The most basic of soups

I asked the Girlchild what we should make for dinner tonight, and she said, "Basil potato mushroom soup!"
I was pleased that she didn't say, "mustard custard," which is a dish she's been promoting for a few weeks now. I've managed to dodge that particular iron chef challenge.

I initially thought we'd do a potage parmentier and add mushrooms and sprinkle basil on top. We didn't have any fresh basil (fancy that in Oregon in April...), and the spirit of the kitchen took over (also known as spontaneity), and we did this instead:

Soften in dutch oven:
*1 onion, chopped
*2 carrots, peeled & sliced
*3 potatoes, peeled & diced

Allow the veggies to soften for about 5 minutes, then to the sides of the pan, and brown:
*1 lb ground turkey, with salt & pepper

Add (in no particular order)
*1 quart beef broth (or whatever kind you like, I like the full bodied flavor of beef broth sometimes)
*2 cans of tomatoes. I used one can of stewed tomatoes and one can of diced, because that's what I had.
*3 cloves of garlic, minced.
*I also added some of my favorite shallot salt from Penzey's Spices. Dreamy stuff, really.


Allow that to simmer until the potatoes are almost all the way soft, then toss in:
*1 lb of mushrooms, sliced. The kids love to slice the mushrooms with a butter knife. (helpful and safe!)
*Green veggies. We used a pound of asparagus, because it was in the fridge, plus about a cup of frozen peas.

Simmer a bit more until the latest veggies to join the party are ready, and it's all set!
{I'm sorry I didn't pay attention to the times of each step, but the whole process took about an hour.}

I love it when my kids eat veggies, and of course they're more likely to eat them when they've helped prepare the meal!

Girlchild on her second bowl. This is the first time I've ever known her to eat mushrooms.

We thought about making biscuits, but settled for grilled cheese on Dave's Killer Bread instead. Something about that bread is perfect for toast or grilled cheese.







For more family-friendly healthy recipe ideas, visit Disney's Magic of Healthy Living. I'm not typically a recipe follower, but they've got some good ones over there.

Pineapple Pasta (???)

While I was out running this morning, our friend Yashi helped the kids make lunch. They LOVE it. I'm a little surprised.

Here's the Girlchild talking about their creation:

She just told me, "This Pineapple Pasta creation is brilliant. I want to have it for lunch every day."


I'm not so sure.



*note about the penne: we only ever buy whole wheat pasta. 
The kids don't mind it because it's all they get! :)

Girlchild's Quinoa with Pancetta & Peas

Anna likes to invent recipes – a hobby I whole-heartedly support!
Here's how it goes: She lists a bunch of ingredients and gives me a format (dessert, dinner, etc) and I have to turn it in to something edible.
While we were at the Disney World, we had the pleasure of attending the celebration dinner for their Magic of Healthy Living contest winners. It was pretty awesome to see the mighty power of Disney focused on helping families lead healthy lives. My kids were skeptical of the ultra healthy dinner that was served, but it got us talking about healthy food, which led to the following recipe:

"You take smashed up peanuts and some peas, and pancetta and add all that to quinoa, plus three tablespoons of chicken broth. And olive juice, honey and a squeeze of lemon. And then you add a little parmesan cheese, garlic and arugula."

Here's what we actually did:
Cook 1 cup of quinoa in 2 cups of chicken broth.
Bring to a boil, then cover & simmer until liquid is almost completely absorbed. While there is still a bit of liquid, add about 1 cup of frozen peas.

Meanwhile, lay the pancetta out on a baking sheet. Broil until crisp, flipping each piece about halfway through the process. Total broil time is only about 4 minutes. Warning: never walk away from anything under the broiler! I usually grab a glass of wine and sit on the floor watching it, which the kids seem to find amusing.

broiling pancetta

Let the pancetta cool on the sheet, and grate about 1/4 cup of parmesan.
Mince a garlic clove and add to the juice of about 1/2 a lemon.

When the quinoa is done (liquid is about all absorbed), add the lemon juice & garlic and stir in. Turn heat off, and stir in parmesan. We then put that whole concoction in a bowl and crumbled the crisp pancetta over the top. I was afraid if we mixed it in, it would get soggy.
Crisp pancetta = awesome. Limp pancetta = meh.

