I write frequently about really involved recipes as the cooking *process* is the part in which I’m really interested.  That said, I do have a few meals I’ve acquired over time that are super fast and easy, as well as really yummy.  I learned this one from my mother (thanks Mommy!), and I think it’s great addition to any family’s repertoire.  My family loves it, it’s inexpensive, and most of the ingredients are often found on hand.  Growing up, my mother made this using Campbell’s Beef Consommé which is a beef broth condensed soup with tomato and gelatin added.   I think it adds superior flavor over beef stock, but I’ve made it both ways, depending on what was on hand, with good results.  I’ve also added the really really thin strips of egg noodles, which is a much more filling dish, but somewhere in the Atkins era, we started skipping those and never added them back.  If you’re a noodle fan, I’d recommend cooking them separately then adding the cooked noodles to the soup.  Let simmer five minutes with the added noodles then serve.

Hamburger Soup Recipe

2.5 lbs ground chuck

1 yellow onion, diced

2 cans stewed tomatoes (14.5oz)

4 cans Campbell’s Beef Consomme (10oz)

1 can water

12 turns fresh ground pepper

In a large stock pot, brown ground beef on medium high heat.  When you can see no more pink, use a spatula to push beef to one half of the pot, then add the diced onion to the other.  Spread out your onion and stir each half every thirty seconds.  Continue until onion is soft and beef is very brown.  Use spatula to push beef and onions to one side, then tip pot to drain fat to the other side.  Remove fat with a spoon and discard.  Add tomatoes, consomme, water, and pepper to pan.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer.  Simmer 25 minutes, then serve and enjoy!

I’ve been wanting to try my own homemade tamales for ages.  A couple of things scared me off initially.  One, I don’t have a single friend who makes his/her own tamales (speak up if I’m wrong).  Two, Lard.  Three, I’d heard they’re complicated and  labor intensive.  And Four, I didn’t own a large enough steamer to get this process going.  I love a challenge, so I’ve been determined to try these despite these concerns, and make them my own.

To address the first issue, I decided to read recipes where ever I could find them.  On the corn husks package (which p.s. is frightening, what in the world would I do with 25-30 DOZEN tamales?), on the lard package, on the masa package, and from my all time favorite resource, Google.  All the recipes I came across seemed fairly similar.  I knew I wanted pork filled tamales, so I built my recipe using the techniques and methods from my chimichanga meat, enchilada sauce, and a hybrid of the things that are required to create a tamale: dough, husks, and a filling.   As for issue number two, I never remember lard in my kitchen growing up.  I think of it as some sort of frightening, old-fashioned, and quite unhealthy ingredient.  That said, I’m also scared of crisco and very skeptical of the Spectrum Palm Oil Shortening substitute one can find at the Whole Foods.  I’m going to give it a shot, but I figured I’d try the original on my first batch.  I’ll let you know my results.  As for the quantity used, it’s about a tablespoon per tamale, so I’m not going to sweat it too much.

Three, complicated -yes and time-consuming – yes.  This one is legit.  An assembly line, might make this more do-able, but unlikely tamales are ever going to appear on a 30 minute meals show.  As for issue Four, Williams-Sonoma had a crazy sale on the All-Clad Multi-pot I’ve been craving for ages.  So I’m now a proud owner of a very large steamer.  And a 12 quart soup pot.  Just imagine how happy that makes me.

At the end of the day, these tamales were insanely delicious.  For a first time out of the box creation, Cory and I were ecstatic with the results.  I encourage you to try them if you’re feeling ambitious.  And if you’re not, arrange a tamale making party with friends so you can all take some home at the end of assembly.  Or come to my house for my upcoming spring tamale event.  However you get them, do.  They are so worth the work and the calories.  Yum.

Tamale Dough – (makes about 6 dinner size tamales, serves 3)

1 c. maseca instant masa

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1 c. chicken broth, lukewarm

1/3 c. lard

In a bowl, combine masa, baking powder and salt.  Add in chicken broth, then stir with a spatula to combine.  In a stand mixer, beat lard until creamy, then add masa mixture.  Continue to beat dough until surface bounces back like a sponge, without sticking to your fingers. Refrigerate dough for one hour before assembly.

