Cream of Broccoli Soup

We love Martha's recipe for cream of broccoli soup.  Throw in some shredded cheddar cheese and it is an amazing little bowl of soup.

We had a little bruschetta with our soup and it made for a pretty good meal.  Rubbing a clove of garlic over the pieces of toast is the trick to making them taste extra special, or so those cooking show people say.

I topped half of those little toasts with some Parmesan cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and basil.

The other half got some leftover caramelized onions, kalamata olives, Parmesan, and rosemary.


Winter, you're really not so bad as long as there is soup.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

Hello and happy Monday!

Our van is now at home in our garage, thank goodness!  We didn't have too much damage done to the bank account, thanks to some hard work done by my husband.  He was calling back and forth between garages and insurance companies all week long and his persistence paid off.  We are thankful to say the least.

Today I want to share one of my favorite fall recipes.  I found it in one of my Taste of Home Magazines a couple of years ago.  We make it a couple of times every fall season and really enjoy it!  You can find the recipe here.

 The recipe tells you to combine the wet and dry ingredients in separate bowls, but I just dump it all in together.  Call me crazy but it works.  This bread is super easy and delicious.

What is your favorite fall recipe?



Rustic Italian Ravioli Soup

Hello!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  We spent our time hiking a local park, trying in vain to hunt down some bittersweet sprays from local nurseries and florist shops, eating good food, and watching football.  It was a great weekend and like always, it went too fast!

I made this soup for the first time a couple of days ago.  Jason and the boys really liked it, "green things" and all!  I thought I would share it with you!  The recipe is adapted from Almost Homemade by Taste of Home, the edition was on shelves until August 2011.  It was originally called Rustic Italian Tortellini Soup.  Since we're more ravioli people in this house, I substituted ravioli for the tortellini.  Here is the original recipe.

Here is what you will need, according to my version!

Rustic Italian Ravioli Soup

3 Italian sausage links, casings removed (about 12 oz total)
1 medium onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
14 oz beef broth
1-3/4 cups water
1 can (14-1/2 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 package frozen ravioli (about 9-10 oz)
1 package (6 oz) fresh spinach, coarsely chopped
2-1/4 teaspoons minced fresh basil
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon minced rosemary
1/2 teaspoon chopped flat-leaf Italian parsley
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Salt to taste

Remove sausage from the casings.  Chop the onion and mince the garlic.  Or, if you're like me, you'll coarsely chop the garlic.  I love biting into big bits of garlic!

Cook the sausage and onion in a Dutch oven over medium heat until the meat is cooked and the onion is tender.  Add the garlic and cook until fragrant.  Add the broth, water, and tomatoes.  Bring to a boil. 

Don't forget to scrape up those lovely bits on the bottom of your pan!

Add the frozen ravioli, spinach, herbs, and pepper.  Cook until the spinach is wilted slightly and the ravioli is tender.  Aren't those colors so pretty?

I am going to miss cooking with fresh herbs from my garden!  Unfortunately, my green thumb does not extend into my house.  I've killed more herbs in my kitchen than I would like to admit...

I served this soup with some homemade garlic Parmesan cheese bread.

Serve with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.


Enjoy!

Happy Monday, all!  I hope you are having a great day!

Garden Bounty

Lately I've been busy with this:

I'm so thankful for it!  I don't even want to think about how much it would cost to purchase this in a grocery store right now.

We're on our third batch of pickle making.

I've been freezing tomatoes and beans for use in the winter.  They taste so wonderful when our garden is buried under mounds and mounds of snow!

Our little freezer is getting very full!

What have you been up to lately?

Our Favorite Summer Salad

Happy Monday to you all!

I'm here with a scrumptious summer salad for you that will use up those wonderful tomatoes and the basil you have growing in your gardens.  It doesn't require that many ingredients but the flavor is amazing.  I hope that you try it!

Here's what you will need:

Tomato Basil Pasta Salad

1 pound of pasta, preferably corkscrew, Gemelli, or Fusilli
1 small onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 pints cherry tomatoes, quartered
salt, pepper to taste
1/2 cup basil, chopped or torn
1 1/4 cups mozzarella, cubed

First, bring a large pot of salted water to boil.  Add the pasta and cook until al dente.  Before draining, reserve a cup of the pasta cooking water for future use.  Do not rinse your pasta!

Meanwhile, in a large skillet cook the onion in the olive oil until tender.  Add the garlic and cook until fragrant.

Add the tomatoes, salt, and pepper.  You will want the tomatoes to cook until they are soft and make a sauce.  They should still be somewhat "chunky."  Add the noodles to the tomatoes and stir until they are moistened.  Here is where you will add anywhere from a 1/2 up to 1 cup of the reserved pasta water. 

