Tuscan Turkey Soupy Noodles

If you're like me, and you must be at least a little like me or else this blog would hold no interest, when roasting an entire bird, you feel compelled to make stock from the carcass. When confronted with my my turkey carcass from Thanksgiving, I decided to chop up some mirepoix, throw in the bones, boil the hell out of it, and figure out what to do with it later. And eventually I came across the best leftover turkey solution I've found yet, short of the Leftover Sandwich dipped in gravy, Tuscan Turkey Soupy Noodles.

I had already made my stock when I came across this recipe, but if you haven't yet, the recipe includes instructions for making the necessary stock. Or if you want to try this but you already tossed your bird, using stock-in-a-box will give you a similar flavor (though I'd go easy on the salt). It calls for 10 cups, I had 12, which meant boiling down, which I did while I turned the veggies from the first picture to the second picture.

Here's where I recommend two great tools that

will impress whoever watches you cook, even if it's your cat. The first is prep bowls. Buy them. Buy more than you think you will use. Buy all different shapes and sizes and colors and, if you can, buy them with matching lids. The second thing is a benchscraper, that helps you get all the bits from the cutting board to the prep bowl or pan. A lot of people get frustrated when they cook because they don't plan ahead and do their mise en place (French for "getting your sh*t together"). When you read the recipe through ahead of time, chop everything that needs to be chopped, and have all your tools and ingredients on hand, cooking gets SO much easier and more fun.

Back to the soup. Cooking the onion and garlic will make your house smell like an everything bagel. Resist the urge to run to the bagel store and throw in the other veg as instructed. Cover while you cook the leeks, they are a bit sturdier than onions and will soften faster. You will be able to tell the celery and carrots have cooked long enough because they will become a lot brighter, as shown. Don't worry about them getting soft, they will have about 20 minutes to do so while simmering in the stock, which if you're lucky, is enough time for you to run and get that everything bagel. Also, feel free to use diced or chef's cut canned tomatoes rather than chopping the whole ones yourself: when you're already using canned tomatoes, do you really give a damn who chops them? Just make sure you run them through a strainer and give them a good shake to get rid of the liquid.

The instruction about breaking the pasta is a little vague. The

picture shows about the size I think they mean. Not pictured: all the tiny bits my first few attempts produced. The problem with using the no-boil lasagna noodles they recommend, is the box doesn't say how long to boil them until they're cooked. My rule of thumb for pasta is 10 minutes give or take, your mileage may vary.

Throw in the spinach at the very end. If you were wondering where this soup gets its substance from, this is it. This went from a watery, vegetabley, I-don't-think-this-will-make-a-meal soup to a hearty concoction the instant I dropped in the spinach. Add just a sprinkle of cheese to serve, it really adds depth of flavor but you don't need very much. The pasta pieces were a bit unwieldy, I ended up cutting them with my spoon, so you may prefer to just make them smaller to begin with. Otherwise, a very warming, healthy meal and a great use of leftover Thanksgiving ingredients. Enjoy!

"Cream of" Broccoli Soup

What to do when you have a ton of extra broccoli lying around and you're about to go away for the weekend? Soup! In my constant battle with my waistline, I decided vegetables would be a good weapon, but as usual overbought and under-ate. Making a nice creamy, cheesy soup seems like a good way to get the broccoli eaten, but it kind of defeats the low-calorie purpose. So I found this recipe and decided to give it a whirl. It's kind of a misnomer, as there is no cream, but as I say, this is what I was going for.

As you can see, there's not much prep to this soup, beyond chopping a lot of vegetables. The only way I know to make vegetable soup without chopping a lot of vegetables is to open a can and if that's what you want, you're on the wrong blog. After reading some of the comments (hint for newbies: ALWAYS DO THIS), I altered the recipe a little. I used 3 c of broth (instead of 2 c broth + 1 c water) for extra flavor. I also substituted chopped garlic and ginger root for the mustard seeds, about a 1 t of each, because it sounded interesting and because bite me, Gourmet, I don't have mustard seeds.

