Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana

When I was in high school, we had an early release day once a month, on Wednesdays. Every Wednesday for a couple of years, I would go out to lunch with my mom, and my two best friends Megan and Meghan. We always, always went out to Olive Garden and had the endless soup & salad lunch combo. It was a great ritual and I will always remember it fondly. My soup of choice at the Olive Garden was the Zuppa Toscana, a spicy sausage & potato soup with some greens and a creamy broth. I finally decided it was time to learn how to recreate it. Here's my best effort.

Ingredients, left to right: One bunch kale, washed and torn into bit sized pieces; 32 oz/4 cups chicken broth; 1/2 of one large white onion, diced small; 3 russet potatoes, cut into chunks; 1 pint/2 cups half & half; 1-2 cloves garlic, minced.

You'll also need one pound of italian sausage. The sausage makes the soup, so make sure you get seriously quality stuff. Get the spicy sausage if you like spicy foods - it adds extra kick to the soup:

Step 1: Crumble the sausage into bite-sized chunks and brown it in batches:

Step 2: Remove the sausage to a plate, then cook the onion in the same pot until softened:

Step 3: Add garlic and cook for another minute or so until fragrant:

Step 4: Add the sausage back to the pot with the potatoes:

Step 5: Add the chicken broth. If it is not enough liquid to cover the potatoes, add water as necessary:

Step 6: Bring it to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are completely cooked and fork tender:

Step 7: Add the kale and 1/2 & 1/2, then leave on the heat until warmed through. Do not boil.

Step 8: Serve and enjoy with some crusty bread:

So yummy! I officially never have to go to the Olive Garden again.

Tomato and Spinach Soup

This could be called 'veggies are my friends -- part 3.' It's just soup, so the directions are pretty general. This is what I started with -- some leftover celery from the Thanksgiving relish tray, onion, carrot, a can of diced tomatoes, spinach, chicken broth, olive oil and a few spices. It doesn't need a lot of salt, since both the tomatoes and the broth have salt in them.
I didn't start this until about an hour before I wanted to eat it, so I diced the veggies pretty small so they'd cook faster. They went into a saucepan with some olive oil and a few spices. Then I put the cover on the pot and let them sweat on medium low for about ten minutes. At this point, if I'd remembered, I'd have thrown in a generous tablespoon of flour and stirred it around for a couple of minutes. I forgot, and it was fine. The broth is a little thicker if you remember the flour. I added the tomatoes and about a cup of broth, put the cover on again and simmered for 15 minutes or so.
I used my hand blender to break up the chunks, but I didn't go so far as to puree them. I like smallish chunks in this soup.
I added another cup of broth at this point, then rough chopped a large handful of spinach. Maybe a cup and a half raw after chopping, and threw it in the pot. I put the cover on again, and let it simmer for another 5 or 10 minutes. This is a good point to taste it. If it tastes a little acid-y, you can add a teaspoon of sugar.
My house smells great, and there was enough soup for lunch and leftovers for lunch tomorrow.
Nothing fancy, just soup.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

As promised, here is the recipe for that lovely stuffed squash I made last weekend (and again this weekend):

The cast of characters (minus the rosemary, which I forgot, oops):

Grate about 3/4 cups of the cheese of your choosing. I used cheddar and parmesan because that's what I had on hand. Pick your favorite cheese and go with that:

Cut the bread up into small, dice-size pieces. You'll need about a cup and a half of cubes:

Dice up a very small amount of onion. This is just one slice from the middle of the onion, cut up very finely:

Remove the sausage from its' casing and brown:

Take the sausage off the heat when done and, in that same pan, cook the onions until softened, then add the garlic (1-2 cloves, minced) and continue cooking until fragrant but not burnt.

Put the sausage, bread crumbs, cheese, rosemary, onions, garlic and 3 TB half and half in a large bowl and combine until moistened. Meanwhile, halve the acorn squash and scoop out all of the seeds, then rub some olive oil on them and season with salt & pepper:

Fill the hollowed out squash with the filling, make sure to really pack it in there. You want the squash to lay flat when flipped upside down:

Flip the squash into a baking dish and put in a 375-400 degree oven:

After a half hour, check on it to make sure the bottoms aren't burning too badly. If they are, add a little bit of water to the dish.

After approximately an hour (mine took 50 minutes today), remove the squash from the oven:

Flip them back over and serve:

One half is usually a perfect meal for one person. See how it's all browned and crusty on the surface? SO YUMMY!

