Michael Symon's Collard Greens and White Bean Soup (Sort of)

Yes, I know in my last post I said I was hoping to blog more. I'm a bad blogger, sorry :( It has been more than five months since I last wrote a post. Before I get to the recipe I guess so updates are in order.

First, Santa Cruz is no longer my destination for completing my degree. I know, it sounded so great. Eventually I realized I really did not want to move 600 miles away from my friends and family. I have since applied to Cal State Northridge and expect to start in the fall.

Second, I still need to move. Some of this issues that I did not go into last time are no longer a problem, but living here is still stressful and aggravating. We are hoping to move with some friends who are in a similar situation and also need to move.

Third, I have updated my deviantART page and am now a semi-active member of that community again. I would hope that you all would take a look at my art. Some is good, some is eh, and some I don't know what I was thinking ;)

 

Now for the recipe. Have any of you been watching ABC's The Chew? It is the only daytime talkshow that I watch and I love it so much! For those of you who have yet to see it, the show has five hosts: Iron Chefs Michael Symon and Mario Batali, Clinton Kelly from TLC's What Not to Wear, Top Chef fan favorite Carla Hall, and Daphne Oz, daughter of Dr. Oz. Together they talk about what is going on in the food world, offer up so fashion and healthy living tips, and cooks amazing food! Check it out Monday through Friday at 12pm Pacific time.

The most recent recipe that I made from The Chew is Michael Symon's Collard Greens and White Bean Soup. Now, Brandon doesn't like collard greens so instead I used wild arugula. Then I decided it could use a few more vegetables so I added heirloom carrots and white potatoes. The original recipe calls for 12 cups of chicken stock. Originally the soup was suposed to be simmering for an hour to cook the dry beans. I used only canned beans and the potaotes didn't take that long so I only used 10 cups of stock. I also love sage so I threw some of that in the simmering soup as well. Oh, and I added cayenne pepper and chili powder. I think it is offically MY soup recipe and not HIS soup recipe at this point. The recipe that follows is my recipe, please check out thechew.com for Michael Symon's recipe.

 

Sausage and Arugula Soup

Ingredients:

1/4 cup Olive oil

1 1/2 yellow onions, diced finely

3/4 pound sausage (any kind, but I used Argentinian) casings removed and crumbled

1 teaspoon Red Pepper flakes

3 large heirloom carrots (I used 1 yellow, 1 purple, and 1 light orange)

4 large white potaotes

10 cups low sodium chicken broth

1 small bunch of sage

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Pepper to taste

1/2 teaspoon each, chili powder and cayenne pepper

2 cans cannellini beans

8 cups wild arugula

 

In a medium stock pot, add the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the onion and a pinch of salt. Cook until soft, about 3 minutes.

Add the sausage and red pepper flakes and cook until the sausage is no longer pink.

While the sausage is cooking, chop the carrots and potatoes. Small pieces will cook more quickly and be easier to eat.

Add the vegetables, spices, sage and chicken broth. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.

Simmer until the potaotes are tender, about forty minutes.

Add the beans and simmer another twenty minutes.

Add the arugula and simmer for ten more minutes.

Test your seasoning and adjust with salt or pepper.

 

Serve with freshly grated parmasan cheese and some qualty french bread.

Here is a photo of the finished product.

 

This soup does take quite a bit of time to make, so it is not best for a busy night, but it does make a whole lot of soup, so feel free to make it on a weekend and freeze most of it for a later date!

A Long Absence

I have not made a new blog post since December! I have had so much to blog about and for no good reason i have neglected to share what has been going on. In January Brandon and I visited his parents in Washington, they live in Grand Coulee. While there I made those delicious lemon cookies and the fruit gelees. Both were received very well. I took so many photos while we were there and hopefully I will share some in the near future (I am apparently a photo hoarder!)

I have failed to find a steady job since Dairy Queen closed on me ( I was not too sad to see that store close forever!) I am doing seasonal work at See's which is a lot of fun. No work til November though. School is going...ok. I am so tired of going to community college!

We have been spending a lot of time with another married couple we have known for...as a couple...maybe eight years? Recently Brandon has started introducing them to horror movies and we have been watching influential horror movies in chronological order. Right now we are in the 70's. It has been fun as I have not seen most of the movies we watch and I am excited to rewatch those that I love.

Family life has been very stressful. Without gong in to details things in the Cohen house have been rough and I really do not deal with stress well at all. I can't wait to move, I miss have a whole apartment that is mine. The plan is still to move to Santa Cruz next summer so I will have to stick it out until then.

Several months ago our friend introduced us to Millenium Pro Wresting, a local promotion that puts on a GREAT live show. It has been a blast getting to know the wresters and the people who run the company. I have taken over 800 photos at their last four shows! Please check out their website and see what they are all about.

Well, I have to go to the store to buy more peaches so I can make peach/blueberry crisp again. Until later, have a great day!