Pork Tamale Filling (makes a ton, probably enough to make 30 dinner size tamales – but freezable I’ve never seen a smaller pork roast, I guess you could cut it in half before hand, I’ve not tried that yet)

2.5 lb pork loin roast

kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

paprika

1 tbsp olive oil

Rinse pork loin and pat dry.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and paprika on all sides.  Heat a heavy stock pot with olive oil on medium high, then brown pork loin on all sides.  Cover with water, bring to a boil, then simmer for 2 hours.  Check with a fork to see if pork shreds easily.  If not, continue cooking and test again in half an hour.  When able to very easily shred, remove pork to a bowl and shred using two forks.  Reserve broth for sauce use.

Tamale Sauce (also makes a ton – enough for ~30 tamales, also freezable)

4 c. water

5-6 large ancho chiles

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 yellow onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp kosher salt

3 ladles pork broth

10 oz can tomato puree

kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

Bring water to a boil.  Add chiles and remove from heat, soaking for an hour.  Cut off stems and rinse chiles under water to remove seeds.  Place chilies in a food processor, then add 1 and 1/2 cups of the soaking water.  Turn on and run until you have a fine puree.

In a skillet on medium heat, warm olive oil.  Add onion and saute 8 minutes.  Add garlic,  oregano, and salt, saute another minute.  Add 3 ladles of broth from cooking the pork.  Cook 1 minute, then pour into a blender to puree.

Return the pureed garlic and onion mixture to skillet.  Add ancho puree, tomato puree and sprinkle surface liberally with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.  Simmer for 5 minutes then check seasonings and add salt and pepper to taste.  Reserve one and a half cups of sauce for serving and dipping.  Then add shredded pork to remainder.  Stir, then cook another 10 minutes.

Tamale Assembly and Preparation

6 corn husks

water

Soak corn husks in warm water for about 2 hours.  Rinse.  Spread 75% of the husk surface with a thin layer of tamale dough.  Add 1-2 tablespoons of tamale filling in a vertical line.  You want this to be centered in the tamale with just the edges free of filling.  Roll long edges in to center.  Use right side to squish tamale dough around filling creating a tube with left side of dough, then fold both edges of husk over to form a packet.  Fold bottom edge up, then top.  Place seam side down in a steamer basket.  Repeat.

Cover tamales with a wet dishtowel.  Steam over 2 inches of boiling water, with a tightly fitting lid for an hour and 10 minutes.  Check after 45 minutes to make sure you still have enough water, then check again at one hour.  To check tamales, remove one and gently unfold.  Dough should not stick to husk and should be a very moist, but not wet,  cornbread-like consistency.  Serve two per person, with additional sauce for dipping if desired.  Enjoy!

Turkey Chili is new to my repertoire this year, but it has been extremely well received by both family and guests.  I like that this one serves equally well as leftovers both in taste and presentation.  Plus the bonus of it being a one pan, one dish meal.

Chili, like tortilla soup, seems to be a dish that means different things to different people.  I started to enter a contest earlier this year where part of the instructions required a smooth consistency of meat to gravy, containing no identifiable vegetables at all.  And some people think of chili only being a dish served so spicy it demands several beers in rapid succession to keep your taste buds from being destroyed.  This turkey chili with black beans recipe is not very spicy – you can adjust the amounts of cayenne and chili powder to increase the intensity to your desire.  You also could add half of a minced jalapeno in with the garlic, similar to the method I use in my tortilla soup.  I prefer to spice mine at serving with a sprinkling of red pepper flakes.  Enjoy experimenting!

Turkey Chili with Black Beans

2 tbsp olive oil

2.5 lbs ground turkey

1 large white onion, finely chopped

1 red bell pepper, finely chopped

4 cloves garlic

5 tomatoes on the vine, chopped

1 and 1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 and 1/2 tbsp chili powder

1/4 tsp cayenne

12 turns fresh ground pepper

1 and 1/2 tsp ground cumin

4 c. chicken stock

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

Toppings: shredded cheddar jack cheese, diced onion, and crushed red pepper

Heat a heavy bottomed stock pot on medium heat.   Add olive oil and saute onion and bell pepper 8 minutes.  Add ground turkey, increase heat to high and brown thoroughly.  Add garlic, cook another minute.  Add tomatoes, spices and stock, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 hours.  Add black beans, simmer another 30 minutes.  Serve and enjoy!

