Sausage with Smashed Potatoes and Cornichons

Rachel here: My brother G is staying with us for a while which means I am finally feeding the number of people I cook for (I seem doomed to cook for four, which leaves John feeling compelled to eat for three...when he and G combine their appetites, I am cooking for four). In addition to the noticeable decrease in leftovers, it's just really nice having my brother here and watching him and M play together and whatnot. Plus, he's pretty helpful.


Anyway, I'd been wanting to make this dish for a while and finally got around to doing it the other night when G arrived. It is super yummy and, frankly, I could eat these potatoes on their own. We rarely eat mashed potatoes because they feel like too much work, but smashed potatoes? Oh yeah--these will be cropping up on dinner plates in our house with regularity.


I got the recipe from Real Simple. Click here so you can have this super delicious and awesomely easy dinner tonight.

Slurp! Soup!

Rachel here: The recipe I'm sharing this week is from my grandma on my dad's side (my grandma on my mom's side is/was my grandy). The last time that I had it with her was a few years ago when I brought John to Connecticut for the first time to meet my family. We went to my grandparents' for lunch and this was on the menu. I had started gathering recipes from my grandma a little bit earlier and so, after lunch, I followed her into the kitchen and asked her for this one. Chicken soup is one of the great simple foods, I think, when it's done well. So often, though, it's a mediocre product. My grandma's recipe (which she would want me to reveal she learned from her brother's former wife because she was humble like that), however, gives chicken soup all of the tlc it needs to turn around and give that tlc right back to the person eating it. It is at once complex and familiar, hearty and basic. When my kitchen began to smell like my grandma's house, I was transported back to that afternoon copying her recipe while she chattered about how nice John seemed while putting the lunch dishes away. I could see the sunlit snow through her windows and hear the quiet calm that always hugged her home. My house smelled like my grandma's house last night and, frankly, as I come close to the one-year anniversary of her death, it is nice to know that she is a part of my home and my new family, that something as simple as chicken soup--and with it, my grandma--can be carried and woven and traced throughout my life.

Grandma's Belgian Chicken Soup
Ingredients
1 roasting chicken (3 1/2 to 4 1/2 pounds)
1 large onion, sliced
2 medium leaks, cleaned and chopped
4 stalks of celery, chopped
3 small carrots, sliced
1 parsnip, sliced
4 c. water
1 1/2 c. dry white wine
4 sprigs of parsley (plus extra to garnish)
2 tspn. fresh thyme (I used lemon thyme)
1 bay leaf
2 whole cloves (I used 1 tspn. ground cloves instead)
1 T. instant chicken bouillon
2 tspn. salt
1/4 tspn. pepper
1/4 tspn. nutmeg
1/4 tspn. cayenne
2 egg yolks
1/2 c. half-and-half
1/2 lemon (or, one small lemon) thinly sliced

Method
Combine the first eight ingredients (my grandma's recipes always give instructions this way and I find it nice and concise), from the chicken through the wine in a large pot. Make a bouquet garni with the parsley, thyme, bay leaf and cloves (or don't...I didn't, but if you are not going to then definitely go with ground cloves and don't forget to fish out your bay leaf when the soup is done cooking). Add to soup pot along with bouillon and spices (by spices I am referring to the ingredients from the salt through the cayenne). Bring this all to a boil, then reduce the heat and cover, letting simmer for an hour or more until the chicken is tender.

About halfway through, rotate the chicken if it is not entirely covered by the liquid. When chicken is tender, remove from pot. At this time, if you have used one, you should also remove the bouquet garni. If you didn't go the garni route, this would be a good time to find that bay leaf and pull it out. Remove skin from the chicken and cut the meat from the bones into bite-sized pieces. Skim the fat from the chicken broth before returning the now bite-sized chicken to the pot (if your chicken is on the larger side you may not need to add all of the chicken back into the pot which means you will have some very yummy meat for sandwiches...in fact, it's so delicious that I would recommend erring on the larger side for your chicken in the name of having leftover meat).

Combine the egg yolks with the half-and-half and stir this mixture into the soup. Heat until hot, but do not boil. Stir in your lemon slices. Sprinkle each serving with chopped parsley, put some hearty fresh bread on the table and dig in.

Seriously? I think this soup is perfection. What do you think? I also think the stock would be a great base for other soups, though I've never tried it because this recipe is so good that I never want to not make it.



Janet here: As the older of this duo, I love reading how much cooking with her grandmother means to Rachel. It makes me feel so heartened to see the story continues even after the death of the cook.

