OK Marda. This is soup, but not a hint of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom in the recipe.

Butternut Squash Soup

2 C apple cider
2C chicken broth
5 C cubed butternut squash
2 T alive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 T minced fresh ginger
1 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp fresh ground pepper
1C sour cream
Sprigs of dill

Combine the apple cider, chicken broth & butternut squash ina 3 qt. saucepan. Bring to a simmer & cook over medium heat until tender (about 15 minutes)

While the squash is cooking, heat the oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and ginger and saute until light brown. Add to the squash. Puree the soup in batches in a blender, about 2 cups at a time.

Return the pureed soup to the saucepan an season with salt & pepper.

Ladle into bowls, swirl with sour cream, and garnish with dill.

Yield: 6 servings

Why is it the only thing coming to my mind is soup as well?

I think I have already shared how I make fideo (vermicelli/chicken/and salsa) since Marda sent me nested angel hair pasta before it was available here.

I can share my ratatouille or ox-tail soup if anyone is interested, though I always think of ratatouille as a summer garden dish.

I think this one is pretty common, but maybe not. I call it steak Michel after a fellow I used to know who made it for me once. It's easy, good and a treat in Winter.

Take a small cut of a good and tender beef cut, like tenderloin or a piece of sirloin. I usually use a partially frozen piece, as it makes slicing it paper-thin much easier. Half a pound portion is plenty for two people.

Pull out a wok or other deep skillet, and generously pour some olive oil into it. Prepare ahead a bowl of sliced fresh green or ripe (red) green peppers, sliced moons of shallot or onion, and several buttons of garlic. If you are a mushroom lover, add some sliced ones here. Sautee those quickly like in stir fry, and when the onions are about half transparent, throw in the meat slices to brown until you reach your level of comfort. For me, it's before they cook through. Dash a little worchestershire sauce into it if you like it, and remove from heat. Since I like my beef cooked just to the point it doesn't moo anymore, the vegetables are still just a little al dente.

I split a small loaf of crusty French bread down the center into a top and bottom 'sandwich' and pour the meat and vegetable mix over the bottom crust and slap on the lid and then cut the loaf down into about four servings.

I like to serve this hot with a platter of cut cheeses and fresh fruit if it's handy. Sometimes with a bowl of onion soup. A nice fruity red wine goes well with it. Cooking time? Less than a frozen entree.

I just made four pots of soup too. Beer cheese, turkey stew, fish chowder, and white chili. Must be soup season!

boy that looks good, marda. want to make a batch for us now that you have gotten us all hungry?
i have been thinking of french onion soup and casear salad for weeks now. we dont find that in the restaurants here much. have to go all the way to the mall to get it.
i would love some new recipes, too, if anyone has any

g

I am more than happy to supply recipes. There are so many good ones. Which kind do you want g?

I'm on a bread-making binge... nothing complicated, just playing around with that no-knead technique that the NY Times popularized a couple years ago... I wasn't attracted to it at first because I mistakenly assumed no-knead = quick-bread, but I could not have been more mistaken... it is sublime! Long slow rise, perfect crust, easy to improvise with, forgiving, and fun...

I've got an enameled cast iron dutch oven warming to 450F in the oven right now and am excited to see what a loaf with dried Door County cherries, tangelo zest, Bulgarian honey, cardamom, and walnuts will taste like. Yesterday's loaf was made with a heaping palmful of chubritsa (Bulgarian summer savory) and a cup of whole wheat flour made from Wisconsin soft red wheat. It was sublime with butter...

I'm thinking I'd like to try a loaf with some of the cheese in my fridge... or maybe Italian seasonings, sun dried tomatoes, and Kalmata olives... maybe with a little olive oil.

I can never follow a recipe without changing it anyway, so I LOVE recipes like this that are perfect as is, but readily accept variations...

Michelle,I had some of that last year at someone's home when we met for a book discussion. Her husband had just pulled it out of the oven and it was to die for. Thanks for the reminder.

Printed that recipe out and am going to try it. Is Instant yeast the same this as Active Dry yeast or is it the Rapid Rise yeast?

Use Rapid Rise.

Oh, and Calliope: Yes, please! I'd like your oxtail soup recipe.

