Soup Time!

 One of the things I love about fall (and winter) is that the weather is perfect for making soups/stews/chilis! I am not a fan of canned soup, but I LOVE a good homemade soup! Add some freshly baked crusty bread, and I’m one happy lady!

Since the weather finally turned off chilly this weekend, my meal plan for this week is filled with various soups. This afternoon, I pulled my veggie scraps out of the freezer and have been simmering some broth all afternoon to make a healthy chicken/veggie/noodle soup for supper. (It smells SO good!) I started working on some bagels yesterday, and after letting them rise in the frig for about 24 hours, I boiled and baked them this afternoon. They will make a great accompaniment to our soup tonight. For my soup recipe, use this link: https://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/healthy-vegetable-chicken-soup/

I’m planning to make a pot of venison chili for lunch Tuesday. We got our recipe from some forestry clients of Dennis’ back in the late 70’s. I have tweaked it a little over the years, but it is still our favorite chili. We like to serve it over some kind of starchy grain, such a rice, brown rice, barley or quinoa. (It tends to sit better in tender tummies than eating just chili by itself.) Sprinkle some grated cheddar over the top and serve with saltines, and we have a hearty meal that is sure to please.

Wednesday, I plan to try a new recipe for a dish that I’ve never ever eaten before: posole. I have a recipe modified for an Instant Pot that sounds quite yummy. It is made with chicken, instead of pork, which is better suited to Dennis. Dennis is one of the few people I know who loves hominy, so it ought to be a winner. I can’t wait to try it! Here’s a link to the recipe, in case you’d also like to try it: https://www.365daysofcrockpot.com/instant-pot-easy-posole/

I’m trying another new dish on Friday, Italian Wedding Soup. It is another Instant Pot variation, made with Italian meatballs and orzo pasta. I have a yummy meatball recipe that I plan to use rather than buying frozen. I pretty much love anything Italian, so I know that I’ll like it! Here’s the link for the soup recipe: https://www.365daysofcrockpot.com/instant-pot-italian-wedding-soup/#tasty-recipes-14660

With all of these savory soups being simmered, our house will smell scrumptious all week! (Sorry about that, but I love alliteration!) What are some of your favorite soups?

Freezing guacamole...why did I wait so long to try this?!

 I have tried a lot of kitchen "hacks". Some have worked...others, not. When I find one that is really helpful, I like to pass it along. This is one of those.

I love avocados...especially in guacamole! But it is so hard to find ripe avocados at just the time that you need them. They are either too green or too far gone. Especially now that I'm using Walmart's pick-up service to buy all of my groceries, it is really difficult. I had seen tips for freezing avocados in the past but never got around to trying it. I was planning Mexican food for Stephen's family's visit this past week and knew I'd need several good avocados. When I picked them up several days prior to their visit, they were at the perfect ripeness. I knew they would be rotten by the time I needed them, so it was a good time to give freezing a try.

There were several methods of freezing avocados that I found when I googled it. I decided the one that would work best for me was going ahead and making up my guacamole (minus the fresh onions and tomatoes). I mashed the avocados, squeezed in my lemon (or lime) juice, seasoned it to taste, and then vacuum sealed it and stuck it in the freezer. Then the night before I needed it, I put the frozen pouch in the refrigerator to thaw. When it was time to serve, I just squeezed the now thawed guacamole into a bowl and stirred in my onions and tomatoes. It tasted like it always does, and the avocados were still a bright green color.

I am definitely going to use this tip on a regular basis! I can order my avocados ahead of time, let them ripen to just the right stage, mix it up and freeze it in meal-sized portions. Fresh guacamole available whenever I want it!

Sourdough Biscuits

 As I was preparing dinner today, I decided to go ahead and feed my sourdough starter. I hate to throw away the discard, so I made a last minute decision to bake some sourdough biscuits. This recipe is so quick and easy and tastes delicious...Dennis says it is his favorite sourdough recipe of all time! I substituted self-rising flour, since Dennis accidentally bought a sack of it back when flour was almost impossible to get. Within 30 minutes, I had some hot, made from scratch biscuits to go with our meatloaf and potatoes. This recipe can easily be reduced. I made 3/4 recipe, but could have gotten by making only 1/2. The biscuits are large and filling!

