Sausage, Kale and White Bean Soup

This is one of the easiest, most flavorful soups imaginable, and it's one of my favorites for fall and winter, when local kale is cheap and easy to come by.  It's simple, rustic, hearty and light. Served with a good loaf of bread and a salad, it's an awesome dinner.

It's best to use a good sausage, one that you really like (I use Whole Foods house made spicy Italian), because with so few ingredients, you really taste it. And if you don't like kale, any kind of dark green - chard, mustard, collard, turnip, beet - would work just as well.

Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time 30 mins
Ingredients: 5

1 bunch lacinato kale, washed, trimmed from stalks, and finely chopped
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
1 pound bulk sausage (linked sausage is fine too - I've used spicy Andouille and it's awesome)
8-10 cups chicken or vegetable stock, or half stock/half water.
Salt and pepper to taste

Sautee onion in 1 tablespoon olive oil about 2 minutes. Add sausage and cook until almost browned, about 5 minutes. Add kale and continue cooking until sausage is done. Add stock and simmer 30 minutes, or longer, depending on how much time you have. Add white beans and warm through, about 10 minutes before serving.

This is so easy to put together, that it could be done in the morning, and left on low in a slow-cooker all day. It's also great to make the day before, because the flavors develop as it sits. It would be delicious with carrots, garlic, potatoes, or served over rice... but I love it in all its simple glory.

Salted Lemon Shortbread Cookies for Non-Bakers (Like Me)

We have seven - seven - mature lemon trees between our front and back yards. Which means that, this time of year, we have a metric ass-ton of lemons on our hands. We literally can't give all of them away fast enough. We put them in boxes marked "FREE! ORGANIC! PLEASE TAKE!!" on our front lawn, and though we live on a very busy corner, they still go bad. Needless to say, I make a lot of lemon vinaigrettes, pastas, sauces, etc. 

Although I'm not a baker by nature - no one could ever accuse me of being precise or deliberate - I decided to make lemon shortbread cookies to give away this holiday season.  To my immense relief, these cookies were exceedingly simple to put together and extremely delicious - holla! The rich, buttery texture and tangy lemon flavor are a perfect match.  The recipe didn't use up many actual lemons, unfortunately; I tried making them with fresh lemon juice as opposed to extract, but that just didn't work.  Maybe I'll get my shit together in time to do limoncello or Moroccan-style preserved lemons next year. In the mean time, I'll be giving whole lemons away with this year's shortbread cookies. Want some? Come on over!

Prep Time: 20 mins
Bake Time: 25 mins
Ingredients: 5

1 1/2 sticks room temperature butter
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

*Optional - Sprinkling a pinch of fresh lemon zest on the tops of the unbaked cookies gives them extra zing! Sprinkling a pinch of kosher sea salt on top of the zest really brings out the lemon flavor.

Preheat oven to 350. Cream sugar and butter together on medium til light, about 2 minutes. Sift in flour, mixing on low or by hand. The dough will be crumbly. Add extract. Add zest. On an un-greased surface using your hands, press dough into a 10 or 12-inch square. Score large square into smaller, 1 or 2-inch squares with the back of a knife. Transfer little squares to a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until edges are golden brown. Makes approximately 2 dozen cookies.

When Life Gives You Pumpkins...

... Make Shortcut Pumpkin Curry!

The pumpkins we didn't carve for Halloween ended up staying on our front porch through Thanksgiving. When the Christmas decorations came out, I decided to put the pumpkins to good use with a spicy, creamy vegetable curry. I have made my own curry before, but didn't have all the spices on hand to do it this time around, so I took a shortcut, and used a Trader Joe's simmer sauce that had been languishing in the cupboard for a couple of months. Just between you and me? The jarred, shortcut curry was every bit as flavorful, and much less time consuming, as the homemade version.

Prep Time: 60 minutes (45 of which is baking time, don't panic!)
Cook Time: 20 minutes (or more, if you want to simmer slower and longer)
Ingredients: 8-10 (depending how many veggies you want to incorporate)

1 small pumpkin
1 small yellow onion
2 large carrots
Veggies of your choice (cauliflower, small waxy potatoes, green beans, chickpeas, broccoli, sweet potatoes, squash, etc.)
1 can coconut milk
1 jar Trader Joe's Thai red curry sauce
1 cups veg stock, or to taste
Cooked brown rice


To roast the pumpkin (a sugar pie pumpkin is best):

Preheat oven to 350. Slice pumpkin in half, and remove guts. Lay pumpkin halves face-down in a baking dish, and pour 2 tbsp water over each. Bake at least 40 minutes, until fork-tender, but not mushy. Remove skin from pumpkin halves and cut into large cubes. Set aside.

