Creamy Tuscan Chickpea Soup

This soup is just what the doctor ordered for a cold night when I am burning the candle at both ends with events and holiday chores! Serve with bread ... or not! The recipe is from Food & Wine and I modified it a bit, making a bit creamier broth.

1T olive oil
1 lb of spicy Italian sausage, out of casings and broken or cut into 1/2 pieces
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 large stalk of celery, chopped
1/2 cup of finely chopped oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes without oil (but now patted out)
4 large garlic cloves, minced (and more if you prefer)
8 cups chicken stock
2 (15 oz) cans of chickpeas or garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
4 cups greens (I prefer large spinach leaves)
1/2 cup grated Italian cheeses
1/4 -1/2 cup heavy cream
2 T chopped fresh basil leaves
3/4 c. kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste or garnish.
More cheese to garnish - basil leaves to garnish

Place 1 T olive oil in a Dutch oven or a big pot and heat to just hot. 

Add the sausage and cook, stirring often about 5-8 minutes until the sausage is browned (but it will cook more with the rest of the ingredients.) Add the onion and celery and cook for 4-6 minutes until the vegetables soften. Scrape the bottom of the pot to loosen any browned bits. Stir in the sun-dried tomatoes and the garlic. Cook until fragrant, about one minute. Stir in the stock and the chickpeas and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered until these flavors meld.

Add 4 cups of spinach - large spinach or baby spinach - or kale, torn without stems. Add 2 T chopped fresh basil and 3/4 tsp. salt. 

In a medium saucepan, make a roux of 4 T butter and 4 T flour or Wondra (cook the butter until just melted and stir in the Wondra to a dough. Cook on low heat until the flour cooks. 

Add one cup of the hot broth from the soup to the roux in the saucepan. Add more broth util you have a  sauce. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup heavy cream and stir.  Add this to the soup.  Add 1/2 cup of any mixture of Italian cheeses. 

Serve! This soup can be reheated, but do not boil. 

Ginger-Ginger Chewy Cookies and Chewy Chai Gingerbread Cookies

This holiday season I had to make cookies - something I don't seem to ever make consistently well. But I love ginger, so I decided to try the Gingerbread Chewy Cookies from Pinch of Yum for the Wareham Garden Club's Holly Fair on December 5. The cookie recipe included a maple glaze, but if I have a hard time baking cookies, I have a harder time decorating them (e.g. messier.) I tried the glaze and decorative sugar candies and gave up on that.

The cookies are delicious! Nice and chewy with a snap. And a week later they are still good. I made four batches - 3 dozen for the Holly Fair in cellophane bags with 3 each so one dozen bags.  I made them smaller than the recipe called for because the golf ball-sized balls in the recipe spread into 3" to 3-1/2" cookies on the first try.

As far as the Chai Gingerbread below this recipe, the cookies are softer but just as delicious. Not quite the chewy snap as the first recipe. 

Soft Gingerbread Cookies with Glaze (note my modifications*) 

3/4 cups unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/3 c. molasses
2-1/4 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
1-2 tsps. ground ginger *I used the full two tsps.

Because I'm a ginger addict,  I added:

*1 T. Ginger People Ginger Syrup to the batter before the dry ingredients to each batch

* About 1/4 cup chopped candied ginger to each batch

*1/2 tsp. ginger extract to each batch

Granulated sugar for rolling 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place parchment on baking sheets. I used 12x9 cookie sheets with 3 to a row for the smaller balls. The smaller balls do not run into each other. 

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy and add the egg and molasses and mix.

Stir the flour, baking soda, salt and ginger together. Add the dry to the wet and incorporate into a soft dough. I used a handmixer the first times I made these; I used my Kitchenaid stand mixer the second time. It depends on your energy!

Scoop in small balls about the size of a generous melon ball, roll in the sugar, and bake for 9-11 minutes. If you overbake, the cookie will have more of a snap. If you underbake, they could be too wet and doughy.

Maple glaze: 1 T melted butter, 1 T maple syrup, 1-1/2 cups confectioners sugar, 2 T milk and a pinch of salt.  Whisk together. It will be thick. Dip or spread the cookie adding sugar decorations as you like.

Chewy Chai Gingerbread Cookies (note my modifications) from NY Times

Note: I made this Chai spice mix recommended in the NYT recipe and used the whole mix for a double batch of cookies:

2 tsp. ground ginger; 1 tsp ground cardamom; 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon; 1/8 tsp ground cloves and 1/8 tsp ground black pepper. 

I made the same size balls,12 to a sheet on parchment paper baked in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes.

Blend 1 c granulated sugar and the whole spice mix above.

Mix this with:

1 cup of neutral-flavored oil such as Canola

Whisk together

Add 2 eggs and whisk. Add 1/2 cup of molasses* and whisk.

Mix 4 cups flour with 2 tsps baking soda and 1 tsp. salt.  Add this to the wet ingredients above - I found I needed a hand mixer to mix this all together but you could do it by hand.

*I added 2 T. ginger syrup when I added the molasses and added 1/2 cup of chopped candied ginger to the batter. 

Roll in sugar. Do not overbake. Bake 10 minutes until the cookie tops are dry, puffed and cracked. Slide the parchment sheets with cookies onto a cooling rack. Decorate if you want!

Cranberry-Cherry Holiday Sauce with a Kentucky Bourbon Kick

This holiday season I've been using local cranberries like crazy. Today I canned some Cranberry-Cherry sauce that will be yummy over ice cream. I've called and labeled it "with a Bourbon kick" because I added 1/2 cup of Kentucky Bourbon to the simmering pan.

