Herb-Pesto Barley Soup

I found this soup to be incredibly boring and in need of Parmesan cheese. Mr. Snowgoose thought it was savory (though he refused to add yogurt to his). I was surprised to see how willing I was to try and make pesto again so soon! This also came from the January 2009 issue of Body and Soul Magazine.

Ingredients
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 cup pearled barley
1 can (15 1/2 ounces) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (15 1/2 ounces) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
3 cups flat-leaf parsley leaves (from a large bunch)
1 cup fresh dill, coarsely chopped
1 cup fresh mint leaves, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
1/4 cup plain 2 percent Greek yogurt

Directions:
1. In a 5-quart Dutch oven or large pot, heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high. Add onions and garlic and cook until caramelized and tender, stirring frequently, about 15 minutes, scraping up the browned bits (add a little water to the bottom of the pot if it begins to overbrown). Season with salt and pepper.

2. Add barley and 6 cups water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer partially covered over medium until barley is tender, about 40 minutes. Stir in beans and chickpeas and cook until heated through, about 1 minute. Remove from heat, stir in the 2 cups whole parsley leaves. Add more water to thin soup as necessary. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Meanwhile, in blender, combine dill, mint, chopped parsley, vinegar, remaining 1/4 cup oil, and 2 tablespoons water. Puree to desired consistency. Serve soup topped with herb pesto and a dollop of yogurt.


Cook's notes:
1. Did you see how much salt and pepper I had to add?
2. The mint made the soup too minty for my liking and I added fresh basil to the pesto mix along with Parmesan cheese.
3. I goofed on the vinegar added the wrong kind.

Chicken Cacciatore with Cremini Mushrooms

We're big cremini mushroom fans in the Snowgoose household. Well, at least I am. I probably go through two packages a week.

In cleaning out my recipe file I found this recipe from last January's Body and Soul Magazine.

Note: this is not a quick recipe. It requires at least four hours in the crock-pot. But it's a classic! I made some slight modifications and this is the result.

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
8 ounces cremini mushrooms, quartered
1 can (28 ounces) whole peeled plum tomatoes in juice
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup dry white wine like as Sauvignon Blanc
1 celery stalk, thinly sliced
1 small onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 sprig fresh rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon dried

Directions:
1. In a 5-quart slow cooker, stir together chicken, mushrooms, tomatoes, flour, wine, celery, onion, rosemary, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

2. Cover; cook on high setting until meat is tender, 4 hours. Do not lift the cover of the slow cooker while cooking. To serve, discard rosemary sprig.

Cook's notes:

1. I somehow ran out of onions and thought I'd add extra celery for crunch. Guess what? Celery is not a good onion substitute! As my FIL said, "maybe next time include the onion."
2. I didn't use a rosemary sprig. Instead I added lots of fresh rosemary from my garden and it worked fine.
3. I did not serve it with brown rice, but we did use sourdough bread to mop up the juice.

Would I make it again? Hell yes!

I can't find the photos, but I will upload them eventually!

How to get your husband to eat more veggies:baked spinch and swiss

This one is for all you vegetarians out there.

This is a Real Simple Classic. We've got wine, cheese, and whole milk and cream!

Hands-On Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1hour 25 minutes (not really. We watched like 2 1/2 episodes of Mad Men).

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil, plus more for the dish
6 shallots, thinly sliced
kosher salt and black pepper
6 large eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
4 10-ounce boxes frozen leaf spinach, thawed
1/2 cup grated Parmesan (2 ounces)
2 cups grated Gruyere (8 ounces)
1 cup dry white wine

Directions
Heat oven to 400° F. Coat a shallow 2 1/2- to 3-quart baking dish with oil; set aside.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the shallots, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the wine and simmer until evaporated, 4 to 6 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, milk, nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1⁄4 teaspoon pepper.

Squeeze the spinach to remove excess liquid. Stir the spinach, shallots, Gruyère, and Parmesan into the egg mixture. Transfer to the prepared baking dish.

