Potato Soup with Chorizo and Parsley Pesto

MMMM. Yes, I am starting a blog post with an MMMM. That's how delicious, flavorful, comforting this soup is. Last week, David Lebovitz made several blog post about his trip to Ireland. One of them he was a guest at Rachel Allen's home. I was captivated by is writing and photos, but one of the  dishes prepared was Potato-Thyme Soup with Parsley Pesto. THAT made me drool. A lot. I've never made potato soup, and never was that interested until I read this article.

There was no recipe for this, but I searched the interwebs for this recipe. I found the perfect one that used one of my favorite sausages, Chorizo. So I had to try this particular recipe.

This soup called for only 25 grams of butter which is almost 2T of butter. One of the things I remember from the article is that Rachel Allen's husband told David that he didn't want to know how much butter was used! Ha! So I went butter crazy using a whole stick of butter- 1/2 cup. It was salted as there is NO unsalted butter at the commissary at the moment. 

This soup is ready under 30 minutes and is as easy as it's delicious. Great after-work, soccer practice, whatever /whenever you want it meal. Now go, no, RUN to you local market and pick up these ingredients and make this! What are you doing reading? Oh wait, check out the ingredients and directions, then go. Sorry for being pushy, this soup is that frickin' great. My children all loved this and my husband ate 3 bowlfuls! 

Potato Soup with Chorizo and Parsley Pesto!

Adapted from Channel4.com


Ingredients
1/2 cup or 1 stick of butter
1 lb of russet or Yukon gold Potatoes, smally diced
1 onion, chopped
2 cups of chicken stock, reduced sodium if purchased
1/2 cup milk
1 T olive oil
3 oz of chorizo, thinly sliced
Salt and pepper

For Pesto:
2 cups of fresh parsley loosely packed, chopped
1/4 or 1/3 cup of Pecorino Romano
1/4 cup pine nuts, (toasted optional)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/3 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper

Directions

Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add onions and potatoes. Saute for a few minutes, season with  a pinch of salt and pepper, then lower heat, cover pot and simmer for 10 minutes. 

Meanwhile, in a blender. Add parsley, pine nuts. garlic, and cheese. Pulse until mixture looks like a textured puree. Add a pinch of salt and oil. Puree until it's a coarse paste. A pestle and mortar can be used here, as well.

Any unused pesto can be refrigerated up to 2 weeks. Add olive oil after each use.

Now add chicken stock to the potatoes, then bring to a boil. Stir then lower heat and cover for another 10 minutes.

Sauté chorizo about 30 seconds per side or until nicely and crispy. Reserve red oil for garnish.

Now, add milk to potatoes and whizz with a stick blender to whatever texture you desire. 

Pour soup into bowls then garnish with fried chorizo, pesto, and chorizo oil. My husband wanted to make sure that I tell you all to stir everything in before take a bite. 

I made this comforting, warm, creamy soup at the perfect time. We are going through a rough patch right now, and will not know if everything will be resolved until Saturday. So this week's menu is full of comforting food. Sunday I made Chicken and Smokey Bacon Cheesy Pasta, Monday I made Beer-Braised Pot Roast, and last night the most amazing soup, Potato Soup with Chorizo and Parsley Pesto. If our issues aren't resolved by the end of the week, at least are stomachs will be very happy and fuller!

My First Fondant Adventure- Pt. 2

Babygirl

In 2 more days my darling daughter will be 3, THREE, drei, tres, THREE! I can not believe time has flown by so quickly. She's my darling only lil babygirl, full of personality, laughter, and er dirt.  This year, as I said here, I am working with fondant for the first time ever. And I am super nervous.

I started the fondant THREE weeks in advance- told ya I was nervous. I surfed the web, looked at every single baking forum, youtube video, blog I could find about this sweet, yet intimidating dough. I talked to a few friends about it as well! I found marshmallow fondant to be the easiest and one of the tastiest to make from scratch. There are numerous of marshmallow fondant recipes and  I used the one from the Wilton's website. Since I am coloring the fondant, I did not use a clear vanilla flavoring, just the pure stuff, so there is a slight off-white color. It tastes great and the soon-to-be birthday girl approves!

                                                                    Some photos!

Ingredients

Rubbing the table down with Crisco. This is a messy sticky process!

Water and marshmallows from the microwave

Stirring in sugar. SIFT SUGAR FIRST!!!!! I did not and paid for it. 

Lots of kneading. Lots of sugar and Crisco to prevent stickiness.

Sweetest dough ever! I am proud. But I still have to color it and put it on the cake! 

I wrapped the fondant in plastic wrap and then in an airtight plastic bag then did three Hail Marys over it. Ok one of those three things aren't true. Take a guess ;)

Last weekend my good friend from the states sent me all kinds of Wilton Gel dyes, so in the next post I will show that process as well. I am so nervous- eek!

