New Year's Day and a Good Luck soup recipe

Happy New Year! I hope yours was lovely and relaxing. Or fun and exciting. That's what our New Year's Eves used to be, but now we are very happy with lovely and relaxing. :) We have had a sick little babe for a week now which is NO FUN at the holidays, but she's managed to keep a smile throughout most of her feeling bad, for which this mama is SO grateful. My heart breaks seeing her hurt.

So, due to the little one being under the weather, I decided we should have a day of yummy food, cozy at home. We started the day with a great brunch of delicious omelets (hubby-made), French baked donuts, bacon, and grapefruit mimosas. Mmmm. I made the donuts last year on NYD, too, so this is our new tradition!

After brunch we took down Christmas, which is always sad for me. But, it is nice that it generally spurs us on to do a little tidying up around the house. It sure is hard to keep a house clean with a little one! Ours is slightly better after yesterday.

So, back to our day of yummy food. For an early dinner I made us a New Year's Day soup. In the South, we always have black-eyed peas and ham (and sometimes greens) for good luck in the New Year. I decided to make ours into a soup, since we had lots of carrots and delicious greens from our weekly veggie delivery. I would say this is a step up from previous years where I've just heated a can of the peas and smothered them in ketchup. Ha. Don't judge. Try it. Anyhoo, here is the recipe:

New Year's Day Good Luck Soup

1/2 - 1 c. onion, diced

2 c. carrots, diced

2 TBSP oil (I used ghee- it's better for you at high heat than olive oil- you could use grass-fed butter)

1 TBSP thyme

1 TBSP sweet basil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 ham steak, pre-cooked and cubed

2 c. chicken or vegetable broth

2 c. water

2 cans black eyed peas, rinsed and drained

1 bunch of greens, washed thoroughly and chopped, stems removed

salt & pepper to taste

Melt oil/butter/ghee in a large stockpot on medium heat. Add onions and sauté until translucent. Add carrots, thyme, basil, and a few pinches of kosher salt. Sauté for a couple of minutes to add a bit of roast-yness to the carrots. Add garlic and ham and brown for another couple of minutes. Add the chicken/veggie broth and water and a couple more pinches of salt. Turn up the heat, bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, until carrots are mostly cooked (20-30 minutes). Add the black eyed peas and greens, cover, and cook for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add freshly ground black pepper and more salt, if needed, to taste. Serve with cornbread or crusty French bread. Enjoy your good luck for the coming year! (Approx. 6 servings.)

I hope you'll try this out. It was really easy and doesn't have to cook too long, like some soups, since the ham and black-eyed peas are already cooked. Of course, it would be best for you to buy dried beans and cook them yourself, but the mama of a little one doesn't remember to do things like that...pre-planning and soaking things the night before?! Someday.

Happy New Year to you. I will be posting some fun(ish) resolutions soon. 

xoxo

best scrambled eggs you'll ever eat

(I ate all of our eggs, so... Photo by avlxyz )

I'm very excited to share with you today a new technique I learned by watching Chef Michael Simon. The technique was included on The Chew the other day, as part of a recipe he calls "Moons Over Cleveland" - a take on the "Moons Over My Hammy" sandwich from Denny's. The show was all about comfort food/American style restaurant favorites made at home. Anyway, the sandwich, yeah, looks fine, but THE EGGS. Oh my. I don't even love scrambled eggs that much and I know why...because I was never cooking them like this!

For just a single serving, I use:

-2 eggs (organic please! seriously)
-approx. 1 tablespoon salted butter + a little extra if you want (use organic/grass fed!)
-spatula
-small saucepan

Crack the eggs into a cool, non-stick saucepot and mix with a spatula. Add 2 tablespoons of butter to the pot. Place pot over a medium-high heat and stir continuously, taking the pan on and off the heat, until the eggs are creamy and scrambled. Season with salt and pepper.

Be sure not to overcook the eggs, but this technique helps prevent that better than in a skillet. I guess it's the constant stirring and the on-and-off the heat source (plus the butter) that keeps the amazing texture. Also, never add salt to your eggs prior to cooking. It apparently dries them out and then you get even drier scrambled eggs. Add seasoning at the end. Lastly, there's no cream or cheese in these. You don't need it! So they're 'healthier' (a little GOOD butter does NOT hurt you!)

