Broccoli & Cauliflower Soup

Warming, delicious and surprisingly easy to put together!

I don’t care! Take me to the recipe!

Few things can help warm someone up in winter like a nice hot soup, and rarely will anyone object to soup, even with the veggies in it. That is exactly why we chose it for this week’s recipe. With a delightful vegetable stock and some baked chicken to complement it, this makes an excellent choice for a medium effort meal for lunch or dinner.

Some recipes take a little bit of work to get just right, and bouncing ideas off of other cooks is never a bad idea. That certainly happened with this recipe, where different ways to get the vegetable stock just right were debated with our not-so-resident cooking friend until we settled on this particular version. The biggest question was whether to blend everything, or only the broccoli and cauliflower. We hope all the conversation has produced something quite delicious for you to enjoy.

Things you'll need:

Ingredients

• Broccoli 

• Cauliflower 

• Carrots

• Celery

• White Onion

• 3 Tbsp Butter

• Roasted garlic bullion (or similar)

• One rotisserie chicken

Equipment: 

• Vegetable knife

• Cutting board(s)

• Chef's Knife

• Large Pot

• Blender

You will want to start off by chopping up your carrots, celery, and onion. For the carrots and celery, aim to do smaller pieces, maybe one to two centimeters in size. For your onion, go ahead and mince it and aim for a roughly similar size, if possible. Place these into a bowl separate from the other ingredients, and sprinkle salt and pepper to taste.

Moving on to the broccoli, you will want to hold it upside down and chop off the florets a few pieces at a time. You’re aiming for pieces roughly an inch and a half long. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be left with a fairly long and bare stem. Go ahead and chop the stem into pieces roughly half an inch long. Now, repeat the same general process with your cauliflower. Once that has been completed, go ahead and place them into a separate bowl from your other vegetables, sprinkle in any salt and pepper you deem necessary, and give them a toss to help more evenly mix and spice everything.

Next, get your pot and put it on medium heat on the stove. Put in your butter and allow it to melt. Once it is melted, put in the garlic bullion and thoroughly mix it until it is a single, smooth texture. Once that has been done, add in the celery, carrots, and onion, allowing them to become softened. The biggest thing you’re looking for is when the onions begin to turn clear.

Once your onions have become transparent, add in the broccoli and cauliflower, along with a cup of water, and turn the heat down to a nice simmer. You want the broccoli and cauliflower to become soft, easy to push a fork into, but not squishy and “dead” feeling.

Now, strain out all of your vegetables and put them into your blender, adding in a cup of the broth they were in. Next, add in an additional five cups of water to your pot, and mix up the remaining stock.

Start pulsing your vegetables, slowly working your way up until you have a puree. You want a smooth consistency at this stage. Once you’ve done that, you will want to mix the puree back into the pot. From there, go ahead and give it a quick taste to see how you like it. Add spices as needed, or, leave it alone if you think it’s already good to go.

Next, take out your rotisserie chicken, and cut off whatever sections you think would be best with this soup. Our recommendation is to cut the meat off of the breast, since it tends to provide some excellently tender meat. An additional area to consider would be the thigh, as it tends to provide a similar quality of meat, but may take a little more work to cut off of the bird. We chose to chop this chicken up into strips, but cubes of meat would also work very well. Put this in with your soup, and it is ready to serve.

We hope you find this to be quite a delectable soup. While this recipe calls for chicken, the vegetable stock could be paired with other things, and we would love to hear about any ideas you have with this recipe! Feel free to tell us about your opinion of this recipe, and any modifications you make, in the comment section here, or over on our Facebook page! We’d love to hear from you, and if you have any issues with your appliances while cooking, feel free to give us a call or hop over to our appointments page.

Croque-Monsieur au Bleu (Or Very Fancy Grilled Cheese)

Fancy Pants Sandwiches to Keep You Running

I don't care! Take me to the Recipe!

When you're preparing for the holidays, you need a solid lunch to keep you going, this week's recipe provides just that. With a delicious grilled cheese that's dressed up enough that it'll leave you full, but not so over the top you're going to run out of steam just cooking it.

Sometimes you try a recipe the first time and it turns out fantastic. Sometimes you try it out as written and it ends up going horribly wrong. That's what happened with this week's recipe of "Very Fancy Grilled Cheese and Fancy Gravy" as our Tiniest Kitchen helper dubbed it. (If you want to be fancy though, you'll just call it a Croque-Monsieur au Bleu.