Yesterday, my daughter helped prep her cake. I used a Butter Cake Recipe from my Martha Stewart's Cooking School Cookbook. I made this cake last winter and forgot a whole stick of butter and the cake was STILL moist. So I had to try it again, and I did not forget the stick of butter this time!

buttering the pans

Now parchment

flouring pans

Refrigerated, ready to be decorated.

Too early to make a wish, baby. Well unless you're wishing mommy doesn't mess up the cake!!

Tomorrow is the big decorating day. Then Thursday is her birthday!!

Biscuits and Gravy, Y'all!

Wow, what a week. Full of ups and downs and unfortunately it ended at a low point. I would love to dish the juicy details, but it's for my book. Luckily my lovely husband just got home from a week-long TDY Friday night when everything went down. He provided much needed advice, love, silence, hugs, and bought me my favorite comfort sweet- Ferrero Rocher chocolates! So yesterday I asked him, "what do you want me to cook you? An elaborate dinner or breakfast?" He quickly said breakfast. He then looked at me with bright-eyes and a hungry smile, then said, "Biscuits and Gravy." 

Twins?

I'm going to be honest. I've only seen Biscuits and Gravy at chain restaurants and buffets. They never ever looked so appealing. The smell, the gravy skin, the appearance was just a huge turn-off for me. But how could I say no to him? So I promptly looked up some Biscuits and Gravy recipes, but the best one looks-wise came from my favorite southern chef, Tyler Florence. I used my favorite biscuit recipe and adapted his gravy recipe. And lemme tell y'all something, it's gooooooooooood!! And super simple!

Biscuits and Gravy!

For Biscuits:

Adapted from Ina Garten's Buttermilk Cheddar Biscuits

2 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour

1 T Baking Powder

1 1/2 t kosher salt

3/4 cup of cold butter

1/2 to 3/4 cup buttermilk, well shaken

1 large egg

Sausage Gravy

Adapted from Tyler Florence

1lb of sausage. Any suace can be used. I used mild Italian sausage links and took them out of their casings

2 T Bacon grease or butter (optional if there isn't enough fat from sausages in the pan)

1/4 cup flour

4 cups of warmed milk

Salt and Pepper

Preheat oven to 425F.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add cold butter and combine with a pastry cutter, your finger or stand mixer/food processor, cut in butter until butter is the size of peas.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, mix about 1/2 cup of buttermilk and egg. Make a well in the butter-flour mixture and add milk and egg. Stir until mixture is wet. if it's too dry, add more buttermilk. If it's too wet add more flour.

Now dump contents on a lightly floured counter/board. Gently knead about six times to combine the biscuit dough. 

Pre-kneading

Now, either using a flour-dusted rolling pin or the palms of your hand roll/pat out do into a 10 by 5 rectangle. OR roll or pat dough until it's 1 inch high. Either cut rectangle or use a biscuit cutter (or if your ghetto fab like me use a standard floured drinking glass). cut out about 8 rectangles or as many rounds you can.

Line a baking sheet with parchment and place biscuits on. At this point you can refrigerate the dough until needed. 

Bake in the over for 20 minutes or until golden. 

This is great made ahead! I put mine in the fridge, then started the gravy.

Gravy

Brown Sausages in a skillet

Remove sausages from skillet. Some straggler sausage bits will be left behind which is fine, but leave as much fat as possible.

Melt 2T of fat over medium heat. In this case, I used some bacon grease I saved from cooking bacon. Waste not! Momma would be proud.

Add flour and cook flour until it's a nice caramel color. This is to ensure the floury taste is eliminated. This take about 4 minutes to do.

Add warmed milk by the ladle-fulls. Whisk like crazy initially add ladle-fulls of milk for a smooth gravy.

You may or may not use all the milk. Add enough to the consistency you prefer. Stir in the sausage. And season with course salt and freshly ground pepper

Serve over biscuits and you're done!

Hope you try and enjoy this!!!

Easy Pumpkin Pie Muffins

It's officially Autumn!

Welcome to my home!

I am so excited about all the produce of the season! But, I must confess. I cheated. Yes, ladies and gentlemen I cheated. I had to! My husband is currently away as most military members are, so I had to make quick with what I had.

My friend Becca and I planned a baking day last week and we both agreed pumpkin would be the perfect thing to bake since it's the first week of Autumn! Between the two of us we have 5 children under 4, so we decided canned pumpkin was the way to go this time around! However, while shopping at my friendly commissary,  I found that there was NO canned pumpkin. All that was left was some canned pumpkin pie filling! So, I searched the commissary for some fresh pumpkin with the intent to roast, season and puree it myself. Guess what? No pumpkins!!! I was so upset, because here I am at 7:30pm with three hungry, tired, rowdy children and all I have is canned pumpkin pie filling! So I looked at the ingredients list to see if I can maybe alter a recipe a bit, and then I saw that there was a recipe for muffins I had in mind on the back label.  I love challenges, so I bought it. I checked out the website and everything seemed pretty easy so I went to bed.

