Lasagna Soup

My sister Jessica told me about this dinner a little while ago, and I forgot about it until I saw it on Pinterest recently. To save a few bucks, I didn't add the Ricotta cheese or fresh basil at the end. But I did use fresh mozzarella cheese, which melted perfectly in the soup after serving, which I think I'd like better than Ricotta cheese anyways.

I adapted the recipe from A Farm Girl's Dabble. (Check out her photo, it is much more appetizing than mine.)

Lasagna Soup (Yield: 8 servings)

• 2 tsp. olive oil 
• 1-1/2 lbs. Italian sausage 
• 3 c. chopped onions (I used one large sweet onion)
• 4 garlic cloves, minced 
• 1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano 
• 1/4 - 1/2  tsp. crushed red pepper flakes (depends if you want it with a kick or not)
• 3 T. tomato paste 
• 28-oz. can diced tomatoes 
• 2 bay leaves 
• 6 c. chicken stock 
• 8 oz. mafalda or fusilli pasta 
• salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste 
• 1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese 
• 1- 2 c. shredded FRESH mozzarella cheese 

1. Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add sausage, breaking up into bite sized pieces, and brown for about 5 minutes. Add onions and cook until softened. Add garlic, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Cook for 1 minute. 
2. Add tomato paste and stir well to incorporate. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the tomato paste turns a rusty brown color. Add diced tomatoes, bay leaves, and chicken stock. Stir to combine. 
3. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. 
4. Add uncooked pasta and cook until al dente. Do not over cook or let soup simmer for a long period of time at this point, as the pasta will get mushy and absorb all the soup broth. 
5. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. 
6. While the pasta is cooking, grate your parmesan and mozzarella cheese. 
7. Serve soup with Sprinkled cheese on top and mix individually so it melts in the soup. YUM!

Blue Cheese Chicken Wing Dip

I made this for our housewarming party this weekend and it was the BOMB! Big hit at the party.
Our realtor Mel is a fabulous cook and also does cooking classes on the side gave me a cookbook with some appetizer recipes, and this recipe was on the first page. After reading it, I thought it sounded so tasty, and I knew Jeremy would love it.

I bought a rotisserie chicken from Costco and shredded the meat the day before, so 1/2 before the party started I dumped all the ingredients into a saucepan and cooked til bubbly. You can serve it with celery sticks (my favorite), carrot sticks, chips, or baguette slices.

Ingredients : 

• 1 large rotisserie chicken, all meat shredded
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 1/2 to 3/4 bottle (depends on the heat you can handle!!) of Frank's "Red Hot Wings Buffalo Sauce"
• 12-16 ounces (Lighthouse brand) blue cheese dressing

Combine all ingredients in medium saucepan; heat over low heat until hot and bubbly. Stir constantly. Spoon into serving dish.

PW's Asian Hot "drumsticks"

Howdy. This was a fun and different dinner I made last night. I made a mental note while watching one of the Pioneer Woman's shows on the foodnetwork when she did Superbowl party food, including Asian Hot Wings. So the other day while at grocery I saw these beautiful big Chicken drumsticks on sale, and thought I'd love to make a dinner vs. appetizer with a similar recipe. Especially after I bought PW's newest cookbook, that has the Asian Hot Wings as well as Peach-whisky BBQ drumsticks. I used the "sauce" recipe from the wings, and the chicken cooking method from the drumsticks; served it with white rice and steamed zucchini --- and voila, a tasty meal, indeed. The drumsticks were cooked low and slow (300 degrees for 1.5 hours) and the result was a completely tender juicy meat. I will use this same method in future for drumsticks with just bbq sauce. The sauce was delicious, and I didn't have the guts to make it as spicy as hers. I used 1 tsp vs. 1 tbsp. of red pepper flakes. And I used 1/2 of jalepeno vs 3-4 whole hotter peppers. My sauce still had kick, but suitable for me and Pearce (our 2 yr. old).

I used half of the sauce and brushed it on the drumsticks before baking. By the end it had kind of melted all to the bottom of the pan. I saved the remaining sauce to spoon on top for serving.