Making soup always makes me feel so cozy. The process is so relaxing — cutting up the vegetables and other ingredients — and like baking cookies on a cold rainy or snowy day, it just makes me feel so safe and warm. This roasted vegetable soup is my adaptation of a recipe I first made from one of the Barefoot Contessa's cookbooks. I hope you like it. As with most of what I do, there's room for variations and individual ideas. Enjoy!

Roasted Root Vegetable Soup
makes at least 10 servings

Ingredients
20 ounces of turnips, peeled and cut into cubes
5 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes
3 large carrots, peeled and diced
3 large potatoes, skin on and cut into cubes
64 ounces of chicken or vegetable broth
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

Method
Heat oven to 400 degrees.
Put the vegetables into a large bowl. Dribble with olive oil and salt and pepper. Mix well.Put onto a roasting pan. Cook for about 40 minutes until the vegetables are done. Turn at least once in the middle to make sure all sides get roasted well.

After the vegetables are cooled, add to a blender a little at a time with some of the broth and puree. I happen to like my soup just one or two steps above mashed potatoes, but if you like it soupier, then you'll want to perhaps use more broth in general.
Heat and serve when you're ready. This is soup with substance, so all you need is some bread and maybe a salad to have a complete winter meal.

Simple Suppers

Rachel here: Oh, we all know those days. You know, the ones where you come home and you sort of realize that your day isn't actually over yet because there's still dinner to figure out. As a city-dweller, this often leads to take-out or delivery in my house. Sometimes, though, even that seems like more effort than I can handle, what with the plentitude of options and then the inevitable waiting. On these nights, there is a staple in my house: the quesadilla. There are always (and I do mean always) tortillas in my freezer and cheese in the fridge. Throw in whatever random vegetable and meat bits we have leftover and a hearty dinner is mere minutes away (particularly if you have made a batch of black beans earlier in the week...see Wednesday's post). After a long day, I can't think of anything better.

Quesadillas
Ingredients
flour tortillas (I prefer corn and John prefers flour, which is what I ended up using for these)
grated cheese (I used a bit of jack and a bit of cheddar)
chicken, chopped into uniform bite-sized piece
medium tomato
avocado (I recognize that avocados and tomatoes aren't in season everywhere, so substitute with a good local alternative)
cayenne
salt and pepper
lime

Method
Cook chicken in large pan, seasoning to your preference with salt, pepper and cayenne. Prepare tortillas by lining one half with a bit of cheese before dividing chicken up amongst them and covering with cheese (Amounts for tortillas, cheese and chicken will vary depending on how many you're looking to feed. I used one large tortilla per person and divided about 3/4 lb. of chicken between them). Place these tortilla pockets back into pan you cooked chicken in (one-dirty-dish cooking is part of the beauty of this easy dinner option!). Flip after a few minutes, once underside is nicely browned and cheese has started melting. Serve when everything is hot and gooey, garnishing with diced tomato and avocado on top and serving with lime wedges on the side. Of course, various hot sauces and sour cream should be waiting on the table to optimal enjoyment. Yum!

Janet here: Rachel has the best idea here for a simple supper you can throw together in minutes. I wish I had thought of it but I didn't so there it is. Anyway my main way of making supper easy these days is cooking ahead. Shepherd's Pie is my go-to comfort dinner in the winter months, and it's a crowdpleaser so it's doubly satisfying. I make this shepherd's pie using ground turkey because I don't eat red meat. I also use taco seasoning as my secret seasoning ingredient. In other words, it's tacos with mashed potatoes, making it a win-win for feel-good meals. Here's how I do it.

Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients
1 pound ground turkey
1 package taco seasoning
1 1/2 cups corn (I use frozen)
dried onion flakes to taste (this is the way I get onions into things for picky eaters)
4 Russet potatoes
1 stick butter
3/4 cup sour cream
salt and pepper to taste

Method
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Brown the turkey in a little oil. Add the taco seasoning and follow directions for regular tacos. Add in the corn. After it's done, place in the bottom of a casserole baking dish.
While the meat mixture is cooking, cut up some potatoes (skins on is my preference), cook in boiling water until tender. Then drain, put back into the pot with a stick of butter. Mash up the potatoes, add salt and pepper to taste, maybe a little chicken broth with the sour cream to make them as smooth as you like. Sometimes I add grated cheese as well if I'm feeling really decadent.
Bake uncovered for 30-40 minutes until it's bubbling slightly.

