Turn these ingredients into a soup that will change your life.

To find out, I went to the go-to person on hearty ingredients (and don’t you dare say Paula Deen) – Alton Brown.  Using his Food Network recipe, I cooked a soup that was so tasty and so chockful of Irish-style goodness that I’m surprised I didn’t just start jigging on the spot.

I’ve actually made it twice this week, playing with the ingredients just a little to find the magic combo. The recipe after the jump!

Here’s what you’ll want to pick up!  From start to finish, this takes about an hour and you’ll need a blender. So make sure you are prepared!

• Four to five medium-sized leeks
• Three to four medium-ish Yukon Gold potatoes
• Three tablespoons butter
• Two cans of vegetable or chicken broth (if you’re interested in a cheesier-like taste at the end go veggie broth. If you want the focus more on the taste of potato, go chicken.)
• One cup heavy cream (think you can do half a cup of your more health conscious than myself)
• One cup buttermilk (again, you healthier types can go less)
• Snipped chives (they really do add)
• Pepper of choice (I chose ground Peppercorns, Alton’s original recipe called for white pepper. I’m sure the white pepper is outrageous but I couldn’t find it in the store and I was too lazy to search too far.

Step 1: Clean your leeks.  I love this little how-to from About.com if you are unfamiliar on the proper way to do this, like I was. When they are washed, slice and chop them small.  Also, peel and chop your potatoes. Dice them pretty small. This will make the blending process much easier.

Leeks! So fresh and so clean, clean.

Everybody chopped and ready to go.

Step 2:  Melt the butter in large skillet over medium-heat. Add the leeks and cook them for five minutes. Fun fact! This is called “sweating the leeks” and it brings out their full flavor. On the second try, I paid a bit more attention and sure enough after five minutes you could smell their odor a bit stronger. (It’s a good smell.) After five minutes, turn down the heat to medium low and cook for about 20-25 minutes, or until the leeks are super tender.

Step 3: When the leeks are super soft, add the potatoes and the broth of your choice. Turn the heat back up to medium and let it boil/simmer. In Alton’s recipe, he suggests covering, but I didn’t have anything big enough to do so. I kept it on a low boil/high simmer and it worked like a charm.  Cook  until the potatoes are soft.

Step 4:  When soft, pour the mixture into your blender (or use an immersion blender if you have one). Puree. Add in your cream and buttermilk and re-mix.  Add in your pepper too, if you want it blended in. Otherwise, save that for the end.

Blended! Have not yet added the cream and buttermilk here. Note the orange-y color from the vegetable stock.

And that’s all she wrote.  Garnish with your chive and pepper if you haven’t already, and serve in a bowl. I also had visions of a fancy party in which I served this chilled in a martini glass. (Probably watching too much Mad Men.)

Finished! Dig in.

Enjoy!  If you want to see the original Alton Brown recipe, find it here.

For the past two years, we’ve stayed in houses with big, beautiful kitchens.  Since  there’s quite a few of us in the family who fancy ourselves chefs-in-training, we like to spend a few nights staying in, cooking elaborate meals, showing off our skills.  Here’s a few pics of my favorite parts of Rehoboth, and some of our fabulous dinners:

The Coffee Mill coffee house.  ADORABLE.  Side note, we know the owner, so we’re biased.  But you should go there.  They have six different coffees a day, and it changes every day!

Rehoboth is filled with adorable houses.  I love to go on long runs and  look at them.  Here are two of my favorites. More on Rehoboth after the jump!

Even though we cook a lot, Rehoboth is packed with delicious restaurants.  I’d been dying to try Fins Fish House and Raw Bar, located right on the main drag.  It’s always packed at dinner time in the summer, with quite a wait.  The BF and I popped over there for Happy hour one day – which was from 11:30 – 6!!!! We found the bar to be fairly quiet.  We parked ourselves there and had steamer’s, beers and a delicious Rockfish sandwich.  This place is so. freaking. delicious.

The Summer House is one of our favorite bars, but we didn’t get there this time:

On the night my cousin Megan and I were cooking dinner, we hit up the local farmer’s market, which is open on Tuesdays.  Here’s a bit of what we saw:

We purchased some of these white and purple eggplants, and grilled them.  The white eggplants were amazing!

