Potato Mushroom Soup

Potato Mushroom Soup

A week or so ago, the Guinea Pig and I heard the word mushroom soup and that set my brain into motion.  I wanted to keep things as simple as possible and come up with my own soup rather than looking up a recipe for one.

To keep things simple I used very few ingredients, namely: onion, shiitake mushrooms, potatoes, water, salt, white pepper, sunflower seed oil.  Sauté onions and mushrooms, add potatoes and water, cook, puree, season...simple and easy for me.  One optional step that I took was I reserved a few pieces of mushrooms and used them as garnish.

Considering the soup was gone in one sitting (multiple helpings), I'm going to assume it was a success.

"Butterflied" Chicken Thighs

Butterflied Chicken Thighs

Tired of just seasoning and baking the thighs, I wanted to spice things up a bit.  That's when a stroke of brilliance led me to butterfly the thighs before seasoning them.

The process of making this dish is a relatively simple one.  Prepare (butterfly) the thighs, rub them with seasoning, sear in a pan, stick pan in the oven and bake for a bit over an hour.

I have now made them twice this way, once with dry seasonings (garlic seasoning mix) and once with wet (raspberry mustard dip).  Both times the thighs came out moist and delicious.

"Asian" Shepherd's Pie

"Asian" Shepherd's Pie

We stopped by a local Irish restaurant this weekend that we've been meaning to go to for over a year now.  The Guinea Pig ordered a helping of shepherd's pie off the menu and enjoyed it.  When we got home, he had a craving for more, leaving it up to me to satisfy his belly.

Luckily, we had almost all the ingredients at home.  As we were out that day, we kept meaning to pick up the one missing ingredient, Worcester sauce, but didn't.  As neither of us wanted to forage out in the rain again, I came up with the idea of using soy sauce instead and call it Asian Shepherd's Pie.  The Guinea Pig was intrigued enough by the idea to let me try.

I used a mix of lamb, beef, and pork for my meat.  Added to it finely diced and sautéed onions and carrots as well as previously frozen peas and plenty of garlic.  For flavoring, I used a mixture of soy sauce, hoisin sauce, and ketchup.  Topped it all off with mashed potatoes and in to the oven it went.  After about 40 minutes, the Guinea Pig was enjoying himself multiple helpings.