I’m closing in on one year in food blogging.  This time last year, I had my soup swap, and came to grips with my love of two things:  cooking and the Internet.  My husband was at his wits end with my permanent connection to my laptop, likely fearing my increasingly unhealthy addiction to CNN and TMZ.  He challenged me to use my Internet time in a more worthwhile basis, and heaven knows, I don’t like to be called out.  So, I decided to build the world’s best food blog.  No, not really, not even close.  I just decided, what the heck?  It’s a hobby, and it’s weird and techie and dorky enough to adapt into the “No really, I’m unique and different and amusing, please don’t put me in a box” persona to which I’ve adapted.  Plus I have to admit, it’s frighteningly convenient to have a recipe craving in a grocery store and be able to pull up my own website on my iPhone  and grab my ingredients list.

Recently I’ve been asked by a couple of long time readers, “So Lane, are you cooking less or just posting less?”  I’ll admit.  In the beginning it was easy, since I’d never written about anything I’d made before.  116 posts later, sometimes, I have to make things again.  And really, there’s only so much food we can eat around here.  So the answer is, I’m cooking more than ever, but some of it is repeats, and some of it frankly doesn’t feel (or look!) good enough to write about.  And after reviewing my analytics, I’m shocked and awed by the number of you dear readers that come back day after day.  The support is beyond my wildest dreams.  Thank you for joining me and welcome to my heart.  If you’re craving something, please send me a note!  I’m available at lane@dinnerandconversation.com and love to research, plan, and create an item on request.  Just don’t ask for fennel.  I’m anti-fennel.

This week I hosted my annual soup swap.  I invite a bunch of people, encourage them to whip out 6 quarts of homemade soup, then bribe them with wine and snacks, and ask them to swap soups with my friends.  I’ve had great participation over the years, and the experience fills our freezers with soup-love.  I made my tortilla soup and my lemon chili chicken with rice soup.  My sister keeps telling me I need to get more creative in my naming schemes for menu items.  Perhaps she’s just more creative and that’s why I can adjust programming code to my liking and she can create a snappy name for a new product.  Or perhaps, it’s just something I should work on for 2010.

The head picture is the salmon we had for dinner.  Salmon remains on of my most Frequently Asked Questions.  How is it so crunchy, what type to buy, how should I cook it, what to serve with it, etc?  I don’t usually win accolades for easy recipes, but the absolute EASIEST way to cook salmon is on a Lean Mean Grilling Machine, yep the George Foreman variety.  Who would have guessed?  Over time I’ve frequently received questions about how I make my salmon crispy.  I used to attribute it to the Lean Mean, but I don’t have it anymore.  In retrospect, I think the benefit comes from the amount of salmon touching the pan surface and the weight of the top griddle.  So tonight for an experiment, I skipped the grill pan and used my non-stick oval fish skillet.  Everywhere the skin touched, I had crispy salmon.  (Cooked at about 2.5 or one half of the way between medium and medium high on my stove top.)  So here’s how I think it will be best.  If you have a bacon press, use that to weigh down your salmon when you’re cooking skin side up.  If not and you have a brick, you can wrap it in aluminum foil and weigh down your salmon that way.  Or just use a heavy skillet on top of the fish.  However you do it, just ensure the salmon is touching the skillet in the most area possible.  Also with fish, always buy fresh and cook same day of purchase if you can.  And with any fish with skin on one side, start skin side down, cook until fish is opaque 1/3 of the way through, then flip.  Cook until opaque 1/3 of the way through on opposite side, then flip back to skin side down.  Happy fishing!

Fish tacos were a bizarre and astonishing menu item when I first moved to Austin back in the mid 90’s.  I certainly never saw them on the menu in the midwest, and frankly, they took a long time for me to warm up to.  SMIL loves this restaurant Z’Tejas.  Like ridiculously beyond over-enthusaistically loves this restaurant.  We didn’t eat out much growing up, so when I started dating my husband our freshman year in college, it was a new and exciting experience that his parents lived in town, and ate out frequently, plus well they also had that house on the lake.  Sigh.  Anyhow, it became a joke between Cory and I that almost whenever we ate with his parents, which was often, they picked Z’Tejas.  At the time, I had not yet cultivated my love for spicy foods and and was just branching out from my previously mostly bland diet.  I’m not sure if Z’Tejas has an item on the menu not containing chilies, chipotle, or other such southwestern exotics.  Heck, even the cornbread has jalapenos.  So I would cringe (mostly silently) and everyone would suggest choices with the exuberism of one who’d just won the multi-lottery at his most desperate moment.

