Creamy Mushroom Leek Soup

Cost: $15
Cook Time: 1.5 hours

Soups are probably my favorite thing to make.  It's so great for so many situations.  You can make a big pot of soup and keep it simmering on the stove for get togethers or store the soup in the freezer for a particularly cold day.  My mushroom soup is super easy to put together but, full disclosure, it's totally not good for you.  Though the leeks give it a nice oniony flavor and the mushrooms give it a nice, meaty bite, there's lots of cream and bacon but ehhhh, whatever.  Some days you just need a nice fatty soup when it's chilly outside.

Ingredients:
3 slices of bacon, chopped
1 tbs butter
1 medium leek, chopped
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tbs oil
1 lb mushrooms (1/2 white cap, 1/2 baby bellas)
1 tbs flour
1/4 c white wine
2 c whipping cream
2 c chicken broth
handful of chopped parsley

1. First clean and chop the leek.  Leeks are dirty little buggers (full of dirt and little bugs) so first, trim the bright green top off the leek.  Then score the leek vertically -- you'll see lots of dirt.  Run the trimmed leek under water. Then chop the leek to your heart's content.

2. While your freshly cut leeks are hanging out, start crisping up your bacon in a very deep stock pot.  You want to render out the fat and keep the bacon crispy.  Once it's crisp, take the bacon out but leave the rendered fat in.

3. Melt in your tablespoon of butter.

Saute the leek, onion and garlic. Get them a nice deep, caramel brown - give it a nice pinch of salt and a few generous turns of pepper. Then, take them out.  Yes, that's right, remove the onion/leek mixture and set it aside.

4. In the same pot, heat the 2 tablespoons of oil until it gives a slight ripple. Saute the mushroom mix over medium high heat - again with a generous pinch of salt and a few turns of pepper.

5. When the mushrooms are cooked through, add the onion/leek mixture back to the pot.

At this point, anything in the pot is going to be hand blended velvety smooth.  If you want it to have a little bit of texture to it, you can remove about 1/4 cup of this mixture to add in later, making it a little chunky style.

6. Meanwhile, add the flour to the vegetable mixture and saute over medium head, cooking the flour thoroughly -- a good 3-4 minutes.

Then, when the flour is incorporated and dark brown, drizzle in the wine.

7. Once the wine is reduced a bit and stopped bubbling, add in the broth and bring to a boil.  Then, stream in the cream.   Another pinch of salt and a few turns of pepper here.  Cover and let the whole thing come to a boil.  It shouldn't take too long, so clean up some of the mess you made.  You'll thank yourself later.

8. And now -- immersion blend time!  I have to note, almost all the cool kitchen tools I use I got from my sister for Christmas.  Anyway -- blend, blend blend until it's super super smooth. If you don't have an immersion blender you could put the whole lot in a food processor but that's super messy.

Check the seasoning level here.  I notice that as you add in the liquid it sometimes affects the seasoning so you may need some more salt or pepper.

Once it's smooth, you can add the reserved vegetable chunks.

Finally, top it with the reserved crisp bacon and the parsley.  It makes a lot of soup, but freezes wonderfully for later!

Everyday, Multi-purpose Meatballs

Cook Time: 30 minutes
Cost: 12 dollars

So many great things come in ball-form.  Donut holes, cake pops, um...tennis balls.  Meat.  Whoever thought of rolling meat into balls was probably a genius.  Meatballs are pretty simple to make and you can use them for so many things.  There are obvious things like pasta, sandwiches and the like -- or you can pop them in the crock with a generous portion of sauce for some easy hors d'oeuvres for entertaining.  Mine are made from a combo of beef and pork which I think is the best combo for these puppies.

Ingredients:
1/2 pound of ground pork
1/2 pound of ground beef
2 tbs chopped fresh basil (about six large leaves)
2 tbs grated onion
3 grated garlic cloves
1 egg
1 tbs flour
1/4 c breadcrumbs
salt/pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350.

Basically you just combine all these ingredients in a bowl and mush it all up with your hands.  Here you see the two meats.





2. Since meat tends to dry out in the oven, I like to grate my onion and garlic directly into the meat.  It helps keep everything moist.

3. Crack in an egg.

4. Tablespoon of flour.  The flour and egg help bind the meat together.  It also helps to create a nice crust on the outside when you brown them.

5. 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs go in -- I used seasoned because it's what I had.  If you like, you can grind up some day old bread and make your own but that screams "I have a lot of time on my hands".

6. For the basil, you'll need to chiffonade the basil.  Basically, just stack 3 leaves or so like this.

Rolls them into a little cigarette-like tube.

And then slice into irregular little ribbons of herby goodness.

7. Best part, mix it all up.  Don't you love the feeling of cold, raw flesh being squeezed between your fingers?  I do. Don't overprocess it when mixing or it'll start to get tuff.  Just enough so you can't distinguish and of the individual components. 

8. When it's sufficiently mixed, roll them into balls.  In general, a nice golfball size is what you're going for.  You could go for larger ones if you're going to serve 1-2 as a meal or smaller ones if you're making little toothpick appetizers but that will affect how long you cook them.

