Runaway October

Some of you may have had this soup before. It’s one of Olive Garden’s most pop­u­lar dishes.

This Thanks­giv­ing we had an Ital­ian theme and we brought this soup–it turned out quite yummy. It’s also quick and fairly inex­pen­sive. A great choice for chilly nights.

Unti­tled by Divine Domesticity

Zuppa Toscana (Olive Gar­den Copycat)

Serves: 6 to 8 people

Ingre­di­ents:

• 1 lb ground Ital­ian sausage (Your choice on Sweet, Mild or Hot)
• 1½ tsp crushed red peppers
• 1 large diced white onion
• 4 Tbsp bacon pieces (I used reg­u­lar bacon, though pre­cooked bacon or even Real Bacon Bits would work)
• 4 cloves of gar­lic, minced
• 10 cups water
• 4 cubes of chicken bouillon *
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 lb sliced Rus­set pota­toes, or about 3 large potatoes **
• ¼ of a bunch of kale

Direc­tions:

1. Sauté Ital­ian sausage and crushed red pep­per in a large pot. Drain excess fat, refrig­er­ate while you pre­pare other ingredients.
2. In the same pan, sauté bacon, onions and gar­lic over low-medium heat for approx­i­mately 15 min­utes or until the onions are soft.
3. Add chicken bouil­lon and water to the pot and heat until it starts to boil.
4. Add the sliced pota­toes and cook until soft, about half an hour.
5. Add the heavy cream and warm just until thor­oughly heated.
6. Stir in the sausage and the kale, let all heat through and serve. Delicious!

* Con­versely, you can omit the bouil­lon and the water and just use straight chicken broth.

** If you have left over baked pota­toes, you can just slice them and toss them in. Cook long enough to warm them through and move on to step 5.

Image by bookgrl

Enjoy!

Do you have any favorite soup recipes you’d like to share?

Some­times when you aim to hand make all of your gifts, the final goal can get away from you. Sure, that super cute scarf would be fun to make, but in Ari­zona who’s going to use it?

So the boys (with lots of help from Mama) are mak­ing soap to give as gifts this year. Who can’t use soap, right?

Don’t worry, the stove was not on yet.

My fancy dou­ble boiler.

Adding flax meal for exfo­liants and kelp pow­der which is a great detox­i­cant. (Is that a word?)

Soap on a Rope, poured and set­ting up.

In the molds, with a fin­ger­print… for authenticity.

We did two dif­fer­ent batches so far–one for the gals, one for the guys.

The Guy Recipe

• 1 lb sus­pen­sion Shea But­ter soap base
• 2 table­spoons Kelp Powder
• 2 table­spoons Flax Seed Meal
• 15–20 drops Tea Tree Essen­tial Oil

The Gal Recipe

• 1 lb Honey melt & pour soap
• 4 Tb Beeswax
• 4 Tb Honey
• 15 — 20 Sweet Orange Essen­tial Oil
• 1 tsp shim­mery Mica for sparkle

(P.S. — If the boys give you a gift of soap, pre­tend to be sur­prised! They are very proud of their efforts! )

When­ever any­one asks me where I’d like to eat for din­ner, the first thing to pops into my head is Out­back Steak­house. I’ve had Prime Rib from many many places but I pre­fer it from Out­back by far. I guess you could call me an Out­back Prime Rib fan­girl, I’ll never tire of eat­ing there!

Not too long ago I decided I needed to change things up and order some­thing dif­fer­ent. I set­tled on the Shrimp En Fuego. It’s a lovely com­bi­na­tion of Shrimp, Mush­rooms and Toma­toes in a spicy cream sauce served over an open baked potato. Yum, huh? It seems that when we eat out, I almost always get some­thing heavy in mush­rooms since Matt refuses to eat them.

(Photo by Sarah Caron)

Since we don’t often eat out, I decided I’d try and wing it at home after find­ing a great sale on shrimp. The Inter­nets weren’t so help­ful for a recipe, so I gath­ered all the tips I could find about it and dived in. I can’t tell you how alike it is com­pared to Outback’s because I don’t have the option to try them next to eat other, but it turned out really good. Spicy.