Anyhow, I’ve been thinking of making fish tacos often recently.  ( I previously integrated them into my diet circa 2001.)  Friday night at a party, someone who works with my sister mentioned Z’Tejas and their fish tacos, and I knew it was fate.  I just *had* to make fish tacos, and I can’t make fish tacos without thinking of SMIL.  Now, mine are a bit different than Z’Tejas, but here’s what I see as integral to a fish taco:  1)  White fish 2) Cabbage 3) Spice and 4) a tortilla.  I used to drizzle a habanero sauce on mine on top of dry cabbage.  Over time, I’ve realized I like my spice *in* my fish and my cabbage to exhibit a saucy-sour component to balance.  Most places seem to serve cream sauces as the side, but in general, I’m just a vinaigrette gal.  So here’s mine.  Don’t get carried away with your ground red pepper, it sneaks up on you and can make your fish crazy hot.  Feel free to change up your fish, just choose a mild white fish and you’re good to go.

Fish Tacos (serves 3)

3 tilapia fillets

sea salt, finely ground

ground red peper

fresh ground black pepper

paprika

garlic salt

grapeseed oil

Heat a skillet (I use an oval non-stick fish pan I picked up somewhere along the way) over medium high heat.  Rinse and dry fillets with a paper towel.  Sprinkle first with sea salt, then red pepper, black pepper, paprika, followed by garlic salt on each side.  You want to cover the surface, but very gently as this is a mild and delicate fish.  Pour about a tablespoon of the grapeseed oil in the skillet, then use a wooden spatula to spread over the entire surface.  Place fillets in skillet and cook until edges turn opaque and center is opaque 1/3 of the way through.  Flip using a wide spatula, then cook on opposite side until opaque throughout.  Depending on thickness, total cook time will be around 5-7 minutes.

Vinaigrette Coleslaw

1/2 head green cabbage

1/2 head purple cabbage

1 large white onion

1/2 c. sugar

1 c. apple cider vinegar

1 tsp dry mustard

1 tsp celery seed

1 tsp salt

3/4 c. grapeseed oil

Chop cabbage and onion into a large bowl.  In a saucepan, bring ingredients to a boil.  Cook for 1 minute, then remove from heat.  Pour vinaigrette over vegetables, then chill in the fridge.  This will make a large amount.  You can easily half it or serve it with other meals.  It will keep 1 week to 10 days in the fridge.

Serve fish in a warmed whole wheat tortilla and top with coleslaw.  Enjoy!

Cooking is an expression of my love.  Seriously.  People say that homemade gifts are better, and that always sounds like an excuse, but really.  For me, if I love you, I want to cook for you.  And I want to think about you and what you like and what would make your day brighter or happier.  I’m terrible at picking gifts.  I kind of hate Christmas.  Not really, but the pressure to perform overwhelms me.  I don’t know what you want, and I sure as hell can’t find it when I’m trying.  But cooking…  well, little things stick in my head.  I used to keep a notebook with my friends names in it.  At Sunday dinners, I’d encourage people to write down their love and hate ingredients, and if I could remember after they left, I added the pieces I gathered.

Little things stick in my mind, and I *try* to find them and bring them forth for people. (P.S.  Angela should have said she hates mushrooms.  or was that Katie Layton, or both? maybe I’m not as good at the little things as I thought!)

In my raspberry buttermilk cake recipe, I wrote about my sweet friends’ love of buttermilk pie.  John and Kari are amongst the dearest people in our lives, and I really strive to make things for them on occasion.  Kari is a tricky one, probably cause I haven’t known her as long, and somehow, it’s intimidating cooking for women.  Men seem to like it all, cause well, as a whole they’re more simple-minded ; )  Back to the story, so John and Kari introduced me to their love of buttermilk pie.