Initially, the recipe called for half of a sweet onion, only 1 slice of thinly sliced ham per sandwich, and only 1 cup of milk for the sauce. This... this ended very badly. Between the original recipe plus the poor choice of a black-coated nonstick pan, we ended up with a very dead set of sandwiches. (we'll share how to save those down at the bottom. *) So, we reworked the recipe and came up with this beauty to share with all of you. 

Ingredients: 

Sandwich

2 ounces blue cheese

2 ounces mozzarella

1/4 sweet onion minced

8 slices sourdough bread

8 slices of ham 

2 tsp Dijon mustard

coarsely ground black pepper, to taste

2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 

Sauce: 

4 Tbsp unsalted butter

4 Tbsp all purpose flour

2 cups milk 

2 Tbsp Dijon mustard

grated nutmeg

cayenne pepper

salt

coarsely ground black pepper

Start off by coarsely grating your blue cheese and mozzarella using the largest size of your box grater, mix them together by tossing them lightly. Set that back in the fridge to chill while you work. 

Line the broiler tray with aluminum foil. Preheat your ovent o 300*F. 

Make your sandwiches first, as the sauce shouldn't be made too far ahead, it'll become too thick if left to wait. 

Take your cheese mixture and remove roughly 4 tablespoons from the bowl. Set that into a smaller bowl and set it aside for later. Now add the onion to the original mixture and toss a second time. 

Lightly toast your bread in the toaster. Lay ham slices on four slices of bread that have been lightly smeared with mustard. Pack the cheese mixture into a 1/2 cup measuring cup and then invert it onto a slice of ham, pressing down with your fingers to compress the cheese. Coarseley grind lack pepper over the top of the cheese. Repeat the process with the remaining slices. Top each with a slice of bread and press down gently to compact again. 

Using a pastry brush, pain the top slice of each sandwich with butter. (You want to be a little heavy handed with this.) Warm your olive oil in a skillet on low heat. (and whatever you do DO NOT use a dark coated nonstick pan. Just back away from it and go to the store to get a different skillet. A dark pan will  burn your bread. Ask us how we know.) Cook 2 sandwiches at a time on medium0low heat. Press down firmly with a spatula and brown for about 2-3 minutes or until the bread is crisp. Flip over the sandwiches, paint the top slice of bread with butter, and brown until the bottom slice is crisp and the cheese is starting to melt.

Place each sandwich as you make it in the oven on the baking sheet to keep warm. When all 4 sandwiches are in the oven, turn off the heat and preheat the broiler. 

Lay the sandwiches on the broiler pan, top each with the Mustard Cream Sauce and 1 Tbsp of the reserved cheese mix. Pop them under the broiler for 3-5 minutes or until bubbly and golden. Serve immediately with a fork and knife. 

Making the Mustard Cream Sauce

in the saucepan, melt the butter, add the flour and whisk well. Slowly whisk in 1 cup of milk and cook until thickened and bubbly. Whick in mustard, nutmeg, cayenne, salt and pepper. Take a taste and add more spices or milk as needed.  You don't want the sauce to be too thick with this, so add the second cup of milk as needed to keep it at a 'sauce' consistency rather than 'gravy.' 

Let's say you've gone through all of this and you ended up with a murdered sandwhich anyway. Maybe you ignored us and used a black pan anyway. Maybe you put the heat too high. Maybe you thought "I LOVE onions and I don't want to use that little."  Or maybe you got called away to save your neighbor's cat up a tree. Whatever, your sandwich is blackened and it's too full of onion. It can still be fixed. Start off by pulling apart your sadwich and setting the ham to the side. Now apply a little melted butter to your pan and set it at the lowest possible heat. Put one slice of bread in it at a time, onion & cheese mixture on the pan. You want the cheese to become gooey and the onions to be translucent.  Now cover the pan and grab a second one. you're going to fry up an egg. However you and yours prefer your eggs to be fried, do that. (Personally, we think over medium goes very well with this.) Once your egg is done, put the sandwich back together, except this time you're not going to make a 'sandwich' out of it. Instead of having everything together in the middle, you want it to be cheese mix, bread, cheese mix, bread. This way you have a solid surface to put your egg on top of. Finally, take your sauce and drizzle that over the top. Yes, it sounds weird, we know, but it tastes amazing.  The tang of the mustard and the cayenne plus the gooey mixture of cheese, egg and onion? It's an amazing lunch. 

