I sometimes crave a warm bowl of soup late at night when I can’t sleep.
Recently I made a pretty good version of cream of mushroom soup for my late night craving — with a few twists.
Creamy Mushroom with Brown and Wild Rice Soup by The Tromp Queen Cooks. Image by TTQ, CC license 4.0
Heat 1 T olive oil and 1 T butter in a fairly large saucepan or dutch oven.
Add 8 oz. or more of sliced mushrooms (any kind). Mine were kind of old so I picked off the stems and just used the caps.
Add a little salt and pepper.
Chop up 1/2 of a small onion. Add it to the pot.
Penzeys Spices Lemon Pepper Seasoning. Image from their website.
Add 1 t. of Penzeys Lemon Pepper seasoning. This might seem like a strange choice, but it worked! It contains: salt, Special Extra Bold black pepper, citric acid, lemon peel, garlic and minced green onion
Let all that cook until the mushrooms and onions are very soft and lightly browned.
Sprinkle the mushroom mixture with 3 T. of flour. Stir it around for about a minute.
Add about 2 – 3 c of chicken or veg broth. (I had an open box in the fridge. I’m not completely sure how much I added, but it was in this ballpark).
Then, I added a single serving of Minute brand brown and wild rice. The package looks like this:
You pull off the lid of the little plastic cup, stick it in the microwave on high for 1 minute and it is ready to go! (Yes, I heated it in the micro before adding it to my soup).
I let all this simmer for a few minutes.
At the very end I added about 1/2 c. of half and half. I might have added more but that is about all we had left.
This made a very tasty and filling soup if I do say so myself.
I think the Lemon Pepper seasoning really added a nice touch. I will definitely try that again.
Good and Cheap: A Cookbook by Leanne Brown. Print your own copy FREE! Follow the link in the blog post.
I found these great free cookbooks a while ago. But I just discovered the author’s website and the links to print PDF copies of both books FREE! The photography is absolutely gorgeous. The recipes look delicious and seem quite easy overall. It is refreshing to find this resource for inexpensive meals and snacks using fresh vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. Let’s get inspired to try something new this week that is good for OURSELVES and good for our WALLETS, too!
Good and Cheap is a cookbook written by Leanne Brown for people with very tight budgets, particularly those on SNAP/Food Stamp benefits. It is also a great resource for anyone wanting to eat healthy meals without spending a fortune. The PDF is free and has been downloaded more than 800,000 times.
Is the PDF really free? Can I print some recipes?
Yes it’s really free. Sharing the power of cooking is the whole point of the Good and Cheap project. Because the 1st edition is under a Creative Commons license, you are free to use the recipes however you like so long as you give Leanne Brown credit and you don’t make money off her work. Enjoy it!
Can I save the PDF to my computer?
Yep! To save a copy of Good and Cheap on your computer, right-click this download link instead of left-clicking. You should see a menu with an option like “Save Link As…” or “Save File As…”. If you select that option, you’ll be able to save the PDF to your computer. If that link doesn’t work, try this one.
From Scratch: A Cookbook by Leanne Brown. Print your own copy FREE! Follow the link in the blog post.
Leanne Brown’s first cookbook! From Scratch is a vegetarian cookbook intended for people just becoming comfortable in their own kitchens. Download a FREE pdf copy HERE.
These books are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercialShareAlike 4.0 license. For more information, visit http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-sa/4.0.
Heat the olive oil in 3 to 4 quart pan. Saute the onion until it softens and turns translucent. Toss in the garlic and saute for another minute or so, watching carefully so the garlic doesn’t burn. Add the salt, the petite diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and the rest of the herbs and spices. Heat to boiling, then lower the heat to simmer. Add in the artichoke hearts and olives. Cook the cheese tortellini (or any kind of pasta) according to package directions. Simmer the sauce until the pasta or cheese tortellini is ready. Serve topped with parmesan cheese. VERY GOOD!
