Tomato Basil Soup and Grilled Cheese

What could be better on a cool cloudy day than tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich? Homemade tomato basil soup and Alton Brown's idea of a perfect grilled cheese sandwich of course!

The soup recipe is mine, the sandwich I have to credit to AB. What a delicious combo!

The soup is super easy to make, and uses canned tomatoes so can be made year-round! Splurge and get the more expensive Italian brand of tomatoes, either with or without basil added is fine. The way I see it, if the tomatoes are your main ingredient, you might as well use good ones!

Easy and Delicious Tomato Basil Soup

Ingredients -

1-2 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium to large sweet (vidalia if you can get it) onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small shallot, chopped fine (optional)
1 large can crushed tomatoes
1 box chicken broth
1 small bunch fresh basil, leaves picked from stems, half the leaves left whole and half cut into a chiffonade (reserve a few sprigs of baby basil leaves for a garnish if you care about that sort of thing)
1/2c. heavy (whipping) cream
salt and pepper to taste.

Directions:

Heat the oil in a large saucepan or small soup pot. Saute the onions and shallots about 5 minutes over medium heat, then add in the garlic and continue sauteing approximately 5 more minutes, or until the onion is translucent and soft. Add in the can of tomatoes chicken broth, and whole basil leaves, and bring to a simmer. Simmer approximately 20 minutes. Carefully transfer to a blender in small batches (remove the small center cap of your lid so you don't build up pressure with the hot liquid and burn yourself when it squirts out... hold a kitchen towel loosely over the hole in the lid to avoid any splash when you turn the blender on) OR use a hand-held immersion blender in the pot, and puree the soup until smooth. At this stage you may choose to run the soup through a medium-mesh strainer to remove the tomato seeds (which can be unpleasantly tough when cooked) and stringy bits of basil, or you can just leave it the way it is if you don't mind a few tomato seeds and onion bits. Return soup to low heat heat and add in the basil chiffonade and cream. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (DO NOT BOIL after you put in the cream... the cream will curdle, yuck!)

For a lighter, healthier version, the cream may be omitted.

Alton Brown's version of The Perfect Grilled Cheese

Ingredients:

Crusty peasant bread, 1/2 inch thick slices
shredded sharp cheddar
Dijon mustard
freshly cracked black pepper
olive oil

Directions:

Spread one slice of bread with Dijon mustard and top the mustard with a healthy dose of freshly cracked black pepper. Pile on a small handful of shredded sharp cheddar, top with the remaining slice, and spritz or brush the outsides of your sandwich with olive oil.

At this point AB recommends using two heated cast-iron skillets placed on an oven-mitt on the counter, with the sandwich in one skillet and the other skillet sitting on top of the sandwich to weigh it down, in lieu of using a unitasker panini press (we all know how much AB hates unitaskers). If you own a panini press, by all means use it. If you do not own a panini press, be aware you can make beautifully perfect paninis in a waffle iron or a George Foreman Grill I've never tried the waffle iron, but I saw someone do it on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives... but I DO use my George to make paninis ALL THE TIME. They turn out beautifully, and there's no reason to use anything else in my opinion!

How to Make the Perfect Omelette: 8 Easy Steps

This morning, for the first time ever, I finally made what I would consider a perfect omelette. Did you know, if the egg in your omelette has browned you've done it wrong? After much research, and quite a few trials and fails, here it is, laid out for you in one quick and easy post:

How to Make the Perfect Omelette:

Ingredients you will need:

2 eggs per omelette
1 Tbsp. milk per omelette
dash of salt and dash of pepper
any filling for the omelette, veggies sauteed and meat browned and drained in advance in a separate skillet. Cheese shredded and waiting on standby.

Equipment you will need:

metal or glass mixing bowl
1 Tbsp. measuring spoon
wire whisk
12" nonstick skillet with sloped sides, and a lid that fits
1 silicone spatula
a second skillet if you plan on adding meat or veggies to your omelette, to saute them before adding to the omelette.