(For the record, the cherry-tangelo-cardamom-walnut-honey bread rocked!)

rob333,
anything that is easy to make, with inexpensive ingredients and taste delicious. i dont want much, do i?
g

Michelle, as per the ox-tail soup. Like any soup, the ingredients can vary depending on what you have on-hand. But, I've found a few things necessary to make it taste right to me. Neither are the amounts of any of them cut in stone, depends on how much soup you want. I am like you, not too many things get made exactly as a book says they should, and this soup is one I've not seen in a book. It was a frequent staple on the winter table of my childhood, and my father usually made it. The key ingredient is, of course, the oxtail. It's a cut from the past in our markets, since it isn't contained in the cryovac packs sent down for the final cutting in stores. Once upon a time, it was considered a by-product of the butcher, much like the bones you'd feed a dog. But, the marrow fat of the oxtail is very full-bodied and with a distinct taste unlike any other soup bone. We butchered last year, and those few packs of oxtails were like gold to me.

several knuckles of oxtail with meat attached (3-4 pieces with several vertebrae per piece)
It's very crockpot-able so just throw them in with a quart or two of water, salt and pepper and set on high until the stock richens and the meat starts getting tender.

If you have beef stock or soup base handy, and the stock isn't strong enough, add this until the stock has a hearty taste.

I add a quart jar of home canned tomatoes at this point, you may use some fresh tomatoes if you like, but this is one of those ingredients I always put in.

A good healthy dose of sliced or diced onions/shallots/or leeks. More the merrier.

Some sort of cole crop. Typically I use about a cup or two of chunked cabbage. But, I had frozen brussels sprouts handy the last time I made it and used those. This is also an ingredient I always use in my winter veggie soups. It adds that 'missing' touch.

Add those veggies you have on hand, or particularly like. I normally have home processed green beans on hand and about a pint of them go in. Can be dried limas or lentils too. Peas, but if you overdo it, it shall dominate the taste. A carrot or two if you have it. Ditto a little celery. Whatever you have as left-overs or in your fridge or pantry.

Daddy never did this, but I like a little pasta in mine and typically throw in a handful of macaronies, spaetzle, vermicelli, or home made noodles toward the end of the cooking time.

My grandma always used what she called a spice bag, I don't know the proper name of this...but she put the spices she liked in a little muslin bag and plopped it in her soups, so that you'd get the taste of the spice without having to actually 3at it. If you want spices like bay......fine....but it's also fine without it. Serve with the oxtails right as they are, and you eat it off the bones like a chicken thigh. Not polite, but wonderful.

It can simmer in a crock pot all day on low after it's cooked. Freezes well. Is good and hearty with a loaf of bread to the side. Nothing esoteric, and steer clear of the Mediterranean spices and veggies on this one. It's just very, very anglo-saxon. LOL. And extremely rich. It can move mountains, if you know what I mean, so stay close to a loo for 24 hours.

Italian Sausage and Veggies

8 oz. Italian sausage--turkey sausage is good
2 cups veggies--zucchini, onion, mushrooms, green or red peppers, broccoli, etc., also garlic
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 jar tomato sauce (like for spaghetti)
8 oz. whole-wheat pasta, your choice as to variety
2 cups baby spinach leaves
Parmesan cheese

Break up sausage and cook in a large frying pan, removing when done. In same pan, saute veggies in olive oil for 5 min. or until tender-crisp. Cook and drain pasta; Put sausage, veggies, and pasta in pan, add spinach leaves, stir till wilted. Add tomato sauce and cook for 15 minutes, stirring, if needed. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Serves 4.

This recipe is very flexible. I have made it with both broccoli and zucchini, but usually not both at the same time; I have used regular pasta instead of whole wheat, have used regular tomato sauce and "doctored" it with spices, and have omitted the spinach entirely if I didn't have it. I also add generous sprinklings of pepper and Mrs. Dash. It's simple to make, VERY healthy and a great way to get a day's allotment of vegetables, while tasting good at the same time. (The recipe for four makes leftovers for DH and me.)

Ok you guys, you had to do it with this post. Guess what's on my menu for the next couple of days.
Yello, broth, water, Dulcolax and Magnesium Citrate, LOL.

Shrimp Scampi

1 lb. large raw shrimp peeled (31/35 count)
1 (12 oz.) package angel hair pasta
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp. salt free Italian herb seasoning
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup freshly grated Romano or Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. chopped fresh parsley

1. Devein shrimp, if desired.
2. Prepare pasta according to package directions.
3.Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat: add
onion and garlic, and saute 3 to 5 minutes or until tender.
Stir in Italian-herb seasoning and Worcestershire sauce.
4. Reduce heat to medium. Add shrimp, and cook, stirring
occasionally, 3 to 5 minutes or just until the shrimp turns
pink. Stir in lemon juice. Toss shrimp mixture with pasta,
sprinkle with cheese and parsley. Serve immediately.

