Food

Soup

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Soup is one of those comfort foods that cross over all demographics – economically, culturally, all the ways. Every culture has its own soup specialty – Italian Wedding Soup, Chicken Noodle Soup, Gazpacho, New England Clam Chowder…I’m sure you can name ten more.

During Lent, my church renewed its yearly tradition of noon Mass followed by a soup lunch, beginning with Ash Wednesday. When shelter-at-home orders came down, they decided to continue the Wednesday soups through no-contact delivery. This occurred for three weeks, and the delicious selections were: Creamy Vegetable Chowder, Hamburger Barley, and Chicken Noodle. They were amazing!

For Easter, I made matzo ball soup for part of our dinner. I know that matzo ball soup doesn’t quite sound like part of an Easter meal, but it was also Passover, and everyone in the family loves it, so really, I can’t go wrong.

I just noticed in the below picture that all three soups, made by different cooks, all have carrots!

Soup is comfort for the soul, and for the stomach. I’ve found blowing on the hot soup and watching the steam rise like incense in the church is very nearly a prayer for the gift of soup, and the gift of love and friendship. Mmm, mmm, good.

Soups: Matzo Ball, Chicken Noodle, Hamburger Barley. (c)2020

Friday Food – April: Recipes For The People

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Chef Jose Andres, immigrant, restauranteur, activist, and advocate started a hashtag on Twitter during this quarantine: #RecipesForThePeople. He’s been posting recipes along with videos of he and his daughters cooking, showing how easy cooking for your family can be. It can also be fun, and a way to get closer to your family. One of the first recipes that I saw was Angel Hair Pasta with Tomato Sauce. According to Chef Jose, it takes less than four minutes to make, and so I got the ingredients I was missing (we already had most of these basic ingredients in our pantry) when I went to the grocery store for my next scheduled trip, and had my son help me make it, along with help from Chef Jose himself (through Twitter-video!)

It was amazing!

It was fast; it was easy.

The whole family loved it!

You can find the link (along with his and others’ recipes) as part of the Food, Isolation Style post, but I will also include the direct link to his Twitter here with a list of the ingredients.

Chef Jose Andres’ 3 1/2 minute Angel Hair Pasta

Ingredients:

1 box (16oz) angel hair pasta

1 bag fresh spinach

Olive oil

3-4 cloves of garlic

2 large cans crushed tomatoes

Salt, pepper, sugar to taste

A larger pan than I used initially – LOL

My version of Chef Jose Andres’ 3 1/2 minute Angel Hair Pasta with Tomato Sauce. (c)2020

Food, Isolation Style (Updated 4/29/20)

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Some people on Twitter, like Luis Miranda, Jr. and Chef Jose Andres have been sharing recipes online, and I will be sharing the two that I have plus adding to this post with others. I have several of my own recipes on the website; just put “recipe” in the search box and see what comes up.

First some tips that we are using in our house.

Wash fruits and vegetables really well. You should also wash the fruits that have peels that you won’t be eating because it still may have something on the outside that you don’t want on your hands or in your body.

Wash your utensils before food preparation.

Wash your hands, and then wash them again. It is equally important to dry your hands thoroughly. This is also a good year round practice.

Separate your meat, vegetable, and bread cutting boards. This is something you should do year round when there isn’t a global pandemic going on.

Grocery Stores are the Coronavirus Tipping Point

How You Should Get Food During the Pandemic (published by The Atlantic on March 14, 2020)

No, You Don’t Need to Disinfect Your Groceries. But Here’s How to Shop Safely

How to Freeze Vegetables While Preserving their Best Qualities

Hot to Make Substitutions for Spices, Herbs, Dairy, and Meat in Your Everyday Cooking

How Long are those Condiments in Your Fridge and Pantry Supposed to Last?

How Long Your Fresh Produce Will Really Last

Clicking graphic takes you to the source link.

Luis Miranda’s Mother’s Recipe for Pound Cake

Chef Jose Andres’ Recipe and Video for Fried Rice

“A Little Snack” from Chef Jose Andres using seaweed, rice, and Spanish anchovies

Chef Jose Andres #Recipesforallofus: 3 1/2 minute angel hair pasta in tomato sauce (I’m making this later in the week!)

Chef Jose Andres #Recipesforallofus: Sugar Omelettes

Chef Jose Andres Chicken and Cauliflower

Chef Jose Andres Brisket & Eggs (leftovers in the Andres’ house)

Chef Jose Andres Canned Green Pea FrittersChef Jose Andres Pasta, Eggplant, and Chickpeas

Chef Jose Andres Vegetable Lasagna (onions, eggplant, zucchini)

Chef Jose Andres’ Sausage and Cabbage

Chef Jose Andres’ Leftover Chicken with Vegetables

Chef Jose Andres’ Tuna Melt (of Sen. Mark Warner)

Chef Jose Andres Classic Spanish dish – “Migas” that uses old bread. Chef has added chorizo and grapes

Navajo Fry Bread

Crock Pot Lemon Italian Chicken with Capers

Hot Crash Potatoes

Chicken, Potatoes, and Green Beans Dinner (one pan. I made this and it was delicious!)

