Carrot Soup

Hi all:  here is another winner from my cookbook "Crap, What am I Going to Make for Dinner?"

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I tried to do a fancy design with cream here, but clearly I am NOT a talented barista. Don't laugh!!!(You know those pretty designs they add to the foam on lattes).  I should practice this technique more!!  This may not be pretty, but the taste is very "Michelin star" worthy!!

Anyhow, here is the recipe I developed many years ago but this time I made it super easy.  I wanted to get rid of all the old carrots in my fridge and hate wasting them, so I thought I might make a pot of carrot soup.  Trust me, this is a winner!!

Don't throw away those old, dry baby carrots.  Simply rinse them and put them in a soup.  It is delicious and healthy.

Carrot Soup

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Approx. 4 cups baby carrots (they are already peeled and I didn't even dice them. Use them whole)

1 small red onion - diced

4-5 sachets of OXO chicken bouillon 

2 Bay leaves

Olive oil - 1-2 Tablespoon

Basil - 2-3 Teaspoons (this is the key flavour)

Onion powder - 3-4 pinches

Garlic powder - 3-4 pinches

Salt and Pepper

Cream or milk (optional)

In a large Dutch oven, add some olive oil (approx.1-2 Tablespoons) and brown the onions until golden.

I

Add the bagged baby carrots (rinsed and whole) to the onions. If using large whole carrots, peel and chop them to bite size pieces.

Add 4-5 sachets of chicken bouillon to 4-5 cups of hot water and dissolve. Add the broth to the onions and carrots. Add the basil, bay leaves, salt and pepper, a few pinches of onion and garlic powder to the broth.  Cover and let the broth come to a boil, then reduce to simmer and let the carrots cook until very soft (about 35-50 minutes).  Once the carrots are very soft, remove from heat.

Remove the Bay leaves and blend the broth and carrots with an immersion blender. I placed the Dutch oven in my sink, to avoid splashing all over the entire kitchen.

At this point, you can add a few splashes of milk or cream to make the soup creamier, but you can see that this is really very thick already.  Add some more salt to taste, as I find that this soup does need salt.

As a final garnish, add a splash of milk or cream to the top of the soup bowl before serving, to add a decorative and creamy taste.  As I said, I need to practice this.

Homemade soups are a staple in my house, all year long. I don't get this "new" fad that is showing up in the media, about being green and using up leftovers for meals.  I have been doing that for decades now.  It's called "cooking"!!!  Any fine cook worth their salt, uses up what is leftover from previous meals.  It ain't rocket science.

You will love this soup.  It is indeed a winner.

Enjoy.

Rosie

Beef Pot Pie

Hi all:

This is another recipe from my best-selling cookbook, "Crap, What Am I Going to Make For Dinner?"

Let me clarify "best-selling"; by best-selling I mean, it has been the best selling cookbook "I" have ever written. Yes, I have only written this one cookbook, but I have sold a whopping 4 or 5 copies, so it really is the best-selling book "I" have ever written. (My novel, on the other hand, is still in the editing stage, so I can't really say it is a best-seller yet.)

I had a real craving for pot pie yesterday and bought enough ingredients to make 3 of them. I gave two away to my sister, who is in need of some support on the Homefront right now, and kept the other for dinner.  Boy, am I glad I did!  I forgot just how good these are. I developed this recipe many years ago and have made it with both beef and chicken.  Both are equally good.  I urge you to try one.

Doesn't it look delish?

Here is the recipe, right out of the pages of my best-selling cookbook.

I did also use 2 other ingredients which were somehow left out of this recipe; garlic powder and onion powder, my two pantry staples.  You can't cook without them, as far as I am concerned. I also omitted the milk this time and it turned out fine.

This will make 1 very large pot pie or 2 smaller ones. I used frozen pie shells as I don't like fussing with making pastry dough.  They are usually very good and I just used the No-Name brand.

Here are also some extra tips and techniques I used for this recipe.

Brown the ground beef (or cubed chicken breast) in olive oil. Add salt, pepper, basil and the onion and garlic powders. Stir together and when browned, drain the fat and set the meat aside.

In a large Dutch oven, brown the red onions in olive oil. Once browned, add the diced carrots, celery, mushrooms, 2 Bay leaves and the beef (or chicken bullion). I used Oxo beef bouillon sachets. They give a nice, concentrated flavour to the broth.  I have tried the broth in cartons for this recipe, but these sachets really give a lot more flavour.  I simply dissolve each sachet in about 1 cup of hot water and then add the buillion to the vegetables. Let the vegetables simmer and soften for about 10-15 minutes, then strain the vegetables from the broth, using a mesh strainer over a large bowl.  Keep them separate until later.

This has 25% less sodium and still tasted fine.