Oh, and if you wanted you could put your ham back in there somewhere too. 

What about you? What are some of your worst kitchen mishaps? Let us know over on our Facebook page or in the comments below. We'd love to hear from you.

Cheddar and Hard Cider Soup with Fried Shallots

Something to warm you up from your nose to your toes

What do you do when you’re tired of turkey and you need a fast, easy meal that’s still going to fill you up? Easy, you grab a few kitchen staples and make this soup. We’ve got a warm delicious soup that’ll keep you warm all day long, without overheating your kitchen. 

Ingredients: 

4 Tbsp Unsalted Butter

2 yellow onions, chopped 

1 celery rib, chopped

1 Yukon Gold potato, peeled and chopped 

  If you can't find any Yukon Golds at your grocery store an alternative would be Red Bliss potatoes, as these are the closest to the flavor of the Yukons for this recipe. 

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 Tbsp all purpose flour

2 1/2 cups chicken broth

2 1/2 cups hard apple cider

1 cup half-and-half

2 bay leaves

2 thyme sprigs

2 Tbsp applejack or Calvados brandy

3/4 lb English Cheddar cheese, shredded

salt 

fresh ground black pepper

Fried Shallots  (click here to skip to the recipe) 

Tools Needed: Cutting board, chef's knife,  two large pots, a blender, a cheese grater and a straining spoon. 

Yukon golden potatoes. Sadly they aren’t available by your blogger.

- In a large pot, melt 3 Tbsp of butter over medium-high heat. Add the onions, celery, potato and garlic and stir. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook, stirring occasionally until the vegetables are softened, about 12 minutes. 

Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and cook, stirring constantly, tumbling the vegetables around the pot so all sides are heated, until the flour is incorporated. 

While still stirring constantly, gradually add the broth, cider and half-and-half to the pot. Raise the heat back up to medium-high, add the bay leaves and thyme and bring the pot to a boil.  

-Turn your heat down to low and simmer for roughly ten minutes, to allow the flavors time to blend.   Make sure to leave the pot uncovered during this time period. 

Delicious Red Bliss potatoes.

-Remove the bay leaves and thyme sprigs from the soup and discard them. Remove the soup from the heat and let cool slightly, you want it still warm, but not piping hot. 

-Working in batches, puree the soup  in a blender. Pour the puree into a clean pot. Stir in the applejack. Off the heat, while whisking constantly, gradually add the cheese one handful at a time. Continue whisking until all the cheese is melted. Place over medium-low heat, stir in 1 tsp of salt and pepper to taste, and cook gently, stirring often, until heated through, about 10 minutes. 

Taste and adjust the seasoning.  

Serve, garnished with the fried shallots. 

We know we tossed a red onion into the picture. It rolled its way into the shot

Fried Shallots 

Ingredients: 

Fresh shallots, thinly sliced 

Oil - Peanut, canola  or sunflower works well 

A shallow pot for frying.

-In order to make your own fried shallots for this recipe, start off by slicing them thin, but not paper thin. Roughly .2 cm is a good size. 

Soak your shallots in salt water after you slice them, for ten minutes or so. Then remove them and pat them dry so that the oil doesn't splash when you add them. 

Take a pot and bring oil to heat. You want to be able to flick water at the surface and have it hiss but not boil. We advise a soybean oil for this. 

Now drop in your shallots a few at a time and fry them until they're crisp and golden.  

Alternatively, if you're not interested in making your own you should be able to find fried shallots in your nearest Asian grocery store. 

It's really easy and you might find all sorts of things that you can pair with them once you've given it a chance. 

There you go a soup to warm you up as the weather cools down and it's easy enough to make after work, so long as you have the fried shallots ready ahead of time. 

If you enjoyed the recipe, let us know! If you made some changes to it, let us know that too over on our Facebook page.

From our home to yours, we hope you have a good week. 

A Sweet-Tart Cake To Beat All The Pies

It’s got lemon, cherry, and cranberry all rolled into a moist, delicious cake.

Just Take Me To The Recipe! 