9. Raw meat on a plate.

10. Heat about 2 tbs. of oil in a skillet over medium/high heat.  When the oil starts smoking just a little, start to place the meatballs in the oils (they should sizzle and start to brown immediately).  Put the meatballs in a circular direction.  Once the pan is full, go back to the first one you put in and rotate it about 45 degrees.

11. Continue this pattern 3 or 4 times until all sides are browned.  You don't want them to be cooked all the way through, though.  They will continue to cook in the oven.  If you cook them all the way through in the pan, they'll be kind of tough and chewy and not moist.

This whole pan-process shouldn't take more than 7 minutes or so.

12. Remove the meatballs from the oil and place them on a foil-lined sheet.  Bake the meatballs for an additional 10-15 minutes until they are cooked through.

Add to your recipe of choice.  Or you could just eat them by themselves.  Pictured here with Swedish-style.

On-Hand Brownies

Cook Time: 1 hr
Cost: 10 bucks (if you buy everything, see below)

Ingredients:
2 sticks of butter, melted
1 1/2 c white sugar
1 c flour
1/2 c cocoa
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp baking powder
Mini-peanut butter cups, optional (or other chocolatey candy...or anything that sounds tasty for that matter)

So I had a bit of a Miranda moment.  Does anyone remember that episode of Sex and the City where Miranda almost spends $40 on a slice of cake and realizes she can just bake her own courtesy Duncan Hines for 1/10th the cost?

So I was wandering around my local Whole Foods, salivating over luscious baked goods that were a tad pricey.  I got to thinking, I bet I have the ingredients to make brownies on-hand in my pantry and lo-and behold, I did!  I did pick up some mini peanut butter cups because, well, I'm human.

So this was both a blessing and a curse because now I can be an unadulterated fat-ass whenever I want, without even having to leave home.

1. Preheat oven to 350.

In a fine sieve, combine flour and sugar.  Sift into a large bowl.







2.  Then, place the cocoa, ginger, salt and baking powder in the sieve and sift into the flour mixture.








Teacher tip: If you can, try and buy this nifty individual packets of baking powder.  Over time, baking powder loses its rising-power after being exposed to air BUT if you get these individual packets you don't have to worry about your cakes/brownies/pancakes going flat -- even if it's months between your baking ventures.

3.  Crack your four eggs in a bowl.  Here, I also added my vanilla extract.  I like using the vanilla bean paste with the yummy bean pieces.

Add to the cocoa/flour mixture.

4.  Melt the butter, and combine it to your wet/dry ingredients, stirring everything together until just combined.  Seriously, though, don't over-stir or it'll get all gluten-y and chewy and not as pleasant.

5.a. Pour half of the batter into a greased 9x9 pan (note -- if you want more fudge-y brownies use a 9x13 cake pan)

5.b. Scatter your candies (or nuts or whatever) on top of this layer.  I was real anal about trying to make sure the peanut butter cups were placed at regular intervals but it really doesn't matter.

5.c. Cover with the remaining half of the batter.  Bake at 350 -- in this 9x9 pan it took mine about 35 minutes.  If you're using a 9x13 it'll take less, probably 20 minutes or so.

Suck on that Whole Foods!

Homestyle Biscuits and Gravy

Cook time: 20 minutes
Cost: 8 dollars

Ingredients:
Store bought biscuits (maybe one day when I have gobs of time they'll be from scratch)
3 patties of sausage (approx. 1/4 pound or 4 links, skin removed)
1 tbs butter
1 1/2 tbs flour
1/2 c half and half
1/2 c whole milk
1/2 tbs cracked black pepper
pinch of salt
2 sliced green onions (optional)

So "Homestyle" is a bit of a misnomer.  I don't think my mom ever made this at home.  Instead, we had fluffed steamed egg and eggplant cooked in preserved tofu.  But this is the kind of thing that requires the genteel mindset of a southern plantation with sweet tea and a southern drawl.

1.  If you're making your biscuits from a can, pop them in the oven now.  If you're making them from scratch, godspeed.

In a medium pot cook down the sausage over high heat.  You can pretty much use any kind of sausage from fancy Whole Foods organic sustainable mulch-fed or Jimmy Dean.  Cheap ass me chose the latter.

Try and keep the pieces pretty large -- don't break them up too much as they cook.

2. Once the sausage is cooked through and browned, drain it on a paper towel.  Of course, since I'm a fatty, I'm going to leave some of the drippings in the pot.

3. Notice the drippings in the pot.  Notice the brown bits at the bottom.  All this = tasty.  It also = clogged arteries so you can remove the rendered fat if you'd like.

Add in the butter and swish it around until it's completely melted.

4. Add in the flour and cook it up into a roux.  It'll become nice and caramel brown and smell like baking bread.  Probably one of my favorite smells ever (aside from fall-scented Bath and Body Works candles).

Notice -- nice, rich, caramel brown.

5.  Once the roux is bubbling, slowly add the milk.  Be careful as it can splash.  Whisk thoroughly as you add and continue to whisk over medium high heat until it becomes thick and bubbly, about 7 minutes.

6.  Finally, add the pepper and the salt and toss the drained sausage back in.  Turn the heat to low and let all the flavors come together for a minute or two. (Notice biscuits in the background)

Slice open a biscuit and drizzle with a generous amount of gravy.  Scatter green onions on top.  Extra, extra tasty with a nice shot of Siracha.

...And here's the same plate literally two seconds later...