Artichoke Hearts, marinated and quartered
I revised this recipe from “Herbed Artichoke Cheese Tortellini” that I found on Taste of Home’s recipe web site. I like the fact that it is made with mostly canned ingredients which is great when you live in Wisconsin and winter lasts about 9 months a year. Using the fresh parsley along with the canned artichokes and olives adds enough brightness to the flavor to make the effort of minimal effort of making the sauce well worth it.
Cheese Tortellini; Image by Laurent, via Flickr CC License. Tortellini aux chèvre et capres.
The sauce tastes great on cheese tortellini, but it also tastes great on any kind of pasta.
If you are really in a great hurry, I suppose you could use onion powder and garlic powder (or some sort of pre-chopped garlic in a jar) to speed the process even more. But seriously, this sauce is very quick to make even with chopping an onion and a couple cloves of garlic.
I hope you try this and please let me know how much you like it!
image via Flickr CC by cookbookman17; Fresh Parsley — A bunch of fresh hand picked parsley. This parsley is bursting with flavor and ready for use.
I am fortunate to live near a Half-Price Books bookstore. I love books, stationery, music, cards, CDS and LPs — you name it — this store seems to have it.
I tend to browse the cookbooks at this store, even though I already have a HUGE collection of cookbooks at home. (I also have a really good Goodwill store nearby, too. Hardback books, including cookbooks, are only $1.79.)
I have a combination of three part-time jobs right now, so cooking dinner has become a somewhat rarer activity than it was previously.
I decided to try this recipe because you can only eat out so many times in a week before you get tired of
food that involves deep-frying
food that involves a drive through
food that begins to all taste the same
food that has no vegetables in it
Ingredients: *I tweaked a few ingredients and amounts so this isn’t exactly like the recipe in the book
1 pound of spaghetti noodles (or Chinese egg noodles if you can find them) 2 T. toasted sesame oil
1 whole roasted deli chicken
1 cucumber peeled, quartered, seeded, sliced and diced 4 scallions, sliced (white and green parts) 1/3 dry-roasted salted peanuts cilantro, chopped
1 clove garlic 1 one-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeeled (I grated mine) 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter 1/4 cup soy sauce or tamari 2 T brown sugar 1 T rice vinegar 1/2 t crushed red pepper flakes 1/4 c hot water (I used the pasta water as it was cooking)
Cook the pasta in boiling, salted water. Drain and toss with sesame oil
While the pasta is cooking, prepare the garnishes and sauce.
Also de-bone the deli roasted whole chicken. Cut the meat off the bones; save the “runnin’ gears”– the bones, skin and carcass — to make some quick chicken stock for future use. Keep the meat warm until the pasta is ready.
Garnishes: 1 cucumber peeled, quartered, seeded, sliced and diced 4 scallions, sliced (white and green parts) 1/3 dry-roasted salted peanuts cilantro, chopped
Mix the ingredients (listed below) in a blender and blend thoroughly. Toss this mixture with the pasta. 1 clove garlic 1 one-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeeled (I grated mine) 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter 1/4 cup soy sauce or tamari 2 T brown sugar 1 T rice vinegar 1/2 t crushed red pepper flakes 1/4 c hot water (I used the pasta water as it was cooking)
Cook the pasta in boiling, salted water until al dente. Drain. Put it in a large bowl and toss it with the 2 T of sesame oil.
While the pasta is cooking, combine the ingredients for the sauce in a blender. Blend. Add this mix to the sesame oiled pasta.
Also while the pasta cooks, de-bone the deli roasted whole chicken. Prepare the garnishes.
To serve: Put pasta on a plate. Top with desired amount of chicken plus generous garnishes of cilantro, peanuts, scallions, and cucumber.
Image by Madeleine via Flickr CC license This image is not the actual recipe I’m posting. It looks very similar to this, though.
REVIEW: This recipe was quick to fix. It has very good flavor and was delicious. I happened to have nearly all the sauce ingredients on hand, so it was not a huge amount of items to buy at the grocery store — basically just a deli chicken, a cucumber and maybe some spaghetti, cilantro and scallions if you happen to have none of those things at the moment. I liked the fact that it tasted a little Thai and a little Chinese — but that it wasn’t overly spiced in either direction. You could definitely bump up the crushed red pepper if you need more heat or add Siracha sauce at the table.