Now to make the roux.  In the same Dutch oven, which is now empty of vegetables and broth, add about 3-4 Tablespoons of olive oil (or butter) and add in an equal amount of flour. Slowly incorporate the flour into the olive oil until a thick paste is formed. Cook over lower heat until the flour taste has been cooked off (3 -4 minutes or so). Once done, add the broth back into the flour roux very slowly, using a whisk to avoid lumps.  Keep whisking and slowly incorporate all the broth. Next, add the vegetables back into the broth.  Simmer for a few minutes, to thicken the broth.  I did add a little Veloutine to help thicken the broth.  Sometimes, it can be runny.

Now, just add the beef (or chicken) back in with the broth and vegetables, stir and fill your bottom pie shell with this mixture. I usually use a fork to pierce the bottom pie shell first, before I fill it. Next, remove the other pie shell from its foil pan (I usually remove it when it is slightly defrosted. If you wait until it is completely defrosted, the pastry will stick to the foil pie pan and will tear). Put the top pastry shell onto the pie base and pinch the edges to seal. Use a fork or knife to make small slits in the top pastry, to allow steam to escape. I also used strips of foil to cover the pie edges once pinched, so that they don't burn while baking. Place the pie on a foil lined baking sheet and bake for about 35 minutes or until golden.

That's it!! Trust me, you will love it.

Side note:   Did you notice that fancy bright orange bowl I was using? It is from a set of 4 "ZAK! Designs" bowls that I found here at Winners a few months ago. I know you can find them on Amazon, but I was lucky to find them elsewhere. They are melamine, are very versatile and come in festive confetti colours. I love them.  Here is 3 of them.  The other is AWOL.( somewhere buried in my fridge).

Enjoy the Pot Pie.

Rosie

When life hands you lemons, make.........

Devilled Eggs!!

Some people may assume the answer to that old adage is "lemonade" but I am here to prove those people wrong. The answer to life's trials, is devilled eggs.

Up until a few years ago, I wouldn't have been caught dead eating a devilled egg, let alone eating it anywhere outside my own home. ( I had a phobia against eating those or egg salad sandwiches or drinking milk outside the confines of my own home.  It was all about the dairy products picking up weird tastes from someone else's fridge. Can anyone else relate?)

Fast forward to about 5 years ago, when I was in charge of organizing the food for the 75th anniversary celebration of the community band I play with. (New Westminster and District Concert Band). I ordered platters of all the standard fare you would find at such an event from Thrifty Foods and had to feed about 175 people. (I can't remember the exact number of people, but it was a lot!!) I had to provide sandwiches and side dishes for everyone and Thrifty's suggested their devilled eggs as an accompaniment to the sandwiches, vegetable and fruit platters, pickles and olives. I winced at the thought; after all, I wouldn't have to eat them, but they assured me that their devilled eggs were very popular, everyone loved them and they always disappeared quickly.  I gave in, ordered the devilled eggs along with the other food and never gave them another thought until the day of the event.

Well, suffice to say, those devilled eggs disappeared like hotcakes!!! Before the last one "met its maker", I managed to try one for myself.  I was converted!!! It was cold and creamy and tasty and I vowed then and there, that I would never be afraid to try boiled eggs or egg salad again.  Since then, I have bought those Thrifty's devilled eggs myself and have even ordered egg salad sandwiches for lunch.  I have come a long way.

Today, I made up my own recipe for devilled eggs. They are great on a nice piece of artisan bread for a light summer dinner,  so I decided to make some tonight.  Add a pickle and some fresh vegetables on the side and your dinner is served.

Here is the quick recipe:

Devilled Eggs

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6  - Eggs  - hard boiled ( I used Born3- omega 3 eggs. They taste the best and have a beautiful orange yolk)

Salt

2 Tablespoons mayonnaise

Paprika - a few pinches

Crispy fried onions (I found a container of these at IKEA, of all places, but French's fried onions are the same)

Cook the eggs in boiling water for about 20 minutes and then immerse in cold ice water until the eggs have cooled completely.

Peel the hard boiled eggs and cut them in half  lengthwise, with a sharp knife. Make sure you clean the knife after every cut, or the next egg will not cut cleanly.  Scoop out the cooked yolk into a small bowl. I used a small teaspoon.  Add the paprika, mayonnaise and salt to taste.  Mix with the teaspoon until all combined and then drop teaspoonfuls of the yolk mixture back into the egg white "boats". Usually a better chef than I, would take the time and pipe in a fancy design with the yolk mixture, but as I am not Anthony Bourdain, I just added a dollop from the teaspoon. Add the crispy fried onions to the top and there you have it.  Yum!

Don't be afraid to try these. They are a good way to use up eggs that are expiring soon. I used to think these were so time consuming and fancy.  Let everyone THINK they are.

Enjoy,

Rosie