You'll notice the peanuts, honey and olive juice didn't make it in to the recipe. The arugula kind of did, as we made my all-time favorite salad: Arugula with hearts of palm & shaved parmesan. The dressing is one clove of garlic, fleur de sel, fresh pepper, the other half of the lemon from earlier, emulsified with some fruity olive oil. Lemon juice + garlic + olive oil, as my dear friend Gwenn says, "emulsify like nobody's business."

 We served the quinoa and salad with some broiled mahi mahi and toasted Pugliese bread.
In fact, after we removed the pancetta from the baking sheet, I rubbed the bread around on the sheet and then toasted it. Mmmm. Pancetta drippings.

The Girlchild was very pleased about her recipe, and how the whole meal came together. I love cooking with her, and of course she ate everything because she helped make it. My kitchen ended up a bit messier than if I had just made dinner myself, but I wouldn't trade this time together for a cleaner kitchen, that's for sure.

Anna was more smitten than usual with the hearts of palm. In fact, she claims our next cooking adventure will be a "Hearts of Palm Custard!"
OK. I'm not sure what to do with that, but I'm sure we'll come up with something!

I attended the 2011 Disney Social Media Moms Celebration at Walt Disney World. Although we paid for our own trip to Disney World, the conference fee included 3 nights at the Grand Floridian, the conference and meals for me, several amazing meals for our entire family, park hopper passes for each of us, and some other fun perks. Disney did not ask me to write about this event, and all opinions are my own.

The Girlchild's Birthday Dinner

My mom always asked my brothers and me what we wanted for our birthday dinners. It was so fun to get to choose, but I always chose the same thing: Beef Stroganof. My mom makes the most amazing Beef Stroganof. One year, I wanted a pink party, so she made strawberry cake, served strawberry ice cream, and for the meal we had ham and pink mashed potatoes. My mom inspires me in so many ways!

For her birthday, the Girl said she wanted "Birthday Soup" and "Pink Noodles," so I stole a page from Mom's book.

Toast!

When questioned, she explained that Birthday Soup is made with chicken broth, potatoes and tomatoes. Easy enough! I have a template* for soup that works for me every time.

ANNA'S BIRTHDAY SOUP

Saute in a dutch oven with a little olive oil:

1 medium onion, peeled & diced

4-5 potatoes, peeled & diced (I used a couple Yukon golds mixed in with baking potatoes. Baking potatoes are best, but I was running low. Yukons aren't my first choice for this because they get a little rubbery when mashed, but they worked fine mixed in the soup.

sea salt & Penzey's India Tellicherry black pepper (my fave)

When softened a bit, add 

3 cloves of minced garlic

14 oz (1 can) stewed tomatoes

28 oz (1 large can) crushed or diced tomatoes

2 quarts of organic chicken broth

About a tablespoon total of dried parsley & basil

Simmer gently for about 30 minutes, until the potatoes are all the way soft.

Turn off heat, puree using an immersion blender, and season to taste.

At this point, I added a touch of cream, which does not follow my usual soup format. Jeanie wisely also added a four-pepper blend, which really was perfect.

Serve with freshly grated parmigiano Reggiano and crusty bread.

OK, so Birthday Soup... Check.

Anna & AmmaKee with Birthday Soup. It's kind of pink, anyway.

"Pink Noodles" were a little more tricky. At first I thought about pureeing beet or tomato into my pasta dough, but that wouldn't really be pink enough, and it would take a long time to roast the beets. So I settled on food coloring. Fortunately, I have several different colors of the Wilton cake-decorating colors and was able to add enough blue to balance out the orange-ness of hot pink added to eggs. Also fortunately, I had my sister-in-law Tammy there to help me figure it out.

I use Giada De Laurentiis's fresh pasta recipe, FYI.

The result was a delightfully off-putting hot pink pasta. 

