Creamy Tomato Soup

My friend Meredith made this delicious tomato soup for lunch when I visited her and and got to spend some time with her and her sweet little girls Madison and Hailey. I liked the soup so much I wanted to try it for myself at home, so Meredith shared with me the link to the recipe on allrecipes.com.

This recipe is so quick and simple, you pretty much just toss everything together and simmer the soup. It's great for a quick, but filling meal. The acidity of the tomatoes are balanced nicely with the velvety cream cheese. Garnish it with fresh basil, serve it alongside baked or toasted bread. Meredith brushed fococcia bread with olive oil, topped it with grated Parmesan cheese and toasted the bread in the oven. the meal was like a an adult grilled cheese and tomato soup. When I made it at home, I served it alongside some freshly baked cheese bread. You'll definitely want to have some type of bread on hand to dip into this creamy, chunky soup.

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 2 (14.5 ounce) cans diced tomatoes, undrained
• 2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed tomato soup, undiluted
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, cubed

Directions

1. In a saucepan, saute onion in butter until tender. Stir in tomatoes, soup, milk, sugar, basil, paprika and garlic powder. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Stir in cream cheese until melted. Serve immediately.

Grandma W's Crab Salad

I must preface this post by stating that this is my absolute, 100%, undeniably favorite thing that my Grandma Walter's makes. I love it so much, in fact, that my Grandma would make it special just for me when she knew I would be visiting or for family potlucks. Grandma has oodles of original, tried and true recipes that anyone in our family could list off. Everyone has their personal favorites, my Mom's is Grandma's red velvet cake, my Dad's is her bread pudding, my husband's is her eewey, gooey mac and cheese, but mine is her Crab Salad. Gram would make a batch for me when I visited her from college, and I would take it back to college and hide it from my roommates because I wanted every morsel of it to myself. That is how much I love her crab salad.

I've tried to make it several times, but it's impossible to replicate. One reason is because Gram uses Hellmans' canola mayonnaise and I've never bought that in my life. I use the olive oil reduced fat mayo and it's just not the same. I think the next time I try this recipe, I'll splurge and buy the real deal mayo.

I love to eat this salad with buttery crackers or toasted on an English muffin, but Gram served it all by itself as a side dish.

Grandma Walter's Crab Salad

**Note: Grandma doesn't cook with measuring spoons or cups, she does "a little bit of this, a dash of that, etc." so this recipe is in approximate measurements. :)

Ingredients:

24 ounces of imitation crab chunks

1/2 cup chopped green pepper - I used a whole green pepper and it was too much!

2 stalks of celery, chopped

1 tablespoon of chopped green onions

4 chopped Roma tomatoes

Dressing:

3/4 cups Mayonnaise

3 tablespoons of lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon of dill weed

2 tablespoons of milk

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix dressing together and toss over the combined crab and veggies. This recipe can be made the day before and is actually better if it sits and "marinades" for several hours.

Pulled Chicken BBQ

Now that we live in the south, and great BBQ is abundant, I actually have cravings for BBQ. I decided to try my own BBQ and found this pulled chicken sandwich recipe from Rachael Ray. Pulling the chicken took WAY longer than I thought it would, adding a lot of time to a recipe that is supposed to be less than an hour.

Instead of serving it like a sandwich, I turned it into a stuffed baked potato, adding sliced green onions and sour cream on top of the BBQ and cheese. If you've never tried BBQ on a baked potato, I highly recommend it...but maybe it's because I'm just a Midwestern potato-loving girl.

Rachael Ray's Pulled Chicken BBQ

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (about 2 pounds)
• Salt and pepper
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1-1/3 cups barbecue sauce
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• Hot pepper sauce
• 6 kaiser or French rolls, split - obviously, I used a baked potato instead!
• 6 ounces shredded Monterey Jack cheese (about 1-1/2 cups)
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• DIRECTIONS:
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• Season the chicken with salt and pepper and place in a heave pot with the onion, garlic, and just enough water to cover (about 1 1/2 cups) Add the barbecue sauce, vinegar, and a few drops of hot sauce. Bring to a boil. heavy pot with the onion, garlic and just enough water to cover (about 1-1/2 cups). Add the barbecue sauce, vinegar and a few drops hot sauce and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the chicken is cooked through, about 15 minutes. Remove the chicken from the sauce and shred with two forks.
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• Boil the sauce, skimming occasionally, until reduced by half, about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the shredded chicken and heat through. Spoon the mixture onto the rolls (or potato) :) and top with the cheese.

Asparagus-Wild Mushroom Risotto with Parmesan

I have become quite fond of risotto. I like how it is creamy, filling, and the fact that there are about 300 million different risotto variations. I found this recipe on Foodnetwork.com. It's a recipe from Robin Miller, and although I consider myself a Food Network fan, I've honestly never heard of her. She must be on during the day when I'm at work? Regardless, her recipe was fantastic. The combination of mushrooms, fresh asparagus, and fresh parsley was really scrumptious. It made such a huge batch that my husband and I ate it as our main course and the hubs couldn't stop complimenting it. He made sure to ask if he could take some leftovers for lunch the next day, too! That's when I know a recipe is a hit!