1. Place a 12" nonstick skillet with sloped sides over very low heat. We're talking one notch over the lowest setting you can get. Our knobs have numbers, I had it set on 2.

2. If you are adding any meat or veggies to your omelette, cook them in a separate skillet first. I used precooked ham, so I diced up the ham with the red pepper and onion and threw it all into the skillet with a little oil and a dash of salt over medium heat just until the onions and peppers start to soften but still have a little crunch to them. You don't want mush, and you don't want them to brown. If you are using bacon or sausage, saute any vegetables first in a little oil, remove veggies to a bowl, and cook the meat by itself in the same pan. Be sure to drain the meat on paper towels before adding to an omelette. For two Denver Omelettes, I used 1oz diced thickly sliced pre-cooked ham, 1/2 of a red bell pepper diced, and 1/4 of a red onion diced.

3. Crack two eggs into your medium to large mixing bowl, add 1 Tbsp. milk, a dash of salt and a dash of pepper. I know what you're thinking... 2 eggs? I've got a big appetite, I like 3 or 4 (or more) eggs! If you want more than 2 eggs, then make more than one omelette. Trust me on this. 2 eggs per omelette, no more, no less.

4. Add 1Tbsp. butter to your skillet over low heat, and once it melts, swirl the butter around the pan, coating the bottom and about 1/4 inch up the sides.

5. Whisk the eggs for 2 minutes, immediately before adding to the pan. Whisking incorporates air into your eggs, which makes them nice and light and fluffy. This must be done by hand with a wire whisk. Don't try to use a mixer to whisk these eggs, unless you want a tough, chewy omelette. Electric mixers have too much power and whisk too quickly, and can break the proteins instead of incorporating air into your eggs. If your arm wimps out after a minute, whisk it for a minute, set it down, then come back to it and whisk it for about one and a half minutes longer.

6. Immediately following the 2 minutes of whisking, pour the eggs straight into the pan and cover with the lid. Don't swirl them around, don't scootch them around with the spatula, just let them sit and steam for a couple minutes.

7. Check the eggs after about 2 minutes or so. You should still see a bit of uncooked egg on top, but when you tilt the pan the entire egg mass should slide as one, without any liquid threatening to run off the top of your omelette. If it still looks too runny, cover it with the lid for a minute or two longer. Don't rush it, don't turn up the heat. Once you've accomplished this state of semi-solidity, add the filling to one side of your omelette and top with whatever cheese you like. Replace the lid and continue to steam over low heat until the cheese looks almost melted.

8. When the cheese looks almost melted, remove the lid, slide the rubber spatula under the empty side of your omelette, and gently and carefully fold it over in half. Look at the color of the outside of your omelette... if it's a beautiful, creamy, pale yellow, you've done it right! If the egg appears to have browned at all... you've cooked the poor thing over too high heat, or cooked it too long. Better luck next time! Slide the omelette out onto a plate, and enjoy!



Boo is still waiting for her omelette. :)

The Elusive Enchiladas

I've put off posting this because of the amount of work involved and the subjective nature of the recipe: there are just some things in this recipe that you have to eyeball, they don't really have measurements.

I've decided to split this recipe into 3 parts: The Sauce, The Filling, and The Assembly. The ingredients for all 3 portions of the recipe will likewise be divided.

This recipe makes approximately 3 dozen enchiladas. Why so many? Because I freeze them individually and store them in gallon ziplocks. They reheat beautifully in the microwave for a fast and easy weeknight dinner, or you can grab a couple to toss in your lunch for work. Feel free to tinker with the amounts if you want to make fewer.

IMPORTANT NOTE: These enchiladas do not require further cooking after assembly, aside from a brief shot in the microwave to melt the cheese. You may serve them immediately with extra sauce spooned over the top, or freeze them as per instructions in this post.