BUTTERY SOURDOUGH BISCUITS

Ingredients:

1 cup Unbleached All-Purpose Flour (or use 1 cup self-rising flour and omit salt and baking powder)

2 teaspoons baking powder 

3/4 teaspoon salt 

1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter 

1 cup sourdough starter, unfed/discard* 

*See "tips," below.

Directions:

1.Preheat the oven to 425°F, with a rack in the upper third. Grease a baking sheet, or line it with parchment. 

2.Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Work the butter into the flour until the mixture is unevenly crumbly. (I normally do this by hand with a pastry cutter. To save time, I just mixed it with my KitchenAid and the paddle attachment and it did just as well!)

3.Add the starter, mixing gently until the dough is cohesive. 

4.Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface (a piece of parchment works well), and gently pat it into a 1"-thick round. 

5.Use a sharp 2 3/8" biscuit cutter to cut rounds, cutting them as close to one another as possible. Pat any scraps together, and cut additional biscuits. (Also to save time, I just patted the dough into a rectangle and used a scraper to cut into squares.)

6.Place the biscuits onto the prepared baking sheet, leaving about 2" between them; they'll spread as they bake. 

7.Bake the biscuits in the upper third of your oven for 20 to 23 minutes, until they're golden brown. 

8.Remove the biscuits from the oven, and serve warm. Or cool completely, wrap in plastic, and store at room temperature for several days. Freeze, well-wrapped, for longer storage. 

9.Yield: 6 large (3") biscuits. 

Tips:

Sourdough starters can vary in how liquid they are. If your biscuit dough seems very dry, dribble in a bit of milk or buttermilk until it comes together.

Feel free to make smaller biscuits, if desired; they'll need slightly less time in the oven than the larger biscuits.

A Quick and Easy Dinner Idea

Dennis and I have discovered a good low-carb supper that we really enjoy…a charcuterie board. Of course, they have long been a staple at parties, but I never thought to do one for just the two of us until I read about someone doing it with their family. Since Dennis has to really limit his carbs in the evening, I have struggled with good light dinner ideas. I like variety! And there are just so many ways to fix meat and vegetables without using potatoes, pasta or rice. So we’ve started doing this about once a week and love it! Of course, Dennis is predictable: smoked turkey and cheddar cheese and olives. I also include raw veggies, which we are eating a LOT of these days. (I am SO thankful for baby carrots and sugar snap peas!) I try to include a couple of different kind of cheeses for myself, plus some good sliced ham and maybe some turkey pepperoni. I’m happy with a little honey mustard to dip it all in. (Dennis prefers his plain. Surprise, surprise!) Another bonus is that the clean-up is quick and easy!

What different kinds of meals are you serving since we are spending more time in the kitchen?

Never too late to learn!

After literally years of ignoring the kitchen tip of saving vegetable scraps for making broth, I finally decided to try it a couple of months ago. After filling a gallon ziploc bag that I kept in the freezer, I boiled the scraps (adding some extra onion and garlic) and used the broth to make my Italian Chicken and Veggie Soup. The soup is super flavorful already, but it was even better using the homemade broth!

After another few weeks of saving my scraps, I took them out this morning and boiled them with just an added clove of garlic. After about an hour, I added some frozen chicken thighs and continued cooking until the chicken was tender. I strained the broth, cut up the chicken and added it back in, then chopped some yellow squash, green onions and spinach to add to the broth. I seasoned it with salt, pepper, cumin and green chili powder and cooked about 20-30 minutes. It made a wonderful chicken tortilla soup! I will definitely keep up with this handy tip. The broth is better than store-bought and doesn't cost a thing!

If you want to try my Italian Chicken and Veggie Soup, here is the link to the recipe:
https://strivingtobeatitus2woman.blogspot.com/2013/02/ninth-place-on-my-most-prepared-meal.html

For my Chicken Tortilla Soup:
https://strivingtobeatitus2woman.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-light-healthy-lunch-idea.html

I vary both recipes according to what I have on hand and what mood I'm in. Sometimes I don't want anything tomato based, and the Chicken Tortilla Soup is delicious without the tomatoes. The squash is the star of the show in this recipe!

Happy Cooking!