This could easily be made vegetarian if you leave out the chicken. You could add tofu.
I think it would be good with grilled shrimp instead of the chicken. If you have them, fresh bean sprouts would give a nice crunch as well. You could use honey instead of brown sugar in the sauce. I grated my ginger into the blender because I didn’t want to chomp down on an unblended chunk of ginger. I would add more garlic next time, too.
It would be nice to add some toasted sesame seeds. I didn’t have time or energy for that, but it would be good.
FULL FORKS for this one! FIVE FORKS! Go fo it! Please let me know if you try this recipe and how you like it.
This is the bowl I used to make the rivels. Flour, salt and pepper, then make a well. Stir an egg around til it gathers enough flour to hold together. Scrape fork fulls off into the simmering soup pot. Cook through. Rivels will be chewy even when done.
Finished! Garnished w/ crispy bacon and freshly ground black pepper. This is the actual soup I made. TTQ cc
I have been craving my mom’s potato soup. I wasn’t going to make it a blog post, but I am not in the mood to try something new (or even cook at all for that matter) so I reconsidered. In keeping with my minimal effort attitude today, I decided to look online for some photos so I don’t have to actually MAKE the soup before I write this post (since I have time to write right now but there isn’t a meal coming for several more hours yet).
Well, in the end, I couldn’t find any images that closely resemble my mom’s soup so now I think I MUST write it up and photograph it for my recipe blog as soon as possible!
The potato soup gauntlet has been thrown down.
Last Christmas I created a cookbook of my mom’s family recipes using Shutterfly. I was quite happy with the finished product, and I think she was surprised and pleased as punch. This soup recipe is included in that book, and I’m happy to share it with you!
4 to 6 potatoes (my mom likes Idaho)
water to cover the potatoes and vegs (or chicken broth)
1 T. butter (or more to taste)
a little onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped (include all the leaves if you have them)
1 carrot, shredded or very finely chopped (opt.)
parsley, opt. (I don’t think my mom used this very often. If you use parsley fresh would be better; add it near the end of the cooking time)
flour
2 eggs
salt and pepper
milk (or half and half)
garnish with crispy bacon and/or thinly sliced green onions
some people like grated cheddar cheese on top, or stirred in
Image by Kristin (beautyredefined) via Flickr CC
Peel and dice the taties. Boil them in water (or broth) to cover. Season the water with plenty of salt and pepper.
Meanwhile in a small skillet melt the 1 T. butter, and add the onion, celery (and carrots, any other vegs if using). After they get softened and get a little color, add the vegs to the boiling potato pot. The taties will take about 20 min. to cook. (Note — you can skip this step of cooking the vegs in a skillet with butter and just toss them in with the potatoes at the start. I think it tastes better to cook them a little separately first. But you are in charge!)
Keep poking the taties with a fork as they boil. When taties are nearly done, begin to make the rivels. Put 1 C. flour and a little salt and pepper in a bowl and make a well in the center of the flour. Stir two eggs up and pour them into the well with a fork, pulling bits of flour in as you stir gently. Scrape the small blobs onto the simmering soup until all the egg is gone. All the flour will not be used. Use as many or as few blobs as you like. As it boils, the rivels will cook but will still be pretty chewy.
Turn the heat way down. Add milk or half and half to get the consistency you want for your soup. Heat gently but don’t boil it at this point or it will curdle.
Serve steaming hot garnished with some crispy bacon and slivers of green onions on top.
I sometimes add leftover ham to this soup. Home made buttermilk or baking soda biscuits go great to eat with this hearty, satisfying soup. A fresh salad with lots of crunchy vegetables would be nice, too.
For a vegetarian version, you would obviously leave off the bacon and use water or vegetable stock.
