Split Pea & Ham Soup - warms your chilly weather toes

My daughter in laws sister, Amanda, just started a new blog... and it inspired me to post again :) Thank you Amanda!!!

It always seems like I tend to kick up the cooking a bit when the weather gets cooler. I do like to turn that stove top and oven on but when it is hot out, we grill. Grilling, which I can do quite well by the way, seems to be the hubby's domain. I may have elected him to that spot, not sure if he chose it ;)

I notice that it's cooler when I find myself wearing socks constantly. I'm there now. Switching between my Smartwool and Acorn socks are keeping these tooties toasty. (those brands were introduced to me by my sister Gretchen in Maine.) Socks on the feet mean that I can use the oven and stove top and we aren't going to need the ceiling fan on to keep cool in the house!

And soup is always on the menu in the fall through the summer. Warm/Hot soup. There are wonderful soups for cool weather, for me... I like the warm/hot soups that are savory and filling. YUM

I grew up with a mother who made soups all the time. I was a picky eater, so I hated it!! All those nasty chunky items floating in the water that is flavored of beef, chicken, creamy... YUCK! Tomatoes, onions, celery, carrots... REALLY MOM???

What a foolish, foolish child I was. I would give anything to go back in time with the tastebuds I own now and enjoy her soups while she had her senses (taste/smell) and everything she made was incredible.

This recipe is from my sister Gretchen that she found. It's Split Pea and Ham. Mom is making it today, but I'm making her follow the recipe. She still cooks great, but the lack of smell/taste has affected her final product. I am assisting her in the kitchen, I imagine I'm annoying the hell out of her, but I've already caught her making a couple of major mistakes. EEEEK! Oh btw, my mom is close to 80. Should I cut her some slack??? NAH!!

GOTTA HAVE THE BREAD!!!!!!!!

Recipe

Split Pea & Ham

Yield : 6 portions
Ingredients

1 pound dried green split peas
5 cups Chicken Stock or canned broth
5 cups water
1 meaty ham bone, or 2 smoked ham hocks
2 ribs celery, leaves included, diced
3 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley
½ teaspoon crumbled dried tarragon leaves
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter
1 cup diced peeled carrots
1 cup diced onion
1 leek (white part only), rinsed and sliced
1 cup slivered fresh spinach leaves
2 tablespoons dry sherry
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Rinse the split peas in a strainer, and then combine them with the stock and water in a large soup pot. Bring to a boil.

2. Add the ham bone, celery, 1 tablespoon of the parsley and the tarragon. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, for 45 minutes.

3. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the carrots, onion, and leek. Cook until the vegetables are wilted, 10 minutes. Add them to the soup pot, along with the spinach. Simmer, partially covered, 30 minutes.

4. Remove the soup from the heat. Remove the ham bone, and shred the meat from the bone, removing any excess fat. Return the meat to the soup.

5. Add the sherry, pepper, and remaining 2 tablespoon parsley. Heat through, and serve immediately.


© 1989 Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins
Note from Cookstr's Editors

Stuffed Mini Eggplant with Zucchini and 3 Cheeses

A friend has asked a couple of times to come up with a vegetarian dish. I actually love non meat food so I was looking forward to finding something really yummy. In addition, another person asked for a squash recipe! Okay, I can do this. No prob. As I was strolling through the Minneapolis Farmer's Market I came across these absolutely adorable mini eggplants! I had to get them. Even though I had no idea what to do with them. Snatched them up, yes I did :) Next down the line were these beautiful yellow and green small zucchinis. Summer squash, right there. Oh yah.

Next up was to find a recipe that used one or both of these. I did my faithful google search and found this wonderful recipe that not only used the eggplant and squash, it also called for 3 herbs I had in my garden. Mint, parsley and basil. Cha-ching. Hitting the jackpot now. And seriously, it had 3 cheeses in it. mmm yah.

In this pan slowly simmering and steaming are the chunks of eggplant scooped out from the insides, zucchini, herbs, oil, shallot and garlic. It smelled soooo good!!!!

The instructions did not tell me HOW to steam the eggplant in the pan, so I just figured the best way would be similar to doing big squash in the oven; cut side down. It came out perfect :)

Once the eggplant had softened enough it was time to stuff. Now the item to bake these lil fellas in was tough. I first tried a square baking pan. That didn't work, they fell right over. I just stared in my cupboard and zeroed in on the mini-muffin pan. Wah lah... it worked!!

Covered in tinfoil, baked in the over for 25 minutes, they came out steaming and looking beautiful. Topped with freshly grated Parmesan cheese, bake into the oven for 5 mn of melting and they are done!