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and you're helping with desserts. Sure, you can go with the standard pies, apple, pecan and pumpkin. They're delicious, they're classics. What if you want something to knock people's socks off though. You really want to wow them with a beautiful cake, not another pie like Cousin Suzy is bringing. That's where this recipe comes in. Not only is it a wonderful blend of sweet and tart but it's also got a buttery texture that you're going to love. Plus, by using a bundt pan you can make it a very beautiful cake as well with minimal effort on your part. 

We came up with this recipe after thinking about some of our favorite fall flavors and wondering how we could mix them together into something new. The tartness of cranberries was our starting point and we started working out from there, seeing what else paired well with it. The addition of the pudding mix, rather than just using lemon zest or extract ensures that the cake stays rich and moist. 

Ingredients:

Cake:

1 box of yellow cake mix

3 eggs 

1 cup of water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 box lemon pudding mix 

1/2 cup chopped pecans plus extra for decorating. 

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup dried cherries

Icing:

1/2 box lemon pudding mix

3 cups of icing sugar (also known as powdered sugar)

1 cup of milk

3 tbsp of heavy cream

1 stick of softened butter

1 tsp of lemon zest OR 1 tsp of lemon extract 

Start off by grabbing two large bowls, an electric mixer, a sieve and all of your ingredients.  You'll need a bundt pan as well, but that's for later. 

Set your oven to preheat at 350*F. 

In one bowl, dump in the box mix and the pudding mix. Grab your sieve and slowly work through all of the material. The goal is to break down any clumps in the mix and also to introduce some air. 

In the second bowl mix together your eggs, water and oil, slowly working your way up through the speeds on your mixer. Again, we're looking at  introducing lots of air into the mix so feel free to go at it till it's well combined and frothy. 

Now add the liquids to the dry stuff, going nice and slow at first with both the mixer and while pouring your liquids. Go too fast and we'll end up with egg mix all over the place. It's a pain to get out of your hair, ask us how we know.  

Once you've got the two thoroughly mixed together, fold in the pecans, cherries and cranberries. These are going to sink some as you bake the cake, which is why we're using a bundt pan. 

Now grab your bund pan and spray the inside with your choice of nonstick spray. We advise something light and tasteless, but you're welcome to get creative and see what you can come up.  We wouldn't advise using shortening for this one both because of the curves and crevices of the bundt pan, and also because it's difficult to keep it from soaking into the cake once you flip it out. 

Pour the batter into the cake pan and tap it lightly against the counter or a table. You want to work out any air pockets, without knocking all of the air out of the batter. Just once or twice is good enough to make sure that the batter is down into the groves of your pan of choice. 

Toss that into the oven and bake it for 40 minutes. If when that time passes it's not fully cooked, put it back in for another two minutes. You'll want to check it at two minute intervals until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. 

Now, while your cake is baking, let's make the icing. 

Start off by cutting your butter into chunks and then attacking it with a hand mixer. You'll want to whip the butter until it's light and fluffy with soft peaks forming. 

Once you've got it to that step, mix in the icing sugar, pudding mix and the lemon additive of your choice.  Mix until everything is incorporated. 

Add in the cream next and mix until the sugar is fully dissolved or the cream is fully absorbed.   

If the sugar is still grainy you can add in the milk a little at a time until you attain the texture that you want.  Once you've got that, chill the icing until the cake is done. 

When your cake is done baking remove it from the oven, and leave it in the pan until it's cool. Once it's cool you can flip it out onto a plate and spread icing over it. We like doing some around the top and letting it spread how gravity takes it and then also pouring some around the bottom edge so that you can crust it with chopped pecans. 

There you go one delicious, seasonal dessert that everyone will love and try to figure out how you did it. 

If you decide to make this for Thanksgiving, let us know! We'd love to see how yours turns out over on our Facebook page.  We'd also love to hear about any changes you decide to make to the recipe. 

From our home to yours, we hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. 

Hauntingly Good Meals To Run After

Spooky Biscuits for All Day Long

Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is make things easier on future you. This is especially true for a weekend holiday.

Here's a fast breakfast, lunch or dinner idea to get some food in the bellies of your trick or treaters before they wander off, or as they come back down from the sugar high... Or maybe into your stomach before the heathen horde comes knocking.

Let's make some quick and easy monster biscuits.

Ingredients:

1 can biscuits or 8 frozen biscuits

4 oz brick mozzarella cheese

Lunch meat of choice, or pepperoni 

1 can whole pitted black olives

1 jar strawberry or raspberry jam or jelly

White chocolate chips, sliced almonds, candy eyes, etc.