Finished! Garnished w/ crispy bacon and freshly ground black pepper. This is the actual soup I made. TTQ cc
I’m guessing this recipe is a combination of recipes from my mom’s and my dad’s families. They both grew up in the same small town and were grade school sweethearts, graduating from HS together in 1949. Dad went into the Army and then they got married in 1952.
Dad was the youngest of eight children, living on a farm in central Indiana during the Depression. Their lives were not easy by any stretch of the imagination. Dad’s dad died on his 13th birthday, so his mom was a single Mom through most of the Depression years. Dad’s favorite foods included mashed potatoes, noodles, homemade bread, potato soup — inexpensive and filling foods that could be made with very simple ingredients. Flour, eggs, milk, potatoes, butter, broth — I assume they grew or made most of these things on their farm.
My mom’s family was a “town” family. Her dad was a mechanic, a fireman and town councilman. My mom’s family probably had more income, but my grandparents on that side were extremely frugal. They saved EVERYTHING, and though my grandma on that side was also a very good cook, she didn’t make the same buttery, starchy foods my dad’s family made.
I’ll share more family recipes in the future.
I looked for a video to show how to make the rivels, and I found this little gem. The music is very fun. I have never heard of garnishing with boiled eggs! Proceed at your own risk. I will add photos to this post of rivels when I actually make the soup next time, okay?
Here are several potato soup recipes similar to mine: It is interesting to me that several mention Indiana, Amish, German heritage and/or Grandmothers.
I have tried a few times to make salsa without a recipe. “How hard can it be?” I asked myself. I have eaten many baskets of chips at Mexican restaurants with many little bottles and bowls of various kinds of salsa — so I thought of myself as somewhat of an expert. Surely, I could just whip some up.
Well, it didn’t work out so well. Mine came out runny and tasteless. I had garden fresh tomatoes and cilantro and onion, clearly the essentials — but somehow the texture and the taste was all wrong.
image via Flickr CC Jordanmit09
I looked about for an actual recipe. I have two of the Pioneer Woman cookbooks now. I have been very happy with her recipes, both in the books and online. I tried watching her show, but it just isn’t my style. I like her writing and her recipes, though, very much. I think her photography is pretty spectacular, too. The cookbooks are beautiful to look at and to read. Every recipe I’ve tried of hers has been very good.
You can read about the most recent Pioneer Woman Cookbook: (read about it in her blog post here)
There is a point to all this. Back to the salsa issue. In the newest cookbook, Ree has a delicious looking salsa recipe in the Cinco de Mayo section that I just had to try. Even in Wisconsin in the middle of winter, I could get all the ingredients quite easily. I whipped it up in a very short time in my food processor. The best part is: it tastes delicious!!
Since this cookbook is pretty brand new fresh off the presses, I could not find the new salsa recipe posted anywhere online. I don’t want to get into copyright trouble with PW, so I am going to post the salsa recipe she already HAS on her website and suggest revisions so that you can come close to (okay exactly!) replicating the newer recipe. If that doesn’t make sense, just skip it and go on to the yummy food part.
image by Charles Williams via Flickr CC
Here is the Restaurant Style Salsa recipe from the Pioneer Woman website:
1 can (28 Ounce) Whole Tomatoes With Juice (or two 14 oz. cans)
1 can (10 Ounce) Ro-tel (diced Tomatoes And Green Chilies)
1/4 cup Chopped Onion
1 clove Garlic, Minced
1 whole Jalapeno, Quartered And Sliced Thin
1/4 teaspoon Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Ground Cumin
1/2 cup Cilantro (more To Taste!)
1/2 whole Lime Juice
For the complete recipe and directions, please refer to PW’s website.
To update this version, make these adjustments:
Use two cans of petite diced tomatoes instead of the large can of whole tomatoes. I drained my cans of tomatoes.
Use a whole onion instead of 1/4 c. Cut it into chunks before putting it in the food processor.
Add 1 or 2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. These come in little cans in the Hispanic food aisle in grocery stores. I added one and a half.
Add 1 teaspoon of cumin instead of the lesser amount.