Here's the ingredient list with exact measurements:
1 link italian sausage (or 2 slices bacon)
1 slice onion (or 1 shallot)
1-2 cloves garlic
2 tsp rosemary (or sage, or whatever your favorite spice is)
1.5 cups bread cubes
3/4 cup grated cheeses
3 TB half & half
1 medium acorn squash
olive oil
salt & pepper

Asian Coleslaw

This recipe has become popular with the local clan. It's a simple enough way to get some pasta and nuts into slaw, with a good taste and texture. I found the recipe on the internet and modified it slightly to my own taste.

"Bagged coleslaw mix is combined with crunchy dry ramen noodles, sunflower seeds, almonds, green onions, and a simple sweet vinaigrette for a tasty Asian-inspired coleslaw."

Ingredients:
1 (3 ounce) package Oriental flavor ramen noodles with seasoning pack
1 (3 ounce) package roasted sunflower seed kernels
1 (3 ounce) package sliced almonds
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1/2 bottle of Newman's Own® Oil and Vinegar dressing (about 1 to 1-1/2 cups)
1/3 cup white sugar
1 (16 ounce) package angel-hair coleslaw mix (or two 10-oz bags)
1 carrot finely chopped (optional)

Directions:
Combine green onions, carrot pieces (optional), and coleslaw mix. Combine dressing, Oriental seasoning packet, and sugar until dissolved. Mix dressing into the coleslaw mix and put in fridge overnight for flavors to meld. Prior to serving, crush the ramen noodles in a bowl, and stir, along with sunflower seeds and almonds, into coleslaw mix.

The final result looks something like this.

From Jimi's kitchen.

Simple Bean Salad

We all know how to make bean salad by now -- TT has become something of a legend with his versions of it. I love a little bean salad -- little being the key word here. I like a variety of beans in my salad, with the end result being that I usually end up using at least 4 cans of beans of various varieties. And that is just too much bean salad. I get tired of it before I am half way through with the batch. But a bean salad without both green and wax beans just doesn't work for me.
Recently I found a couple of products that produce a lower volume of the end product, yet still provide the variety of beans that I prefer with this dish. The organic chili beans have almost always been part of my recipe, but I just discovered that Del Monte makes a mixed green and wax bean option. So now I can make a multi-bean salad with just two cans of beans.
I still rinse all the beans -- I don't want the chili part of the chili beans, and besides the liquid is gooey and gross. I rinse the green/wax beans because I read somewhere that rinsing reduces the sodium content of canned vegetables. With the reduced volume I used 1/8 cup of olive oil, 1/8 cup of apple cider vinegar and 1/8 cup of balsalmic vinegar. I added about a half tablespoon of Splenda (or sugar), 1/2 teaspoon of seasoned pepper and a tablespoon or so of parsley. I added celery and onion this time, because I like them and had them on hand. Chill.

Gino's beans and barley

OK, it's the time of year for hearty sticks to your ribs but still mostly in one pan meals.

I made this recipe up myself. I had had some packaged beans and rice and while I liked it OK, rice is not always my friend. Further it seemed to me that the packaged product probably wasn't necessary and that the meal should be pretty easy to make for myself. I decided on barley instead of rice, my more or less favorite soup at that time was beef, vegetables and barley. My theory as I set out was, as always, start with good ingredients and try not to screw it up.

Lots of different beans would be good, the ones I like best are small red beans. They are roundish instead of oblong, a more aesthetically pleasing shape from my perspective. But black beans should be good, pinto should be good, the only place I wouldn't go is the white and or light colored beans like your white navy bean which would obviously lack contrast with the barley.

The bag directions for the beans are for cooking half a bag so that's where I started. This recipe has lots of places where it looks like it could easily be halved and this is one of them. My recipe makes WAY too much food so I really probably should start thinking a bit more about halving, but I confess, I haven't tried that yet. Here, for example, it would be easy to start with a half of a half a bag.

The bag directions on that barley call for a cup of barley. There's another place where halving the recipe would be easy.I want to do it mostly in one pan so I intend to cook the beans and the barley together. The beans are soaked overnight before cooking. The actual cooking directions call for 6 cups of water with the half bag of beans and 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours. The barley calls for 3 cups of water and 1 to 1 and 1/4 hours.