We made a dinner of scallops, risotto and vegis from the market, including these beautiful tomatoes.  Those hot peppers, however, were a disaster.  Don’t ever, ever cook hot peppers alone and eat them.  I do not know WHAT was wrong with me:

We also got some peaches and grill them:

Another night, my aunt MaryEllen made her own rub for ribs and her own BBQ sauce.  AMAZING.  Do you ever make your own BBQ sauce? I loved this. I’m determined to try.

MaryEllen also made the most fabulous Jambalaya one night!

Our table for 16 people!

My cousin Maury’s fiancé, Michael treated us to a Spanish fiesta one night.  It was incredible. His black beans were amazing.  He also fried cheese and plantains.  So delicious.  I seriously need to learn how to properly fry plantains.  They’re amongst my most favorite of foods.

After dinner one night, all of the ladies sat around watching The Real Housewives of NJ quality TV.

My father, brother and I:

And, all of my cousins:

Does your family take a family vacation? Where do you like to go? Do you have any traditions?

Check out that drunken basil, falling all over itself!

A little quieter, but no less steady, is the sage growing under the same circumstances.  To my surprise, it enjoys just as much water as the basil.  This week, I’ll look up some recipes that require sage – so stay tuned how it tastes in a dish.

Not quite as big, but definitely growing is the sage.

Faring less well as been the rosemary and thyme also potted in the plant, which is a huge bummer.  I have to think that either a.) the basil and sage are hogging all of their water and nutrients or b.) they don’t require as much water as the other two and maybe are being overwatered.  To mitigate, I’m going to use the remaining seeds from the packets and try again – except this time, I’m going to give each their own individual pot to see what combo works best for them to grow.

Know any other herbs that grow hardily indoors? If so, I’m all ears!

My Labor Day cooking tends towards the simple – basically burgers as often as I think I can get away with them, and for dessert I want to stay in a relaxed holiday mood, to expend as little effort as possible to get the biggest reward. I want my desserts to look spectacular, to taste summery and delicious, and in honor of the occasion, I want as much red white and blue as I can muster.

I’m a believer in a theme, a fact which can occasionally sucker me.

On the last big American holiday of the year, the 4 of July, I was charged with bringing dessert to the party. Being British, I was anxious to please, so I sought advice and was told, “Oh everybody has flag cake on the 4 of July. Not having Flag Cake would be like not having chocolate eggs at Easter”.

Speaking as one whose Christmas would be entirely ruined if there was no Christmas pudding at the end of the meal, I am sympathetic to food expectations when it comes to holidays, and I was determined that my flag cake would do my adopted country proud.

I had never heard of flag cake before, but a quick internet search educated me. I tracked down a recipe. I bought the enormous tin that the recipe required. I carried bags of berries home from the fruit stand. I had several practice runs at the cake and decoration thereof. Jon drew a flag template for proper berry placement. I bought a wooden board to fit the enormous confection, then a box to fit the board, and then I heaved it on the ferry across the river to West New York (New Jersey) and set it down on the picnic table that my friends had erected on the shore with a great view of the fireworks.

“Is that a flag cake? Somebody made a flag cake? I’ve never actually seen one of them before. Would you look at that. Actual flag cake.”

Total strangers stopped to gawp and take photographs.

“Is that a British thing”? One of them enquired.

“I never thought you’d actually make it,” said the woman who suggested it in the first place.

But on the slight off chance that you’re not making a flag cake this holiday weekend, here are my top 5 high impact low labor red white and blue desserts.