Holidays 2010

Christmas is over for another year. I have been so busy and unmotivated that I have not been posting anything. I did make some great goodies this year that everyone loved. I am glad that I decided to go the food gift route this year because we had no money and no time for store-bought gifts.

This year I made Fruit Gelées from Not So Humble Pie. These were my great triumph this year as I had never made anything like it before. They came out perfect! I want to make them again and again because it was so easy and so awesome. I did take some photos with my phone so they are only ok.



By the way, do not do what I did and scatter extra sugar on the bottom of the container. Even though I *know* sugar sucks up moisture (after watching years of Good Eats how could I not know!) I added more to the bottom. Two days later when I was ready to make up my gifts there was a layer of goo at the bottom because the sugar and moisture in the air made a thick syrup. I salvaged as much as I could, not wanting to give my friends sticky candy, and only threw out about a third of what I made.

I am very excited to try making these again. I need to find a good place to buy pectin at a reasonable price because I don't think more than $5 a box is reasonable when I need two for the recipe.


My gifts this year had a yellow theme apparently. Also included in my gift boxes this year were these Lemon Burst Cookies. These cookies were delicious and delightfully fragrant. I do not own any fruit extracts so I made up the difference with extra zest and extra juice. The photo for these came out better than the candy photo.



Unfortunately I over baked one batch of these cookies. Fortunately it didn't make much of a difference in taste, they were just a bit darker. These were a big hit and I recommend anyone who enjoys lemon to make them. Also it is a good idea to chill the dough before rolling in the powdered sugar, it will be less sticky.

You have to have fudge for Christmas. I think it is a rule somewhere. I tried two fudge recipes. One failed and one surpassed my expectations. The first recipe I tried was Chocolate Philadelphia Fudge which sounded great. Why not replace the marshmallow creme with cream cheese, sounds delicious, right?

This did not come out right at all. If you click on the link and check out their photos, it looks like real fudge. Here is a photo of how mine looked.



It came out really light colored and did not set up at all. Furthermore it didn't taste very good which is odd because it is basically chocolate cream cheese frosting. I don't know what I did wrong but even freezing this fudge didn't help. I had to throw it out. If anyone decided to make this, please let me know the result.

My second fudge recipe came on the back of a baking bar that I bought to make the Philly fudge with. I do not remember the company but I think it was Tollhouse or Nestle. Here is the recipe for the fudge, it is very simple.

2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
8 ounces semi sweet chocolate, chopped*
1 teaspoon vanilla.

Combine condensed milk and chocolate in a microwave safe bowl.
Microwave on high for one minute**
Stir and microwave 15 seconds more if needed.
Stir in vanilla a pour into an 8X8 pan lined with foil***
Refrigerate at least 2 hours until firm.

*I used chocolate chips because that is what I had on hand
**Don't worry the chocolate won't burn
***The recipe calls for a loaf pan but I felt that would make really thick fudge so I used a larger pan

Sadly, I have no photos of the yummy fudge but it did come out excellent and is my new favorite recipe. I used it to make, not only regular fudge, but chocolate mint fudge as well by using the dark and mint chips from Nestle. They were very well received.

I hope everyone had a great holiday and great food!

Sam

Turkey Day

I hate when people call Thanksgiving "Turkey Day". It isn't all about the turkey, it is about family. I also have this thing where I can't stand it when people give things new names (like turkey day.) Why can't we just call it what it is? Anyway, I already used "Thanksgiving" as a post title so I went with the popular term for Thanksgiving. Random rant over and done with!

Thanksgiving is only THREE days away! I am looking forward to the meal and the baking and cooking and hopefully this holiday will help it feel like the Christmas season in our house. We don't have any Scrooges in my family but no one seems to care and I can't care enough for the whole house! Here's hoping.

New Name?

I'm thinking of renaming by blog. When I started I couldn't think of a name and came up with the one I have now. I don't really like it so I thought I might change it. While at dinner tonight we were both full but still wanted dessert. Brandon said, "There is always room for dessert." I thought that would be a great name for this blog since when I blog about food it is mostly dessert. Does anyone have any thoughts on this new name? Any other ideas? Please help, my current name is lame!

Thanksgiving

I freaked out a little bit yesterday when I realized Thanksgiving was a mere two weeks away! How did this happen? Somehow it is almost Christmas! I am really looking forward to the holidays this year because last year my dad was sick and in the hospital and our holidays kind of sucked. I told my mom we should go all out this year (at least with the decorations around the house) and she agreed! I am anticipating some fun days of decorating ahead.

For Thanksgiving this year we are most likely celebrating with some of my parents' friends and some of their family. This means that we will be making more food and my mom and I are going to be perfectionists in the kitchen. We are also having some non-traditional foods this year.

We are making a goose instead of a turkey and I am really excited to try goose as I have never had it before. Along with that we may be making some sort of fish as a second main course. We plan to roast vegetables and make traditional stuffing. Since the Cinnamon Pear Bruschetta was such a hit I am making that again for dinner. I knew when I made the Brownie Cheesecake that I wanted to make a pumpkin version for Thanksgiving and I found the exact recipe that I needed. Now that we are having dinner with others I have to get candy melts and decorate the cheesecake, but that is OK by me! For a second dessert I want to make these Apple Tarts. They are from Alton Brown so you know they will be good and easy to make.