RECIPE
8 mini or japanese eggplants
2 tsp extra virg olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 shallot, minced
2 Tbl fresh basil
2 Tbl minced fresh parsley
2 Tbl fresh mint
1 medium zucchini (about 2 cups) pealed and chopped
1/2 cup dried bread crumbs
1/2 cup veggie broth
1/2 cup non fat or part skim ricotta cheese
1/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese
1 large egg
2 Tbl grated Parmesan cheese

Cut off tops of egg plants and scoop out inside leaving shell for stuffing.

Heat oil in medium sized pan over medium high heat. Add shallot, garlic, basil, parsley and mint. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 2 minutes. Add zuchhini & eggplant and stir well to blend herbs. Add vegetable broth and turn up heat to medium high until it boils. Cover pan and reduce to medium low and simmer for 15 mn. It needs to be soft enough to mash.

Once veggies have softened, remove from pan with a slotted spoon into a mixing bowl leaving liquids behind.

Place eggplants in pan, cut side down, cover and simmer until soft (NOT MUSHY)for about 10 mn. Turn oven on to °350.

Directions said to spray a square baking pan with non stick spray but they fell over for me. I used a mini muffin pan and it worked great. A regular sized muffin pan would probably work too.

Smash the eggplant/zucchini mixture until somewhat smooth. Add the ricotta, Gruyere cheeses, bread crumbs and egg. Mix well. Stuff each mini eggplant to the top. Cover the baking dish with tinfoil. Pop into the oven for 25 mn. Uncover the foil and top with parmesan cheese. Pop back into oven for 5 mn. until cheese has melted. ENJOY!

Janz Hot Dilly Beans

Really? The last time I posted was SPRING!!! Spring and Summer for me, is all about OUTSIDE! Up North boating, in the backyard by the pool, putzing in the garden, walks through the Park Reserve and just soaking up the warm weather.

When one lives in Minnesota the thought is always in your mind "winter is coming" even on the first day of spring, as the snow is melting, that goes through your mind. "WINTER IS COMING". Given that... it is my only excuse for not posting :)

What gets me back into the kitchen always is the canning of produce. I don't do a lot of canning, maybe some beans, tomatoes, jellies and jams. It's a simple simple thing to do, you feel like you are being "green" and you get to enjoy the summer's treat of produce in the middle of winter. In addition to having a stock of gifts that you can give throughout the year. Low expense gifts....who could resist this?

I was at the Farmer's Market in Minneapolis looking for some summer squash, peppers and tomatoes when I saw green beans. Mountains of green beans. The scent of dill was also heavily in the air. On a whim I picked up about 2.5 lbs of the beans, fresh dill, jalapeno peppers and I was ready to rock the Hot Dilly Beans at home.

Next stop was Fleet Farm to pick up more bottles. I love Fleet Farm, it always surprises me when I walk through... everything you need is at Fleet Farm. That could be a blog topic all on itself so I won't digress.

Of course, I had to reintroduce myself to canning and a recipe for Hot Dilly Beans. I had a wonderful dill pickle recipe from the web, a friend gave me her Dilly Bean recipe and then of course, I had to put my touch on it so the final product is the result of 3 recipes combined. (Recipe listed below)

First up was to clean the beans and cut them the size the need to be to fit into our bottles.

When you do this, just make sure the bean is about 1/4" below the rim of the jar. And you need to stuff them in as tight as they can fit. And no, I do not have Man Hands... my wonderful husband was helping me. :)

While stuff the beans into the jar, add in the dill, peppercorns, garlic and hot peppers. If you do it while stuffing the beans, so it's pressed against the glass, the final product looks so pretty. Especially if you are giving away as gifts.

As the stuffing commences there should be a large pot on your stove top filled with the mixture of water, vinegar and salt heating up. This will be poured into the jar of beans ect. And of course the giant pot of boiling water which will be your hot bath for the jars of beans. Do these two things before you even start cutting, cleaning and stuffing your jars with the beans. It takes awhile to heat up the hot bath.

Slowly lower your jars into the hot bath and it's always wise to have an extra pot of hot water on the side just in case the water does not cover the jars once they are all in.

What always confused me was the instruction... "let the jars sit in the hot bath for 15 mn" What does that mean? Does that mean that when I lower the jars into the boiling water, it should come up to a boil and thats when I start counting the minutes? NOPE. It means, bring that water up to a boil, lower the jars and from there... time it for 15 mn!!