1 – Mini Flag Cake Squares

• Buy a pound cake, or two for a crowd
• Slice thickly – I’d say at least 1 ½ inches per slice.
• Ice each slice generously with frosting, which you can make by mixing 2/3 stick of butter (1/3 cup if you prefer) with 3 cups of confectioners (icing) sugar. Once it’s smooth and soft, add 1 ½ tsp good vanilla and t tsp milk , or you can buy in a pot from the supermarket
• Now cut each slice into quarters or sixths, depending on the size of your pound cake, to make dinky little squares
• Lay the squares on a platter in a rectangle shape – this is the flag bit
• Top the top left hand squares with little piles of blueberries, and the rest of the squares with single raspberries and strawberries or with coconut or white chocolate shavings to make the stripes of the flag

2 – Red white and blue ice cream sundae

Nothing says summer like an ice cream sundae. I’d suggest strawberry and vanilla with blueberry sauce – though technically this would be a pink white a blue sundae it’s so delicious that I think we’ll get away with it. Cherry and white chocolate ice cream with blueberry sauce would be good too, now I think about it.

Consider providing whipped cream – from a can has its own charm too – and little dishes of red white and blue M&Ms, sprinkles, white chocolate shavings and maraschino cherries for people to get creative with.

Blueberry sauce

This recipe owes more than a little to Ina Garten whose book introduced me to the idea of using jam rather than sugar to sweeten and thicken a fruit sauce.

Ingredients

• Blend the jam, blueberries and sugar until smooth
• Tip into a saucepan and heat for a few minutes until runny enough to pour
• Add the balsamic vinegar to turn the sauce a deeper blue and to bring out the sweetness of the blueberries

If you can make that, you can certainly make this: More Sundaes and Sauces

3 – Raspberry and Blackberry Tart

Ingredients

• Lay the pastry sheet onto some parchment and roll out to get rid of the creases. Score a border around the edge and prick the pastry in the middle with a fork.
• Mix the ricotta with 1 tbsp of sugar (and the vanilla if using) with the cream to loosen it up, then spread it over the pastry inside the border.
• Toss half of the fruit with 1tbsp sugar and arrange on top of the ricotta mixture (if the blackberries are especially sharp you might want to add more sugar)
• Put the tart onto a tray and into a pre-heated oven and let it cook for 20 – 25 minutes. If your oven is a bit old and unreliable, like mine, turn the tart around half way through cooking in case one bit of oven is hotter than
• another and the tart cooks unevenly (i.e. one part raw, one part ash, as in my oven).
• Once cooked, top with the rest of the berries and dust with icing sugar. Serve with vanilla ice cream

If you can make that, you can certainly make this: More Tarts

4- Red White and Blue Popsicles

• Your first option is to buy red white and blue smoothies and freeze them. Job Done.

• Or you could blend a cup of watermelon with a cup of orange juice and freeze for red, blend a cup of blueberries with a cup of pomegranate juice, (and a sprinkling of sugar if the berries are too sharp) and freeze for the blue, and blend a cup of bananas with a cup of Greek yoghurt and 1tbsp of honey then freeze for white.

• Or you could pour a little bit of white grape juice into the mould then drop in a raspberry or two. Freeze. Now pour in a bit more grape juice and drop in a few blueberries. Freeze. Pour in another layer of grape juice and drop in some white edible flowers if you can find them (elderberries or white currants would be lovely too). Freeze. It’s time consuming, but not difficult and it looks really beautiful.

5 –White Chocolate Pots with Blackberries and Raspberries

This mixture makes enough to fill 6 ramekins, but I like to serve it smaller shot glasses because it’s pretty rich – it’s enough for 8 servings – and because you can really see the colors of the fruit.

Ingredients

• Break two bars of white chocolate into pieces in a bowl.
• Pour a ¾ cup of heavy cream and ¼ cup of milk into a pan and heat until it’s just about to boil.
• Tip the hot cream over the chocolate and count to 20.
• Whisk the melting chocolate into the cream until the color is uniform.
• Crack in the egg and whisk again. You’re not trying to whip up the mixture, just mix everything well.
• Put a few blueberries and raspberries in the bottom of your glasses – or go with a layered approach and put raspberries on the bottom as a single layer.
• Pour the chocolate mixture into a jug, then from the jug into the little pots or shot glasses. Put the pots into the fridge and let them set for at least 2 hours or overnight. Leave them out of the fridge ten minutes to lose the chill before eating them.
• Decorate with a few blackberries and raspberries – unless you’re doing a layered aesthetic, in which case, decorate with blackberries.

If you can make that, you can certainly make this: More Chocolate Pots

Hello, again, old foe.

