Chicken Sausage and Vegetable Soup

I had all these leftover remains of vegetables from this past weekend's dinner party. I didn't want to waste any of it, so, what was I to make? I decided to make a hearty soup, using things I had in my refrigerator and pantry. It turned out quite lovely.

CHICKEN SAUSAGE AND VEGETABLE SOUP

Ingredients:
1/2 sweet potato, diced about 1-2 cm
1/3 sweet onion, chopped
2 (spicy) chicken sausages, sliced
1/3 bag of spinach (the big one, prewashed)
1 box of creamy vegetable bisque (from Trader Joe's)
1 can of cream-style corn
ground ginger
salt
pepper

Basically, I cooked the onion and sweet potato in olive oil first, until the sweet potatoes were cooked through (I could easily cut through them), approximately 5-8 min. I added the sausage then the vegetable bisque and cream-style corn. Cook to simmering and season with ginger, salt and pepper. Add spinach at the end when the soup is just about ready to serve.

That's it!

Leftovers!

So, considering the massive amounts of food I made for the dinner, it's no wonder why I was a little concerned about what I would be eating for the next week. However, a friend had a Oscars party giving me the perfect opportunity to make a new dish using the old and seeing how my Halwa fared with others!

I actually had lots of peanut sauce leftover from the chicken dish the other night which I thought would be yummy with some noodles. I just cooked a box of spaghetti noodles and added the peanut sauce (veggies and leftover chicken all). I had lots of compliments so I think that it goes over well as a pasta sauce too! No picture, sorry, but you get the idea. And the Halwa went over exremely well too! Thank goodness my friend had cardamom in her spice rack, because it was the one thing I forgot to pack. I think adding the extra cardamom really picked up the flavors even more.

So, remember how I said I had made the pumpkin risotto specifically for the pork dish? Well, today, I had the opportunity to make it! Here it is:

Fig and Blood Orange Glazed Pork Loin with Pumpkin Risotto


Yum!

Dinner for Three

I had a little dinner party tonight! I was originally going to make the pork loin recipe I posted this past week, but one person is on the Atkins diet and very picky about what he can eat, so I decided to make a different menu - which he definitely won't be able to eat one item. I won't even pretend that this dinner menu follows a theme. Ha! So, just a few things that I really wanted to make.

Dinner Menu:
Pumpkin Risotto
Chicken and Vegtables braised in Peanut Sauce
Carrot Halwa

I will post the recipes in the order that I made them. I had all day to cook, so I decided to do it one by one and make it a relaxing day of cooking. (Note: Hmmm, I just realized that my meal started orange and ended orange. How funny!)

CHICKEN AND VEGETABLES BRAISED IN PEANUT SAUCE

I admit - this is from http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/106049

So, I won't write it out, but I will say that I added more peanut butter (about 1/4 c more) as well as added grated ginger (about 1-2 tsps, added before the garlic) and was very liberal with my cayenne pepper. There was still something missing from this recipe, and like other reviewers for the recipe, couldn't quite figure it out. Grrr.

A:
B:


CARROT HALWA

I had been wanting to make this for a while and found this recipe online:
http://www.indianfoodforever.com/desserts/gajjar-ka-halwa.html

I used it as a guide, really. I halved the recipe - 2.2 pounds of carrots? That is a lot of carrots. And not to mention the pain of grating all those carrots. About grating the carrots - I actually did one third as the fine grate and the rest as the large grate. It really doesn't matter. I used 3/4 of the amount of the sugar... and the dessert turned out as sweet as I have had it in restaurants - I will definitely be cutting down on this too in the future. I also added 1/2 a stick of cinnamon while the carrots were cooking in the milk and sugar mixture. All in all, I let it sit and cook on low heat for an hour and not much reduction had occurred. So then I put the heat on medium and just was vigilant about watching the reduction/cooking. 15 min later, the milk had absorbed. I found out that Ghee is essentially like lard, so, needless to say, this did not get put in the recipe. But I did add a tablespoon of earth balance margarine to the dessert - it needed something buttery in consistency added. Then I used ground cardamom - to taste. This was yummy but too sweet!



PUMPKIN RISOTTO

So I admit, I really wanted to make this to have with my pork dish. But then I got so enamored of the idea of pumpkin risotto that even after I lost the pork from the menu, I decided to keep this in the mix.