Shrimp En Fuego

Serves 4, dou­bles perfectly

Ingre­di­ents:

• 4 Baked pota­toes, prefer­ably with the skin salted and oiled
• 1  jar Cheesy Ragu Clas­sic Alfredo Sauce (I was lazy and didn’t make my own)
• 1 Table­spoon Chipo­tle Chili Powder
• 3 table­spoon Chili Gar­lic Sauce (Com­monly called Rooster Sauce, and found in the eth­nic food sec­tion of most markets)
• 1 pound fresh shrimp (frozen may be sub­sti­tuted, if thawed), deveined and tails removed.
• 1 pound mush­rooms
• 2 cloves gar­lic, minced or pressed
• Salt and Pepper
• 1 pack­age cherry toma­toes, halved.

Prepa­ra­tion:

1. Pre­heat oven to 350°F.
2. Scrub pota­toes and poke with a fork a cou­ple times. Rub the out­sides with olive oil then roll or rub with medium grind sea salt. Place in oven and cook until desired doneness.
3. When pota­toes are almost done, com­bine alfredo sauce, chipo­tle pow­der, and chili gar­lic sauce in a medium sauce pan. Warm over medium heat, stir­ring occasionally.
4. If you wish, the amount of chipo­tle and chili sauce can be adjusted now. I had to keep the spices low or The Hubs and The Boys wouldn’t eat it.
   

   My food pho­tog­ra­phy isn’t very good, but you get the idea.

5. While sauce is warm­ing, sauté shrimp, mush­rooms and minced gar­lic over medium high heat until shrimp is pink and mush­rooms are ten­der. Add salt and pep­per to taste.
6. If you wish, you can add the sauce to the pan of shrimp and mush­rooms, mix­ing every­thing together, or keep them sep­a­rate. Place open potato on a plate, layer with shrimp and mush­rooms, then sauce with halved toma­toes on top. (It looks bet­ter that way. For the ease of feed­ing my horde I mix every­thing together.)
7. Don’t for­get to turn off the oven.
8. Enjoy!

Our theme for this month was Alli­ums, cour­tesy of Small Mea­sure. Leeks, Onions, Shal­lots, Gar­lic, Ramps, Rakkyo, Scal­lions, Chives, etc. My first thought was ‘What the heck can I can that will actu­ally get eaten?’ I remem­bered try­ing an onion jelly a few years back, warmed and poured over melted Brie cheese, which was deli­cious. I had thought at the time that it would be yummy over pork­chops. So, I set­tled on an old standby — Jam.

I found the recipe on Michelle’s blog, Big Black Dog, and fol­lowed it to a “T”, no adap­ta­tions. Well, I did add one kitchen helper, since he was very sad that Big Brud­der got to go to Grandma’s house with­out him today.

Ignore the Oreo schmutz on his face. He’s hav­ing a rough day.

Zesty Red Onion Jelly*

Gen­er­ously shared by Michelle of Big Black Dog.

Makes 3 half-pint jars

Ingre­di­ents:

• 1 cup diced red onion
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• 3/4 cup white vinegar
• 3 cups gran­u­lated sugar
• 1 pouch (85 ml [3 fl oz]) liq­uid pectin

Prepa­ra­tion:

1. Cut red onion into 1/8 inch slices; cut slices into 1/4 inch dice.
2. Mea­sure 1 cup into a large, deep stain­less steel saucepan.
3. Zest lemon and mea­sure 2 tsp into saucepan.
4. Stir in vine­gar and sugar.
5. Over high heat, bring mix­ture to a full, roil­ing boil. Stir­ring con­stantly, boil hard 1 minute. Remove from heat.
6. Imme­di­ately stir in one pouch Liq­uid Pectin, mix­ing well.
7. Pour jelly into a hot jar, divid­ing solids equally among jars and fill­ing each jar to within 1/4 inch of top rim (head space). Wipe jar rims. Cen­ter lids on jars & screw on bands till fingertight.
8. Process in Hot Water Bath for 10 minutes.
9. Cool for about 30 min­utes, then, when lids are con­cave but jelly is still hot, care­fully invert & twist jars to dis­trib­ute solids through­out jelly. (Do not let them remain upside down for long peri­ods. It is said that doing so can cause food par­ti­cles to creep into the threads and cause spoilage.) Repeat as needed dur­ing the cooling/setting time, until solids are nicely suspended.