Soup-er Suppers

First an apology. We're having trouble loading our post so I'm trying it without the pictures to see if that works. Hopefully we'll get this resolved soon. In the meantime, use your imagination.

Janet here: Part of what I want from a meal in winter is comfort. The weather is generally dreary and when I come in the door after work, I want warmth — literally and figuratively. I want a fire roaring in the fireplace and I want to create a warm feeling for my family by the food I cook. It's a tall order I know but if I can make it happen even one day a week, I'm happy.

For me, soup figures large in this elusive formula. I'm not sure why really. It's not as if I grew up on homemade soups. But for some reason slurping on soup just makes me feel cozy, and potato leek soup makes me feel coziest of all. Here's hoping it makes you feel the same with the people you love. I plan to serve mine on a busy night this week when both my husband and I have to go out again after work to various functions. I will probably add grilled cheese on some good bread and maybe if I'm feeling really ambitious, a salad. It's a hearty meal for a cold winter's night, which is what every night is like here in the Northeast where I live until, oh, April ... if we're lucky.

Potato and Leek Soup
serves 4-5

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
3 medium leeks, well cleaned and diced--not the green part
1 yellow onion, sliced
4 large Russet potatoes, cubed (I leave the skin on because that's where a lot of the nutrients and fiber are but you can skin if you prefer)
32 oz. vegetable broth (yes you can make your own but I'm a working mother so I use Trader Joe's hearty organic vegetable broth. If you make your own, you are an instant cooking goddess in my book.)
milk (amount to be determined by how soupy you like your soup)
salt, pepper and chives to taste

Method
Melt the butter and saute the leeks and onion until translucent in a large pot. Once done, add the potato cubes and the vegetable broth. Simmer until the potatoes are done. Let cool and then throw into the blender. You'll have to do it in bunches because it won't all fit. Then add some milk to get it to the consistency you like (add a little at a time so you don't overdo it and end up with milk soup) and voila! Fabulous hearty soup. Try adding some chives and grated cheese on top right before serving.

Rachel here: So, I want to go have dinner at my mom's house because potato leek soup is one of the better things in life, I think. When she told me she was making it I decided to try to make a soup that got me just as excited. And so, for the first time ever, I made french onion soup. It seemed so warm and sweet and tangy when I thought of it. Plus, I had seen a recipe in Real Simple magazine a few months back and the picture that accompanied the recipe made my mouth water every time I turned to that page. The end product, while totally satisfactory, was a soup that both my partner and I felt was missing a certain something. We're not sure what it is, but we both felt that this recipe was a little too basic tasting. We suspect the issue could be with the store-bought broth (since we are definitely make-your-own-stock people...alas, the move...and, as an aside, if you save those chicken bones from my mom's chicken salad she posted the other day you're on your way to making your own delicious reserve of chicken stock!) It was, however, a vehicle for toasted bread with cheese and so, dutifully, we each devoured our bowls. Anyway, if you have your own french onion soup recipe that you think hits the nail on the head, or if you've tried this one and have similar sentiments about it, I'd love to hear from you!

serves 4

Ingredients
3 T. unsalted butter
2 lbs. onions, thinly sliced
salt and pepper
1/2 c. dry white wine (somewhere I saw a recipe that called for cognac...anybody ever tried this?)
1 c. low-sodium beef broth
4 1/2 inch-thick slices of country bread, cut to fit across serving bowls
1 c. grated Swiss cheese
1/2 T. fresh thyme

Method
Heat the butter in a large pot over medium-high heat and add the onions, 2/3 tspn. salt and a dash of fresh pepper. Cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until tender (about 10-15 minutes). Reduce heat to medium and cook, uncovered, until the onions are golden brown. This will take a while (at least 30-40 minutes) and you should stir the onions occasionally, scraping the bottom of the pot when you do to get the fullest possible flavor.

Add the wine and cook until slightly reduced (about 2 minutes). Next, add the broth and 3 c. of water and bring this to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, heat the broiler. Broil the bread until each side is golden brown (1-2 minutes or so per side). Remove, sprinkle with cheese, and place back in broiler to melt.

Pour soup into bowls, top with bread and add a sprinkle of thyme. You will be warm and toasty in a no time.