In a large, heavy bottomed pot or dutch oven, sautee the onion in 1 tbsp oil, then add veggies. Cook about 5 minutes. Add curry sauce and coconut milk. Simmer on medium/low until veggies are tender, then add pumpkin. Simmer about 10 more minutes. Add stock to thin sauce, or not (I didn't). Serve with hot, cooked brown rice as a main dish, or as a side dish with baked chicken strips, to curry-hating little ingrates who may or may not try a "no thank you bite," then declare it "too spicy!"

Chocolate Cupcakes with Maker's Mark Frosting

 These are good. Like, eat-half-a-dozen-by-yourself-straight-out-of-the-oven-good.

The recipe is based on a Barefoot Contessa classic, tweaked to suit my not-so-sweet tooth. I wanted just a suggestion of sweetness in the cupcakes, because I really like the dark, slightly smoky unsweetened cocoa, and tangy creme fraiche and buttermilk.

In all honesty, my sole reason for making these cupcakes was to have a vehicle worthy of the Maker's Mark frosting I knew I wanted to attempt for Mike's birthday, whiskey being his spirit of choice. It was delicious (though next time I would add more a little more, because, let's face it... more booze is always better).

Semi-Sweet Chocolate Cupcakes

Prep Time: 25 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients: 12
Dishes you'll have to wash: Too many.

1 1/2 sticks room temp butter
2/3 cup white sugar (I used a little less)
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp good vanilla extract
1 cup room temperature buttermilk
1/2 cup creme fraiche
2 tbsps strong, brewed coffee
1 3/4 cups flour
1 cup good, unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsps baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt

Preheat oven 350. In a large bowl, cream the butter and two sugars about 5 minutes, until fluffy. Add eggs on at a time, then add vanilla. In a separate bowl, whisk together buttermilk, creme fraiche and coffee. In yet another bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. With the mixer on low, alternately add the buttermilk mixture and flour mixture to the sugars. Fill cupcake papers 2/3 full and bake about 25 minutes.

Maker's Mark Frosting for Mike

1 stick room temperature butter
1 1/4 cups confectioner's sugar
3/4 cup room temperature cream cheese
3-6 tbsp (I used 6, but will use more next time) Maker's Mark
1/2 tsp good vanilla extract

With mixer on medium, cream butter and sugar together until fluffy, about 4 mintues. Add cream cheese.  Switch speed to low and add vanilla. Add whiskey to taste, 1 tablespoon at a time.  Serve with Maker's on the rocks, if you're awesome.

Meal Plan: Monday 11/29-Sunday 12/5

Better late than never!

We were out of town for the entire Thanksgiving week, and I'm still trying to settle back into the usual routine. Also, we opted out of our CSA for the winter - it's 75% broccoli in the winter, ugh - so not having my veggie box to plan meals around is throwing me off my game a little.  It's been wonderfully cold this week - highs in the 50s! - so dinners have been warm and cozy, if a little haphazard. This is by far, my favorite time of year.

Monday - I've already forgotten what we had... spaghetti, maybe?

Tuesday - A quickly thrown together meatball minestrone, with garlic bread made by Hazel.

Wednesday - Meatloaf,  salad with homemade Caesar dressing, potato latkes (my first time making these, everyone loved them!)

Thursday - Split pea soup, "Lovestick" bruschetta (you heard me!) with tomatoes and herbed feta, fruit salad.

Friday - Date night! Company holiday dinner! Open bar, what what! Pizza for the kids and the babysitter.

Saturday - Crustacean Celebration/Rock Night with friends. Making chocolate cupcakes with vanilla bean/Maker's Mark frosting to celebrate Mike's birthday! (Recipe to follow, if I can pull it off).

Sunday - 3-cheese quiche, a big green salad, pomegranates.

Brussels Sprouts with Prosciutto and White Wine

When I get a craving for Brussels sprouts, nothing else will do. I love their toothy texture, their slightly sweet but pungent flavor, their bite-size-ness. They are delicious roasted in the oven, creamed, pan-sauteed, fried. Yes, fried. If you've never had a deep fried Brussels sprout, then you are missing out! Get thee to a deep fryer!  I sometimes make sprouts with bacon, because... well, you know. And I usually de-glaze the pan with veg or chicken stock. But I was out of both of those things when I made this version, so I winged it.

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients: 3

Chop prosciutto into small pieces, while heating 1 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet. Cook prosciutto until crispy over medium heat, about 6 minutes. While the meat is crisping, slice ends off sprouts and cut in half. Remove meat to paper towel with a slotted spoon. Dump sprouts into hot grease and sprinkle a little salt and several grindings of black pepper. Toss sprouts frequently, so they get nice and brown, about 5 minutes. De-glaze pan with about 1/4 cup white wine (or stock), taking care to stir up all the lovely brown bits at the bottom of the pan. Cook on medium heat until wine/stock reduces by half, about 5 minutes, then cover and cook until tender, another 5 or 10 minutes. A little more fresh pepper (maybe salt?), then remove to serving bowl and top with crispy prosciutto. I served these little beauties with creamy polenta, and was very popular that night.