Disney’s Churros

Disney’s Dole Whip

Disney’s Cookie Fries

How to Cook a Ronto Wrap (Galaxy Edge at Home. YouTube Video)

Ikea’s Swedish Meatball Recipe

Apple Fritters

Three Ingredient Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies (perfect for lockdown)

Scone Recipe

Homemade Pizza Dough

Armadillo Cheesy Garlic Bread from Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings Cookbook [posted with permission]

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Found this on Facebook when my sister shared it. It’s meant for camping and to do over a campfire, but I’m planning on doing this with my kids in the oven next week! I’ll show you how it turns out after! (c)2020

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If you don’t have yeast, this seems like a good substitute. I got this from a Gish group on Facebook. If you know who to credit, please let me know. (c)2020

Tea Time

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Twinings Green Tea with Jasmine. (c)2020

If you are cold, tea will warm you;

if you are too heated, it will cool you;

if you are depressed, it will cheer you;

if you are excited it will calm you.

– William Ewart

I feel this quote. I drink hot tea all year long. It is always good, perfect, soothing, and inspiring.

I also included this picture of green tea mainly because I typically do not like green tea; I’m a black tea drinker. The first Lent that I gave up something, though I chose to give up Diet Coke. I didn’t know how it was going to go. I drink Diet Coke several times throughout the day. A friend recommended the green tea with jasmine, and said that it would stem cravings. I think they were thinking with the caffeine withdrawal, but caffeine doesn’t really affect me. At home, I’m caffeine free with soda. However, it would give me something to drink in the morning when I shouldn’t have been drinking soda anyway, but sometimes was known to.

What teas are your favorites and what would you recommend trying?

Friday Food: Super, Simple Super Bowl Snacks

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With New Year’s just past and the Super Bowl coming up in a few short weeks (Feb. 2), I thought I’d share some of my family’s easy to prepare foods. For New Year’s this past week, we actually cooked very little. Most of our food was simple, store-bought, easy to prepare, easy to clean up, and best of all, yummy.

1. Dip. We love the dill dip from Marzetti. It can be found in the refrigerated area of your grocery’s produce section. We like to pair it up with a variety of items to dip, including: pretzels, crackers, bread chunks, raw snow peas, raw green beans, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, potato chips. If you want to dress up your table, scoop out the insides of a round bread loaf and put the dip inside. Looks great, no clean up!

2. Hot dogs wrapped in crescent roll dough. You can buy these premade (we like the Hebrew National ones) or you can make them yourself. I’d recommend cutting the hot dogs in three, and cutting each crescent roll triangle in two. You get twice as many little dogs and it’s not over doughy.

3. Mini quiches or mini potato puffs. Again, you can buy these premade or make them yourself. For either of these, use a mini muffin tin. Put in a puff pastry square and add your ingredients. For quiches: eggs, cheese, onion, bacon. For potato puffs: mashed potatoes, bacon, cheese. Delicious.

4. Cheese and crackers. In addition to cheese cut in chunks, there are also cheese spreads that are very good on crackers. Add pepperoni to the platter for a little extra.

5. Dessert. Break and bake chocolate chip cookies. Brownie bites. Ice cream. Mini cheesecakes are also an excellent option. Use those mini muffin tins again. Put some crushed graham crackers in the bottom, use your favorite cheesecake recipe, add whipped cream when serving.

National Tea Month

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January is National Tea Month. Sometimes it’s nice to get a random reminder of the wonderfulness of tea. After the holiday season, I’m ready to get rid of the sweets and sugar-filled drinks like hot chocolate and eggnog, and even hot apple cider. I’m not a coffee drinker, so tea is my real go-to for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is taste.

It’s getting better, but in the past, I have found it somewhat difficult to find the teas I like to drink. I went through a spate of only drinking chai masala or ginger tea. Unfortunately for me most ginger teas come in lemon flavor or green tea, and I prefer black tea as my base. With this first post, I want to share some of the places you can find teas nationally.

1. The Fresh Market has a wide variety of teas from your basic Lipton to imported from the United Kingdom, India, and China. They have nearly every flavor that you might want to try or add to your repertory of tea selections.

2. Adagio is a mail order tea company that has a fandom section. I’ve enjoyed teas from them in themes of Harry Potter, Supernatural, The Walking Dead, Doctor Who, and more. They also have the opportunity to blend your own although I haven’t made use of that yet. They also offer reasonably priced sample tins so you can try something new.

3. PGTips is quintessentially British tea. Best taken with milk added first in a hot cup. Find Douglas Adams’s guide for making the perfect cup of tea. It is worth the Google.

4. Twinings has a wide variety. My favorites are the British and Irish breakfast and afternoon teas: English breakfast, Irish breakfast, Scottish afternoon, Prince of Wales, Earl Grey, Lady Grey among others. Afternoon teas tend to have less caffeine so less chance to keep you up at night.

5. Stash is the only place that I was able to get my Ginger Black Breakfast Tea that I originally and randomly found one box of in an overstock store.

Check your local directories for small tea shops or tea blenders and sellers. They are more and more popping up in localities around my neighborhood, and also probably yours as well.