add onion and garlic to the pan and saute until soft.  Remove from the pan (I put mine on top of my meat, which was on a dinner plate on the stove).
4. Measure out 1/2 cup of wine and add to pan.  What you’re doing now is called “deglazing a pan”.  This process is designed to get up all of the bits off of the bottom of the pot, and will add immensely to the flavour of the stew.  Increase your heat to medium-high and scrape the bits up from the bottom of the pan.  Once the wine has reduced by about half, turn the heat down to medium again and return the meat and onions to the pot.
5. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of wine, beef broth, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, parsley and bay leaf.  Cover the stew and allow to simmer for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.  When stew comes to a boil, turn the heat down to low.
6. While the stew is simmering, cut your potatoes and carrots into bite sized pieces, and put them into a bowl of water so the potatoes don’t change colour.  Once the 40 minutes has passed, drain the water and add the vegetables to the pot, stirring well.
7. At this point, I decided there was not enough liquid in the stew.  You want your meat and veg to be covered, so they are infused with flavour and cook to a soft consistency.  I also didn’t think the broth was thickening up enough.  So I made a mixture of beef broth, cornstarch and flour.  I mixed these together in a 2-cup measure, making sure there were no lumps before adding it to the stew.  The measurements quoted above are what I used, but I only added enough liquid to the pot to cover my veg.  In the end, that was about 1 1/4 cups.  Use your judgment, you will not be wrong, I promise.  Return the lid to your pot and allow to continue simmering for about 20 minutes.
8. Next, remove the bay leaf and add in the mushrooms.  Simmer until you’re almost ready to serve.
9. Start the dumplings about 20 minutes before you want to eat.  Cut the butter or margarine into the flour using 2 knives or a pastry blender.  Add the milk and parsley and stir with a fork until well combined.
10. Use a tablespoon and drop spoonfuls of the dumpling batter into the stew pot.  Allow them to cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Then place the lid on the pot and continue to cook for 8-10 minutes or until the dumplings are tender.

This makes enough to feed 5-8 people, depending on your appetites.  My kids ate this meal – my 6-year-old ate a fair bit, and my 2-year-old ate the carrots and potatoes, 2 pieces of eat thank you very much.  So this goes a long way in my house lol…

Dear Reader, please let me know what you think of this dish, should you decide to try it for yourself.

Until next time!

Roasted Mushroom Soup

It’s fall, and one of my favourite things about fall is the change in menu.  We go from salads and burgers to soups and stews, and I love it!  I’ve made this soup all ready this fall, and raved about it too.  Tonight though, I had a hankering for something else.

Have I spoken to you before, dear Reader, about my love of mushrooms?  It’s true: I absolutely adore them.  So delicious!  Especially with lots of butter!  YUM.  And so, it only stands to reason that one of my favourite soups of all time is a mushroom soup.  Will it shock you to know that – before today – never have I made a mushroom soup?  It’s true!  I hadn’t.  But now I have, and my world is a much brighter place.

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients

2 lbs mushrooms, chopped (I only had white button on hand, but this would be awesome with cremini, portabello, shitake… any mushroom really)
1/2 an onion, chopped
1 potato, diced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 generous pinches of kosher salt (probably about 1 tsp)
1/4 butter
1 tsp sage
2 tsp parsley
900 ml (one tetra pack) chicken soup stock
2 tbsp sour cream
4 turns of my pepper mill

Method

1. Turn your oven on to 350, line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and pile the vegetables on it, trying to keep the onion separate.
2. Coat the potato & mushroom pieces in the olive oil, using your hands to stir the pieces up, and then sprinkle them with the salt.
3. Place tray in the oven, on the middle rack, and roast for 30 minutes.
4. Once the veggies are roasted, melt butter in a large pot over medium heat.  Add the vegetable pieces, and toss to coat in the butter.  Add the sage & parsley and toss to coat again.
5. Cover with the soup stock and allow to come to a boil.  Turn element down and simmer pieces for about 5 minutes.
6. Using an emersion blender if you have one (if not, a regular blender works fine too) puree the soup.
7. With your element still turned to low, add the sour cream and the pepper.  Stir to combine.  Allow to simmer for another 10 minutes (at least) and serve with crusty bread.

This soup was really great.  I loved it!  Mitchell loved it!  And Connor – who hates mushrooms – said that it was only a little good.    That said, he still ate the whole bowl.   And of course, Sam ate nothing but the crusty bread.  Next time I make this soup – oh yes, there will be a next time! – I will reduce the amount of sage.  It was fine as it was, but I found the sage a little over-powering.

Let me know what changes you would make, once you’ve tried it.  You know how much I love your feedback!

Enjoy.