We know you're looking at this ingredient list and questioning our sanity. Don't worry. It's not all going together on one biscuit.

Tools:

Baking sheet, foil, oven mitt, cutting board, vegetable peeler, knife, fork, spoon, plate, spatula

Line your baking sheet with a layer of foil, because anything that makes your life easier today is worth it.

Preheat the oven according to the directions on your package of biscuits.

We used the Pillsbury brand southern homestyle biscuits in a can (because we already had them on hand and didn't want to make an extra trip to the store) and we found them to work well. We've also previously used the Great Value brand frozen buttermilk biscuits, but in our experience, they are prone to scorching on the bottom. If you use them, keep a close eye on them while they bake up so you avoid that problem.

Place your biscuits on the lined baking sheet - have their edges touching if you want them tall and fluffy, or give them room to expand if you would prefer them a little thinner - and pop them into the oven. Set your timer for HALF of what the directions say. Trust us here.

While your biscuits bake, pop open that can of olives. Drain them and give them a quick rinse so they won't transfer their color as easily when you assemble dinner. We're going to do this in reverse order for the meals, because of the three meal ideas we're covering, the dinner takes the longest to prep.

Fish out a few olives and put them on your cutting board. Slice a thin ring out of the middle of each. Your goal here is eight little rings. Feel free to eat all your mistakes - it's the best perk of being the chef.

Once you have your olives ready, scoot them to one side of the cutting board. Consider wiping up after them if they've left you a wet spot. Place your brick of cheese long side up on the board and grab your vegetable peeler. We know you're questioning our sanity again, and it's okay. Take the peeler and shave long, thin straps off the brick of cheese until you feel you have enough to put a double layer on six of your eight biscuits. 

You may have a cheese wire in a drawer somewhere that you want to use for this. We would advise you skip that urge. The goal here is the extra-thin strips and feathery edges a peeler creates. A cheese wire, even adjusted to as thin as possible, will still make a mostly clean cut. If that's what you'd prefer, go ahead, but we definitely think it looks more like a mummy bandage with the rough sides and broken looking ends.

Feathery, jagged cheese bandages.

By now you should be reaching the end of the timer you set. Pause and flip the biscuits. The directions don't say to in most cases, but if you flip them halfway through, you'll get nice, toasty tops and bottoms without either one becoming too thick or crispy. Put them back in the oven for the remaining half of the recommended time and reset your timer.

While they finish up their baking process, separate some slices from your lunch meats. It doesn't really matter what you choose to use, as long as you enjoy it. We used hard salami for ours, but it would work just as well with ham or turkey or roast beef if you have them on hand.

Once they're out of the oven, split them all evenly with a sharp knife.

Fluffy, freshly baked and sliced biscuits.

Take two and plate them like an open-faced sandwich. Spoon a generous helping of jam or jelly onto each half and spread it a bit with the back of the spoon. Congratulations, you have a smashed monster! We had candy eyes left over from another project and used those for this, but slices of almond, white chocolate chips or mini marshmallows also can serve as a reasonable approximation of monster eyes. Just use whatever you have on hand.

Frighteningly delicious breakfast monster

Take your next two biscuits. Layer your lunch meats on them and add a few strips of cheese if you'd like.Grab two whole olives. Wrap a torn slice of lunch meat around each one, leaving the open end of the olive visible. Shut your biscuits into sandwiches and tuck your wrapped olives into the side, peeking out like a pair of creepy, unblinking eyes. There's lunch, easy to just grab and run if necessary.

Lunch timer watcher

And now for dinner... take your four remaining biscuits and plate them with their soft insides up. Place a layer of lunch meat on each half, then add those olive rings you cut earlier as eyes a little above the middle. Cover it all over with a layer of cheesy bandages, being sure to let at least one eye still peek out from beneath them.

Mummy’s out for dinner!

By the time dinner comes around, these will have gone cold - so be sure to lightly toast them and get your cheese melted before enjoying your new mummy bites.

And with just a bit of time, you’ve got three fantastic meals, sure to haunt anyone. If you test them out let us know over on our Facebook page! We’d love to hear from you. 

If on the other hand, you ended up here because your oven has decided to go to the grave, we might be able to help. We’d be willing to say that we’re better than Dr. Frankenstein, at least when it comes to bringing appliances back to life. Give us a call at ((214) 599-0055) or visit our contact page to get in touch.