So, saute aromatics, then add the veg & liquid and

simmer "until the broccoli is very tender." This is a GREAT recipe for people who have a tendency to overshoot the mark and cook the life out of their vegetables (like me), because that's actually what you're going for. Soggy veg = easier pureeing = smoother textured soup.

The recipe says to puree the soup in a blender and transfer to another pot. Cue my very best Kevin-Spacey-as-Lex-Luthor impression: WRONG. Use a good stick blender right in the pot, if you have one. If not or if, like me, yours is a piece of crap, it should all fit in the work bowl of a decent-sized food processor. Then transfer right back to the same pot, unless you like washing extra dishes, in which case, I have a treat for you in my kitchen sink. The soup will still have some texture to it from the the carrot and broccoli chunks, but adding the sour cream smoothes it out nicely. You can see the difference in the clarity of the reflected light in the pictures above and below. Use a whisk to incorporate the sour cream to avoid it melting in one spot and sticking to the bottom of your pot.

I ended up freezing this until I returned from my

trip, but it defrosted just fine, in about 20 minutes on 50% power in the microwave. (Side note for non-microwave users: check this month's Bon Appetit for a great article, which is sadly not online, about the health benefits of microwave cooking that might just change your mind.) Using extra stock definitely paid off, adding an extra punch of flavor to what might have been a much blander soup. I can't say what using mustard seeds would have produced, but the garlic and ginger gave the dish a subtle, interesting flavor using ingredients I already had. This turned out to be a simple, easy, healthy dish. As it yields about 4 cups, I'd recommend it as a starter for 4, a side for a week of nice hot lunches for 1, or even a hearty main course, accompanied by some nice crusty bread, for dinner for 2. Enjoy!

Basil Garlic Chicken

So, I had a ton of fresh basil lying around after last weekend's dinner party and I decided I'd be damned if I let another expensive package of herbs wilt to black in my produce drawer. (Please don't email me about buying a basil plant. I kill anything green that comes into this house and I have no control over it.) The Captain is not crazy about pesto, we just made a batch of Sunday Sauce, ditto Caprese salad, so I turned to the internet and found this nice recipe for Basil Garlic Chicken (second recipe in the second answer). Fairly idiot-proof? Yes, but sometimes that's just what you need.

The first part involved whizzing chopped garlic, salt, chopped basil, pepper, and EVOO in the food processor. Pause for a moment of reverence for the mini-bowl insert on my KitchenAid FoPro. Why dirty up the whole damn workbowl when you've got this cute little thing that fits inside and doesn't take up any extra space? Win!

I pressed the chicken breasts slightly to flatten them,

ignoring the instructions about patting the chicken dry and about ensuring you have an even thickness. Let me tell you why this was dumb. First of all, raw chicken is slippery and when you are trying to press it between two sheets of plastic wrap, it helps if it's not sliding all over the place. Secondly, if all your pieces are not all the same thickness, they will get done at different times and you'll have to transfer the thinner pieces from the grill(pan) to a plate while the others finish cooking, thereby dirtying an extra plate. Do you want to wash an extra dirty plate? Great, then come on over to my house, I've got a sink full of 'em.

Another attractive feature of this recipe is that it doesn't have to sit a spell; just dump in a bag, squish around, then grill immediately. I like my grill pan for this, because I can work on sides inside the kitchen and not run outside to flip the chicken every couple minutes. But, since basil one of the main ingredients, this is really more of a summer recipe and would work just fine on your outdoor grill, provided you have a chilled glass of Pinot Grigio to keep you company. The recipe says to grill just 3-5 minutes a side, but I like to cook each side twice to ensure doneness for the thicker pieces and also to make those neato criss-cross grill marks.

I served this with simple steamed brown rice and

broccoli. It tasted a little salty to me, but the Captain loved it and I found when combined with a mouthful of unseasoned rice, it balanced out OK. The portion size is perfectly appropriate and I should know this because I was still hungry after eating it and I have absolutely no willpower for proper portion control right now. Overall, a fairly healthy recipe that's tasty and easy. Try it and enjoy!