Just after Christmas, a dear friend of Cory’s passed away.  I consider her his godmother, because I can’t figure a more appropriate synopsis of the relationship.  Irene raised Cory, in a way, and he wouldn’t be who he is without her influence.  It’s one of the most profound examples of love I’ve ever seen.  After the funeral, Chester entrusted me with Irene’s recipe box.  I’ve been through it and pulled all sorts of things to try, but when I saw buttermilk pie, I pulled it for Kari.   Chester and Irene lovingly watched my husband every Saturday morning during his formative years.  And apparently watched Johnny Carson with him some Friday nights, which I’ve definitely never seen.  When I heard Kari had a chest cold today, I had to make this for her.  I hope I can channel Chester and Irene and be as loving and supportive of John and Kari’s baby-to-be as they were for Cory.  Yeah for babies.  I’d like 50.  Just kidding.

Buttermilk Pie (adapted from Irene’s friend Zelma Long’s recipe -makes 2 pies)

1 and 1/3 c. 1% milk

6 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

2 and 2/3 c. sugar

4 tbsp flour

1 stick plus 3 tbsp melted butter

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

In a glass measuring cup, combine milk and lemon juice to make buttermilk mixture.  Let stand 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 300.  In a mixer combine sugar, flour, butter, eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk mixture.  Divide between two uncooked frozen pie shells.  Bake 1 and one half hours at 300, then an additional 10 minutes at 325, or until center is firm.

My sweet friend Michaela brought Tabouleh to some-one’s bachelorette party.  Was it mine?  Was it Lisa’s?  I can’t remember, they all seem to have blended together over time.  In any case, I quickly decided it was one of the best things I’d ever had prepared by a friend.  (Michaela is an exceptional cook, and really, I enjoy anything she creates.)   I immediately began stalking her for the recipe, which of course she didn’t have.  She, too, cooks in a little of this, little of that fashion.  And it’s part of her heritage so she’d been making it “forever”.  This at our ripe old age of 24.  In any case, as happened with most things in my cooking life pre-blogging, she emailed me the recipe she came up with, and it promptly disappeared into the mist of long lost emails when I quit working and didn’t have that email address or data any longer.

So this is what I came up with as my interpretation.  Tabouleh traditionally consists of parsley, mint, bulgur wheat, some veggie type things in a citrus vinaigrette.  Incidentally, can every Arabic word be spelled like 1,000 different ways?  Between trying to decide how to correctly spell Tabouleh and Baba Ghanoush, my brain feels like it’s been put in a washing machine.  Bulgur wheat is a whole grain which is high in fiber with a low-ish glycemic index for a grain.  I love tabouleh and love that it adds such nice color to appetizer plates!  Proper tabouleh production ensures only the leaves of the parsley are used and no stem pieces as a key element, albeit labor intensive and seriously time consuming.  This is a good time to let your preschooler practice those scissors skills.  Feel free to add more mint, I was using up what I had on hand, but would have been happy to add additional!

Tabouleh (makes about a quart)

4 c. parsley, leaves only, minced

1/2 c. fresh mint, leaves only, minced

2 tomatoes, finely chopped

1 english cucumber ( 1 c. finely chopped)

3/4 c. minced yellow onion

1 and 1/2 tsp chopped garlic

1/2 c. bulgur wheat

8 tbsp lemon juice plus 2 tbsp lemon juice

4 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp kosher salt

12 turns pepper

Use scissors to trim only leaves from parsley, discarding any stem pieces.  Mince leaves to accumulate 4 cups.  Use a similar method to mince mint leaves.  Combine with tomatoes, cucumber, onions, and garlic.  In a saucepan, bring 3/4 of a cup of water and 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice to a boil.  Add bulgur, remove from heat and let sit for 30 minutes.  Drain, then squish with  a clean towel to pull out any extra moisture.  Add to salad mixture.  In a small bowl, whisk to combine remaining 8 tbsps lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, then pour mixture over salad.  Cover and refrigerate at least two hours, stirring part way through.

