Potato Cumin Soup

My friend Marrya gave me this recipe and it is SO good.  It doesn't sound like it would be that great, but it is in my top 3 favorite soups of all time. 






Ingredients:
1/4 c. butter
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 c. flour
6 c. chicken broth (I substitute water and bouillon and it's fine!)
6 medium potatoes, cut into bite sized cubes
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
3 c. medium cheddar cheese, grated
2 c. whole milk (I cheat and use half and half and it's even better)

Directions:
Saute onion and garlic in butter.  Add flour and stir to dissolve.  Add broth, potatoes, cumin, salt, and pepper.  Simmer over low heat for 20-25 minutes.  Turn down heat.  Add cheese and milk, stirring until soup is thickened.

Chicken Noodle Soup

I finally got the recipe how I liked it! After taking many recipes, and combining and changing and adding whatever to it, I am happy with how it is now!

Ingredients:

one whole chicken

1 bay leaf

1 tsp. boullion

1/2 tsp. celery salt

1 tsp. minced garlic

1/2 tsp. onion powder

1/2 tsp. thyme

1/4 tsp. pepper, or to taste

1 tsp. salt, or to taste

Directions:

Cover chicken with water and above ingredients. You can certainly add carrots, onions, and celery to this, but I like to do that in a different step.

Once chicken is done, take out of water to cool. I strain the broth at this point to get any bits of skin or even bones out of it. You don't have to, but I just like to!

Put broth back on stove to keep boiling.

In another pot, mix the following

Ingredients:

4 carrots, sliced

1 medium onion, diced

2 celery ribs

1/4 c. butter

Directions:

Simmer those together until everything is tender and turning a golden brown on outside. Stir in 1/4 c. flour and let that turn thick and golden brown with the veggies for a couple minutes. Turn of heat.

At this point, I make some homemade noodles. My kids love them. I think they are fun to make! I use THIS recipe. Just make sure you roll out thin enough and also slice them thinly (I use a pizza cutter). They poof up while cooking, so that's why you want them pretty thin.

Debone chicken and throw the pieces back into the boiling broth. Add the veggies with everything in the pan, scraping it to get all the bits of veggies and butter. Place the noodles, one at a time, into the boiling broth. They don't take long to cook. *I heard that you can put vinegar in the water to keep them from sticking, or some people say they put the noodles in a bag with flour and toss them so they are coated with flour. That might save time, but I've never tried either of those. Turn off heat because it now is SUPER hot and will stay hot for a long, long time!

You can be done and it's great at this point, or you can mix in some milk or half and half. My mom always made her chicken noodle soup with milk, so I sometimes add 2 cups milk or if I have it, the half and half.

Angel Food Cake with Chocolate Sauce

This is just plain easy and plain good. The ingredients can be costly, so I normally only make this if we have company coming over. My mom gave me the recipe.




Ingredients:
1 box angel food cake
1 c. ghirardelli chocolate chips--very important that it is a good quality chocolate chip, otherwise, it just won't taste the same!
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 c. milk
whipping cream, whipped with sugar

Directions:
Make cake mix according to directions on box. Melt chocolate chips over medium heat with sweetened condensed milk, stirring frequently. Add a little milk at a time until desired consistency. Serve with whipped cream!

Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce

Holy moly, it's been a long time since I've posted any recipes!!! This one is a great one though! Dillon got me the America's Test Kitchen cookbook for Christmas, and I've been loving trying out some new recipes!

Ingredients:
1/2 c. peanut butter, creamy or crunchy
1/4 c. hot water
3 T. lime juice
2 T. ketchup
1 T. soy sauce
1 T. brown sugar
1 T. minced cilantro (I didn't have any, so I used dry)
2 green onions, sliced thin
1 1/2 tsp. Tabasco
1 garlic clove, minced

Directions:
Heat all ingredients and transfer to a serving bowl. So easy!

