Cheese Olive Herb Bread & Mushroom Brie Soup

It all started with the need to use up our Brie cheese.  I found 2 good looking recipes on Pinterest.  I decided to made this soup.  Some modifications that I made were to put the onions in the oven to caramelize as well as the mushrooms.  I did not have enough room on one cookie sheet so I used 2, 1 for the mushrooms and 1 for the onions.  I used a little less butter than called for to cook the garlic and make the roux.  And I just used fat-free milk not cream.  The soup was creamy and delicious!

For the bread, I sauteed an onion until golden and toasty to add to the bread dough. I did not put the sundried tomatoes in.  For the herbs, I used dried thyme and some Penzeys herb mixture.  Very good bread- moist and flavorful!!  Yummy with the olives, cheese, onion and herbs!

Italian Wedding Soup

With frigid, below zero temperatures, I wanted to make a warm, hearty soup.  I followed this recipe for the most part.  For the meatball meat portion, I combined 1 pound of lean, ground turkey and 1/2 pound pork sausage and then froze half of them.  I did add some mushrooms that were leftover which added flavor and texture.  Next time, I would add more mushrooms and shredded carrots.  I would also add the spinach at the very end.  Very tasty!!!

Corn Fritters with Homemade Salsa and Zucchini Pizza Boats

Katie:  Even though I’m not getting paid to be an OT yet, one of the bonuses at my fieldwork site this summer has been having colleagues who occasionally bring in vegetables from their gardens to share.  I love using fresh seasonal vegetables for cooking.  Here are two of the creations I’ve made with these vegetables recently: 

I made corn fritters based on the Cooking Light recipe I’ve posted previously, but topped them with an improvised salsa this time using tomatoes from our balcony garden.  They were a great summer meal! 

Using some gigantic zucchinis that I got at work, I decided to try these Zucchini Pizza Boats.  I followed the recipe as written, with the exception of adding some shredded cheese. 

They were pretty easy to make, and tasted delicious! 

Chicken Cutlets with Mushrooms

We tried a new recipe from Cooking Light.  The name of the recipe was Chicken Cutlets with Mushrooms recipe.  It was very tasty and easy to make.  The only substitution I made was to use a chopped onion instead of the pearl onions.  This would be great to have with pasta, garlic bread and a nice salad.

Walnut Blitz Torte

jillpickle: Blitz Torte (or sometimes called German Blitz Torte) was one of Bill’s childhood favorites that his mom made for special occasions.  From what I’ve read, it seems that this was popular in the 1950’s and created in America, not Germany.  It appears that most of the recipes I found consisted of 2 layers of butter cake topped with a meringue and almonds with a custard filling.  Bill’s mom used walnuts instead of almonds so I did find a recipe with walnuts.  Making all of the components: cake, meringue and custard was time consuming but worth the effort!  I didn’t want a huge cake that only the 2 of us would eat so I cut the recipe in half and used (2) 6″ cake pans.  The result was a tiny buttery, crunchy sweet cake!  Tastes great topped with sweetened whipped cream!     Walnut Blitz Torte.

Cinnamon Bread

jillpickle:  I wanted to make something with cinnamon so I decided to make cinnamon bread.  I did a search and found this recipe:  Homemade Cinnamon Bread by the Pioneer Woman.  As you can see by the pictures below, it rose over the pan a bit!  Next time, I would use a larger bread pan or cut back on the rising time.  I did put it in a warm oven with a pan of warm water below to help create a warmer environment to rise.  That did the trick!  The bread dough itself was very smooth and tender and made a rich, yummy bread.  I also used fresh eggs given to me by a knitter friend!  It made excellent French toast with a pat of cinnamon and sugar butter!  Comfort food for sure!

Beef Wellington with Roasted Red Potatoes

jillpickle:  I decided to make The Ultimate Beef Wellington recipe from Tyler Florence for New Years Day.  It was a fun recipe to try.  Next time I would try to remove more of the moisture from the duxelles before spreading it on the pastry.  For me, some of the moisture caused a little bit of a soggy bottom.  Other than that, it was a great recipe.  I liked the potato recipe too.

Maple Glazed Salmon and Sweet Potato Latkes

Katie:  I’m not sure how I got so lucky to have people making me such delicious food, whether it was Dad’s homemade applesauce, Matt’s cinnamon rolls made from scratch, or Mom’s decadent desserts!  I was treated again this weekend to a great meal and a nice break from studying for finals.  Ken made this maple glazed salmon and sweet potato latkes.  The maple flavoring was wonderful with the salmon, and the latkes were a great accompaniment.  And he didn’t even let me do the dishes!

Coq au Vin with Gourmet Mushroom Risotto

jillpickle: After watching an episode on PBS of Martha Stewart making stews, I knew I had to try one.  I tried this recipe – Coq au Vin. It turned out very well!  A good ‘comfort’ meal!  I also made  Gourmet Mushroom Risotto to serve under or with the stew as recommended by Martha.  It was a great choice!

Chicken Parmesan with Oven-Roasted Tomato Sauce

jillpickle: I decided to make a Chicken Parmesan with Oven-Roasted Tomato Sauce Recipe from this month’s Cooking Light.  It was a little time consuming and resulted in lots of dirty dishes (which is not bad if you live in a house where someone else likes to wash dishes).  One of the reasons that this turned out so well was that we used organic cherry tomatoes, home-grown garlic, home-grown lemon thyme and organic onion.  It turned out to be the best Chicken Parmesan I’ve ever eaten.  Modifications I made were few: I used a small onion in place of the shallot and instead of cutting the chicken through the middle, I flattened the chicken with a mallet and cut the cutlets in half.  I had more chicken that the recipe called for so I used more bread crumbs.  Really yummy!!!