Mediterranean Diets are often considered amongst the most healthy in the world and have been found to significantly increase life expectancy.  I’m thinking much of this could be due to the amount of labor involved in making a Mediterranean appetizer plate.  Seriously, to make 7 fresh pitas, baba ghanoush, tabouleh, and hummus took me about six hours.  Who needs to go to the gym when you’re actively cooking for six hours?  I’ve written about my endeavors in pita making, and for some reason, I just keep beating myself up trying recipe after recipe determined to make a better pita.  This week was a Lebanese recipe, which I’ll write about in a couple of days.  Anyway, save yourself the trouble and purchase your pitas.  Or grab one of those bags of pita chips that seem to be jumping out from every grocery display these days. *Tangent*  Did I tell you I drove my grocery cart into an entire display of Ragu Spaghetti Sauce the other day?  Stellar driving on my part, and I didn’t even have the kids with me to blame.  I swear that display came out of nowhere.  There was glass and spaghetti sauce everywhere.  Jars leaping from the display and crashing on to the floor in a time warped moment that seemed to last for years.  Probably at least 15 of them. broken. on aisle 3. Ahem.

Baba Ghanoush is an eggplant dip with an intimidating name, and a truly phenomenal flavor.  For some reason, I always thought it was yogurt based which is just totally wrong.  This dip is not that labor intensive, your active cooking time is maybe only 15-20 minutes?  So you’ll still have to go to the gym to get your exercise.  I seriously might start making this once a week, and can’t believe I haven’t been making it for years!  If you’re making this for a party or for several servings, go ahead and buy as many eggplants as you can carry.  You won’t regret it!  It seems like they’re giant in the store, but your yield quantity after cooking is really quite low.

A note of interest on the preparation, I accidentally failed to poke holes into one of my eggplants before roasting on the gas flame.  I did poke the holes before I put it in the oven though.  It could be a coincidence, but that eggplant cooked very differently than the others, and it was much more challenging to remove the seeds from the inside.  They were swimming everywhere in the flesh versus the firmer version remaining intact in long strands for easy removal.  So be sure to poke the holes in advance of any prep!

Baba Ganoush Recipe (makes about 1 and 1/2 cups)

3 small eggplant

4 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tbsp tahini

4 tbsp lemon juice

3 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp parsley, chopped

1/2 tsp salt

8 turns pepper

Preheat the oven to 400.  Use a fork to pierce several holes in each eggplant.  Place the eggplant over the flame from the gas stove top, letting it rest directly on the grates.  Turn every minute or two using tongs, until the skins surface is black and charred.  Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil, and roast eggplant in oven for 40 minutes.

Let eggplant rest on counter for 10 minutes, then slice in half.  Use a spoon to remove the strings of seeds, don’t kill yourself trying if you leave a few in the flesh.  Scoop the remaining flesh from the skins and place in a blender.  Add remaining ingredients, then pulse until combined.  Stir to make sure the blade is free, then blend on low until you have a smooth consistency.  Serve with pita bread or chips.

You know those one dish meals people are always talking about?  This was my attempt at one of those.  At the end of the day, I think I prefer this recipe strictly spinach,  keeping the meat on the side.  Preferably with beef.  Of course you know me, I’d eat beef every day of the week if I could.  I guess that’s the other thing I was going for with this, a last ditch effort to hide the chicken from myself so I wouldn’t know I was eating it.

So if you want to make it simply a spinach au gratin, leave out the chicken and double the spinach.  In that scenario, I’d omit the breadcrumbs as well.  You could also use the chicken but skip a few steps by using shredded chicken from a grocery store rotisserie chicken.

One really really awesome thing about making this, is that I got to use the new microplanes I got for Christmas.  If you haven’t broken down and purchased these yet,  Go ahead.  Do it.  It feels exactly like when you buy new socks after putting it off for way too long.  Only better.  I’ve been coveting these for ages, and I’m seriously impressed I was able to hold out until Christmas.  Just thing of all the grating 2010 has in store for you!

Chicken Spinach Au Gratin (serves 5)

3 chicken split breasts

4 tbsp butter

2 c. diced onions

4 tbsp flour

3 c. 2% milk

20 oz. frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and all water squeezed out

1/2 c. grated Parmesan Reggiano

3/4 c. shredded Gruyere

2 tsp kosher salt

8 turns fresh ground pepper

breadcrumbs

In a large pan, combine split breasts with 1 tsp of kosher salt and 12 turns of fresh ground pepper, cover with water.  Bring to a boil, then cook boil chicken for 35 minutes.  Turn off heat, and let chicken rest in water for 10 minutes.  Remove skin and bones and shred chicken using two forks.

