It's finally officially CHILLY out! I love it. I especially love that I can try making all different kinds of SOUP and not feel guilty! I sometimes have trouble eating leftovers but soup is easy to reheat for lunches during the week.
This week I tried making my sister's baked potato soup recipe. It was AWESOME! You can view a picture on her (somewhat defunct) food blog, but I'll post the recipe here (so I can refer back to it later!) This weekend I'm going to steal another awesome-sounding recipe from My Kitchen Apron--beef stew! Yum! I can't wait. :)
I had intended to make this on Wednesday night, so I was going to bake the potatoes on Tuesday so they'd be ready to go when I got home from work the next day. Of course, when I got home my husband informed me that he had been invited over to a guy friend's house on Wednesday for clam chowder and horror movies. So... I made my soup a night early and my husband had to wait an extra hour+ for dinner while the potatoes cooked. Oh well!
Restaurant-Quality Baked Potato Soup
3 russet potatoes
3 tablespoons butter
2 cups chopped white onion
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
1/8 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cups instant mashed potato flakes
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/8 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup heavy cream (I had some leftover cream from making mashed potatoes, so I did 3/4 cup heavy cream and 1/4 cup 2% milk)
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
8 ounces bacon – cooked and crumbled
2 green onions, chopped (optional--I didn't have these.)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Bake potatoes for 1
hour, or until done. Set aside to cool. (Or put in the fridge for 3o minutes.)
Melt butter in a 3 quart saucepan over medium heat. Saute onions until
tender and golden brown. Stir in flour, and cook 5 minutes to make a
roux.
Pour in chicken stock and water. Add cornstarch and mashed potato
flakes. Season with salt, pepper, basil and thyme.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes.
Remove the skin from the cooled potatoes, and discard. Dice the
potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes, and stir into soup, along with the
half-and-half.
Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, or until thick. Spoon into
bowls, and garnish with shredded cheese, bacon and chopped green onion.
----------------
In non-food-related news, I'm so glad it's the weekend. It's been a really slow week but very stressful at the same time. Not a fun combination. I had to laugh at (with?) my husband tonight, though. He has a part-time gig where he supervises rental facilities--so people rent a building for a party or wedding reception or rehearsal dinner, and he sets up tables and chairs and sits in the back room watching TV until the event is over and he can mop the floor. A pretty easy gig, usually, but sometimes it's more than he bargained for.
Because my husband is in the back room with a TV, he can sometimes be a kid magnet. He often becomes the unofficial "babysitter" while Mommy and Daddy are drinking and chatting with friends in the other room. If the kid(s) sit down and watch The Incredibles and don't bug him too much, my sweet guy usually doesn't mind. Tonight, though, he had a couple of young boys in the room with him, running around playing while my husband tried to tune them out. Suddenly he heard, "I'm going to pee on you!!!" and turned around to find both boys, pants dropped, PEEING at each other (and all over the floor!) Of course he yelled at them, "What are you DOING?" and went and found their parents, but oh man... I can just picture it!
So now my husband says it'll be 7 years until we consider having kids. When we got married (less than a year ago) we said 5 years. A long weekend with the nieces and nephews (who did a lot of ear-splitting noises and crazy running around) made us say 6. And now we're at 7! Good thing we have older siblings who will be looked to first to supply grand-kids... at this rate, it's gonna be a while before we get around to it. ;)
Showing posts with label married life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label married life. Show all posts
Friday, October 28, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
Enter, stage right
I've had several blogs before--some public, some private--but figured I would give it another shot and see how long I can stick with it.
I've been married for eight months now. It feels like we've been married forever. It feels like it has been no time at all. It hasn't been as much of an adjustment as I thought it would be. I think the biggest adjustment has been financially--combining our incomes, paying all our bills. It's a struggle, honestly. I know it won't always be this way--I know that sooner or later we'll pay off debts and have more freedom. It's just been really difficult to build up any kind of savings or to think of making any larger purchases when every month we are tiptoeing to make sure we don't cross into the red. Then when unexpected expenses pop up--like $100 for glasses, or the mysterious clunking noise from the bottom of my car--it's a scary thing to know whether we'll balance it out.
