onion soup with cheese toasts 9/10

so tom absolutly loved this soup but i just really, really liked it. i thought it was a little too sweet and not enough beef-brothy. but he made the whole thing while i was at work the other night and i was lucky enough to have a big steaming bowl of it once i made it home. it's really good and not too much trouble, according to him. we used our new le cruset (pronounced lay crew-say) french or dutch oven (i can't remember which) that we got as a wedding gift. it's awesome for these big rich pots of stew and soup. mmm.....



onion soup with cheese toasts
martha's edf nov 07
serves 8, prep and total time:1hr

stuff:
2T butter
2T olive oil
4# onions (~8) halved and thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
salt & pepper
1/2c port or marsala wine
2 cans (14.5oz ea) red-sodium beef broth
2 cans red-sod chicken broth
cheese toasts (gyurere cheese and baguette, how-to below)

do it:
1. use 5qt heavt pot/dutch oven to heat oil and butter over medium. and onions and garlic, s&p. cover and cook, stir occasionally, 12-15m, til onions soft.

2. uncover and cook, stir occasionally til onions dark golden, 25-30m. add sm amts of water if bottom of pan gets too dry.

3. add port and cook 2-3m til surypy. add broths and 2c water, s&p, then simmer. add a cheese toast on top and serve.

cheese toasts:
heat broiler, rack 4in from heat. place 8 1/2in thick slices of baguette on a broilerproof baking sheet. sprinkle evenly with 1c shredded gruyere cheese. broil til golden, 2-3m.

it's a really great meal for this time of year and very rich! next time we may use dry red wine instead of the port which was sooo sweet! we may also use only beef broth and no chicken; give it a beefier flavor! keep eating...

cake decorating

so there's this cooking school up here that tom and i go to quite a lot and i decided to take my first class alone this month! for my birthday, my friend alli, gave me a cake decorating set with frosting and everything. and since i don't really know how to decorate with all those tips, i took a class! we only used one tip but i learned tons about how to use it as well as frosting in general. we parcticed all our techniques with mashed potatoes first (since we could just scoop up our designs and reuse the potatoes as much as we wanted). we practiced lines, shells, rosettes, stars and the "basketweave" pattern. mostly the technique comes from filling the pastry bag only about 1/2 full, palming/squeezing the bag with your dominant hand while directing with the non dominant, getting the tip really close to the surface and stopping the squeeze before lifting the bag to start a new design. we also learned how to make swiss buttercream frosting which is pretty labor intensive; heating egg white and sugar in a double boiler (but not cooking them), making a merenge, softening and whipping butter and then mixing with the merenge. and then you color and go! i have recipes for french, swiss and italian buttercream frostings but you can just let me know if you want one of them. i found out that apparently my favorite frosting isn't buttercream though (like i always thought it was), it's creamcheese frosting! silly me. one other really helpful tip i learned was the "crumb layer". take some frosting (uncolorred is fine) and put in a separate bowl before using it to thinly frost your whole cake. cover everything! then put it in the fridge for 8-10min and when you take it out you can frost away without ripping up bits of cake and getting your frosting all messy and ugly with crumbs. it's the barrier between your fantastick frosting work and the crumbly cake. let's see. also, it you brush both sides of your cake with sugar water when it comes out of the oven it supposedly keeps the cake from drying out while it cools. and for a really smooth frosting finish after you've finished your base frosting (without the fancy designs) put it in the fridge again. then take it out after an hour or so and brush quickly and lightly with boiling water the just barely melt the outer bit of frosting for a really sleek smooth look. oh, and apparently those little spinney lasy susan cake turner things are really helpful for decorating things too. and that's cake decorating 101!

pot roast with friends 10/10

we like getting together with people and making food. bent, maggie and griffin are often our guinnea pigs and always bring a delish dessert! then we get to go to their place for a treat of dinner where we get to bring the after dinner sweets. i don't have any pix of our dinner because i forgot about this whole blog thing until brent asked about it. whoops! got a pic of him with his wife's tiramisu though! our dinner was a slow cooker thing which was great because it also made the house smell yummy!