As some of you might recall, last week I solicited some advice for improving what I thought was a good recipe for making stuffed mushrooms, but which only turned out to be s0-so.

Because I harassed her, friend and Yay! DIY reader Beth – aka Ladimcbeth – provided some off-the-cuff thoughts for better harmony of the ingredients.

Eager to try, I went home and re-did the recipe according to her instructions and VOILA!  - a far superior tasting mushroom. In fact, I was so pleased with the result,  I went ahead and ate the whole pan for dinner (because that’s how I live my life sometimes. Please don’t judge.)

After the jump, Beth’s stuffed mushroom improvement advice!

In addition to the ingredients from the original recipe (I did swap the artichoke hearts from the fresh veggie for some canned ones to save time), you’ll need:

• 1/4 cup chopped shallot
• One chopped clove of garlic
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1/4 cup Italian bread crumbs
• Two tablespoons grated Parmesan (optional)

And her instructions: Sauté 1/4 cup chopped shallot and one chopped clove of garlic in a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat for about two minutes. Add a cup of the mashed artichoke and saute for another two  minutes. Add 1/4 cup white wine and cook on medium, stirring, until the liquid evaporates. Turn off the heat and stir in 1/4 cup Italian bread crumbs. Stuff the mushrooms with this mixture, top with tomato slices, drizzle with more olive oil and bake.

For those so inclined to also include cheese,  mix two tablespoons grated Parmesan in with the breadcrumbs and top the stuffed mushrooms and tomatoes with another two tablespoons before baking.

And that’s it! Big, huge, ginormous thank you to Beth for the recipe!

Recipe contributed by Ken Green and Tammy Towers, a father daughter cooking duo

Tammy Towers is my sweet BF’s sister in law.   Her father, Ken,  lives with Tammy and her hubby.  But that’s not a bad thing –  having your father live with you can havesome major perks – especially when he’s a great cook! I’ve had his chili at a superbowl part, and let me tell you – it was DELICIOUS.  This week Ken a made a southern stewed tomato sauce, and Tammy was nice enough to share the recipe and a photo with all of you.   Try it out and let us know what you think!

Thanks, Tammy and Ken! Recipe after the jump.

Items needed:

Ken, the chef!

1. Tomatoes (12 medium/Large) – mixture of red/yellow
2. Tomato Paste (6oz) – 2 total
3. Salt (2-3 Tbsp)
4. Pepper (Green bell)- we put 2 in sauce
5. Brown sugar (1/2 cup)
6. Onion (2 large)
7. Garlic (2 cloves)
8. Vegetable oil or olive oil
9. Banana peppers (2 total)
10. Basil, majoram, oregano (Tbsp. each- depends on your taste)

Steps:

1. Core tomatoes before cooking
2. Blanch until skin starts to wrinkle
3. Remove & place in cold water..then remove skins (set aside tomatoes)
4. Chop onions, garlic, all peppers finely
5. Add olive oil & sauté until soft in same pan
6. Add tomatoes to sautéed mixture
7. Add 2 cans of tomato paste (6oz)
8. Simmer on low/low-medium heat for a minimum of 1-2 hrs depending on taste

However, if you’re like me, one of the hardest parts of bringing our own lunch is making it exciting to eat.  That why I was so pumped to see this post on  Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn, which has ten easy lunches you can toss together. I liked these ideas because they are the other thing lunch must be – easy to make. Check out the link here!

Do you have any easy lunch ideas that are quick to toss together and hit the spot? I feel a good series on that coming on.

The Fleur-de-Lis

So I started Googling Fleur-de-Lis paintings and came across a surprising number that used the symbol against a checkered harlequin background.  I fell in love with the combo because it would a perfect compliment to our new bedspread, which as you might recall, looks like this:

After the jump, part one of how I am making the painting to match!

First, I had to figure out how the heck I was going to make harlequin checkers, since they’re not so easy to sketch out. Using a pencil and a ruler, I finally figured out a system.

Draw a horizontal line, two inches in long. Make a dot at the one inch mark, in the middle.

Put your ruler vertical across the dotted line, putting the two-inch mark of the ruler where your dot is.