Bizzaro Lunch

Due to gloom regarding my pending unemployment, I may have gotten a little martyr-y when making last week's grocery list. I might have said (to myself) "Fine. Whatever. I'll just have PB&J. And chips." It's possible I let my need for comfort food affect my menu planning in a negative way.

OK. I did, I did, and it is. Sue me, I'm unemployed and a return to childhood makes me feel better. However. This is how I've gained 8 1/2 pounds in the last month and while I'm not feeling FAT per se, it would be a shame to throw away all the hard work I put in for the last year and a half leading up to the wedding. So when it came time to make lunch today, I wanted something with a few more food groups and a few less preservatives than a PB&J and chips could offer. But alas, I didn't buy anything else. So I turned to one of my favorite food divas for an answer: Hungry Girl.

OK listen. Hungry Girl is not lighting the culinary world on fire. That's not what she's trying to do. What she's trying to do is provide healthy recipes to regular people. It's not fine food, it's helping to satisfy the cravings that derail dieters. And it gives great ideas of how to combine foods in ways you wouldn't necessarily think of. Which is how I end up eating the bizarro lunch pictured above.

Like I say. I didn't have a whole lot of ingredients to work with. But I did have a tortilla, a 97% fat free hot dog, and some cheddar cheese, which is how I ended up eating a Cheesy Dog Tortilla Rollup. Not insanely groundbreaking, but not something I would have thought of and a good way to combine some healthy ingredients I already had in a tasty and satisfying way. Serve alongside some grapes from the bottom of the fruit drawer that miraculously hadn't turned and a little greek yogurt with sugarfree pancake syrup (an HG serving suggestion) and you have the delightfully bizarre and cost-effective meal I had that is keeping me a lot more full than yesterday's PB&J and chips lunch.

Now, the Hungry Girl philosophy works a lot better when you keep a lot of her recommended ingredients on hand, but even without them, I managed to find something to throw together in my kitchen. I expect with a little more careful planning and smart shopping, I'll be having a lot more healthy, fun lunches in the future, so stay tuned.

A Brand New Kitchen

Man, if you like cooking and all your cookware stinks, get married. And if you like cooking, but your kitchen doesn't make any sense, get married to someone handy, preferably with lots of time on his hands. I do not actually advise marrying solely for the bounty of gifts or to get a helpful partner willing to do your bidding. But these are major bonuses for the home cook, at least they were for me.

My very wonderful friends and family showered me with tons of shiny happy gifts, mostly for the kitchen, because they know what I like, at my bridal shower. A few gaps were filled in by wedding gifts. We set everything aside because we really wanted to treat the new stuff right (as opposed to the crappy treatment our current secondhand kitchenware deserves). Reorganizing small spaces for maximum efficiency is one of the things my new husband does best, and having piles of "stuff" sitting around, not in their proper places, makes him nuts. So for a week or two after our honeymoon, every day when I got home from work, I'd get a report on what he'd done to make our kitchen an easier place to work. I wish I had some "Before" shots, but here are some long shots of the "After."

Wave hi to Kika, the Cat Who Refused To Move.

Do it with me, now: deep breath in, deep breath out. Gorgeous, if I do say so myself, and I can because aside from picking out stuff for other people to buy me, I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Let's go in for a closer look:

Behold! Shelves to hold the mighty overflow of pantry-type goods in our pantry-deprived kitchen. An optimized baker's cart with space for my KitchenAid accessories, stacking cooling racks and baskets, and the kitchen linens concealed in a neat picnic basket. A ghetto baker's rack made from Ikea garage shelves with space enough for all our small appliances (including the new toaster oven that blows the circuit if we have it on at the same time as anything else), as well as my cookbooks and ridiculously vast array of hostess aprons. Plus? The TIME! Shiny gleaming brand-spanking-new Calphalon pans hang on the wall near the stove, giving me easy access to the cookware I use most.

