I know, I know

I am well aware that it has been awhile since I posted last. Today is 3 days post Christmas and we are all getting over the flu. None of us, kids, hubby or myself, have eaten much since Tuesday. Today we finally showered and got out of the house. We only made it to church and back, but that was enough. We came home and all were hungry. My solution was onion soup. I knew it needed to be something not to heavy, as all of our tummies are very delicate right now.

I have always followed different recipes when making French onion soup, and have never used the same one twice.  I figured I had enough variations in my mind I could do one on my own without a recipe.

Here it goes. 4 red onions sliced into thin rings. Garlic. 1/2 cup real butter. Thyme.  Salt and pepper. Put this into a large pot and saute until golden and soft.  This took about 30 min.

I added 1 1/2 cup of white wine. Boiled it until the wine dissolved. Then removed the thyme stalks. It is kind of thick and pasty at this point.

I stirred in 1/4 cup of flour, and cooked it until the bitterness of the flour was gone. It got even thicker now.

Add in 8 cups of chicken stock and bring back to a boil. I then added two handfuls of mozzarella cheese. Then I turned heat down to medium and let slowly boil for about 15 minutes.

As this was finishing up I sliced french sandwich rolls into thin slices. Added garlic powder and topped with mozzarella cheese. These went into the oven on broil until it was golden brown.

By the time the rolls were done so was the soup. I put the soup into oven safe bowls for each of us. I floated a slice of cheese bread on top and covered with more mozzarella. These went back into the oven on broil for about 5 minutes until these cheese was golden. Took out and served.

It was so good. I think tomorrow it will have aged a bit to my benefit. It will only get better.

Turmeric shrimp

Following the same track as yesterday led me to shrimp and turmeric. I started with shrimp boiled in white wine and covered until almost fully cooked. Then added garlic, turmeric and onions. This one smelled very mustardy. Not even sure if that is even a word. But it did. The taste was heavenly though.

Perfect paring was pasta shells. That way the sauce from the turmeric shrimp can be caught in the shells.

It was a delightful meal.  Kids finished off it all. Here is the after.

So far turmeric works with both chicken and shrimp. No turmeric for a few days, do not want to burn the kids out on turmeric.

Turmeric Chicken

Not sure why but my Pintrest has been inundated lately with the health benefits of turmeric. Not sure if it is a new American Fad or if I am just late to jump on the bandwagon. Crazy enough I already had this in my cupboard. It was in a recipe that I used quite a while ago. I have never used it since. I could not even tell you what recipe I used it on and have never used it since. That being said I actually love it, as of yesterday.

My cooking consist of me smelling spices and adding them to my dishes based on smell. If anyone has smelled turmeric, it smells like mustard. Not really something that seems like it could be added to many dishes.

Yesterday I asked the kids what they wanted for dinner. Benjamin responded with the usual, Bean and cheese burritos, followed by Quesadillas. Jasmine gave her usual anything but pasta. I settled on chicken and couscous.

I started with olive oil, and chicken breasts on the skillet, high heat. I sprinkled turmeric, garlic salt and some grilled onions (from yesterdays dinner) over the chicken. One side got nice and golden and then flipped the chicken over. I again sprinkled turmeric and pepper on the chicken. I turned the heat down to med-lo and added in 1/2 cup of white wine, and covered it. This cooked for about 5-7 minutes. Then I turned it once more and added in a 1/4 cup of water and some bacon bits (the ones from Costco that come in a bag). Covered it again and cooked for 2-3 minutes. Then took the cover off and turned the heat way up and boiled off the liquid.

What was left was a oniony garlicky sauce, along with the chicken breasts. The turmeric did not have a mustard flavor at all. It added just a touch of spice to the chicken. It ended up so juicy and good. Not sure why I have not been using this spice more often. I needed to hop on this band wagon quite a while ago. It is a new and different flavor that is amazing.

The couscous was just a basic couscous that I add a bit of salt, onion powder, dried onion (I like how it stays a bit crunchy), sun flower seed and grilled garlic slices. It is easy and the kids like the various textures.

I did not get any pictures of this meal. By the time it was done, the kids were starving and I was not going to fight them to let me get a picture before they ate. But know this, all the food was gone. I usually make 3 chicken breasts, the kids each eat half and Rougeh and I eat a whole one. Last night, Benjamin ate his and asked if there was any more, I gave him half of mine, he loved it that  much.

Another score of mommy! If anyone has a spice that they would like to introduce me to I would love suggestions. This will be tried in many different dishes for the next, who knows how long.

BTW, ORANGES are in season!!!

Shrimp and pasta

Driving home from church and family says,  "what's for lunch we are starving?" No idea! Hubby says how about shrimp.

Shrimp it is. Now what to do with it. Google my trusty friend shows me lots of shrimp recipes, but none seem to sound good. Even the 5 star ones. All this in the 15 minutes it takes for us to get home.