Pulled Pork

(Aren't you proud, I took my own picture for this one). I found this recipe HERE while trying to find out how to do some cute fonts on my blog. Oh. My. Goodness. This is so mouth-watering good. Seriously, it was just the type of recipe I was looking for. The leftovers were a little bit dry the next day, so we just had it with BBQ sauce which was also really yummy. But that first day? Dee-vine.


Ingredients:
1 whole boston butt (4-5 lb.)

Dry Rub:
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp ground pepper
1 tbsp paprika
1/2 cup brown sugar

Mix well and store in an air tight container.

Brine Solution:
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 qts cold water
2 bay leaves
3 tbsp dry rub mix

Directions:
Add salt to cold water and stir very well until all the salt is completely dissolved. Then add the brown sugar, dry rub, and bay leaves and stir well to combine.

Pork shoulder preparation: Rinse the pork shoulder and place in a large container, pour in the brine solution until the shoulder is completely covered. Cover the container and place in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours. Then remove pork shoulder from brine solution, pat dry with paper towels. Sprinkle dry rub onto the surface of the shoulder and massage in such that it adheres to the surface. Coat all sides. Make sure the fat layer on the shoulder is facing up before cooking!*** At this point I just put it in the crockpot with the fat layer on top, for about 10-12 hours, shredded the meat, and added some of the dry rub for more seasonings. It was great that way!*** However, you can do the following method as the original recipe does:

Place in baking pan that is bigger than the shoulder by at least a inch in length and width and at least 3 inches deep. Place baking pan uncovered in a 225 degree oven on the middle rack. Insert a probe thermometer into the center or thickest part of the shoulder, but not touching the bone. Monitor the temperature throughout cooking (a digital thermometer with an alarm function is the easiest way to do this). Do not remove from the oven until the center of the shoulder reaches 200 degrees. When the shoulder has reached 200 degrees, shut off the oven and let the roast cool for a couple of hours before removing from the oven. If the bottom of the pan is dry (or crusted with dried spices) then cover the pan with foil to retain internal moisture of the meat during the cooling period. When the temperature drops to 170 degrees or slightly lower, remove from oven. Place on a large, clean work surface such as a cutting board, and remove the large sheet of crusted fat on the top. Pull apart with two forks, it will pull apart very easily. Serve for friends and family! :)

Grain and Nut Whole Wheat Pancakes

I got this recipe (and the picture) off of allrecipes.com. I just love that website! I didn't add the nuts, but I did try adding some blueberries just on top of the batter after I poured it on the skillet, and those were good too. Talk about healthy! You could probably even omit the oil and do applesauce like a lot of people say they do in recipes. The best part of it? My kids loved them. Yum.


Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions:
Grind the oats in a blender or food processor until fine. In a large bowl, combine ground oats, whole wheat flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

In another bowl, combine buttermilk, milk, oil, egg, and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Mix wet ingredients into dry with a few swift strokes. Stir in nuts, if desired.

Lightly oil a skillet or griddle, and preheat it to medium heat. Ladle 1/3 cup of the batter onto the hot skillet; cook the pancakes for 2 to 4 minutes per side, or until brown.

Easy Strawberry Lemonade

For some reason it never occurred to me that it was so easy to make this! Even if you have no fresh lemons or no lemonade concentrate, you can still have strawberry lemonade for much cheaper than in a restaurant! Our friends had us over for dinner and we had this. I mentioned that Dillon would want me to get the recipe for it, to which I was told the recipe was just on the back of the Real Lemon lemon juice bottle--she just added the strawberries. Now...why didn't I think of that?!

Ingredients:

6 1/2 cups water

1 c. bottled lemon juice

1 c. sugar

5-6 large strawberries

Directions:

Mash strawberries in bowl and add to rest of ingredients! Yum! You could, of course, use a can of lemonade concentrate, and I'm sure frozen strawberries would work great too.

Picture found here.