* I think this is con­sid­ered a jam because the onions have not been strained out, but I could be wrong!

It was a sim­ple quick recipe, the longest part was the 10 minute Hot Water Bath.

The color is gor­geous. I used Michelle’s trick of heat­ing the onion skins in the required vine­gar to get the dye out of them. Onions are rare at Farmer’s Mar­kets here and I had no clue how old the ones I bought were, but I’d imag­ine the color from fresh onions would be more vibrant.

She also spec­i­fied that short inver­sion times or twist­ing were nec­es­sary to dis­trib­ute the solids, but mine seemed to have no trou­bles at all. I just made sure to lis­ten for the “schick” of the lids seal­ing (onions have low ph so good can­ning prac­tices are vital) and called it done!

Lessons learned:

• Don’t try to smell onions cook­ing in vine­gar. Burns the sinuses. LOL
• I’ve had a few peo­ple frown when I invert my jars while they cool. It was just what I’ve been told and have seen done. Appar­ently this is a no-no because food par­ti­cles can work their way into the threads and pos­si­bly cause spoilage. Thank­fully I’ve never had issues before, but now I know.

What did you make for the Can Jam? Or what have you canned lately?

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It’s time for my par­tic­i­pa­tion blog post for Tigress’ Can Jam. I actu­ally have two recipes to share with you.

Our theme for Jan­u­ary was Cit­rus, which is awe­some because Cit­rus is so abun­dant here in Ari­zona this time of year.

Ari­zona Citrus

This first recipe was just a standby while I waited for my vanilla beans to arrive for my REAL recipe for the can jam.

Cit­rus Marmalade

Makes 6 half-pint jars

Ingre­di­ents:

• 4 meduim oranges
• 2 medium lemons
• 2 1⁄2 cups water
• 1⁄8 tea­spoon bak­ing soda
• 61⁄2 cups sugar
• 1 pack­age pow­ered pectin
• 1⁄4 tea­spoon butter

Prepa­ra­tion:

1. Wash your hands, uten­sils, and work sur­faces, and then pre­pare the ingredients.
2. Ster­il­ize empty can­ning jars by plac­ing them upright on rack in water bath can­ner and cov­er­ing them with hot water to 1 inch above the tops of the jars. Boil 10 min­utes. At alti­tudes higher than 1000 ft, boil the jars an addi­tional 1 minute for each addi­tional 1000 ft ele­va­tion. Keep the jars hot and drain just prior to filling.
3. Wash the oranges and lemons throughly, I use a scrub brush. Remove the rind in quar­ters from oranges and lemons. Trim and dis­card half of the albedo (white flesh attached to the rind). Or all of it if you don’t want all the bit­ter­ness asso­ci­ated with it.
4. Thinly slice the rinds and place in a 4-quart (4 L) saucepan.
5. Mix the rinds with water and bak­ing soda. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and sim­mer for 20 min­utes, stir­ring occasionally.
   