Ingredients:

The Sauce

(These measurements are approximate, a lot is dependent upon how it looks and tastes)

1/2 c. vegetable shortening (weigh this on a scale before adding to the pan)
an equal weight of unbleached white all-purpose flour
3 each of dried pasilla and guajillo chile peppers, or you can just use chili powder
approximately 4c. hot tap water.
salt to taste

The Filling

2lb ground beef
4-5 small cans chopped green chilies, drained in a strainer
2-3 cans (I think I used 3) of black beans, rinsed and drained
2 envelopes dry onion soup mix (I used Lipton Onion Soup Mix, one box contains 2 envelopes)
8c. Mexican 4 cheese blend (can find at most groceries, usually a blend of monterey jack, cheddar, queso quesadilla and asadero) or whatever kind of cheese you want.

The Assembly

3 dozen flour tortillas (the size that come 12 to a bag, approximately 28oz per bag)
2-3 sheet pans covered with foil
a soup spoon
an extra pair of helping hands

Directions

The Sauce:



Melt the shortening and flour together in a medium saucepan over medium heat until it starts to bubble and turns a very light blonde color (this is called a blonde roux, look what you just learned how to make!). While this roux comes together, toss your dried chiles (if using) into a dry skillet over medium heat and heat them, turning frequently, just until you can smell them (this helps release some of the oils and flavors). When the chiles are heated through, remove them to a cutting board, pull out (or cut out) the stems, shake out the seeds, and toss them in the blender with about 1/2 cup of hot water, scraping down the sides to make a chile puree. Add approximately 4c. hot water to the roux, whisking with a wire whisk to combine. Add in the chile puree, and add some salt until it tastes right. The sauce should be a dark rusty enchilada sauce color, and be thick like gravy. If it's not dark enough, feel free to add chili powder until it's the right color, and if it's too thin and watery, you can mix some more flour and a little water with a fork in a small bowl to make a slurry, and dribble this in to thicken it more. A lot of this sauce is testing by color and taste... you want to keep adding chiles and chili powder until it's the right color, salt until it's the right flavor, and flour and water mixture until it's the right thickness.

Note: don't make it too thick, think chicken gravy, not a thick brown or cream gravy. You don't want it to be gloppy. If you choose not to use dried chiles, you can use all chili powder... just make sure to keep adding until your sauce is the right color. If you accidentally make the sauce too thick don't despair... add water and voila, it thins out again!

Additional Note: As with any gravy, it will not reach it's maximum thickness until it boils. When the sauce boils, the flour releases all of it's gluten, and the sauce becomes as thick as it's going to get. Make sure you heat this sauce at least until it starts to bubble, then shut off the heat when you have it just right.

Remove the sauce from heat, and set aside to cool slightly once it's the way you want it. If it seems to become thicker as it cools, add a bit more water before you assemble your enchiladas.

The Filling



Brown the hamburger in a large skillet over medium heat, breaking up the chunks with either a wooden spoon or my favorite kitchen tool for this task, the Pampered Chef Mix-n-Chop(I've never before found a tool that chops ground meat so well, you just raise it straight up and down, much like a potato masher and voila! finely chopped ground beef/sausage/chicken etc!). Drain the grease from the meat once it's browned and add in the onion soup mix, drained black beans and green chilies. Allow this mixture to cool before adding the cheese straight into it and stirring it all together (you might want to transfer everything into a great big bowl for this step if your skillet isn't big enough, but I'm telling you mixing the cheese in with the meat/beans mixture makes assembly LOTS easier)



Once everything is cool enough that you won't burn your hands touching it, grab your sauce, filling, and tortillas, and move the entire entourage to the kitchen table or a very large open countertop.

This part of the operation is MUCH easier if you have someone to help you assemble. One person sauces the tortillas, and the other adds the filling, rolls the enchiladas and places them on the sheet pans.



Step 1: Sauce the tortillas.