Preheat oven to 350.  In a deep saute pan, melt butter on medium heat, add onions and saute 15 minutes, stirring occasionally and reducing heat as necessary to prevent browning.  Add flour and stir until paste-like and combined, then cook for 2 more minutes.  Add milk and stir to incorporate, raise heat to medium high and cook for 10 minutes to thicken.  Turn off heat.

Add spinach, shredded chicken, Parmesan, Gruyere, salt and pepper.  Stir until combined, then smooth surface with your spatula, and sprinkle just the surface with a teeny bit more Parmesan, Gruyere and breadcrumbs.  Bake in oven for 25 minutes – or until bubbly and just lightly browned.

Happy Holidays my dear readers!  I hope this season fills you with love and warmth and your kitchen feels like the happiest place in your home.

This year has flown by me.  I know that’s trite and ridiculous,  and I’m showing my age but seriously.  That’s how it has felt.  It feels like it *should* be March and asparagus should be just peaking in season.  Of course it’s December and the end of 2009.  Thank God.  I mean that in both the sarcastic sense and the literal sense.  I guess it’s a coming of age thing when you recognize both the monumental joy a decade has brought you right along with a recognition of the pain felt along the way.  Do *any* decades just feel amazing start to finish with love and peace and prosperity the overwhelming theme?  If so, I’d like one of those please.

So in honor of 2009 and the millennium decade or whatever we’re calling these years, I’d like to express gratitude for:

1.  My sweet husband.  7.5 years of marriage  this Christmas and 13.5 together.  Thanks for being on my team, even when I want to throw things at your head, and thank you for always being you, the love of my life.

2.  My children.  What a journey it was to have you here with me.  The road was full of heartache, but the end is my ultimate bliss.  You are everything I ever wanted.  Literally.  And I love that both of you want to be chefs.

3.  Every culinary present I’ve ever received.  All of which have come this decade.  I’ve loved my kitchens, and I’ve loved my toys.  10 years ago, I was in college and had no kitchen – or at least not one worth mentioning.  Dear Kitchen Aid Stand mixer my husband swore I would never use, the card may as well have been written: To Lane, because you love to prove someone wrong.  Dear Cuisinart, (which shall be replaced soon due to the vast improvements to this year’s model) I.  Each and every one makes me happy, and *that* is the goal friends.  I’m thankful for the kitchen I’ve built this decade and look forward to having one twice as nice next decade ; )

4.  My friends and family.  Whose support and interest in my blog has totally blown my mind.  Thanks y’all.  Truly.

5.  The abundance of groceries in my life.  Both the actual food and the multitude of options I have for procuring them.  I am a seriously blessed lady.

So if you made it through my holiday musings, this is the soup I created for a pre-Christmas dinner at my house.  I love a soup course, and hate to serve a meal without one.  We had Cream of Asparagus soup at my luncheon on my Wedding Day,  and it has always held a sweet place in my heart.  You hear cream of …, and I see some of you tuning out.  Let me be clear – this is a predominantly asparagus and broth soup, cream is present, but it is not a cream based soup.  It was very well received.  I originally topped these with the tips of the asparagus, but they tended to sink.   So unless you want to top your soup with a dollop of cream, they may not be the best food presentation choice.

Cream of Asparagus Soup serves 10

4 tbsp butter

2 c. chopped onions

3 bunches asparagus, cleaned, snapped, then sliced into 1 inch segments

6 and ¾ c. chicken stock

¾ c. heavy cream

1/4 c. Madeira wine

1 and ½ tbsp lemon juice

12 turns fresh ground pepper

1 ½ tsp kosher salt

Reserve 20 of the prettiest asparagus tips for garnish.  In a heavy bottomed stock pot, melt your butter on medium heat.  Add chopped onions and saute for 5 minutes, stirring to ensure you are not browning the onions.  Add asparagus and satue an additional 5 minutes.  Add chicken stock, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until asparagus can easily be chopped in half with the edge of a wooden spatula.

Splitting into 3 batches, puree soup in a blender.  Once all pureed, in stock pot, add puree with cream, madeira, and lemon juice.  Add salt and pepper.  Think of your seasonings as a jumping off point to start negotiations, bring soup back up to heat on medium, not to a boil, but warm.

Meanwhile, place asparagus tips in a pan of boiling salted water.  Cook until tender about 8 minutes.  Let soup rest 5-10 minutes at just below medium heat, then recheck and adjust seasonings as warranted.

Merry Meet!