   Cit­rus segments

6. While the rinds are cook­ing, remove seeds from the peeled oranges and lemons, and finely chop the fruit, sav­ing the juice. Set aside.
7. Add reserved fruit and juice to the cooked rind mix­ture. Cover, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and sim­mer 10 minutes.
8. Mea­sure exactly 4 cups of cooked fruit and rind mix­ture (a box of pectin is suf­fi­cient to gel this much liq­uid). Use a slot­ted spoon to make sure you get all of the fruit and rind, and then use the juice to bring the total vol­ume up to 4 cups. Dis­card any left­over juice or use it in another recipe that calls for orange juice.
9. Add pectin and but­ter or mar­garine to the mea­sured fruit. The but­ter or mar­garine reduces foam­ing dur­ing the cook­ing process.
10. Bring the mix­ture to a vig­or­ous boil that can­not be stirred down, stir­ring con­stantly. Boil for 1 minute.
11. Add sugar to the mix­ture. Return to a boil that can­not be stirred down, stir­ring con­stantly. Boil for 1 minute.
12. Remove from heat and let stand 5 min­utes, stir­ring occasionally.
13. Pre­pare two-piece can­ning lids accord­ing to manufacturer’s recommendations.
14. Ladle hot mar­malade into hot, ster­ile jars, leav­ing 1⁄4 inch of headspace.
15. Wipe the jars and the rim with a clean cloth or towel, place a clean pre­pared lid on the rim, and screw the ring band on finger-tight.
16. Process in a boil­ing water­bath can­ner for 5 min­utes (alti­tudes of up to 1000 ft). (Increase pro­cess­ing time by 1 minute for every addi­tional 1000 ft in altitude.)
17. Let jars cool undis­turbed for 12 to 24 hours, then check seals by press­ing the mid­dle of the lid with your fin­ger. If the lid springs back, then the jar is not sealed and must be refrig­er­ated. Prop­erly sealed jars can be stored in a dark, cool place.

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Now on to my offi­cial Cit­rus Can Jam entry.

This recipe is adapted from a recipe I found on Epicurious.com. It’s one of my very favorite mar­malades to date. It starts as a sweet lemon­ade taste , end­ing as a warm bac­knote of vanilla.

Meyer Lemon and Vanilla Bean Mar­malade
Makes 6 half-pint jars

Ingre­di­ents:

• 1 1/4 pounds Meyer lemons
• 5 cups water
• 5 1/2 cups (about) sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• Pinch of salt

Prepa­ra­tion:

1. Wash your hands, uten­sils, and work sur­faces, and then pre­pare the ingredients.
2. Ster­il­ize empty can­ning jars by plac­ing them upright on rack in water bath can­ner and cov­er­ing them with hot water to 1 inch above the tops of the jars. Boil 10 min­utes. At alti­tudes higher than 1000 ft, boil the jars an addi­tional 1 minute for each addi­tional 1000 ft ele­va­tion. Keep the jars hot and drain just prior to filling.
3. Wash the lemons throughly, I use a scrub brush.
4. Zest lemons. The more pith you zest, the more bit­ter your mar­malade will be.
5. Peel and dis­card unwanted pith. While work­ing on a plate to catch juices, chop lemons finely. Dis­card seeds.
6. Pack enough lemons, zest and any juice to mea­sure 2 1/2 cups. Trans­fer to large non­re­ac­tive pot.
7. Add 5 cups water; bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium; sim­mer 10 min­utes. Remove from heat; let stand uncov­ered overnight.
8. Mea­sure lemon mix­ture (there should be about 5 1/2 cups). Return to same pot.
9. Add equal amount of sugar (about 5 1/2 cups).
10. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean; add bean. Add pinch of salt.
11. Bring to boil, stir­ring until sugar dis­solves. Attach clip-on candy thermometer.
12. Main­tain­ing active boil and adjust­ing heat to pre­vent boil­ing over, cook until tem­per­a­ture reaches 230°F, stir­ring occa­sion­ally, about 30 minutes.
13. Remove from heat and let stand 5 min­utes, stir­ring occasionally.
14. Pre­pare two-piece can­ning lids accord­ing to manufacturer’s recommendations.
15. Ladle hot mar­malade into hot, ster­ile jars, leav­ing 1⁄4 inch of headspace.
16. Wipe the jars and the rim with a clean cloth or towel, place a clean pre­pared lid on the rim, and screw the ring band on finger-tight.
17. Process in a boil­ing water­bath can­ner for 5 min­utes (alti­tudes of up to 1000 ft). (Increase pro­cess­ing time by 1 minute for every addi­tional 1000 ft in altitude.)
18. Let jars cool undis­turbed for 12 to 24 hours, then check seals by press­ing the mid­dle of the lid with your fin­ger. If the lid springs back, then the jar is not sealed and must be refrig­er­ated. Prop­erly sealed jars can be stored in a dark, cool place.

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Now… Who’s bring the fresh home­made bread so we can eat up all this mar­malade?