Pull those processed beautiful jars of dilly beans from the water and let sit on your counter until they have cooled down :) Remember, you don't have to put these bad boys in the fridge to store, they can go in your cupboard! The biggest key is to wait 3 days to a week before you give them a try. Don't get impatient and open them up 15 mn after you pulled them from the water. They have to infuse the flavor and marinate until the delishness is ready!

Enjoy!! Eat them all by their lonesome, add them to your Bloody Mary's, chop them up and throw them on your salad. Whatever! Just enjoy :)

Janz Hot Dilly Beans
For the brine:
3 cups water
3 cups vinegar
1/3 cup canning salt (don't use table salt)
*Mix all ingredients together in a pot, bring to boil and turn down to keep hot until you are ready to pour over the beans.

For the Beans:
3 lbs fresh beans
whole peppercorns
Fresh Dill flower and stem
Jalapeno pepper
Whole dried hot red pepper
Whole garlic cloves peeled
*To each tall pint jar add 1 tsp whole pepper corn, 1 dill head with about 3" stem attached, start stuffing with green beans when it's about half full of beans, add the whole hot red pepper (you can add the pepper or jalapeno or both) & garlic so that it's up against the glass and then stuff the rest of the beans until you can't fit anymore.
*Note: I didn't know how hot the red peppers would be so I did one jar with one red pepper, one jar with 2 red peppers and another jar with 2 jalapeno peppers. I'm experimenting here to find out which is the hottest.
*Another note: The garlic came right from my brother Mike's garden. I love that :)
*After you have stuffed the beans, fill the jars with the hot brine until about 1/4" below the top. Wipe off the rims of each jar so the seal will be perfect and no bacteria will develop with a bad seal.
*Lower the sealed jars into the hot boiling bath water and immediately start timing 15 minutes.
*Remove after the 15 minutes and let sit. LET SIT FOR AT LEAST A WEEK to enjoy the wonder of the Hot Dilly Beans!

Waiting for Spring

Spring, I can't wait... because then summer is next. I love spring in it's own right. The smell of the snow melting is just as intoxicating as driving down bakery road up in St. Cloud in the morning. (E. St. Germain where the Hearth bakery lives) Spring is all about the scents. It's as if one can actually smell the grass growing and turning green.
Now that I have established how spring starts up the ole olafactories... it also, as stated first, gets me jonsin' for summer!! Summer. The pool. The scent (there it is again) of coconut and pineapple. Oh bring it on please! Enough of this winter goo. And no, I don't want to skip over spring, but I need to remember summer actually does happen in Minnesota!
Once again, my favorite blogger www.smittenkitchen.com has timed my need for a connection with summer to food. She posted a recipe today for Pina Colada Cake. The ultimate drink of pool time summer.
I of course proceeded to bake it and it turned out just beautifully. Very moist, wonderful quiet flavors of pineapple, coconut and rum!!!
My husband said nothing but garbled "mmm,num, num, mmm" the entire time he ate it and of course didn't want to waste that half piece my mom left behind. Because of course, after Mom ate the first piece she stated "you know I don't usually eat sweets, but I'll take another 1/2 piece" Why does she say that after everything sweet I bake???
Enjoy... make this cake... close your eyes and picture summer!!!
piña colada cake

Piña Colada Cake
http://smittenkitchen.com/2011/02/pina-colada-cake/

Note: Cream of coconut is different from coconut milk; it is a very sweet, thick white liquid while coconut milk is unsweetened, just water and pressed coconut flesh. I used cream of coconut because it had a stronger coconut flavor. If you can only find coconut milk, however, in one test of the cake (that was delicious but didn’t have the coconut oomph I wanted) I used a cup of it instead, used all of the brown sugar and added 3/4 cup granulated sugar.

If you cannot get fresh pineapple, grab a small can of pineapple (in 100% pineapple juice, not syrup). The juice in the can can be used for the glaze. You’ll get a sharper flavor, of course, from fresh pineapple.

Cake
2 cups (250 grams or 4 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick (113 grams or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup light (55 grams or 2 ounces) brown sugar
1 tablespoon (15 ml) dark rum
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup (237 ml) cream of coconut
1/2 cup (72 grams or 2 1/2 ounces) finely chopped fresh pineapple (or pineapple from a can, strained, juice reserved)

To brush over the cake
1 to 2 tablespoons rum (optional)
2 tablespoons pineapple juice (optional)

Glaze
1 cup (120 grams or 4 ounces) powdered sugar
Pinch of table or fine sea salt
1 1/2 to 3 tablespoons pineapple juice

2 tablespoons dark rum for sprinkling over cake (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper, then butter parchment. (Alternately, you can use a cooking spray, either with just butter or butter and flour to speed this process up.)