This is really good and if you can get fresh shrimp so much the better. It was in the November issue of Southern Living
and we made it when we were on a girl trip to the beach.

Suzy:

I hope a got {{gwi:138585}}... Oxtail is in abundant supply at the meat market on Main Street in our village. $2.99/lb... is that a good price? I got about 3 1/3 lbs and will let it thaw and try my luck at it later this week...

Good price? You stole it at that price. The going rate here is right at $8 a pound, for a literal bag of bones, if you are lucky enough to find them. Only one chain supermarket carries them on any kind of regular basis. I will put orders in at the local meat markets that when it's slaughter day to save them for ME. ME. ME. Freeze them in a bag as many as they can get.

One of those packages should make a respectable pot of soup for two with leftovers. They make a very, very rich broth.

Everyones recipes look great! I was trying to find a typed up recipe for my what I call fresh pasta sauce, but finally realized it's on the old computer and I haven't set that back up since the holidays. Later. Here is a good basic Gumbo recipe. Lots of room for you to add or subtract meats and such to make it to your liking.

Chicken, Shrimp and Sausage Gumbo
by Coconut FireRaven

Use a 4-5qt. heavy-bottomed pan or cast iron Dutch oven

Use cup each of oil and flour. Put the oil into the pot over medium-low heat. Stir flour into oil with a wooden spoon. Stir frequently until roux reaches a light brown peanut butter color.

1 cup onion

1 red or green bell pepper [or half of each]

2 stalks of celery

Cut all veggies above into a medium dice. Add above seasoning [vegetables] to the roux; stir well until coated with roux and cook for five minutes.

3 cloves of garlic diced fine or pressed.

1 large or 3 small bay leaves.

1 qt. chicken broth/stock

½# smoked sausage, cut into ½" slices, then cut in half.

Add above and simmer for 45 minutes. Taste broth and add salt and pepper to taste. Add ½ tsp of cayenne pepper. If you like things quite spicy double the cayenne.

1# of chicken breast cut into ¾" cubes

Add the chicken to the gumbo and cook for 10 minutes, raising heat to medium. When you add the chicken make sure the level of the liquid covers all well. Add water if needed.

1# of small peeled and deveined shrimp [Cut shrimp in half if you can only get medium shrimp].

Add shrimp and cook for an additional five minutes.

Turn heat off. If you can find it, add 1Tbs of gumbo file. Add several dashes of hot sauce. Taste broth and adjust salt, pepper and hot sauce. Serve in a deep bowl over rice.

Notes:

If you can get fresh crabs, clean them, cut into halves and add when you add the chicken. Add an additional five minutes to that cooking time, making it 15 minutes. Alternately you may also add a ½# cleaned crab meat at the finish. It only needs a moment to heat through, so just add before correcting seasonings.

If you like okra, you may add a ½# fresh okra cut into ¼" slices when you add the sausage, or add 1 small pkg of frozen okra [thawed] when you add the chicken.

If you like lots of heat you could also add a hot pepper or two when you add sausage and broth.

No, no, you don't ask much g! How about a chicken recipe? Chicken is cheap, right? Serve it alongside some noodles strewn with the sauce, and voila! tasty easy meal. Not so cheap? Add a dash of cream to the sauce. Expensive on the calories.

Poulet à lEstragon (Tarragon Chicken)
Saveur July/August 2001

Serves 4

"Author [Megan] Wetherall learned how to make this dish
at the Ritz-Escoffier cooking school in Paris."

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
One 3 1/2-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 stems fresh tarragon
1/4 cup white wine
1 cup rich veal, beef, or chicken stock

1. Heat oil and 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season chicken with salt and pepper and cook, skin side down, until well browned, about 5 minutes. Turn chicken and add 4 stems of the tarragon. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook until juices run clear when pierced with a knife, 10-15 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, blanch 2 stems of the tarragon in a pot of boiling water over high heat for 5 seconds; drain and set aside. Chop leaves (discard stalks) from remaining 2 stems of the tarragon and set aside.
3. Transfer chicken to a platter, discarding tarragon, and keep warm in oven set on lowest temperature. Pour off fat, then return skillet to medium-high heat. Add wine and cook, scraping browned bits stuck to bottom of skillet, for 1 minute. Add stock and reduce by half, about 5 minutes. Strain sauce into a small bowl, then return sauce to skillet over medium heat. Stir in remaining 1 tablespoon butter and reserved chopped tarragon.
4. Add chicken and any accumulated juices to skillet and baste with sauce. Serve garnished with blanched tarragon.