10 oz canned pumpkin
2 cups chicken stock
1.5 cups water
0.5 cup white wine
3 shallots, finely chopped
1 chopped garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 and 1/2 cup Arborio rice
1 oz grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (1/3 cup)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
salt
pepper
1 T butter (earth balance)

Bring stock and water to a simmer in a small saucepan and keep at a bare simmer. Cook shallots in oil in a heavy saucepan over moderate heat until softened, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and stir. Add wine and stir/cook for 1-2 min. Add rice and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add 1 cup simmering stock and cook at a strong simmer, stirring constantly, until stock is absorbed. Continue simmering, adding stock 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly and letting each addition be absorbed before adding the next, until rice is tender and creamy-looking but still al dente, about 18 minutes total. (There may be broth left over.) Stir in canned pumpkin. Remove from heat and add cheese and butter, stirring until butter is melted. Season with salt and pepper. -- I came so close to adding some nutmeg to see how this tasted. I thought that while the risotto was well-cooked, the pumpkin flavor never came through. Hmm...



My dinner companions told me that they thought everything was good - I think they were being nice after getting a free meal. :) We had a Riesling with the meal, a good choice I think, although a Gewurtztraminer would have also been good or even a light red.

Please check out the survey/poll and answer! This is a competition as to which photo is the best and the winner will be the final entry into the blog as the picture that goes along with the recipe. :) Thanks!

Noodles on the mind

The question of the week is: what type of noodles for the Dan Dan Mein? The answer in picture below. Hope this helps out! Either is ok, but I prefer using the fresher type of noodle, seen on the left. I usually buy a bundle and repackage them into manageable portions.

Fig and Blood Orange Glazed Pork Loin

Yum! Okay, so I have to say that this recipe is a sure keeper for me. And honestly, pretty easy to make!

FIG AND BLOOD ORANGE GLAZED PORK LOIN

Ingredients:
1 blood orange
1.5 T fig jam
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 pork loin
1/2 sweet onion, sliced
cooking oil
salt and pepper

Pound the pork loin to soften it up and make it thinner so it will cook faster. In a frying pan, add cooking oil, about 2 T, but you can add more later if needed. Heat at medium heat. Add salted and peppered (add liberally!) pork loin as well as onions. Juice the blood orange. Get a small cooking pot, add the orange juice, fig jam, and dijon mustard. Heat over low-medium heat and reduce to a glaze-like consistency. Turn pork loin as necessary so it does not burn, but cooks evenly on both sides. Every so often, add some of the glaze to the pork loin (maybe 1-2 tsps at a time). When the pork loin is cooked through, add remaining glaze to the pork and onions. Plate.

Servings: 1
Time to prep and cook: 15 min.


This recipe was very yummy and I will be keeping this one in the repertoire. Hope you enjoy it too!

Oatmeal Almond Crisp-Crusted Mahi Mahi

So, back to my foray into cooking... I had some leftover green curry sauce from my favorite Thai place in Pittsburgh. On top of that, I had some Mahi Mahi. So... let's see what happened!

Oatmeal Almond Crisp-Crusted Mahi Mahi

Ingredients:
5-8 oz fillet of Mahi Mahi
1 T green curry sauce or coconut milk
1/4 c crushed Oatmeal Crisp with Almond cereal (or else, your fave cereal - within reason)
salt
pepper
Pam spray or 1 t cooking oil

Pre-heat oven to 425F. On baking pan (or aluminum foil), spray with Pam (or use cooking oil). Place mahi mahi down and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake 5 min, then remove tray from oven. Brush mahi mahi with green curry/coconut milk then top with the cereal. Bake another 10 min, remove from oven and let stand another 3-5 min. Plate.

Servings: 1
Time to prep: 1-2 min



I had some leftover brown rice that I served with it (and the remainders of my mock duck with green curry) as well as asparagus. The cereal I used was a little too sweet for this dish, but overall, pretty good!

Brie, Pear, Fig Sandwich

Ok, so no picture today (this was a packed lunch!), but it was delicious and very easy to make, so I needed to tell you about it.

Ingredients:
Brie
Fig Jam
Pear
2 pieces of Ham
2 pieces bread (I prefer seven grain)

This simple. Toast bread. Let it cool a little. Smear on Brie, then fig jam. Then places some slices of pear (I used Bosc, crispier and generally tastier to me) and on top of that, the ham. Top with second piece of toast.

Yum! Try it.

Eating out...

I know, I promised new recipes last week, but who knew my ED shifts would be so time consuming? Plus, I was really craving Indian food and since I don't cook that, I had to order out. It was yummy. Which got me thinking about Indian desserts, and in particular, the carrot halwa. Yum! I think I will be making that in the near future.

But the real point of this post? I have more ED shifts this week. So, probably less chance for recipes this week too. Sorry! I am aiming to get back on track next week though, so come on back next week!