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat eggs, one at a time, and rum. Add cream of coconut and mix; the batter will look curdly and worrisome but will all work out in the end. Add dry ingredients, half at a time, mixing and scraping down bowl between additions. Mix only until flour is just incorporated. Using a rubber spatula, fold in bits of pineapple.

Spread batter evenly in prepared pan. Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment.

For extra flavor, while the cake is still hot you can brush it with rum or pineapple juice.

Cool cake completely at room temperature, or in the fridge if you are impatient for cake (who isn’t?). Once completely cool, place powdered sugar and salt in a small bowl with 1 1/2 tablespoons pineapple juice and whisk until a thick glaze forms. Thin glaze only as needed, adding additional pineapple juice a teaspoon at a time until glaze is just thick enough to pour. Pour glaze into middle of cake and if it’s too thick to crawl to the edges itself, nudge it with a spatula until the top is covered. Serve immediately or let it set in the fridge for 20 minutes or so.

My 2010 in a few pics

Another free ecard by Smilebox

It's Christmas Time = POTICA Time!!

What is Potica???

Mom tells me the recipe she has followed for over 50+ years is Croatian derived. 

sticky sticky dough

The sweet dough is spread so thin you could read a newspaper through it.  

The filling consists of walnuts, graham cracker, honey, egg and milk. 

The rolling of the dough is very tricky, generally rolled out on a sheet.. she grabs the edge of the sheet lifts and it starts to roll. 

Once rolled,ends are tucked and it gets transferred to a cookie sheet and shaped into a slight "C". 

When the Potica is baked and pulled from the oven, she brushes butter on top of the warm bread. For me, it has been one of the constants of Christmas. I can't remember a time when it hasn't been on the table. Along with nutbread. She used to use a meat grinder attached to the table to grind all of the nuts and graham crackers, which now is done by the Cuisinart Food Processor.

 Mom grew up in Hibbing, MN, an Iron range town which has a recognizably Italian, Slavic, and Scandinavian heritage. Much of my favorite dishes she has handed down have these cultural accents to them.

POTICA

Bread recipe:

5 to 6 cups flour

1 Cup Milk, scalded (heat on low until milk is scalded)

3/4 Cup lukewarm water

3 packets yeast (small)

1 cup sugar

2 tsp. salt

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup butter, melted

Sprinkle yeast into water and add a pinch of salt; stir with a wooden spoon until dissolved.  5 - 10 min until it bubbles.  Combine lukewarm milk, salt and sugar in a large bowl, add yeast mixture, melted butter and eggs.  Mix with wooden spoon.  Add 1/2 of the flour - mix well, slowly.  Add rest of flour.  Kneed dough until heavy and sticky.  Cover and let rise for 1/2 hour. (Make filling while dough is rising)  Sprinkle flour on a table cloth.  Put sleeve on rolling pin and sprinkle lots of flour on it.  Divide dough into 4 parts.  Roll out dough until very thin.  Go slowly, this is the hardest part!!

Filling:

2 lbs walnuts, coarsely ground 

12-14 graham crackers, finely crushed

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup honey

2 eggs

1 Tbl butter

1 Cup milk

3/4 Cup sugar

Mix everything together, should be very thick.  Divide into 4 parts.  Spread onto rolled out dough up to the edges. (Be very careful, this is where you could rip the dough) Grasp edge of table cloth and lift (watch video for directions) doing this will roll up your dough and filling very easily and evenly.  Very carefully, transfer to a cookie sheet, bend the roll into a shape that will fit on the cookie sheet.  It will look like a big smile shape.  Tuck the ends of the roll in.  Bake at 300° for 1 hour, check often.  Take out when brown. Brush immediately with butter.  When cooled, wrap in foil and let sit two days or three... the flavors will be wonderfully married. Or cut and eat with a glop of butter and enjoy!

Roasted Chestnut Russian Teacake Cookie

Scored chestnuts before being roasted for ease of peeling

♪♫ CHESTNUTS ROASTING ON AN OPEN FIRE

JACK FROST NIPPING AT YOUR NOSE ♫ ♪

Every Christmas I sing those two lines from that song... because that's all I know. But, it brings to mind a big fire in a fireplace with a nice family roasting them and then laughing, singing and eating them.  Yes, I'm a fan of old movies with unrealistically happy families. The girls in their dresses with perfect hair and ribbons, the boys in their little outfits and slicked down combed hair.  LOL!!

Roasted and peeled chestnuts

I have ALWAYS wondered what roasted chestnuts taste like.  When I was in NYC for my 40th birthday in February, it was cold, there was snow on the ground and vendors were selling them on the streets.  I regret never having bought a little bag of those nuts.