I made double batches of one I found online and tweaked it so here it is doubled:

• 24 ounces fresh or frozen cranberries
• 12 ounces dried tart cherries (I used some from Trader Joe's and others from my pantry)
• 20 oz. of cranberry juice (not the cocktail version)
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp. ground anise
• 2 large cinnamon sticks broken in two pieces
• 4 large, intact star anise.

Makes Five 8.5 ounce jars

Simmer the cranberry juice with the brown sugar until the sugar is dissolved.  Add the ground anise and blend with the bourbon and the cinnamon stick and star anise. Add the cherries and simmer a few minutes. Add the cranberries and simmer until about half the cranberries have burst. Take off the heat, removing the cinnamon sticks and star anise and immediately spoon into clean jars.* 

Process in a hot water bath, covering the jars with at least 2 inches of water, for about 20 minutes. If the seal does not pop within five - ten minutes, you will need to reprocess them until you see bubbles rising within the jar and you have a good seal pop.  

*I used these: Bormioli Rocco Quattro Stagioni Small Glass Mason Jars 8.5 Ounce Mini Jars with Metal Airtight Lid.

Silver Palate Zucchini Bread

Our neighbor has some great zucchini this year and even the big ones are good for zucchini bread. I decided to challenge myself and find a recipe in one of my cookbooks. Not so easy! But, as usual, Silver Palate had a great one.

I adjusted the recipe a bit - you will see below.

• 3 T of sweet cream butter to grease the baking dishes.
• 3 large eggs
• 1-1/4 cups cooking oil (Canola)
• 1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract (I used vanilla paste)
• 2* cups grated unpeeled raw zucchini
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsps baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground cloves
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Cream the oil and sugar for several minutes on high speed to dissolve the sugar into the oil. Add the eggs and cream some more until the lemony color is consistent. Add the vanilla. (You could also add another extract like black walnut.)

*I grated the zucchini a few days before and refrigerated it. I pressed it through a sieve and poured off the liquid. I used about 4 cups raw zucchini in this process or 2 cups compressed grated, drained zucchini. Fold the zucchini into the egg/sugar/oil/vanilla.

Blend the dry ingredients before folding into the wet. 

Pour into a buttered bread loaf pan. I found that the batter filled one bread pan and 2 smaller loaves.

I baked the smaller loaves (in waxed "paper" pans) for 30 minutes. I baked the terra-cotta loaf pan for about one hour, testing it every five minutes after about 45 minutes for doneness.

I always take the loaves out of the hot loaf pan right away and cool on a rack. Not so with paper pans - they cool perfectly.

Delicious moist loaves. Gerry loves them with butter and 15 minutes in the microwave.

This Silver Palate Cookbook has a great recipe for apricot raisin bread in it's Best Breads chapter. 

Homemade Elote Seasoning

Double this recipe to save for more recipes:

• ▢
• Instead of the dried lemon, I used 2 T of a chili-lime powder and 2 T of chili powder (to double the recipe.)
• 
  

Whirl all in a small blender or food processor or use and immersion blend to blend well.  Store in a covered jar.

I roasted fresh corn with this blend of elote seasoning. It's easy to make and save for more recipes.

It's from the Forks in the Kitchen blog. 

• 
  
• 2 Tablespoons chili powder*
• ▢½ Tablespoon smoked paprika
• ▢2 teaspoons granulated sugar
• ▢1 teaspoon cumin
• ▢1 teaspoon garlic powder
• ▢1 teaspoon onion powder
• ▢1 teaspoon fine sea salt
• ▢½ teaspoon dried lemon peel, or lime, optional*

Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas

 Leftover rotisserie or roasted chicken makes for an easy dinner of enchiladas.

In a medium bowl, mix 3/4 of a 14-oz jar of green enchilada sauce with 2-3 cups shredded and/or diced chicken and any kind of mixture of vegetables. I used 1/2  cup of diced multi-colored red, orange and yellow peppers, a diced tomatillo, 1/2 cup diced black olives and 1/2 cup of diced red onion.

Mix in 1-1/2 cup of a combination of shredded cheeses: Cotija, queso fresco, Monterrey Jack. I threw in a 1/4 cup of leftover Mozzarella and used a bagged mix of the above cheeses. 

Place 1 jar of enchilada sauce in a 10x6 baking dish or something that can hold 8 enchiladas. I used flour because that's what I had. If you use corn, use less filling.  Roll the tortilla up with about 1/2 cup of the mixture above to make about eight enchiladas.

Drizzle with the last half of a jar of enchilada sauce. Cover with shredded cheddar cheese. Bake 20 minutes at 350 until the cheese is melted and the sauces are bubbly.

Cool until you can cut into the enchiladas with less ooze.

Pineapple Cucumber Salad or Salsa

Gerry and I both found this recipe and sent it to each other! It makes quite a bit (more than two people can really eat) so make it for an appetizer with breads OR make it for a side dish. If making this as a salsa, dice the pineapple, cucumber and onion into small dices.

2 cups fresh pineapple, diced
1 large cucumber, diced or sliced into half moons
1/2 small red onion thinly sliced
1/4 cup fresh cilantro (or mint), chopped
1/2 small jalapeno, very finely diced

Dressing: Juice and zest of one lime; 1 T honey; 1/2 tsp. salt; 1/4 tsp black pepper
Combine the pineapple, cucumber, red onion and cilantro, jalapeno for added kick
Whisk together the lime juice, honey and salt and pepper. Pour the dressing over the salad/salsa and toss gently. Chill!