We get home. I put a pot on the stove to start boiling water, because no matter what I do to the shrimp, pasta will work.

Now on to the shrimp. I started with coconut oil and garlic. Always a good place to start. Then added in some white wine and diced onions. Bring that to a boil, add in fresh oregano, stem and all. Boil that. Then add in cayenne pepper, garlic salt and cracked pepper. At this point I removed the stems of the oregano, but left the leaves. Once that was done I then added in the shrimp. Turned the heat down to simmer and covered. Cook the shrimp for about 5 min. Turn the heat off and flip the shrimp. Let the shrimp stand as you finish the pasta.

By the time the pasta was done. The shrimp had stood long enough.

Plated with pasta on the bottom and shrimp with sauce on top. 

Start to finish this took 20 minutes. Jasmine asked if I can make this for dinner too. Haha. I made enough for both meals, but planned on having enough to pack Rougeh a lunch tomorrow. No such luck. 2 pounds of shrimp and 1 pound of pasta all gone. 

Tilapia and pasta

Today is the aftermath of over indulging from yesterday. Thanksgiving was amazing, just too many items to blog about. Today is a new day though. I am a proud mom. I asked the kids what they wanted for dinner. One said chicken and the other said fish, if only they would always agree on everything! I said ok lets start with the side, one said couscous and the other said pasta, Ughh. Love these kids.

We settled on Tilapia and pasta, each is happy. Benjamin asks when will it be ready. LIGHTBULB! They are going to be making dinner, supervised of course. I have them look up recipes for tilapia. First three are immediately vetoed, fourth looks good. Only issue with the recipe is that we do not have jars of alfredo sauce. Both the kids look at me confused. You see the look of "Oh, No we cannot do this one too." Ha Ha, they had no idea that I always make my own. Instead of just giving them the recipe and have them do it, I make them look it up.

10 minutes later, we finally have alfredo sauce in the making. They made the sauce totally on their own. They measured, stirred, and seasoned it themselves.

















Then on to the Tilapia. It needed to be baked with Creole seasoning, another thing we do not keep in stock here. Back to good old Allrecipes.com. Guess what, we have everything we need to make our own creole seasoning. Surprise surprise! Both sides of the tilapia get seasoned and into the oven at 425 for 10 min.

Two fidgety kids later, we have fish done, alfredo sauce done, and garlic crescents in the oven. Jasmine says "we are ready to eat" Benjamin, "What about the pasta? Man this cooking thing is hard work."

They get out the pan and start the boiling water. Start to finish they make the spaghetti on their own. Tasting the half cooked noodles WAY too often, but still getting it done.

Over an hour later and a full meal, they have done it!

Side note: This meal is crazy good. They were a little heavy handed on the cayenne pepper, which I love. It added the touch of fire that you want from a creole seasoning. So good.

Pasta fagoli

Let me start by saying, I know I butchered the spelling of this soup. I began the morning I'm looking for a dairy free soup to make. I decided I was going to try to remake Olive Garden's pasta fagioli. After looking through about 30 recipes I decided to compile them all and make my own version of it.

I love simplicity. This recipe is garlic, spices, Italian sausage, tomatoes, pasta and salt and pepper. It only took me about 20 minutes start to finish for this recipe.

I took garlic and sautéed it. Then added in carrots, celery and onions, all diced. Sautee then until soft.  Then add in vegetable broth, tomato sauce (fresh tomatoes boiled until soft and blended), tomatoes diced and 1 cup of water. My family is carnivores (except for me. I could never eat meat and be happy as can be) so I added in spicy Italian sausage, grilled and crumbled. Bring to a boil then simmer for 15 min. I did not need salt, but did add pepper.  When everything was ready to go I added in red kidney beans and white beans. Heated until beans were warm.

When I served it I added in the pasta so it would not get soggy.

End result over kid loved it,  one not so much, and hobby love it. My son did not finish his, and ended up just eating a bowl of the pasta. 3 wins and 1 loss. Good odds? Only 75‰ not great but acceotable I guess.

I thought it was amazing and am excited there are left overs. It will age wonderfully!

Caramels

As the weather is getting colder I begin making the best dessert of all times, Caramels.  It is the kids favorite also. PLUS fun to make. Here is my recipe.

Caramels

1 can sweet condensed milk
2 cup sugar
1 cup butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup white Karo Syrup

Pour all the ingredients into a pot. It needs to be a big pot. turn the heat to medium. Stir constantly. It will start to boil, keep stirring. The color will start to change to a caramel color. Keep stirring. If you have a candy thermometer that is the best it needs to get to 240 degrees. But if you do not have one, just keep cooking until it is a very brown/caramel color. It takes about 45 min to an hour to get it to the right temp. then pour it into a 9X13 pan that has been sprayed with PAM. Put it in the fridge until it is cool. Then pop it out and cut it up. Wrap in parchment paper and store in air tight container.