Country Beef Short Ribs over Gorgonzola Polenta

from bhg.com

Prep: 20 min. Cook: 9 to 10 hr. (low) or 4 1/2 to 5 hr. (high)

Ingredients
2-1/2 to 3 pounds boneless beef short ribs, or one 2-1/2- to 3-pound boneless beef chuck roast, cut into 1-1/2-inch pieces
2 large onions, cut into thin wedges
2 medium carrots, thinly sliced (1 cup)
1 medium fennel bulb, trimmed and cut into thin wedges (1 cup)
1 14-1/2-ounce can tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 cup dry red wine
2 tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
Polenta we used the "cornmeal mush" recipe on the side of the cornmeal container. mostly just 1 part cornmeal + 4 parts water and some salt and butter *
1/3 cup crumbled Gorgonzola or other blue cheese
crumbled Gorgonzola cheese or other blue cheese (optional)

Directions
1. Trim fat from ribs, if using; set aside. In a 5- or 6-quart slow cooker, combine onions, carrots, and fennel. Place beef on top of vegetables.

2. In a small bowl, stir together undrained tomatoes, wine, tapioca, tomato paste, dried rosemary, salt, pepper, and garlic. Pour over mixture in cooker.

3. Cover and cook on low-heat setting for 9 to 10 hours or on high-heat setting for 4-1/2 to 5 hours.

4. Meanwhile, prepare Polenta as directed, except reduce salt to 1/2 teaspoon; stir in the 1/3 cup Gorgonzola cheese after cooking.

5. To serve, spoon Polenta into shallow bowls. Spoon beef and vegetable mixture into bowls. If desired, garnish with crumbled cheese. Makes 6 servings.

very rich, hearty dinner. everyone seemed to really enjoy it. and it was plenty easy enough to make again. it was a little fatt from the beef though and i really tried to clean the fat off the roast while i was chopping it. o well. it was delish!

the tiramisu that our guests brought was awesome! i'm pretty sure they said that the recipe came from a recent issue of cooking light so if you're ambitious you may be able to find it online at their website. i think this is the link to the recipe she used: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1662914

Nutrition Facts for dinner
Nutrition facts per serving:
Calories 489
Total Fat (g) 18
Saturated Fat (g) 8
Monounsaturated Fat (g) 7
Polyunsaturated Fat (g) 1
Cholesterol (mg) 113
Sodium (mg) 1121
Carbohydrate (g) 32
Total Sugar (g) 5
Fiber (g) 4
Protein (g) 41
Vitamin C (DV%) 20
Calcium (DV%) 11
Iron (DV%) 31
*Percent Daily Values are base on a 2,000 calorie diet

amazing mexican meatloaf 10/10

so i'm not a big meatloaf person, mostly because i've never really eaten it and they make fun of it on tv all the time. i think i may have ordered it once at crackerbarrel but that's the extent of my experience. but i've been carrying around this recipe clipping in my "to make" file for like 5 years and finally got the nerve to make it and WOW it was great! i mean, i really liked it but tom loved it! he has a lot of differnt meatloafs to compare it with though, i guess. the only complaint he had was that it looks gross; kindof a pinkish, spam thing. not super appealing but really good and healthy too! i'm pretty sure i pulled this out of an oxygen magazine (serious fitness mag for those who don't know).

mexican meatloaf

6 servings

nonstick cook spray

1# extra lean ground turkey breast (we had to use "ground turkey")

1c med-spice salsa (used hot)

1can bush's best vegg baked beans (no size given but i used the big can and had a little left over)

1/4c grated low-fat parm (didn't use)

1/4c shredded fat free monterey jack cheese (used 1/2c of low fat mixed jack and colby)

2 egg whites

1c old fashioned oats

1. oven to 350F. spray 9x5 loaf pan with nonstick spray.

2. mix turkey, salsa, 2/3 can beans (i used about 1/2 big can), cheese, egg whites and oats.

3. place mix in loaf pan and top evenly with remaining beans (or whatever fits).

4. bake 1hr or til done.

nutritional as made above: cal 272, fat 4g, prot 29g, carbs 30g, fiber 30mg

we had ours with fresh corn on the cob and it was delish! the next day we went fishing and brough leftovers to eat cold. mmmm... good! we also got more like 8 servings rather than their suggested 6.

hiatus

so it's been a while, to say the least. we had a weird summer with some cooking but not a ton. then we spent a month in a hotel room in texas and after that i was in nigeria for a month. i blogged a lot while i was there and if you'd like to check it out the address is http://whitechickinnigeria.blogspot.com it's really long though; just a warning. but now i've been back for a month and slacking on the nibbles n nosh so i'm going to try to catch up now.