Posts Tagged Etc.)
Creamy Chicken Asparagus Soup
Posted by Van Santos in soup on January 15th, 2010
About two weeks ago Peter, over at Greek Food and Beyond, posted a recipe for Creamy Asparagus Soup. I love Creamy soups, my favorite is the Chicken Pasta soup that J.Alexander’s serves, so when I found a recipe that looked appetizing I needed to go for it. Sure, I have no experience with making any creamy-based soup but I wasn’t going to let that stop me!
I made three small changes to this recipe, but we’ll get to that in a second.
The Recipe
1/4 cup olive oil
3 leeks (white parts)
2 bay leaves (crushed, spines removed)
1 tsp dried thyme
3 Russet potatoes
8-9 cups of chicken stock
2 bunches of asparagus
1/2 cup of cream
1 tsp salt
pepper to taste
1 lb cooked dark chicken chunks (I used the leftovers from the Lemon Chicken)
And the process…
In a nice sized soup pot add your olive oil over medium heat and add the chopped leeks, crushed bay leaves thyme and chicken, stir for about 10
Now grate your potatoes through the large holes of your box grater and stir in with the leeks. Simmer for about five minutes.
While the leek/potato/chicken mix is cooking, cut your asparagus separating the tips and the stem.
Add your stock, salt, pepper and the chopped asparagus stems, bring to a boil. Simmer for about 25 minutes.
Creamy Asparagus Soup? Really?
In a second pot bring water to a boil, add your asparagus tips and boil for 2-3 minutes. Remove and blanche the tips in ice-cold water.
Once the soup is ready puree with a hand blender while adding the cream (I went with one cup).
Place in a bowl, add your asparagus tips – top with freshly ground black pepper and Parmesan cheese.
That looks better, almost like Creamy Chicken Asparagus Soup!
Peter has a great soup recipe here. I couldn’t stop eating this, and I even put some in the freezer for later. On my next go around I plan on making the soup a wee bit thicker, creamier… but one who enjoys a good creamy soup cannot go wrong here.
My changes – I added one tsp of salt as I used stock which, usually, is lower salt. I ground up the bay leaves to a nice flake consistency, and I added the chicken for a little extra something. Have fun!
Fettuccini di Tina
Posted by Van Santos in Italian, Pasta on December 23rd, 2009
Tina has introduced me to the wonders of dry white wine vinegar. I’ve made a few changes to this knock-out recipe that Tina Culbertson posted a few days back. Let us get to it!
Required Items for Fettuccini di Tina
2 tablespoon minced garlic
And I give you Chicken di Tina.
Kitchen Scrap Lasagna
Posted by Van Santos in Italian, Main Course on December 18th, 2009
After several days of cooking and making new dishes I had a number of items left over. As I did not want to see the food go to waste I decided to make a dish mainly with the items I had leftover. The result is what I am calling “Kitchen Scrap Lasagna”
½ lb chicken breast tenders sliced paper thin
½ lb ground pork
½ lb ground beef
½ yellow onion
1 green onion sliced, diced and chopped (essentially to the consistency of dried oregano)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 can diced tomatoes (14.5 oz)
2 cans tomato sauce (15 oz)
1 can tomato paste (the wee little 6 oz type)
2 teaspoons oregano
1 teaspoon basil
2 tablespoons parsley
6 oz of Parmesan Cheese
2 cups of cottage cheese (small curd)
8 oz shredded mozzarella
12 lasagna noodles
Here we go:
1- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, also bring a large pot of water to a boil. When water is boiling add salt (1 teaspoon) and 12 lasagna noodles. Cook for 9 mins or until noodles are “al dente” Remove and set pasta aside (all of this is going on when you are doing the other steps, btw)
2- Place 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, heat and add chicken, pork and beef. Cook and stir over medium heat for 3 mins.
3- Add yellow onions, garlic oregano and basil, stir and cook for 3 more mins.
4- Remove from heat, drain oil
5- Put meat back into the pan and over the flame, mix in the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and paste
6- Simmer over a low heat for 30 minutes while stirring to prevent burning
7- While your sauce is simmering, mix together your cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese and parsley
8- With your sauce ready, in a 9 by 13 oven safe dish spread a coat of sauce. Then lay down 3 noodles side by side – do not cross.. Add a coat of the cheese mixture, followed by sauce. Repeat once. Note that I said to make 12 noodles… I only use 9. In case some stick while cooking it always makes sense to have some extra on hand. After you lay your last 3 noodles top with sauce, followed by shredded mozzarella cheese.
9- Bake for 45 mins to an hour (depending on how brown you want your mozzarella)
The dish lasagna going in…
Our dish going into the oven
And coming out, all brown and ready to eat..
Oh, the baked goodness!
I know you are going to get tired of hearing it but this was outstanding. Truly. How good do you ask? I ate 1/3 of this pan by myself in one sitting. I have never made lasagna before, let alone just throw things together and and think it would turn out to be an edible lasagna.
A few things to note – I enjoy things a bit more “baked”, hence the darker cheese on top, as I experience a number of flavors that wouldn’t be there otherwise. Obviosuly you will want to bake to your taste.
Also, I do not care for Ricotta cheese AND I had cottage cheese left over so I simply used that. And yes, you’ll be happy to know that cottage cheese has a lower fat content!
The dish takes a bit of time to prep and bake but the payoff is worth the effort. In total you can expect about 12 servings from a pan of this size.
Oh, and on a side note… I think I may have found the perfect pasta sauce recipe in this creation.
Hot and ready to eat!
Have fun!
