Quick Soup

For dinner tonight I made Chicken & Spinach Soup with Fresh Pesto using our LPO spinach. Instead of chicken breasts, I used thighs. I also used 1 cup less chicken broth and substituted some water and white wine. Using store bought pesto was a time saver. It was easy to make and very tasty.

(Other Blonde Girl - I think this would be really good using vegetable broth and adding more veggies to make up for the lack of chicken).

A yummy vegetarian dish -- two thumbs up!!!

Tonight Blonde Girl's Mom's Husband was on for dinner. He made one of our favorite Eating Well recipes -- Skillet Gnocchi with Chard & White Beans. It is easy to prepare and delicious!!! Perfect for a cold winter night. I think everyone of our households has prepared this dish and given it a two thumbs up. This time we had no mozzarella so BGMH used gruyere -- a nice flavor combination. If you have time, cook the white beans ahead of time; they are tastier than the canned ones. This past year, I have cooked a variety of dried beans and then frozen them. They have better flavor and only little or no salt. The packets are then ready for any recipe that calls for canned beans.

Double(or two) thumbs up vs. five stars

Duck1 asked if a two thumbs up rating was better than a 5 star one. Blonde Girl's Son responds to the question "was that dish or food good," and if he likes it, he puts up a thumb. If he uses two thumbs, it is excellent. For a six-year-old, the system works well, so we have adopted it.

New Year Bounty

After getting back from vacation, one of the first things I did today was go to our CSA, Los Poblanos Organics (LPO), to pick up our box of fruits and vegetables. First box of 2010 - this should be a good year!

Tonight for dinner we made a simple chicken Caesar salad with a Caesar dressing recipe from Eating Well. It tasted fine, although didn't taste at all like a classic Caesar dressing.

Sadly, we have no ice cream maker so we went without dessert tonight.....

January 4, New Hampshire

Tonight Ken is cooking (again) as I still am wearing the battering ram cast on my right arm. It's to be grilled Atlantic salmon with green beans w/ toasted almonds, and one of our favorites - Israeli couscous w/ pine nuts, and a green salad w/ a vinaigrette.

I like to make a couple of dressings to have on hand - a balsamic, a true French vinaigrette, and of course, Shaker mint vinegar. Easier not to have to think about a dressing while getting dinner! I really do not understand why anyone would want to purchase salad dressing as it's so incredibly simple to make!

Shaker Mint Vinegar
1 qt. white vinegar
4 c. sugar
Large bunch of washed mint (stems ok -bugs not)

Make this in the spring or summer when the mint is at its best. Bring vinegar and sugar to a boil in a large pot. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Turn off the heat. Add the mint, stems and all, stirring until it wilts. Cover and let it sit until cool. Strain vinegar into a bowl, wringing the mint with your hands. If there is any sediment, pour cooled vinegar through a coffee filter. Store in glass bottles. This keeps beautifully for a year.

This recipe was given to me by Gary Hamel, an artist from Orange, NH who says it was produced each spring by the Enfield Shakers.

Potlatch in Baltimore

Last night I laid out all my pots and pans to give away. In February, we will be remodeling our kitchen and installing an induction stove top, so my 35-year-old cuisinart cookware will not work. Family members took turns taking what they wanted and by the end all my pans were gone. Indians in the Pacific Northwest used to hold potlatches where they had great feasts and gave away their goods to those who attended. For some reason the British did not approve of this custom and banned it. My cookware was cleaned out and I felt liberated. We are not without pots and pans, since we purchased new ones before Christmas.

For dinner tonight we had five fewer guests. We enjoyed Blond Girl's Father's (BGF) bockwurst sausage which is excellent. In another post, we will describe his sausage making parties. Smashed potatoes, asparagus, and waldorf salad went well with the sausage. The wine we drank was a 2000 Leonetti and a 1999 Northstar merlot. These wines were made in Walla Walla Washington and are wonderful. To finish our meal BGF used his new ice cream maker to make a wonderful chocolate chip ice cream. Blonde Girl's Husband took a picture of this desert. We licked our bowls clean and gave it a 2 thumbs-up.

Happy New Year

Today, the cooks took a rest. Some went off to eat lunch at the Inner Harbor while others stayed home and ate leftovers. For dinner we relaxed and ate take-out from Matsuri's, an excellent sushi restaurant in Baltimore--sushi for 11 is a lot of sushi. We enjoyed every piece. For dessert Blonde Girl had made Craig Claiborne's chocolate mousse--another culinary tradition that we enjoy every Christmas holiday season.