Here is my adapted version of PW's Asian Hot Wings

10 plump chicken drumsticks
2-3 Tablespoons butter
3/4 cup plum jelly (this was really hard to find. I called 3 grocery stores before finding it.)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh ginger
2 tablespoons chopped red onions
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2-1 jalapeno, minced

1.  Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Heat butter in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Place chicken in pan skin side down. Brown both sides, then move to large baking dish.
2.  Add the plum jelly to a bowl. Then stir in the soy sauce and rice wine vinegar. Add the brown sugar, ginger, red onions, garlic, red pepper flakes and hot peppers. Stir to combine, and then pour it into a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook the sauce until slightly thickened, about 15 minutes. Then turn off the heat.
3.  Brush/spoon the sauce over the top of each drumstick, reserving some sauce for serving.
4.  Cover and put dish in oven. Cook for 1 1/2 hours, then remove from oven.
5.  Serve chicken in dishes, and then spoon extra sauce over the top. Served with white rice and steamed zucchini.

Brown Sugar Pecan Salmon & Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Thyme and Garlic

almost shoulda coulda taken a pic of this tonight. i haven't even posted on this bloggie in forever, and i'm pretty sure the only people who have this on google reader is Elise and maybe Shannon. :-) So hello!!!

BUT -- this dinner was so flippin good, I was just gonna email the recipe to myself (which inevitably gets lost in my inbox) then I remember this blog, and thought this is a much better place to keep it to use for future. B/c this one will definitely get used again. Probably when we have company over for dinner and get a larger piece of salmon from Costco, vs 1 pound from local grocer.

Salmon Fillets With Brown Sugar Pecan Glaze
Adapted from SouthernFood.About.com

4 tablespoons coarsely chopped pecans
1/4 cup brown sugar
4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon water
4 salmon fillets, about 6 to 8 ounces each
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Olive oil

In a small nonstick pan, brown the pecans lightly over medium-low heat for a few minutes. Add the brown sugar, butter, and water; heat until simmering (about 3-5 minutes). Set aside.

Heat oven to 425°. In an ovenproof skillet (I used an All-Clad pan, but I also read in the comments section that someone transfered salmon and olive oil from pan into glas baking dish) over medium-high heat; heat the olive oil. Once oil is hot, add salmon, skin side down and sear for about 2 minutes. Transfer the pan to the oven and roast the fillets for 5 minutes. Spoon glaze over salmon fillets and continue roasting for about 5 minutes longer, or until salmon flakes easily with a fork.  (We ended up cooking ours for about 15 minutes total, but it's because our fillets were pretty big and thick.) Turn the oven off and let salmon stand in the oven for 2 minutes.

Thyme-Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Adapted from Epicurious

4 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch-thick rounds
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 large garlic cloves, minced
Fresh thyme leaves from about 2-3 sprigs
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (for just a tad bit of kick!)

Preheat oven to 450°F. In large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and toss. Arrange potato slices in single layer on heavyweight rimmed baking sheet or in 13x9-inch baking dish. Place on top rack of oven and roast until tender and slightly browned, about 30-40 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Also served plain white rice to round off the plate. :-) Those pecans with the brown sugar caramelized were seriously like candy. I wouldn't mind adding more of that topping.

Pumpkin Scones ** Starbucks copycat ***

 I've been craving Starbuck's pumpkin scones a lot lately. I don't get them often, even though I love them. And it doesn't help that we are 25 miles away from the closest Starbucks. I did a quick search for their copycat recipe, and found several sites that had the same recipe, so I figured it was probably a good one. 

These are so delicious, and taste sooo much better FRESH/home-made. They are much more moist and soft than at Starbucks, but still have that great pumpkin & spice flavor. They're kinda time consuming to make, but not too bad, the only part I don't like is cutting in butter. The recipe makes 6 scones, and only uses 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree, so I saved the reminder of the puree from the 15 oz can. I'm very tempted to make these again in the morning. They are soooooooo goooooood.

I found this blog had a good picture-by-picture play of the recipe.

SCONES:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup canned pure (unsweetened) pumpkin
3 tablespoons half and half cream ( I did 1 1/2 Tbsp of whipping cream and 1 1/2 Tbsp. of whole milk, because that's what I had on hand.)
1 large egg
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into cubes

PLAIN GLAZE:
1/2 cup powdered sugar (sifted)
1 tablespoon milk (any kind)

SPICED ICING:
3/4 cup powdered sugar (sifted)
1 to 2 tablespoons milk (any kind)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch of ground ginger
pinch of ground cloves

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425°F. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray or line with parchment paper. (I just rubbed some butter on a baking sheet.) Give it a light dusting of flour on top of that.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together dry ingredients (through ginger).