Draw a vertical line four inches in length.

Now, connect the ends to form your checker (it should look like a diamond.)

Repeat, only now, you’re going to draw your vertical line first. Use the bottom point of your diamond as the new place to start your vertical line. (I found it easier to go down that to create checkers going across.) Obviously, you can adapt these ratios to fit the size checker you want.

I practiced a few times on a scrap sheet of paper (as you can see above) before drawing directly onto the canvas.  You’ll see – it gets a little messy once you do start to go along, but the smudges are okay.  You’re going to paint over them anyway.  I started in the top left-hand corner of the canvas, working my way down and going in rows.  Warning: this is very time consuming and you’ll want to rush, or toss the ruler. Ignore that feeling.  Doing this work correctly saves you a headache later (I’m speaking from experience. I thought I had got it down pat the first time sans ruler, only to discover upon finishing the stenciling, that all my checkers were different sizes and crooked. And I had to erase and start again. You won’t want to do this. Trust me.)

Now, it’s time for the fun part!  Again, heed my warnings and trust me when I say, go for a really nice acrylic paint. You’ll see in this first pass here, I used craft paint (because I’m lazy) and the quality is just not good.  The canvas shows right through. Unless you’re a glutton for punishment and want to paint over the same thing 15 times, just go for the good stuff off the bat and you’ll have the project finished in no time.  (Eventually, I bought brown acrylic paint and in part two, you’ll see the color is much richer.)

Next week, I’ll show the finished result, including adding in the blue, and how I got the Fleur-de-Lis on there, which I made red just for an unexpected pop. Stay tuned!

For those of you who don’t know me in real life, don’t be concerned.  The sweet BF is just fine.  (more intimate details after the jump.)So good, in fact, that I’m moving into his place.  But this means that I have to part ways with my roommate of seven years, Wendy, and my roommate of three years, Michelle.  Hence, the divorce.

Risotto was a staple meal in the years we lived together, one that we all loved to cook and eat.  I settled on beets as the add-in because that’s what we had in the fridge from last week’s CSA delivery.  And I love how beets turn the risotto rice pink in color.  In addition to the risotto I cooked, Michelle sauteed a mixture of butter beans and green beans, and prepared a green salad of arugula and mustard greens, also from the CSA.  We also roasted some corn from the CSA with a bit of chili powder and Frank’s Red hot. (I put the corn on my greens – delicious. )

For instructions on how to make risotto, refer to this post on making risotto.  Follow the basic recipe.  Chop your fresh beets (NOT pickled!) up into small pieces, and throw them in right at the beginning, when you add the wine.  This will give them enough time to get soft.  Cut the goat cheese up into little block, or crumble it, and add it to the risotto at t at the very end, after you take it off of the burner.  Add as much or as little as you like, for taste.  You should still add Parmesan as you normally would as well.

Here’s our last supper, in all its glory:

I even splurged and used the fancy Michele-Schlumberger olive oil.  The only thing that would have made it better was if I was drinking a Michele-Schlumberger Cab!

In short, I really wanted to try and make some kind of stuffed mushroom. And I was so very close to making something delicious.  Alas – I did not. I’m hoping that if I post my ingredients, someone out there might help me out with ideas to make it better. Because this was simply just an amalgamation of vegetables that tasted like…an amalgamation of vegetables. I teased this post last week, but am about five days late in actually posting it. So…sorry about that.

• Artichoke hearts (the ones I used were from the actual artichoke)
• Portobello mushrooms
• Cherry tomatoes

My cooking process and photos after the jump.

After cooking the artichokes – from this recipe here – I took the hearts, lightly mashed them with some olive oil and a shake of cayenne pepper for heat, and placed them inside the mushrooms. Then I topped with the cherry tomatoes, seasoned with a little salt and pepper, and let them bake for about eight minutes.

The portobellos with stems removed and ready for stuffing.

Now with the artichoke mix inside.

With tomato and ready for baking! Was a voila! moment that wasn't.

Were they inedible and disgusting? No. But all three of these things are delicious and in my mind, they should have blended nicely. Alas. A little help here please?