Chopped roasted chestnuts tossed into food processor

One of my favorite food blogs, http://smittenkitchen.com/  Smitten Kitchen, had posted a roasted chestnut cookie recipe last week. She commented on how incredibly difficult it is to find chestnuts in the grocery store. I thought it looked like an awesome twist on my favorite Christmas cookie the Russian Teacake, but I let it go thinking I'd never find these nuts in the store.

Bake me baby!!

While at CUB, our local grocery store, stocking up on food before our big blizzard came, I was walking through the produce section and saw a big basket of chestnuts.  I was much more excited than a normal person should have been and I think I embarrassed Parker, my son, when I whooped out loud.  I grabbed a bag quickly as if I discovered gold and was SURE someone was going to snatch those nuts up before I had a chance to fill up my bag!

Its hard to tell when your cookies are done, the bottoms should be nice a brown.

I filled up that bag full of nuts and if Parker didn't pull me away I would have taken all of them.  I was very excited to make my cookies.  My son didn't share the same excitement as I did. Imagine that out of a 13 year old!

Powdered sugar to roll your cookies in with a bit of cinnamon

When you live in Minnesota, you know that you eventually will be hit with a blizzard.  Today should have been a day spent in the gym watching boys basketball.  It being canceled due to the big snowmagedan, it turned into a cooking day!

Roll those gems in the wonderful world of powdered sugar

I now understand why the Smitten Kitchen blog author is so in love with chestnuts.  The smell of those nuts roasting in the oven and the sweet nutty taste made them the perfect nut to compliment the powdered sugar topping. Wow.

You pop one of these in your mouth and they just melt.  One has to be very careful though... they are filled with butter! You will get a tummy ache if you eat too many. I say this as I type and I have a tummy ache that I'm nursing.

The expression on my Mom's face as she is devouring her cookie says it all

So enjoy the recipe! I challenge you to find chestnuts in a store near you and roast 'em, grind 'em and make them into these fab Russian Teacake Cookies! You will not regret a single mouth melting moment. 
(recipe from Smitten Kitchen)
Roasted Chestnut Cookies

Start with a whole pound of chestnuts, although you’ll only need about 2/3 of them, because chestnuts are notorious for surprising you, once roasted, with rotten centers. If you’ve got a winning batch (as I did), you get a little to snack on and everyone wins.
Makes about 4 dozen 1-inch cookies
1 pound chestnuts
1 cup (2 sticks or 8 ounces) butter, room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon + additional for coating
A few gratings of fresh nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 450°F. Cut a small X on the top of each chestnut with a very sharp knife. Don’t be afraid to cut into the “meat” of the chestnut a little; I found that the the ones that were the most easy to peel start with a deep enough cut that the skin peels back while roasting. Roast chestnuts on a baking sheet for about 20 to 30 minutes, until a darker shade of brown and the X peels back to reveal the inner nut.

Cool on tray and then peel. Don’t worry if they break up as you do so if you have to dig them out in pieces, you won’t need whole ones for this.

Once the peeled chestnuts are fully cool, chop them coarsely on a cutting board. Measure 1 cup of chopped chestnuts, and dump them in the bowl of a food processor. Grind them until they are very well chopped, then add the softened butter, and pulse again until combined. Add 1/2 cup of your powdered sugar, vanilla extract, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and flour and pulse until an even dough is formed.

[No food processor? Chop-chop-chop those chestnuts as fine as you can, then use an electric mixer to whip the butter and 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Add the vanilla, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, flour and chestnuts and beat until well blended.]

Divide dough and wrap each half in plastic, chilling for one hour or until firm. Once chilled, preheat the oven to 350°F. Whisk remaining 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar and a few pinches of cinnamon in a small bowl. Set aside. Working with one half of the chilled dough at at time, roll it into 2 teaspoon-sized balls (I use my 1 tablespoon measure, but didn’t fill it) in the palm of your hand. Arrange on parchment-lined baking sheet but no need to leave more than 1/2 inch between the cookies; they won’t spread.

Bake cookies until golden brown on bottom and just pale golden on top, about 14 to 17 minutes. (See Note up top about baking times.) Cool cookies 5 minutes on baking sheet. Gently toss warm cookies in cinnamon sugar to coat completely. Transfer coated cookies to rack and cool completely. Repeat procedure with remaining half of dough. To touch them up before serving, you can sift some of the leftover cinnamon-sugar mixture over them.

Do ahead: Dough can be chilled in the fridge for a day or two, longer in the freezer. Chestnuts can be roasted in advance, kept at room temperature for a day or so. Cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for a week.