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 2 shallots, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced (or 2 teaspoons pre-minced garlic)
• 8 cups sliced wild mushrooms (any combination of shiitake, cremini, oyster, etc). **I only used 2 cups and it was more than enough mushrooms!!!
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 cups cooked Arborio rice **This is important, be sure your rice is cooked before you start this recipe!
• 1 cup reduced-sodium beef broth
• 2 cups chopped fresh or frozen asparagus spears (1-inch pieces)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
• Salt and ground black pepper

Directions

Heat oil in a large stock pot over medium heat. Add shallots and garlic and cook 1 minute. Add mushrooms and saute 5 minutes, until tender and releasing juice. Add thyme and cook 1 minute, until fragrant.

To the mushrooms in the pot, add rice and broth and asparagus and bring to a simmer. Simmer 5 minutes, Stir in Parmesan and chopped parsley. Season, to taste, with salt and black pepper. Ladle risotto into bowls and serve hot.

Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon

My mother and I both received Julia Childs' Mastering the Art of French Cooking as a Christmas gift. Of course, these gifts were inspired from the movie "Julie & Julia". My mom asked me if I wanted to cook one of Julia's recipes every month. I said yes, as we decided it would be a fun way to challenge ourselves as cooks and cook "together", even though we live several states apart. Looking back, neither one of us really knows why we chose Boef Bourguignon as our first venture. It is definitely one of the most complicated and time consuming recipes in the entire book! It looked so good on the movie, and it's essentially a beef stew, so we (wrongly) assumed it couldn't be that difficult! We had no idea we would be devoting an entire day attending to this elaborate dish.

I do feel an immense sense of accomplishment and pride that I not only "mastered" this recipe, but that it was a success. I served it on top of boiled potatoes, and also used real pearl onions - both of which were totally separate recipes in Julia's cookbook.

My diners all said the meal was delicious and the smell permeated our entire floor in our condo building.

Mom and I agreed that our next recipe of Julia's needs to be on the simpler side, but it is pretty satisfying to be able to say, "I made Julia Child's Boef Bourguignon!"

Kitchen Supplies:

• 9- to 10-inch, fireproof casserole dish , 3 inches deep
• Slotted spoon

Boeuf Bourguignon:

• 6 ounces bacon
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil or cooking oil
• 3 pounds lean stewing beef , cut into 2-inch cubes
• 1 sliced carrot
• 1 sliced onion
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 2 Tbsp. flour
• 3 cups full-bodied, young red wine , such as a Chianti
• 2 to 3 cups brown beef stock or canned beef bouillon
• 1 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 2 cloves mashed garlic
• 1/2 tsp. thyme
• Crumbled bay leaf
• Blanched bacon rind
• 18 to 24 small white onions , brown-braised in stock
• 1 pound quartered fresh mushrooms , sautéed in butter
• Parsley sprigs

Remove rind from bacon, and cut bacon into lardons (sticks, 1/4 inch thick and 1 1/2 inches long). Simmer rind and bacon for 10 minutes in 1 1/2 quarts of water. Drain and dry.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Sauté the bacon in the oil over moderate heat for 2 to 3 minutes to brown lightly. Remove to a side dish with a slotted spoon. Set casserole aside. Reheat until fat is almost smoking before you sauté the beef.

Dry the stewing beef in paper towels; it will not brown if it is damp. Sauté it, a few pieces at a time, in the hot oil and bacon fat until nicely browned on all sides. Add it to the bacon.

In the same fat, brown the sliced vegetables. Pour out the sautéing fat.

Return the beef and bacon to the casserole and toss with the salt and pepper. Then sprinkle on the flour and toss again to coat the beef lightly with the flour. Set casserole uncovered in middle position of preheated oven for 4 minutes. Toss the meat and return to oven for 4 minutes more. (This browns the flour and covers the meat with a light crust.) Remove casserole, and turn oven down to 325 degrees.

Stir in the wine, and enough stock or bouillon so that the meat is barely covered. Add the tomato paste, garlic, herbs, and bacon rind. Bring to simmer on top of the stove. Then cover the casserole and set in lower third of preheated oven. Regulate heat so liquid simmers
very slowly for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily.

While the beef is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms. Set them aside until needed.

When the melt is tender, pour the contents of the casserole into a sieve set over a saucepan. Wash out the casserole and return the beef and bacon to it. Distribute the cooked onions and mushrooms over the meat.

Skim fat off the sauce. Simmer sauce for a minute or two, skimming off additional fat as it rises. You should have about 2 1/2 cups of sauce thick enough to coat a spoon lightly. If too thin, boil it down rapidly. If too thick, mix in a few tablespoons of stock or canned bouillon. Taste carefully for seasoning. Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables. Recipe may be completed in advance to this point.

For immediate serving: Covet the casserole and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce several times. Serve in its casserole, or arrange the stew on a platter surrounded with potatoes, noodles, or rice, and decorated with parsley.