We've tried several methods... dipping them in the sauce (they get so wet they tend to tear and fall apart), painting them with a basting brush (this takes FOREVER and they don't seem to get enough sauce), and saucing them with a soup-spoon much like a pizza crust. The spoon method worked out best. If you're not familiar with this method here's a breakdown:

a. put a piece of foil on the table
b. place a tortilla on the foil.
c. using a soup spoon, spoon one or two spoonfuls of sauce onto the tortilla.
d. using the back of the same spoon, spread the sauce out on the tortilla using a circular motion, starting from the middle of the tortilla and working your way to the edge.
e. flip the tortilla over.
f. repeat saucing technique on the 2nd side of the tortilla.



Step 2: The Filling

Person #2 takes over from here... leaving the tortilla where it lays on the foil, spoon a liberal amount of filling onto the center, spreading it out in a line (I usually use a serving spoon for this, one scoop seems to be plenty. Fold one side of the tortilla over the filling sort of like an omelette, it should be almost folded in half. Then continue rolling the tortilla in the same direction, and place it seam-side down on a foil covered sheet pan. Continue until you run out of tortillas or run out of filling. If you run out of sauce... make more, it's not hard! If you have sauce leftover after assembly, spoon it over each of the individual enchiladas on the pans before throwing in the freezer.

The reason for the foil covered sheet pans is this: If you place the enchiladas on the pans so they are not touching, and if they are on foil, you can put the entire pan in the freezer. Once the enchiladas are frozen, they won't be stuck together, and you can peel each one off the foil and place into ziplock bags for later consumption.

My suggestion for reheating from frozen: Place on plates in the refrigerator and thaw before microwaving. If you choose to microwave straight from frozen that's fine, but I'd suggest heating for 1 minute, cutting them in half, opening them up so the middle can get some heat, and microwaving for 1-2 minutes more... otherwise the cold hard center will need so long to heat through that the ends will get chewy and hard.

Feel free to whip up some more enchilada sauce to serve over these when you reheat them!

Note: I make them 3 dozen at a time because they're so so so delicious... but they're also an awful lot of work, and it's easier to do it once and make a ton, than to do it 3 separate times!

Cock-a-Leekie Soup

I finally made Cock-a-Leekie soup... and I hate to say it, but I really didn't like it much. I found it bland and boring and pretty greasy, no matter how much I skimmed off the top. Ah well... I used a recipe I found on the food network site Here. I chose that recipe, as it seemed to have the most in common with the other "traditional" recipes I'd found on the interwebz. Instead of using a whole chicken I used 4 bone-in chicken breast halves and 4 bone-in chicken thighs. Instead of scotch I used brandy, as that's what I had on hand, and neither Jon nor I are scotch drinkers to warrant buying a bottle.

In a nutshell, the result was an oily pot of chicken soup with lots and lots of soggy leeks in it. Ah well, at least it's fall and I can experiment with lots of other soups too! Remind me to make my experimental Mexican chicken soup again so I can take pictures and post the recipe here hehe.

Speaking of which, to remedy the woeful lack of deliciousness in this post, I'll be working in the next day or so to complete my homemade enchiladas post, complete with step-by-step photos! Much tastier!

Classic, Iconic Recipes

I've recently become a little obsessed with classic recipes I've never tasted or cooked. Some are a little intimidating, some are inspiring, some just look plain delicious!

My first thought was Lobster Thermidor. Luckily for me, there's one restaurant here in town where you can order it, so I won't have to assassinate a lobster! I've never cooked a live lobster or crab, and I'm not entirely sure I'd have the stomach for it. Yes yes, I know, someone has to kill it for me to eat it and I know it's a little hypocritical of me to not want to kill the creature but love to eat it, but hey, I don't kill cows either and I loves me some beefs!

Speaking of beefs... my mind then wandered to Beef Wellington. Unfortunately no restaurants in the area that I've found serve Beef Wellington, so I'm going to have to try my hand at making it myself. After several google searches, I finally resigned myself to the fact that the only place I'm gonna find a classic, unaltered recipe for Beef Wellington is from the woman herself: Julia Child. This is definitely going to be a weekend project, as Julia insists that for a Beef Wellington to be good, you must make the dough from scratch. Not only that, but each component to the dish is a complete recipe in and of itself. It's like 4 or 5 recipes all in one. As much as I look forward to the challenge of making this, it's definitely going to stretch my skills. I imagine I'll learn a lot in the process!