I hope you'll try these. They are superbly delicious. I think they would be easy to make up in larger batches, too. Maybe 6 eggs at-a-time max though for even cooking.

This morning I had mine with cinnamon toast (even gluten-free bread tastes good toasted with cinnamon & sugar!)

Happy Breakfast!

weekly update

Hello! Today I am busy cooking in the kitchen, so I thought I'd share what I'm making because it smells amazing, I have to say. First of all, in order to eat more veggies, I think I need to just keep some dishes prepared in the fridge, cooked or chopped up or however. So today I roasted some root vegetables, as pictured here: carrots, parsnips, and yellow beets.

Just chop them into chunks that are all roughly the same size, toss in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and cook them for about 35 min. on 425 degrees. Check them to make sure they're not dried out, but that the veggies are tender and easy to cut. Mmm. They reheat well or you can just add them to a salad, with goat cheese. YUM! Dang, I forgot goat cheese at the store...

Also today, since I have knitting group kinda early (6pm) and I'm always starving by the time I get home around 8:30 or 9, I decided to make dinner early and eat before I go. I found this on Pinterest and thought I'd try it out. It smells amazing. I believe the only difference in my ingredients is that I didn't have chipotle chili powder, so I used regular chili powder, but I DID have smoked paprika, so I used that instead of regular paprika. We'll see!  BBQ Pulled Pork Recipe

Lastly, no photos, but thanks to my friend Shayla I made some Pumpkin Spice Creamer today. Mmmm! It's only a slight pumpkiny flavor, but definitely adds some fall flair to your coffee. You could experiment with the amount of pumpkin and spice. I might add a bit more cinnamon or something. I'm not sure where the recipe came from, so if you know, feel free to post a link.

Pumpkin Pie Coffee Creamer

1/2 - 3/4 cup canned pumpkin

1 3/4 cup half and half

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Blend this all in the blender and store in the fridge in an air tight container. It's yummy! 

You probably want to add some sugar to your coffee to bring out the flavor. I usually just have coffee with cream, but this was better a little sweet. You could probably add it to your creamer if you wanted.

Enjoy these yummy fall-ish dishes. It's getting gloomier here and cooler now, but this time of year I kind of welcome that type of weather. Lots of knitting to be done!!!

xoxo

amazing Asian dressing recipe

Oh my goodness. I just made some dressing for our salad tonight based on this Bobby Flay recipe. I WILL be making the full recipe sometime because this dressing is to DIE for. I die. It's seriously taking lots of will power not to go eat it all before our grilled pork chops are done. Here is how I slightly changed it to be a salad dressing instead of the chicken salad sauce.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon Sriracha - I subbed Sriracha b/c we didn't have the chipotle puree and put only 1 tsp.
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
• 1/8 cup safflower oil - I used a lot less oil because we didn't need much dressing & to cut on fat
• Salt and freshly ground pepper 

This is literally one of the best dressings I've had. I'm serving it over a salad of lettuce, raw broccoli and some chopped peanuts. Mmmmmm!!

Healthy, yummy Dijon dressing

Dijon dressing for blog, a photo by elletrain on Flickr.

I've recently been interested in making more of my own condiments and dressings at home. I had just never thought of it before, but it's likely you have most of the ingredients you need for many of the recipes. I made BBQ sauce a few weeks ago and have been making various salad dressings for a while now. It's great to know what is going in your sauces...you can actually pronounce all of the ingredients!

My newest favorite is one we had for lunch today. It's a simple Dijon dressing that is a healthy choice for a lovely salad. I found this recipe online somewhere, but I've change it slightly:

Dijon Dressing

3 tbsp of Dijon mustard (any kind)
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 c water
2 tsp lemon juice (i wish I had fresh lemons, but today we were out)
2 dashes of garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste

Mix ingredients in a leftover jar or lidded cup and just shake shake shake! You can adjust the salt or acid after tasting if you'd like.

Today my husband made a lovely salad with greens, mushrooms, tomatoes and rotisserie chicken. I wish I had taken a photo of that too, but I ate it too fast. :)

This dressing was great on it! It is much healthier than some other options because it has very little oil, no cheese, and no milk or cream. You get a nice 'bite' from the Dijon and even my friend who doesn't care for mustard likes this dressing! It's a nice break from the oil and vinegar I usually put on my salads, and it's a little more interesting! I hope you'll try it!