Transfer your pasta to a serving bowl and add the mozzarella and basil, stirring until combined.

This salad is wonderful served with bruscetta, garlic bread, or a nice crusty loaf of Italian bread and makes a nice lunch or light dinner.

Enjoy!

Coleslaw with Old Bay Seasoning

Hello! 

I'm here with another recipe for you all to try before this summer quickly fades away.  So fire up your grill and cook some of your favorite barbecued meats. Make sure to serve this delicious coleslaw right next to it.  My boys were big fans.  There are lots of versions of this recipe out there, but this one is by far my favorite!

You'll need:

1 head cabbage, shredded

2 carrots, peeled and shredded

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 large green pepper, sliced very thin

4 green onions, finely chopped

1 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon Old Bay Seasoning

Pinch of sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Place all of the vegetables into a large bowl and sprinkle with the vinegar.  Stir well.

In a small mixing bowl, combine the mayo, Old Bay Seasoning, and sugar.  Add this to the slaw mixture and stir well.

You may need to add salt and pepper to your coleslaw.  Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours.

Enjoy!

Grilling Pizza

Hello, Friends!

Awhile ago I posted about the best pizza crust I have ever made at home.  You can find that post and the recipe for it here.  I told you that we would try to grill it because that is our favorite way to make pizza at home.  Well, we tried it and it was amazing.  I am not the griller in our family.  My husband Jason handles that and does a pretty good job in my opinion.  We have a charcoal grill which takes more time than a gas grill, but the flavor can't be beat.  Here is how we go about making pizzas on the grill.

We begin by lighting our charcoal in a chimney starter.  We use briquettes because they retain their heat longer and that way we do not need to add any during the cooking process.  (Natural lump charcoal will burn hotter, which is ideal for grilling pizzas, but also burns more quickly. If you desire to use natural lump charcoal you may want to have a second batch heating in a chimney starter so you can add it during the cooking process if your grill begins to lose heat.) 

After the coals begin to be covered with a grey ash, pour them out on one side of the grill.  (You can even pour them out earlier than you normally would for cooking other foods so you will have a higher temperature for the actual cooking.)  This is where you will cook the crusts directly.  Leave the other side free of coals so that the pizza can cook indirectly once it has been topped. 

The last time I made this dough, the recipe said that it would make three pizzas.  For grilling, however, we prefer small, individual sized crusts because they are easier to move.  After I made the dough and let it rise, I took it and divided it into six small pizzas.  Once the grill was good and hot, we put the pizza crusts on the grill right over the hot coals (direct heat) and let them get those pretty grill marks on each side.  A spatula works best for this task.  The crusts should be crispy and lightly browned.  Stay next to your grill!  You don't want to leave them on too long or they will burn...if not now then later after you have added the toppings.  Once they are crispy and browned, remove them and place them on a baking sheet.  Now you're ready to add your toppings!

Before we even begin grilling the crusts, I make sure I have all my toppings ready.  This will ensure that the grill will stay hot.  The first time we grilled pizzas I did not do this and our pizzas took forever to cook.  We like to get creative with our toppings and make fun ones like Greek pizzas, barbecue chicken pizzas, etc. 

Mmm.  Look at those tasty little pizzas all ready to go back onto the grill.

When you have all of the toppings on your pizzas, place them back onto the grill.  This time you will want to place them on the side that does not have the hot coals (indirect heat). Keep them as far away from the coals as you can so the crust does not burn.  Then place the cover on the grill with the vent holes over the pizzas. This will draw the heat up "through" the pizzas, heating them and melting the cheese.

We cook the pizzas at a high heat with the cover on until the cheese is melted and the crust is crisp.

Our grill was around 500 degrees.  Pretty hot indeed!

Again, watch your pizzas closely so they don't burn.  Don't leave them on for longer than is necessary to melt the cheese otherwise the crusts have a tendency to become tough.  Still very tasty, but can be rather unpleasant to eat.  If for whatever reason you want/need to crisp up the crust you could move the pizza back over the direct heat VERY briefly. They could also burn very easily so watch them closely.

Those pizzas look good enough to eat!  And we did.  And they were great.

We enjoyed our pizzas on our patio with a little Lambrusco, one of our favorite red wines.  Lambrusco has a little "sparkle" to it and goes well with pizza.

The next two pictures are courtesy of my husband Jason, who lifted up his pizza so that you could all see the bottom of his pizza crust...

and then all of his toppings slid off.  He played it cool by saying something like, "At least now it will cool faster so that I can eat it!"  I love him.


There you have it, folks!  This recipe for pizza crust still has the top spot for our favorite crust.  I can now recommend that you cook it in your oven and on the grill.    I hope you're all having a wonderful Wednesday!  God's blessings on the rest of your week!