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together pumpkin, half and half and egg.

4. Use a pastry cutter or two knives to cut butter into the dry ingredients. Continue cutting until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.

5. Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients, then form the dough into a ball. The dough will be wet, but if it seems super sticky... just go ahead and sprinkle a little more flour into the dough until it's easier to handle. Remember, you want it to be somewhat sticky, and that's okay- but you also don't want it to stick to the baking sheet. Pat out dough onto the lightly floured baking sheet and form it into a 1-inch thick rectangle that is about 9-inches long and 3-inches wide. Use a large knife or a pizza cutter to slice the dough twice through the width, making three equal squares. Cut through the three squares diagonally so that you have 6 triangular slices of dough. Gently pull the triangles apart, leaving about 1/2-inch space between each one.

6. Bake 14 to 16 minutes on prepared baking sheet. Scones should begin to turn light brown.

7. While scones are cooling, prepare plain glaze by whisking ingredients in a medium bowl. Mix until smooth.

8. When scones are cool, use a knife to cut them apart and then pull them apart so that they are ready for glazing. Use a brush to paint a coating of the glaze over the top of each scone.

9. As the white glaze firms up, prepare spiced icing by whisking the ingredients in another medium bowl until smooth. Drizzle this thicker icing over each scone (or brush it on) and allow the icing to dry before serving.

Paula Deen's Choc Chip Zucchini Bread

Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 eggs
2 cups white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon orange zest
Whipped cream, for serving
Zucchini ribbons, for serving
Directions
Preheat oven at 350 degrees F. Grease (2) 9 by 5-inch loaf pans.

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, spices and baking soda.

In a large bowl, beat eggs until light and fluffy. Add sugar, and continue beating until well blended. Stir in oil, vanilla, zucchini, pecans, chocolate chips, and orange zest. Stir in sifted ingredients. Pour into prepared loaf pans.

Bake for 50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove loaves from pans and cool. Chill before slicing. Serve with whipped cream and ribbons of zucchini.

Birthday BBQ

Jeremy and I both LOVE BBQ. We had a little family birthday party for Jeremy, and I thought it was the perfect time of year for a BBQ menu. I originally wanted to make a home made bbq sauce and follow Tyler Florence's recipe for BBQ pulled pork, but once the day got here, I figured I should go for easy as well as tried and true. I had no idea what his BBQ sauce would taste like, so last minute I decided to just use our favorite "Sweet Baby' Rays Original Sauce"

BBQ Pulled pork sandwiches:

7 pounds of Pork shoulder (bone out) - [fed 17 people]

Salt/pepper

1 large bottle of Sweet Baby Ray'z Original Barbecue sauce

Potato roll buns (I like these because they are soft and a little bit sweet, and they are smaller size than large hamburger buns. Perfect size for kids, and for adults too with sides of potato salad and beans).

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Salt and pepper the pig on both sides. Put the pork in a roasting pan (fat side up) and roast it for about 6 - 6.5 hours. An instant-read thermometer stuck into the thickest part of the pork should register 170 degrees F, but basically, what you want to do is to roast it until it's falling apart. (We pulled it out a couple times and tried to start pulling meat apart with 2 forks, until it actually was "pulling apart" rather easily.)

While the pork is still warm, you want to "pull" the meat: Grab 2 forks. Using 1 to steady the meat, use the other to "pull" shreds of meat off the roast. Put the shredded pork in a bowl and pour the sauce over. Stir it all up well so that the pork is coated with the sauce.

To serve, spoon the pulled pork mixture onto the bottom half of each hamburger bun. Bon appetit!

Baked Beans (a mixture of my friend Kelly McDonald and Pioneer Woman)
3 Large cans (28 oz) pork and beans (I like "Bush's" brand) and drain a little of the liquid
1 med (sweet) onion chopped
1 lb cooked bacon cut up in pieces
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup BBQ sauce
1/2 - 3/4 cup brown sugar
a splash of cider vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons dry mustard

Cook Bacon. Then stir together all ingredients, place in baking dish, cover with foil and bake for a long time maybe 1 1/2 -  2 hours on 300 degrees.

Loaded Baked Potato Salad.
I have this recipe posted here, and I doubled it for the amount of people we had over.