No desserts yet? Tsk, tsk. This will even satisfy G's criteria of cheap [well if you have cocoa on hand and who doesn't?], easy and very delicious! We just went through this over on the Cooking forum so I'll just post it here too.

This is more about the method, but I'll post two recipes to use it on and you can make your own up as you go. Btw, if you still have some of those boxes of pudding, you can use this method on them too. That's how we started until I figured out how easy and cheap it was to just make it yourself.

Good Ole Chocolate Pudding.

For many years now I've made it in the microwave. No scorching the pan, no standing and stirring constantly. The pudding is creamier. Lots of good reasons to nuke it and none I can find to do it on the stove any more.

Method: First decide how much milk you're going to use so you know how much cornstarch to use. You use 1/4 cup cornstarch for 3 cups of milk. About 1/3 cup for 4 cups of milk. Put cornstarch, cocoa if using cocoa, sugar and salt in large microwavable bowl. Slowly stir in cold milk to dissolve cornstarch and mix in cocoa [if using cocoa]. Microwave on high for five minutes, then stir. If milk is hot and you are using bar chocolate add it now and stir in until melted. I use a whip for all the stirring since it dissolves things better and it's easier to stir the whole bowl. Continue microwaving and stop and stir every two minutes or so until the mixture starts to get thick and boil. It will thicken easier than it does on the stove and you don't have to worry about over cooking it. If you neglect to stir often enough and the pudding thickens around the bottom or sides while rest is still liquid just give it a good whisk and it will come together. After the pudding has begun to boil and is nice and thick remove and add vanilla. Viola. Pudding the easy way.

You can make chocolate pudding out of any kind of chocolate you have on hand. We have made it with packets of hot chocolate mix after the kids have been here and we have tons of those left. You can make it with Hersheys Syrup. The main thing is to figure out the amount of milk and cornstarch, then depending on what you are using for chocolate, reduce the sugar accordingly. You just want something that tastes like good chocolate milk, then cook it.

Cocoa recipe

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup Cocoa [You can add extra cocoa up to double]
1 dash salt
4 cups milk
3/4 tsp. vanilla extract

If you double the cocoa just taste it before cooking and add another 1/4 cup sugar or more if desired.

Here is a recipe using Scharrfenberger bar chocolate.

Silky Chocolate Pudding
Adapted from John Scharffenberger, via Wednesday Chef

Serves 6

1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 cups whole milk
6 ounces 62% semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used good quality semisweet chocolate chips; use 70% bittersweet if you want more of a dark chocolate kick)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Their recipe uses double boilers and straining and such so I'm skipping that part. You can google the recipe if you want to do it the hard way. Smiles.

We usually use cocoa and use 6 cups milk. [That's about as much as will fit in the bowl that fits in the microwave,, heh..]Then I start with 10 minutes before first stirring. It makes one nice chocolate pie which we top with whipped cream and leaves a couple of good bowls left over to eat right away.

Enjoy.

all the recipes sound good. i dont know what to try first. right now i have some beef cubes out and am going to make stew. it was supposed to turn cold today and stew sounded good. of course it is 59* out there...:o(....darn weathermen!!
my stew recipe never varies tho: meat, broth onion, a hand full of barley, potatoes carrots and another handfull of bow noodles. we really like it, but surely there is more to life than one type of beef stew......oh, no celery please!
g

Okay, Wendy... this is recipe I developed for one of my bosses who didn't/doesn't cook but wanted a homemade type of veggy stew.