So currently there's a part of my car being held together with a rag and duct tape until we both get paid again. Whee!
Our biggest weakness is eating out--that's our standard "date", how we relax and celebrate the weekend or what we default to when we're too tired to cook. I'm proud to say that we've cut our eating out bill in half, saving our dollars for special occasions and not spending money on food we don't love. I'd rather forego a couple of fast food lunches if it means we can go get really awesome burgers at our favorite burger joint later.
One big change since I got married has been in the kitchen. I see cooking as my big contribution to the household. Mostly we've had hits, but a few misses have been along the way as well. Tonight I made meatloaf--one of my dear husband's childhood favorites, but not one of mine. But I figured, what the heck--I can't remember the last time I had meatloaf, so why not give it another shot?
I tried this recipe from A Sweet Pea Chef. I didn't get the Italian parsley, and I forgot to add in the Worcestershire sauce (after buying it especially for this recipe, grr argh!) but I was still feeling okay about it. In the end it came out really soggy and was too moist and squishy for my taste. My dear husband helpfully told me (after the fact, of course!) that his parents used to A) make meatloaf in the microwave (???) which he did NOT recommend, but also B) take it out halfway through and drain off some of the liquid. NOW he tells me! He seems to be coming down with something and was asleep through the cooking process, though, so I can't really hold him responsible.
Tomorrow I plan to tackle another childhood nemesis: pork chops. A couple of months ago I made some maple-rosemary glazed pork medallions that were good, but I'm almost fully convinced that I just don't like pork. Bacon is good, ham is sometimes okay, but pork? I don't know. I'm willing to give it another shot, though, because honestly there's only so many things you can do with chicken and ground beef.
I guess that's enough of a start to this, so... until next time!
I've been married for eight months now. It feels like we've been married forever. It feels like it has been no time at all. It hasn't been as much of an adjustment as I thought it would be. I think the biggest adjustment has been financially--combining our incomes, paying all our bills. It's a struggle, honestly. I know it won't always be this way--I know that sooner or later we'll pay off debts and have more freedom. It's just been really difficult to build up any kind of savings or to think of making any larger purchases when every month we are tiptoeing to make sure we don't cross into the red. Then when unexpected expenses pop up--like $100 for glasses, or the mysterious clunking noise from the bottom of my car--it's a scary thing to know whether we'll balance it out.
So currently there's a part of my car being held together with a rag and duct tape until we both get paid again. Whee!
Our biggest weakness is eating out--that's our standard "date", how we relax and celebrate the weekend or what we default to when we're too tired to cook. I'm proud to say that we've cut our eating out bill in half, saving our dollars for special occasions and not spending money on food we don't love. I'd rather forego a couple of fast food lunches if it means we can go get really awesome burgers at our favorite burger joint later.
One big change since I got married has been in the kitchen. I see cooking as my big contribution to the household. Mostly we've had hits, but a few misses have been along the way as well. Tonight I made meatloaf--one of my dear husband's childhood favorites, but not one of mine. But I figured, what the heck--I can't remember the last time I had meatloaf, so why not give it another shot?
I tried this recipe from A Sweet Pea Chef. I didn't get the Italian parsley, and I forgot to add in the Worcestershire sauce (after buying it especially for this recipe, grr argh!) but I was still feeling okay about it. In the end it came out really soggy and was too moist and squishy for my taste. My dear husband helpfully told me (after the fact, of course!) that his parents used to A) make meatloaf in the microwave (???) which he did NOT recommend, but also B) take it out halfway through and drain off some of the liquid. NOW he tells me! He seems to be coming down with something and was asleep through the cooking process, though, so I can't really hold him responsible.
Tomorrow I plan to tackle another childhood nemesis: pork chops. A couple of months ago I made some maple-rosemary glazed pork medallions that were good, but I'm almost fully convinced that I just don't like pork. Bacon is good, ham is sometimes okay, but pork? I don't know. I'm willing to give it another shot, though, because honestly there's only so many things you can do with chicken and ground beef.
I guess that's enough of a start to this, so... until next time!
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