Product recommendations

I'm not one to jump on the bandwagon when something new comes out. It took me a long time before I decided to buy an Instant Pot. It was after Sheila and Mandy had talked about how much they enjoyed theirs, and Crystal H. posted that they were on a good sale that I decided to get one. It is now one of my most used small kitchen appliances! I love how you can use it to saute, slow cook AND pressure cook. Plus it is great for making yogurt. It is also supposed to be good for proofing bread, although I haven't tried that yet. I love an appliance that is so versatile! The main thing with the Instant Pot is getting over your nervousness about using it and just dive right in. The internet has a ton of recipe ideas for it! I subscribe to one blog that is dedicated to cooking with Instant Pots. She has a lot of helpful hints and well as recipes for pretty much everything! If you want to check out her blog, here's the link: https://www.365daysofcrockpot.com/category/cooking-method/instant-pot/.

The one small appliance that I resisted buying the longest, though, is a vacuum sealer. I can kick myself for putting it off! I finally bought one around the first of this year, and I use it pretty much everyday! I'm either sealing up leftovers for putting them in the freezer or heating up something in them that I had previously frozen. Cooking for two means we have a lot of leftovers! Dennis has never been a big fan of eating leftovers, which is weird to me. He is one of the most boring eaters I know. He has a few things that he really likes and will eat them every day if given the chance (grilled cheese sandwiches, fried eggs, tacos or enchiladas to name a few). But if I cook something for supper, he doesn't want to eat it again for a week or more. So my vacuum sealer saves the day (or the food)!

I have also been preserving the fish that Dennis has been bringing home using my vacuum sealer. I have yet to cook any of the fish, since he is bringing home a mess every week right now. I'm cooking a batch and freezing the rest. The bags hold 2 bream each, which is about a serving for us. So when I am ready to use them, I'll just take out what I need to thaw. They ought to thaw quickly too, since they are a single layer. SO much better than the blocks of ice that we used to freeze fish in! (Those things would take all day to thaw!)

The thing that I really enjoy about it is that one day every week (sometimes two), I just rummage through my leftover basket in the freezer to find something for supper and heat it in a pot of boiling water. Super simple meal! No big mess to clean up either!

So if any of you are worse than I am about putting off buying kitchen gadgets, I really recommend that you get a vacuum sealer! I don't think you'll regret it.

We need to be more like Granny

You hear a lot of complaining these days about having to prepare all of our meals at home and not being able to get out and “do” things. I hate to admit it, but I’ve been guilty of it, as well. Then when I think about my Granny, I feel ashamed of myself and our society as a whole.

Granny ALWAYS fixed three meals a day. She and Granddaddy just didn’t go out to eat. Every great once in a while, they might go get a hamburger. Occasionally, one of their kids would take them out to eat Mexican food or fried catfish. But I’m talking less than a half-dozen times a year, total! Not only did Granny prepare all of their meals, she always washed AND DRIED dishes after every meal. No letting the dishes air-dry for her! She dried and put away every dish. Then she took the rinse water, which was collected in a plastic (at least in my time) dish pan, and watered her flower beds with it.

Granny never learned to drive. So, if she needed something from the grocery store (which was about a mile from her house), she either had to wait for Granddaddy to take her after work or walk. Needless to say, she made the most of her shopping trips. Other than that and going to church 3 times a week, she didn’t get out much…unless someone was needing to be taken care of (like us when Momma was sick and in the hospital). She didn’t really have much time for getting out anyway. She was busy keeping house, mowing the grass (pretty much for the whole block), tending to her garden, taking in ironing, taking care of grandkids and/or the two foster children she took in. In her “free” time, she was sitting at the kitchen table or telephone desk, with her magnifying glass in one hand and her bible in the other. (She did like to listen to “Swap Shop” on the radio while she ironed!)

I spent a lot of time with Granny. As I mentioned, she often came to take care of us when we were younger and Momma was down. I spent as much time as I could in the summertime at her house. Plus every holiday was spent there…along with all of the other cousins and aunts and uncles. In all of that time, I can’t ever remember her complaining about having to cook all of the time or about not being able to get out and around.

Even though Granny was special to all of our family, she was pretty typical for women in her generation. They worked long hard hours and stayed at home most of the time. They lived for serving others…their families, in particular. They exemplified the Proverbs 31 woman. Even though “times have changed”, people still have the same basic needs and wants. Society may have convinced us that we deserve more out of life than our grandmothers (or great-grandmothers) had, but do we really? Is it really so bad to stay home and take care of our families? Do we really need to spend so much of our time on entertainment and other pastimes? Do we really need to be served, rather than serving others?

This was just running through my mind today as I was cleaning up the kitchen after lunch. Thought I’d share it for your perusal. As Ricky would say, “Take it or leave it. It’s your life. Do what you want.”