A shiny new Cuisinart microwave and indulgence-laden espresso machine round out our collection of evil-looking appliances, along with the KitchenAid mixed and Krups coffeemaker. The whiteboard is magnetic and mounted on the cabinet closest to the stove so I can hang recipes from its clips. The Tupperware/bakeware cabinet was thinned out to the most useful items only. The baking items were moved to a small, little-used cabinet above the stove. The spices were placed on lazy susans, so that they would AT LAST not be stacked on top of each other. It all makes so much glorious SENSE. Not pictured (because I think I reached my limit of pictures per entry) are the new silverware in the new silverware caddy (BORING), the pot and pan cabinet under the sink, where Kris installed shelves to maximize storage, and the overflow shelf in the basement where my lesser-used appliances and larger serving dishes are stored.

Jealous? You too can have an optimized kitchen. This is the kind of thing my husband lives for. But, I'm afraid since we're both still unemployed, it'll cost ya :)

The Return

It's been rainy and gray and cool in NYC for the last few days, matching my mood, cutting summer unfairly short, and reminding me of what I miss about fall.

I love summer a lot more than the next girl and I'll be pleased as punch when the mercury climbs back up to 90 over the weekend. But this unexpected change in the weather has brought to mind the flavors of fall, the things I love most about that season. You can keep your crisp air, cozy sweaters, and changing leaves, but I will take some nice ripe fall squash and apples, homemade soups and roasts, and the scent of cinnamon in everything.

Fall is the time when my kitchen cools off enough to actually allow me to start using it again and this year, I am very much looking forward to that. And as I get to stretch my cooking muscles and get myself back into culinary shape, you can expect to see a lot more content and photos posted on this lil ol' blog.

I'ma peace out to the beach for now, but I'll meet you back here when it's cooler for some hot cider and a chat, deal? Deal.

Sunday, SUNDAY, Sunday!

This year's Superbowl was a LOT calmer at our house than last year's. You see, we're Steeler fans, born and bred. So this time last year, I know I cooked. I believe there were pierogies and kielbasa involved, and I couldn't really say what else. I was drunk on Yuengling and polka and victory. This year, much as I'd love to see my team in the big game every year, I was fine with focusing on the food.

I offered to cook if my mom would host as she has the bigger house and the nicer tv. My sis supplied the beer and a few naughty hot appetizers. Mozzarella sticks aside, with both daughters getting married this year, pretty much the whole family is watching their weight, guys and ladies, so I knew I had to be smart about this traditional day of grazing and gorging oneself.

All week I was thinking I would make regional food for both teams. While it wasn't hard to come up with dishes for New Orleans, creole food is not exactly the healthiest. And as much as I tried, the best I could come up with for Indianapolis local cuisine was breaded pork tenderloin, which didn't seem to rise to the occasion of the greatest football game of the year. So, since our football loyalties lay with seeing a good game, rather than with either team, I thought, why should the food be any different?

Chips and dips are great for the early part of the game. You don't wanna pile on too much food

too fast, but you wanna lay something down to soak up the beer so you're not blitzed by half-time. Hungry Girl has much to say on the subject so I started with her Holy Moly Guacamole and Hungry Hungry Artichoke Hummus (no recipe, just nutrional info there). The guac replaces some of the deliciously creamy-but-caloric avocado with pureed early peas. I know what you're thinking. I find the trick with a lot of these HG recipes (which I am blatantly screwing up here) is to not tell people what's in them until AFTER they try it. Because it was DAMN good and everyone, including my anti-vegetable future-brother-in-law, loved it. The hummus was also a hit, especially with my fiance, The Captain, who is new to all things chickpea. Aside from being confused by its cold temperature (his first hummus experience was with a baked recipe), he dug it and didn't even remark on the artichokes, which I don't think he's ever voluntarily had. As with most courses, I like to mix it up, so I also threw in some sliced Fuji apples with HG's Fluffy Cinnamon Cream Cheese Dip. This was a great alternative to my traditional go-to sweet dip, Pumpkin Pie Dip, which is un-put-down-able, but has a ton of fat and sugar. The Cinnamon Dip was what I kept going back for and it's so easy to make and low-cal, I expect I'll keep some on hand on a regular basis for snacking. Perhaps even bring it to work to kill midday cravings.