So yesterday we were ready to bake, and I saw that I read all-purpose baking flour as all purpose flour! Shoot! After a brief panic session, I found a great pumpkin muffin recipe and altered it a bit. Boy, were these delicious!! And soooo easy. The girls loved helping, and my son loved eating them! So it wasn't much of a kitchen disaster after all. I love when there's a light at the end of the funnel. Get it? OK, no more jokes. On to the recipe!

The Pumpkinator

Pumpkin Pie Muffins with Pecan Crumble Topping

Adapted from American Food Recipes 

For the muffins:

3 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup butter, melted

1/4 cup light brown sugar 

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup cream

1 1/4 cup canned pumpkin pie filling

For Pecan Crumble

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup softened butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F and oil muffin tin or add cups. Makes 12 muffins

For pecan crumble, mix all ingredients except for pecans with your hands until you have a crumby texture. Stir in pecans then set aside. 

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream sugar and butter until creamy with whisk or mixer. Add eggs and vanilla until combined. Alternate adding flour mixture and milk and cream until combined. Gently mix in pumpkin, and be sure to not over mix!

Evenly distribute muffin batter then add crumble. A batter and sprinkle fairies does the trick well!

Bake for 30 minutes or until tops are golden and toothpick comes clean when inserted in the middle. 

Happy Eating!

Kid Approved! 

These muffins were so moist with the perfect crunch from the topping! A must try for sure!

Enjoy!!

Of Fests and Football!

Publish Post

What a great weekend! Saturday was one of my good friend's son's first day of school. No, that was not a typo my friends! The first day of 1st year or grade happens on Saturdays here in Germany to ease 1st grade jitters. Here in my town, the kids started with a church service, then they go to their class for about 15 minutes and then the 2nd graders put on the cutest show ever for them. I cried like a baby, and I can not imagine how I will be when my own children starts school!

My son will not partake in this ceremony as he will be in American schools next year, so it was really nice to experience this. Check out the photos here.

 Then later the family went to visit another Serena (another blogger) for dinner and fun. They're parents to be and our children absolutely adore them. They're going to be great parents!!

Sunday was the 2nd day of the 49th Annual Leimen Weinwerke. I didn't go last year as it starts the same time as Oktoberfest and I was in Munich all dirndled up! 

At the Oktoberfest last year and I was just.. SHOCKED!

Germany's full of all kinds of fests and markets in the winter. They're so much fun full of plenty libations! My friend over at Living Wright at Home captured the day perfectly!

After drinking 1 too many beers and doing the moonwalk 90 year-olds I had to hurry home to start dinner. It was NFL Sunday, so I had to make something quick, filling, yet fun. I whipped up some Deli Sliders and Stir-fried Shrimp with Bacon, Chilies and Mint! Weird combo, but oh, so yummy! 

Deli Sliders

For these babies, I added some flavor to mayo for a quick kick.  This is so easy and quick.

Creole Mayo you will need
Creole Seasoning as much as desired/ You can make your own as I did.
1/2 cup Mayo
Dash of Worcestershire Sauce

Mix and be pleased!

Honey Mustard Mayo
1/2 cup Mayo
1/4 dijon mustard or mustard of choice
1/4 cup honey
dash of cider vinegar

You can use any meat or cheese you prefer. We used roast beef, chicken, ham, swiss and pepper jack! I used the Hawaiian Rolls again for this. Toast them according to the package instructions and enjoy!



Then after I made those I felt I needed more. I've been dying to try the Stir-fried Shrimp with Bacon Chilies and Mint from my Food and Wine Cookbook, 2009. Of course if it's got bacon in the title, then it MUST be good! And it was very delicious! It's very spicy when you start eating it and then the fresh mint kicks in cools your mouth. I found it very nice. If you want you can use less chilies. I only used four and it had a pretty good kick!



Stir-Fried Shrimp with Bacon, Mint and Chilies
Adapted from Food and Wine Cookbook, 2009

Ingredients
2t vegetable oil
1/4 pound of thickly sliced bacon, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
4 thai chilies, minced
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup dry white wine
6T chopped mint

Heat oil in pan over medium heat. Add bacon and sauté until most of fat is rendered, about 5-6 minutes. Remove all but 1 tablespoon of fat. I like to save the fat! 

I like to use leftover bacon fat for other uses. Allow it to cool, them place in an airtight container in the fridge. 

Lower heat slightly and add garlic and chilies. Stir until fragrant.

Increase heat, then add shrimp and cook until shrimp just turns pink

Add wine and cook until all it's nearly evaporated

Add mint

Serve!!