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.

Sushi

Sushi

Every so often, the Guinea Pig and I get a craving for sushi.  A while back we figured out that it was a lot more cost effective to make our own than to go out.  Tricky part is finding ingredients.  Lucky for us we have an "Asian" supermarket nearby.

Most of the time we pick up a nice, sushimi grade fillet of salmon and go to town.  Last night was no different.  We enjoyed some California and Alaska rolls.

To make life easier for me, I make the rolls in an "outside-in" way, where I put the rice on the inside of the roll instead of the outside.  This eliminates the need for me to use a bamboo mat to aid in making the roll and keeps things a bit neater in the kitchen.

To make a roll is very simple.  Required ingredients and tools:  a sharp knife, nori, rice, and filling (i.e. salmon, avocado, masago, etc...).  Take a sheet of nori, fill it with rice leaving about an inch strip, add the fillings to that inch, roll keeping everything tight, and cut.

We usually have left over salmon, so it is not uncommon for us to have sushi two nights in a row.  Tonight I'll be making some eel rolls as well.  Too bad we don't have access to a wider variety of fresh, sushimi grade fish.

Zucchini Pancakes

Zucchini Pancakes

This is another one of my grandma's recipes, which I made for dinner for the Guinea Pig and myself last night.  The pancakes came out light and delicious.  They were served with a dollop of sour cream as is traditional.

The recipe was super simple too.  Take two zucchini's, peel and grate them.  To that, add some flour, salt, baking soda and an egg.  Mix all and fry in a pan of olive oil until browned.  If mixture gets too soggy, add more flour.  The whole thing takes about a half an hour from peeling the zucchinis to taking the pancakes out of the pan.

Weird Request

My Guinea Pig had a weird craving/request for me for a while now.  He wanted some chicken livers.  Who am I to disappoint him?

Traffic was a bit backed up yesterday, so I got off the highway a few exits early and decided to stop by the grocery store since it was almost on my way.  All that the Guinea Pig wanted was some avocados and salmon for sushi rolls, implying that he would like me to make sushi that night.  I got those and a whole lot more.

They had some very nice, freshly packed, young chicken livers that I couldn't pass up knowing how much we both would enjoy eating them.  I also couldn't pass up what seems like half the store because my forearms are feeling the burn today after carrying all the groceries around the store (I only had the hand basket since I went in for just a few items).  I must have bought enough food for a week to a week and a half.

When I let the Guinea Pig know what I had purchased, he quickly decided against the sushi rolls and asked me for chicken livers for dinner instead.  I ended up pan searing the livers and making some sautéed mushrooms and mashed potatoes as sides.  Sushi will have to be made tonight.

Winter Soup

Winter Soup

I came across a new veggie soup recipe that I just had to try.  It looked very simple to make.  With today being a very wet day outside, soup sounded delicious.

I used 1 vine ripened tomato instead of tomato paste; cut the potatoes into smaller than 1/2 inch cubes; left out the dill and stock; and increased the peas up to 1 cup.  I also skipped the puree part of the recipe.  I just didn't want to get any more dirty dishes.

The soup tasted good.  Very sweet, because of the sweet potato.  Seasoned it with a bit of sea salt and some ground black pepper.  Next time I'm going to cut everything into similar size cubes rather than having this slices of carrots and celery.