I think we are going to end up with way too much food but I also think it is going to be a lot of fun. I only know these friends of my parents' in passing but they sound like good people. You can bet that I am going to be taking photos galore so there will be plenty to see in a few weeks.

On a slightly related note: this upcoming week KOST 103.5 should start their 'Month Long of Christmas Song'. I am of course more than ready to start listening to more Christmas music. Brandon is less than enthused. He knows that whenever we are in the car, whether in our car or in my mom's car, that station will be on and we will be singing along with Bing and Nat and everyone else. I <3 Christmas!

Week of New Things

This past week my parents went on a cruise to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. This left me and the boys (my husband and my brother) alone and me responsible for dinners. Feeling a little ambitious, I chose a menu comprised entirely of dishes I had never made before (except for pizza but that ended up not working so we had pasta.)

Some of these dishes came out better than others. Here are the dishes and my thoughts on each:

Stuffed Potato Pancakes-Great idea in theory but I must have done something wrong because they weren't that great. Aside from the fact that shredded potato oxidizes really quickly and turns kinda pink and then black after a while, this dish didn't really have any flavor. Also, the potato cakes soaked up all the oil used to fry them so they turned grey. I plan to try this again in the future, maybe asking some questions of the person who posted this dish first. No photos because they were too ugly.

Chocolate Chip Dream Bars-These were amazing! I accidentally over-baked them a little and they were still delicious. These have great flavor because, unlike a standard cookie bar, they have a crust and this crust was basically brown sugar and butter (and of course, my ever-present Pumpkin Pie Spice.) All in all, very delicious and a recipe I will keep and most certainly make again. Here are some photos:



You can see how crispy the top got; do not over-bake!
I actually made these twice within one week, they were so good I had to make them again! The second time I used less chocolate because it was all I had left and I was careful not to over bake them. This resulted in a much chewier texture that was similar to pecan pie filling. I thought this was very interesting and delicious!


Marinated Tofu and Vegetable Stir Fry-I wasn't too impressed with this when I first made it, but after I was done eating I decided it was really good. The vegetables I used were bell peppers (red and yellow), broccoli, bok choy (yum!) and white onion. The only problem I really had with this dish is it needed something to go with it, probably rice. A nice bowl of sticky rice with the stir fry on top would have been awesome. No photos, I forgot. I made this twice as well. When my parents came home I made them dinner for their anniversary and this was part of their dinner. They both enjoyed it.

Crab and Cream Cheese Stuffed Wontons-This is possibly my favorite dish this week! This recipe is very easy although extremely time consuming, an assembly line would have been nice. The original recipe called for imitation lobster but I though crab would be good since I had eaten Crab Ragoon (basically the same thing only fried) before. I also left out the green onion because I don't like it. The original recipe called for 1/2 a teaspoon of sriracha in the filling, you can see in the original step-by-step photos that her cream cheese is still white. I added at least 1 whole teaspoon, if not more and my cream cheese was pink! We like spicy food though so it was good. We ate this for lunch because we were running out of days on our own and I really wanted to make it. Supposedly this should have made about 32 wontons but I ended up using the whole package of wrappers (42!) and still had filling left! I could have easily served my whole family this dish (with some rice and veggies) and my parents would have enjoyed it. Photos:



Serve with some soy and sriracha sauce. Mmmmm.

Roasted Chicken and Vegetables-Yours truly has never roasted a chicken before. I know that sounds ridiculous since roast chicken is incredibly easy and very popular but somehow I have always ended up using my slow cooker instead. This week I was determined to roast a chicken like everyone else has. It came out very tasty! For my veggies I used leftover bok choy, leftover red and yellow bell peppers, new potatoes and zucchini. For my spices I chopped some rosemary and thyme, added some salt, black pepper, white pepper and garlic powder. After sprinkling the veggies with the spices I added the remainder to some soft butter and spread it over the chicken. The result was super crispy skin and slightly too oily veggies, but the chicken was very tender. The bok choy was my favorite veggie. Hooray for first tries!

To go along with the tofu stir fry I made for my parents I also made these Pork and Ginger Pot Stickers. I changed the recipe a bit. I did not want cabbage and other veggies inside so I made them with ground pork and ground beef. I did not have any sesame oil on hand and omitted the bouillon. They were superb! The recipe says to cook them for seven minutes but I found they did not need that long. I would say four minutes was plenty of time, all of the meat was thoroughly cooked by then. I had a bit of the filling left over and I cooked it up and added it to the left over stir fry for lunch the next day. It was yummy! Again, no photos but they looked pretty much the same as the other ones. I am now not afraid of making won tons and can't wait to make more!

Please check out these links and consider making some of them for your dinner.

Sam