But what to serve over the Pink Noodles? What else is pink and delicious? I'll tell what is pink and delicious. Shrimp and pancetta, that's what. Here's what I did:

Saute chopped pancetta and sliced crimini mushrooms until mushrooms are about halfway softened. Add a little butter to get the rendering started, as well as a tiny bit of salt (not too much since the pancetta is salty) and some fresh ground pepper.

Pour in about 2 cups of dry white wine, and reduce a bit until the alcohol is mostly cooked off.

Add one pound of bay scallops and 20 oz (2 bags in this case) of medium-sized raw shrimp. Bubble gently until the scallops and shrimp are just cooked, and pour over the pasta.

Pink Noodles, with Shrimp & Bay Scallops. I know it looks nasty, but it was actually quite delicious.

 Here are a few more pics from the dinner party:

Meyer Lemon Cheesecake Marbled with Pureed Strawberry

Two Papas. Note Mike's t-shirt: Anna as a newborn!

Festive, girly-girl table

Sorry to take pictures of you all eating...

Jeanie & me

Some Litwins: Brian, Mike & Tammy

Do you have a favorite Birthday Meal?

What do you think of Anna's Pink Noodles?

Let me know!

*Soup template: Instead of tomatoes, any veggies will do. Any flavor of broth will do. Instead of potatoes, sweet potatoes or squash.

My Daughter's Kitchen Creativity: Pumpkin Slimers

The Girl and I have always loved cooking together, but she often gets frustrated with having to follow directions.

I can't begin to imagine where she gets that quality.

So now we have a fun new trick. I ask her what we should create, and she tells me the ingredients she wants to use, and a general idea of format.
Our first big one was "Pumpkin Slimers." We had a little pumpkin out on the front step, and she really wanted to cook with it. I couldn't convince her that curried pumpkin soup was a good idea, she really wanted "Slimers." While she worked on scooping out the pumpkin, I questioned her about what she had in mind for a Pumpkin Slimer. It took a while to get a description of the format out of her. She said the filling is pumpkin, eggs, sugar, milk, honey and cinnamon, and we should make the crust out of flour, butter, salt, sugar and milk. No problem — that's easy enough to translate into a pie.

"Nooooo, it's not a pie," she tells me.
She described little burritos, and if we had more time that day, I would have figured out a dessert empanada application, but alas.  I suggested lining muffin tins with the crust, and we were in business.
For the filling, we roasted the pumpkin. She was skeptical about this step, as that took what felt like an eternity to a four year old. I thought she would lose interest, but we used the time to make the crusts.
She was really insistent on the ingredients — my pie dough recipe does not include milk, but ice water. It turned out fine with milk, though. Who knew?

Grandma Edna's Perfect Pie Crust, with Anna's Modifications:

3 cups flour (I use Bob's Red Mill Whole Wheat Pastry Flour)

1 teaspoon salt

1-1/4 cup shortening (I was able to convince her that this would be better than butter)

1 egg

1 tablespoon vinegar

2 tablespoons ice water (I snuck them in)

2 tablespoons milk

Without overworking, roll out dough on lightly-floured surface. Prick holes throughout (Anna loved this part) and bake at 450º for 10 minutes, until lightly golden.

 For the filling, I looked up recipes in my favorite The Bon Appetit Cookbook, and really loved the "Spirited Pumpkin Pie" recipe from it. (I highly recommend this book, whenever I have an ingredient I want to use, I go here first to see if there is some wonderful recipe for it. I've been delighted with every recipe I've tried.)
Here's what Anna & I came up with:

PUMPKIN SLIMER FILLING

1 small pumpkin, roasted & pureed (about 3 cups)

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup honey

1 tablespoon flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

3 large eggs

1 cup whipping cream (I use this in my coffee every morning, so it's always in the house!)

1/4 cup milk

3 tablespoons dark rum

2 teaspoons Mexican vanilla extract

Whisk it all together, adding one ingredient at a time (that worked well for Anna), then poured in to the little crusts. Bake at 375º for 20 minutes, then reduce temp to 325º and bake until centers are just set.

I'm so sorry I didn't take any pictures of the Pumpkin Slimers. We took them to my brother and sister-in-law's house for dinner with the fam, and they were a big hit. Anna was so proud, as was I. The real success, though, was the birth of a new era in our cooking together.