½-lb cheap lean beef (round is very good) diced into tinsy tiny pieces.
one or two large onions, chopped to ¼" pieces
2 whole white potatoes, peeled, sliced and diced into ¼" pieces
2 cans [15 oz] diced tomatoes
1-lb package of frozen mixed vegs.
1 can cut green beans
6 beef boullion cubes
1 Tablespoon dried marjoram
½ Tablespoon dried crushed rosemary

Oil bottom of large pot or dutch oven and put onto medium heat. Dice and toss in beef pieces and chop onion. Toss in chopped onion and do the potatoes. Toss in the potato pieces and then every thing else on the list. Add just enough more water to barely cover the ingredients. Bring to boil, then turn down to a simmer. Put a lid on the pot and let simmer for several hours. Serve with buttered rolls.

thanks meldy. that beef stew sounds close enough to what i am used to that i will probably try it, but different enough to seem like a new dish.
are we all such creatures of habit? stew to me means meat ( or poultry) potatoes, carrots , onions and some type of pasta. i have a great recipe ( more than one actually) for stew that i have never tried because it calls for 2 cups of cabbage and cabbage does not fit into my picture of 'stew' .
i really need to take a cooking class.
g

If I want to print out one of the recipes, how do I do it? Every time I try to print a recipe from a thread, the whole thread prints out. I highlight the recipe I want, but the whole thing still prints out ad infinitum...

Try cutting and pasting it into a word processing document, or an email to yourself.

Highlight the recipe you want to print & then when the print box appears click on "print selection."

I tried to print it again and didn't see "print selection." So the whole thread printed again...18 pages! AARRGh And I couldn't stop it once it started! I'll just put the pages back and use the other side!

I tried cutting and pasting to a new text document and it worked!

Most computers come with the program Notepad I think. Everyday I open it and shrink it down to the the bottom. Everytime I run across something interesting online that day,I just copy and paste it to notepad and then file it in documents. Notepad is great if you have it.

okay, you have it all printed out anyway. why dont you just cut the recipes out that you want? if they wont fit into you 'recipe book' because of the size, you can always tape than onto a bigger page. heck, you could have written them all out by now. i think computers are meant to annoy us, nothing else.
g

LOLOL g'ann. The thing about computers is that they're like bossy siblings. If you want to play ball, you do it THEIR WAY or not at all. They remember the slightest insult forever and passive-aggressively get even. They don't have a problem listing your faults and shoving them in your face. And if they think they are working too hard, they just shut down. They have selective memories. And if you ask them a question or to do something for you, they make you phrase it a certain way or pretend they don't understand you. Shall I go on?

Marda, thanks for the tip about Notepad; that will be very useful. I have it on my computer, but have never really known what to use it for!

LOL, thanks for the tip, Marda. I checked and I do have Notepad. Duh! It was there all the time...LOL And Calliope, you are right, computers have a mind of their own!

I use my stove and dishwasher for storage. So obviously there's not much cooking going on here at Chez Karen. However I do have one or two simple but killer recipes. Observe:

1. One pound of sliced mushrooms
2. One bag of roasted corn
3. Three links of chicken cilantro sausage, sliced in 1/3" sections

Cover bottom of a pan with olive oil and sautee the mushrooms on a medium-high setting. Add corn and sausage. Let it simmer for as long as you like...just don't let it burn!

Dump into a bowl and eat.

Vi-ola: hearty entree for a gloomy winter evening!

Karen

Here ya go Florey! It was on page 4 I believe.

While I'm at it I'll post my vegetarian recipe for chili. It's easily made with meat by starting with browning ground meat or other meat then going from there with this recipe.

Saute about 3 cups each of onion, celery and peppers of your choice and two Tablespoons or more of garlic[ I use about 3 or 4 for this amount, smiles]. When these are sauteed a bit, add two cups of carrots and 2 large cans of small diced tomatoes [with their juice]. I don't like to use crushed or sauce in my chili. I think it overwhelms the veggies. A bay leaf and couple tablespoons each of cumin, chili powder, and salt. Add water or veggie stock, if needed, to bring level up to slightly above veggies. As hard veggies begin to soften, add 2 cups each of eggplant[cubed], zucchini and/or yellow squash. Cook another ten minutes and add 2 cups each mushrooms, canned or frozen corn and canned or frozen green beans. Taste now for salt and seasonings and adjust. Next add as many beans as you like. I use the liquid in the beans too. At least 1 lrg can of dark and 1 lrg can of light kidney beans. Also, black beans and cannellini beans are good. Pintos are great too, naturally. As soon as beans are heated through the chili is done. Taste once more for seasoning. Like all chili this is best if made the day before. Does great frozen. I usually make about 3 gallons of this at a time and freeze in 4 or 5 containers.