Add 1 teaspoon of salt instead of the lesser amount.
Add 1 teaspoon sugar instead of the lesser amount.
Use a whole bunch of cilantro (tear off the stems).
Use 1/4 c. lime juice (or more to taste).
That is it. You can make either version or a combo of both. I think you could experiment with using two cans of Ro-tel and one can of petite diced. You could add garlic. You could use green onions instead of the white. You could use red onion. Be sure to drain the cans of tomatoes, but don’t drain the Ro-tel.
This is what my salsa looked like! YUMMMMMM.
My salsa! Made following PW’s Chipotle Salsa recipe in her new cookbook. Image by The Tromp Queen.
I was so desperate to try this salsa that I had to make my own tortilla chips. I had bought the ingredients for the salsa, but forgot to get tortilla chips! Since Wisconsin seems to be in an eternal Polar Vortex lately, I didn’t want to go back to the store for just one item. I did, however, have some extra corn and flour tortillas in the fridge. So I heated up a stainless steel pan with about 1/2 to 1 inch of oil (canola, veg, peanut whatever you have), cut the tortillas in half and then each half into wedges, and quickly fried them til brown on both sides (you have to flip them over with metal tongs or a fork — don’t use plastic!). Drain on paper towels and salt with kosher or regular salt. De nada!
While we are on the chips and salsa topic, Pioneer Woman’s Pico de Gallo is absolutely delicious!! I highly recommend it. Basically her recipe is equal parts of chopped tomato, onion and cilantro. Add a couple of jalapeno peppers (or just one, de-veined and de-seeded), lime juice, and salt and pepper to taste. It is so good! I love this on fajitas, tacos or just with chips. If you make guacamole (the recipe is in that same link) you can mix the Pico de Gallo and guac together, too. Yes. Now we all need a margarita.
Overall Recipe REVIEW:
The recipe is quick, easy and delicious. The ingredients are easy to obtain: there is nothing fancy here. I really enjoy the balance of flavors. This tastes as good or better than most of the restaurant salsas out there. This recipe would be easy to adapt for personal tastes, though — more or less spicy, more or less lime juice, etc. I highly recommend all the recipes in this blog post!
5 out of 5 forks!!
Enjoy!
Please let me know you how your recipes turn out if you try any in this post. I’d love to hear your results.
I love to try new recipes. I find them in many places: online, on TV, in cookbooks, in magazines, from friends, etc. I make new recipes sometimes several times a week so I thought a new feature for this blog could be for me to report how the recipes turn out for me.
I haven’t thought about a rating system, but I will give that some thought. Spoons or forks up instead of thumbs up? Coffee cups instead of stars? I’m open to suggestions here!
Sometimes I turn on the TV when I am folding clothes or when I am eating lunch. One day, I discovered a cooking show on the Food Network called “10 Dollar Dinners.” I watched enough to know I wanted to make all the recipes featured on the show that day. I set the DVR to record it, and then looked up the recipes online.
Get ready for some Moroccan flavors!
It took me a few days to gather all the ingredients, because one was something I had never heard of before.: lemon confit. Basically lemons are preserved in salt with a few spices and left to sit for about 30 days. The lemons get very soft and salty (of course). I didn’t want to wait 30 days to make this recipe so I searched for a quicker solution. I found a method and improvised a bit to make it fit my needs. I think it worked, but since I don’t know what lemon confit is supposed to taste like I guess I’m not totally sure. The meal was delicious, at any rate.
The three-hour recipe was getting close, but I only had about 2 hours. So this is what I did: I cut 2 organic lemons into fourths and put them in a small saucepan with 3 T. of kosher salt. I added just enough water to cover the lemons. I boiled it and then simmered it until I needed it. I did let them cool a bit before I chopped 4 of the quarters up for my chicken tangine.
First I started on the Carrot and Cauliflower Soup. Since it is January in Wisconsin, I decided to serve it warm not chilled.