Next up (and probably on my home menu for next week): Cock-a-leekie Soup. I always wondered what it was, as the name is intriguing, but I never thought to look it up until recently. So far I've learned that it's a very traditional Scottish dish, and I plan to make it traditionally: Yes, I'm including the prunes!

While I have a few more ideas for classic, iconic recipes (from many different cultures), I'd LOVE some suggestions from you guys. Is there something your family makes that is unique to your culture or background? Some classic French dish that always sounded fancy but you've never tasted or made? Something you've heard a reference to in a movie and wondered what it tasted like (like me and the cock-a-leekie soup lol)? Leave me a comment! I'd love a bunch of suggestions!

P.S. the photos in this post are obviously borrowed as I haven't made or eaten these recipes yet!

Breakfast Casserole

I love breakfast casserole. I love that it's all-in-one, like an omelette and toast mixed together. I love that you can put it together right before you bake it, or you can also put it together the night before and stick it in the fridge to bake in the morning. I love that it's portable. And I especially love that it's delicious. What I never did love is having to make an entire 9x13 pan of the stuff. It doesn't reheat well as leftovers, and 2-3 people are not going to be able to eat the entire thing in one sitting.

So I did a little experimenting and came up with this recipe that can be made in an 8x8 square pan. I call it a recipe, but really there aren't many measurements. You don't have to be exactly precise when it comes to breakfast casseroles. They're hard to mess up.

Use your imagination when it comes to ingredients: use what you like. I usually use some sort of meat, either 4-6 strips of bacon chopped up, or 1/2lb of some sort of sausage, like a pork or turkey breakfast sausage, chorizo, longaniza, etc. Just make sure you cook and drain and cool the sausage before you add it to the mix. My casseroles usually contain whatever veggie bits and pieces I have leftover in the fridge from the previous week.



A couple ideas: The casserole in the first picture was pork breakfast sausage, mushrooms, onions, broccoli, grape tomatoes, artichoke hearts, and mozzarella cheese. The one in the 2nd picture is longaniza sausage, grape tomatoes, chives, artichoke hearts, mixed bell pepper strips, sliced jalapeno, and cheddar cheese.

Whatever you like in an omelette, put it in the casserole!

Breakfast Casserole

Ingredients:

6 eggs
1c. milk
any fresh herbs you would like to add (chives, basil, thyme, tarragon, oregano, etc)
salt and pepper to taste
3-4 slices crusty day-old bread (I prefer italian or sourdough, but if you use soft sandwich type bread, let it sit out overnight to get crusty. If the slices are thin, add an extra slice or two)
1c. shredded cheese
1/2 lb (or 6 slices) whatever type of meat you prefer, cooked, drained and cooled (if sausage or bacon, brown/fry in a pan, if ham buy cooked deli ham)
about 1c. whatever types of veggies you want to add to the mix, chopped (this is NOT an exact measurement, add as much or as little as you like)

Directions:

Whisk the eggs and milk together in a large bowl and season with salt and pepper. Add any fresh herbs you plan on using. Cut the bread into cubes and add to the bowl. Stir in the shredded cheese, the cooled meat (if using), and all the veggies.

Butter or spray with nonstick spray a 8x8 casserole. Transfer the contents of the bowl to the pan and either cover and refrigerate overnight or pop straight into a 350 degree oven, uncovered, for approximately 20-30 minutes. Start watching the casserole at about the 20 minute mark in case you need to pull it out early, as it is done when the top is starting to brown and the center no longer seems wet.

If you opt to refrigerate it overnight, take it out of the fridge and place it on the counter for about half an hour to take some of the chill off before you bake it.

Cut into wedges and enjoy!