While The Who rocked (or doddered about, I wasn't really paying attention), I cooked up the main course, which was a taste of summer barbeques in the dead of winter. Turkey sliders with baked beans and two more Hungry Girl dishes, I Can't Believe It's Not Potato Salad, and I Heart Apple Slaw. The slaw was easy and tasty, something I'd definitely make in the summer to take to party that wouldn't automatically get me slapped with the Party-Pooper-With-The-Healthy-Dish label. The "potato" salad was ill-named, as I very easily could believe it wasn't. After all, I made it, I saw how much cauliflower went into it and how there weren't any potatoes in it. The dressing tasted potato-salad-y enough, but the crunch of the cauliflower gave it away. I suppose it's partly that my microwave sucks and didn't steam it as much as it could have been, but I think potato salad is just one of those dishes not to be messed with. There's no real way to make a healthy substitute that tastes as good as the real thing. The sliders were pretty outstanding. When it comes to burgers, I have never done more than separate ground meat into lumps which get formed into patties, but I know greatness can be achieved by adding ingredients so I gave it a shot. A couple of eggs, handfuls of breadcrumbs, a chopped onion and a mess of chopped parsley later, to quote Samuel L Jackson, "That IS a tasty burger!" The dinner rolls I bought were a little too small and they burgers took a little work to cook evenly and thoroughly, without burning or drying out, but overall, it was a win.

Part way through the 4th quarter, my family looked at me with murder in their eyes as I opened one last tupperware container and plopped it on the coffee table. Hungry Girl strikes again, with Swirls Gone Wild Cheesecake Brownies.

How To: Chocolate Chip Cookies

While I recognize that while some of my readers are more accomplished cooks than I, I also know that some are not. So I'll endeavor to pass on a few tips for the things I already knew how to make before I started teaching myself how to cook. And so, How To: Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Step 1: Buy a package of Nestle Toll House semi-sweet morsels

Step 2: Follow the recipe on the back of the package to the letter.

Lesson: Don't mess with perfection, folks. Some things are as easy as following simple directions. Every time I make these this way, people tell me they taste like their grandmother's cookies. And that's how I know that their grandmother used the recipe from Nestle too.

Now You're Cooking with Crazy

You know how people say "Now you're cooking with gas!"? OK, people don't really say that, but they used to. And it meant that you were onto something, on a roll. That's where I am. I'm on a roll with cooking. The more I do it, the more I love it. It calms me down and chills me out. When I'm stressed or bored or sad, nothing helps more than to strap on an apron, mix things together, and turn it into food. It's like it takes away the crazy. Takes it away and, I suspect, puts it into the food.

I'm one of those people. The ones who shows up at a party with homemade food. Who brings baked goods into the office for no reason whatsoever. Who turns any opportunity where more than two people are gathered into a chance to serve those people something tasty. Why? Because I can't not. I don't mean to brag by saying this. I'm not some stuck up bitch who's trying to make everyone who bought a bag chips look bad. Look at you! You brought chips! You know what that makes you? A good guest! I just can't bring myself to bring something I bought, when I know I can make something instead. I'll enjoy making it and you'll enjoy eating it. If I show up at your house with a store-bought dish? I've probably had a really bad week. You know what that makes me? Crazy.

So what? We're all a little crazy, I've decided to embrace mine. So, I'm starting this blog to keep a record of my food. A great dish can live in a memory for years, but I want to remember all the dishes, good and bad. If you love food like I do, I hope you'll come back for seconds.

Oh and, I'll try not to have such bad puns in future posts. No promises though.