Here is the recipe for the soup. Please follow the link to read the whole thing. To whet your appetite though, the ingredients needed for the soup are: olive oil, onion, carrots, cauliflower, red pepper flakes, cumin, lemon zest, chicken or vegetable stock, salt and pepper, and plain yogurt, and a green onion for garnish if you wish.
This is what mine looked like:
Carrot and Cauliflower Soup made by The Tromp Queen following Melissa D’Arabian’s recipe
Mine is little chunky because my pan was too big and when I tried to use my wonderful Cuisinart immersion blender in the pan, the soup was splurting about quite a bit. Also I wasn’t careful after I added the yogurt and it got a bit curdled. (This bowl was reheated for my lunch today, so it is a little more curdlier, too!).
I started on the chicken after I got the vegetables going and simmering. The recipe for Chicken Tangine, the main dish, is here.
The ingredients are: chicken thighs and drumsticks, salt and pepper, butter and olive oil, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, garlic, wine, chicken broth, lemon confit, olives (I used both kalamata and green), cilantro, and parsley. I only used drumsticks because they were on sale this week. I think you could leave out the parsley, frankly. I don’t think you really have to use the wine, either, though I happened to have some so I did. The lemon confit does add a distinct flavor but it you have to substitute I would add lemon juice and lemon zest and a bit of extra salt. It won’t be the same, but it would help in the right direction.
Here is what mine looked like (leftovers for lunch today!):
Chicken Tangine made by The Tromp Queen following Melissa D’Arabian’s recipe from Food Network
The final component to the menu is the couscous you see served under the chicken in the photo above. The recipe is here. The ingredients needed for Melissa’s Couscous with Peas and Mint are: frozen peas, couscous (I used whole wheat), butter, mint, lemon juice, salt and pepper.
I used Trader Joe’s whole wheat couscous in a box. I only used 1.5 cups, but you could probably use less. We had way TOO much couscous even with cutting the recipe down. You decide what is best for your folks, but 2.5 cups of couscous that the recipe calls for could feed a neighborhood pot luck. I followed the direction on the box of couscous to scale down the amount. If I remember correctly the amount of couscous is equal to the amount of water, so it is pretty easy to scale up or down. I kept the other ingredients about the same.
The Review:
Overall: I thought the meal was delicious. I would not describe doing all three at the same time EASY, though. Maybe do just the chicken and the couscous one time, and do the soup another time til you get the hang of what needs to be done. The colors and aromas of the meal are beautiful and incredibly appetizing.
Soup: I think it had very good flavor. I used about 1/2 the amount of red pepper flakes and it was still noticeably spicy. I like it, but both my other family members thought it was still too much spice. My husband did not like the texture of the creamy soup and wondered if I could leave more vegetable chunks the next time I make it. I liked the texture of the creamy soup, so I will have to mull that idea over a bit. I am also curious what it would taste like cold as the recipe calls for. It was very good warm (hot, really). I didn’t figure out the calorie count, but from years of Weight Watcher experience I think this would be a very low point soup.
Chicken: The main dish has interesting, complex flavors. My only experience with Moroccan food is from Epcot in Disney World, so I don’t have much real world experience to compare to. I thought it was delicious. I love olives, lemon and cilantro. The spices used were not overpowering at all. I might make it next time using just lemon zest and juice to see if the trouble of making the lemon confit is worth it. I will definitely make this dish again. I might consider using chicken off the bone next time to make eating it easier. You could easily use boneless, skinless thighs cut into bite sized chunks and get nearly the same effect. The bones add flavor, granted, but it was a little messy to eat.
Couscous: Given the fact that the chicken dish is so complex and flavorful, I’m not sure the couscous needs quite so much going on. I would use fewer peas next time and not use fresh squeezed lemon juice. I forgot to add the mint! I didn’t have any fresh and would have used dried. Again, I’m not sure it needs anything extra, though. The couscous is really there to soak up all the delicious liquid from the Chicken Tangine.
Overall: I would make this meal again. 4.5 out of 5 forks!
The Tromp Queen COOKS! 