Bake until bubbling and the top is golden brown, 45 to 55 minutes.



Cook's Notes:
Because I love my husband and like my father-in-law, I pulled the old bait-and-switch and used half and half and skim milk.

The recipe calls for Gruyere but the grocery store I was at charged an arm and leg for it, so I went with Swiss.

I also forgot the shallots, so I omitted the step with the shallots and wine.

Mr. Snowgoose roasted potatoes and winter squash to add as a side. H even had seconds!

My father-in-law demanded the leftovers and that I make it again soon, which I will. It was wicked good.

And the baking time was only about 35 minutes.

Rosemary Apple Scones

A few weekends back, before the pesto incident and all the rain, I had family over for coffee one Sunday morning. Since it was above 50 and not raining (and there was sun!) we dined al fresco at the patio Chez Snowgoose.

I haven't made scones from scratch (or if I have I can't remember) and was eager to try them. I had seen a vegan apple-rosemary scone recipe in the Vegan Brunch cookbook, but want to feed it to my carnivore family, so I merged the VB apple-rosemary scone recipe with the scone recipe in Joy of Cooking.

8 to 12 scones

Increase the sugar up to 1⁄4 cup for a sweeter scone.
Preheat the oven to 450°F.
Sift together into a large bowl:
1 3⁄4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1⁄4 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
Cut in, using a pastry blender or 2 knives, until the size of small peas:
1⁄4 cup (1⁄2 stick) cold butter
Beat in a small bowl:
2 large eggs
Reserve 2 tablespoons of the beaten eggs. Beat in to the reminder:
1⁄3 cup heavy cream
1 cup diced apple
1/4 cup fresh rosemary (less if you don't like it)
Make a well in the dry ingredients. Pour in the liquid and combine with a few swift strokes. Handle the dough as little as possible. Turn it out onto a lightly floured board. Pat to 3⁄4 inch thick. To make the classic wedge shape, pat into an 8-inch round and then cut into 8 to 12 wedges or cut into diamond shapes or as for Biscuit Sticks, above. Place on an ungreased baking sheet. Brush with the reserved egg and sprinkle with:
Salt or sugar



Bake until golden, about 15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Cook's Notes

Of course we added extra sugar.

Who owns a pastry blender. What is that?

The rosemary was from our yard!



Trying to make them into wedges was a pain in the ass. I just dropped them in lumps like cookie dough. No one complained.

Serve with butter and jam.

The four of us ate them all within an hour. They were that good.
And I will totally make this one again. It's perfect for fall baking.

How to give yourself a heart attack: creamy shrimp and bacon

As much as I love Real Simple magazine, I think they might be trying to kill me. I swear that every dish has at least three of these ingredients:
1)bacon
2)whole cream
3)wine
4)cheese

Not that it's a bad thing, but I would like us to still be cooking 50 years from now.

Creamy Shrimp With Corn and Bacon

From the April 2009 issue

Serves 4
Hands-On Time: 25 minutes (ha!)

Total Time: 25 (more like 40!)

Ingredients
1 cup long-grain white rice
Kosher salt and black pepper
4 slices bacon
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/4 pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined (or depooped in the Snowgoose house!)
1 10-ounce package frozen corn

Directions
In a medium saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, combine rice, 1 1/4 cups water, and 1/2 teaspoon salt and bring to a boil. Stir once, cover, and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 18 minutes. (Do not lift the lid or stir!) Remove from heat and let stand, covered, for 5 minutes; fluff with a fork before serving.

Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until crisp, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel, let cool, then break into pieces. Wipe out the skillet.

Heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 4 to 6 minutes. Add the wine and cook until reduced by half, 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the cream and bring to a boil. Stir in the shrimp, corn, and 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Simmer until cooked through, 4 to 6 minutes. Stir in the bacon; serve over the rice.

Cooks notes:

We don't eat white rice in the Snowgoose household and we didn't have brown rice on hand, so we used orzo instead.