Variations on a Theme: A Chicken in Every Pot

Rachel here: For our final installment of variations on a theme this week we figured we should offer up an entree to assure you that we don't actually only eat appetizers and desserts (although neither one of us would be opposed). Since there are very few meat items that we both eat, we settled on chicken as the jumping off point. In my house, chicken is a staple of sorts, a go-to dinner ingredient due to its quick and easy-to-cook nature. My partner works and goes to school, I go to school (like it's my job...we are talking a majorly type A personality here) and often by the time we are both home and the rest of our lives have been dealt with, we crave something warm and filling with minimal effort (with effort for us translating also into number of dishes generated since we don't currently have a dishwasher...but, as I've said before, more on that later) and so, with regularity, we find ourselves staring at plates with chicken on them. Earlier in our relationship when all we wanted was to feast on dreamy stares across the table at each other our chicken was often similar: pounded, cut, marinated, cooked and served on top of salad. There was and is nothing wrong with this approach. These days, though, our chicken (oh, and our relationship) takes a little more effort to hold our interest. The recipe I've chosen to share below is an easy one with just that little extra pizazz to liven the dinner table up and leave us both feeling a little warmer and fuzzier after a long hard day.




Goat Cheese-Stuffed Chicken Breasts
serves 4 (half a stuffed breast per person)

Ingredients
2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1.5 oz. goat cheese
1 tspn. unsalted butter
3/4 tspn. minced chives
1/2 tspn. minced parsley leaves
1/8 tspn. minced thyme
1/8 tspn. lemon juice
1/8 tspn. minced garlic
salt and pepper
1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 egg
1 tspn. water
vegetable oil
1 1/4 T. paprika
1 T. garlic powder
1/2 T. onion powder
1/2 T. cayenne
1/2 T. oregano
1/2 T. dried thyme

Method
Preheat your over to 350 degrees. Lay the chicken flat on your cutting board and, about 1/3 of the way down the thicker side of each breast, cut a deep pocket horizontally into the center of the meat, roughly 3/4 of the way down the side. Be very careful not to cut all the way through.
In a small bowl mash together the goat cheese, butter, chives, parsley, fresh thyme, lemon juice and garlic, adding salt and pepper to taste. Divide this cheese mixture between the pockets you cut into your chicken breasts and then press the edges of the meat to seal the mixture in. Season chicken lightly with salt and pepper.
In a large bowl (large enough to lay your chicken breasts flat in it), combine flour and all of the ingredients from the list above that follow the vegetable oil (paprika through dried thyme), adding 1 T. of salt and pepper each. In a second bowl of comparable size beat the egg and water together.
Lightly dust the chicken on both sides with the flour mixture, dip it in the egg and water mixture (shaking to remove excess), and then place the chicken in the flour mixture a second time. Shake off excess.
In an oven-proof skillet (if you don't have a cast iron skillet, you can buy them at your local hardware store for less than $20...I highly recommend owning one if you don't and have found that searing is never easier than in cast iron), heat the vegetable oil over medium heat. Add the chicken and sear until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes per side.
Place the skillet in your pre-heated oven and bake until the chicken is cooked through, about 7-10 minutes.

As you can see in the photo above, I usually serve this chicken with a simple salad. It makes a hearty and nutritious dinner that tastes like way more effort than it takes. I whisk together a little oil and vinegar to make a simple salad dressing, add some local seasonal veggies (or, this time of year, some mandarin oranges) and serve the chicken and salad together. The meal is a bit of a staple in my house. Though I have yet to branch out beyond this version, I imagine you could stuff the chicken with any number of delicious cheese-based combinations. Any ideas? Anyway, hope you enjoy!



Janet here: Okay so my daughter decided to show me up making something that looks gorgeous on the plate for this meat staple. A little annoying, but while we are doing this blog together, the underlying theme is obviously Who is the Better Cook? It's a competition I don't intend to lose. Anyway, I'm in a cook-ahead mode of life for a variety of reasons, so this chicken stew satisfied that need and also my need to make something with chicken. I didn't actually follow a recipe but rather made this up after looking over some other recipes. In other words, there's lots of room for experimentation. Instead of tomatoes, for instance, why not try a white sauce to hold it all together? You could also make it more like a chili by using more southwestern spices, like chili powder, red pepper flakes, that kind of thing. The point is don't be afraid to branch out.

Chicken Stew
serves 4-5

Ingredients
1 yellow onion, diced
3-4 potatoes, cubed into bite-size pieces, skin on (I hardly ever remove the skin even when I make mashed potatoes; lots of vitamins there)
1 to 1 1/2 cups diced carrots
2 skinless chicken breasts cut into bite-size pieces
1 16 ounce can diced tomatoes
spices to taste: salt, pepper, thyme, oregano, basil

Method
Saute the onion, potatoes, carrots and chicken in a large pot with the spices. Once they're nicely sauteed, add the tomatoes. Adjust spices to taste.