As requested by Mr. S, we used 2x the bacon

But omitted the white wine because SOMEONE drank the cooking wine. I'm not naming any names (Mr. Snowgoose). But actually, the wine wasn't missed.

We cooked this late one Sunday night, so there are no photos, by Real Simple has what theirs looks like.

I sent the leftovers to work with Mr. S and his dad and all they other attorneys were jealous of the bacon goodness.

Would I make this again. Probably not.

The time I tried to make pesto and nearly cut off my finger

You know how this one ends, but do you know how it begun?

Ten or so days ago, I was home prepping dinner before yoga for Mr. Snowgoose and I. We had just cleaned out the lettuce and herb containers and planted garlic and onions, so I was using the last of our homegrown basil to make pesto.



We love pesto in the Snowgoose household, and Mr. Snowgoose usually makes it.

This time I decided to try. The recipe was from Better Homes and Gardens.



Ingredients
1 box Thin Spaghetti
1 cup fresh basil
1/2 clove garlic
2 tablespoon pine nuts (I used 1/4 cup cheese)
2 tablespoon Parmigiano cheese
1 tablespoon Romano cheese (Actually I used more like 1/4 c cheese)
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
To taste salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

Add garlic, pine nuts, grated cheese to blender and blend for about 15 seconds until brought together.



(note: this was when it went downhill and when I discovered that Mr. Food. Processer would not be fufilling his sous chef duties.

Add basil, oil, salt and pepper and continue to blend until a slightly loose pesto forms, about 2 minutes.


Cook pasta according to directions.

Toss pasta with pesto in a bowl and serve immediately.

Cooks notes:

I think the key to success in this dish is just mixing in the amount of oil, pine nuts, cheese, garlic, and basil, that you feel like and it makes a creamy paste.

What you don't want to do is use your immersion blender to grind the stuff up when you can't work your husband's food processor that was made in 1984. Immersion blenders do not bode well with dry goods, stick to soups that need to be pureed. Otherwise, this happens:



and this:




8 stitches, 4 cute fireman, and a trip to the ER in an ambulance. Fortunately I still have a functional index finger.

But I'll leave the pesto to chef Snowgoose.

Oh, and yes, the pesto was ruined.

Zucchini boats with quinoa stuffing

I've been cooking a lot of vegetarian meals as of late (not on purpose). This recipe for zucchini with quinoa stuffing was another one rescued from the recipe folder. It wasn't as easy to make as I'd hope, but it made a great Sunday dinner and worked well as leftovers for Mr. Snowgoose and his dad. It came from the September 2008 issue of Real Simple magazine.


Ingredients
1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed
4 medium zucchini
1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, rinsed
1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/2 cup almonds, chopped (about 2 ounces)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3/4 cup grated Parmesan (3 ounces)
4 tablespoons olive oil

Directions
1. Heat oven to 400° F. In a large saucepan, combine the quinoa and 1 cup water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the quinoa is tender and the water is absorbed, 12 to 15 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, cut the zucchini in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Arrange in a large baking dish, cut-side up.

3. Fluff the quinoa and fold in the beans, tomatoes, almonds, garlic, 1/2 cup of the Parmesan, and 3 tablespoons of the oil.



4. Spoon the mixture into the zucchini. Top with the remaining tablespoon of oil and 1/4 cup Parmesan. Cover with foil and bake until the zucchini is tender, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake until golden, 8 to 10 minutes.



Serves 4 (actually served five!)
Hands-On Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 55 minutes

Cooks notes:

1. We had trouble scooping the seeds out of the zucchini to make a boat and wound up chopping it in half. Maybe next time we'll use a grapefruit spoon to scoop it out.
2. A coworker brought in the most delicious cherry tomatoes from her garden, so we used those instead of the ones I bought from the store.
3. It's an odd mix of ingredients, but the texture is nice. There is something crunchy, sweet, and creamy in each bite.
4. I might make a version of this using ground sausage or turkey.
5. I found the quinoa in the bulf food section at my neighborhood store. This is another under $10 meal!