What I do is start with 8 cups of water. I start the beans and set a timer for half an hour. When the timer goes off I add the barley and once again set the timer for half an hour. The two main ingredients now simmer together and my experience has been that they finish together.

Another half hours goes by and we are up to one hour for the beans. I set the timer for yet another 30 minutes. Today I diced up a pound of ham steaks, a red pepper and a green pepper. I want to saute the peppers and I throw the ham in with them to combine all the flavors. This looks like another place where the recipe could easily be cut in half.

Here's what that looked like today.Here are the other two ingredients, some frozen corn and some canned tomatoes. I shopped at a different grocery today and was disappointed to not be able to cook with God's Brothers' tomatoes. I suppose one can of tomatoes is just as easy as two.

The third ding comes around, one hour for the barley, one and a half for the beans, and it is now time to prepare the corn. I set the timer for 15 more minutes and pop the corn into the microwave for four.When the timer dings again I have had the barley in for 1 and 1/4, the beans for 1 and 3/4. Today, as usual, they were done. Here's what that looked like after the mixture had been drained.I add the corn and the tomotoes, mixed it all together, cover and put it back to low heat for another 15 minutes to give the flavors an opportunity to start to work together.A couple of scoops into one of our Pfaltzgraff Juniper cereal bowls and prepare to enjoy.Hmmm, hmmm, good and good for you.

Veggies Are My Friends -- Part Two -- Soup

This is what we had for supper tonight, Veggies Are My Friends, Vegetable Soup version. It is based on a recent post on Pioneer Woman Cooks. It caught my eye because some of the vegetables are roasted, and I do like roasted vegetables. I've heard of people roasting summer squash and tomatoes, but had never tried it until today.
My proportions are different than PW's, but it's soup, so it doesn't really matter. I put one zucchini, one yellow squash, half a box of mushrooms and a few leftover tomato pieces in a bowl, drizzled it with a little olive oil and threw in some salt. Tossed it, put it on a cookie sheet lined with foil, and put it in the oven at 500 (!) degrees. The recipe said 5 or 10 minutes, until the pieces start to brown.
I think I didn't put it on a high enough rack in the oven, because I left them in for about 15 minutes, and they never got very brown. Didn't matter, they were good. I kept snitching pieces off the sheet while I was cooking the rest of the soup. Once they're done just let them sit until the end. I had some spinach so I grabbed a big handful and chopped it up and added it at the end, also.
These are the usual soup base characters ... celery, onion and carrots. I chunked them up and sauteed them for a while (5 or 10 minutes is good), then added the chicken broth. I added a few cups of hot water eventually. There's plenty of flavor, so it didn't water it down at all. I also added a bay leaf when I added the broth.
Once the pot looked like this, I added the chicken broth and cooked another 10 minutes.
At this point I added the tomatoes, green beans, cannellini beans and a cup of pasta (pinto beans work too, or black beans.) I rinsed both of the beans. I probably could have used less pasta and more beans and it would have been even better. Some whole grain pasta would be good instead of what I used. I let it simmer for 10 or 15 minutes or until we were ready to eat.
Shortly before we ate, I tossed in the roasted vegetables and the spinach, and let it sit for a few minutes. I added a heaping teaspoonful of tomato paste to thicken it up and make a richer broth.
I've gotten a little tired of bean salad, so I think I will be eating this with my lunch for a while instead. The roasted vegetables really do add a ton of flavor to the soup. I have two big plastic containers of it left -- fortunately, veggies are my friends.

Lemon Bars

We headed up to OSLO's and Brad's for an extended family supper tonight. Grilled pork steaks and chops, with cheesy potatoes, Texas baked beans and other sides. It was all very, very good. I volunteered to bring a spinach salad, chocolate pie and ..... lemon bars. Yep. The church lady lemon bars.
Brad said he didn't think he'd ever had them -- clearly he's never been to a funeral in Minnesota or Wisconsin. Here's how I made them. There's a Betty Crocker mix!
The crust comes in a separate package, that gets pressed into the baking dish just the way it comes from the package, and baked for ten minutes. There is also a package of lemon filling mix that requires three eggs and one third cup water, then gets poured over the hot crust and returned to the oven for 25 minutes. Next time I think I'll make some green jello. (Yes, that is my biking gear in the background. I had assembled it all in preparation for a ride, and was too lazy to move it when I took this photo. Sorry.)

My version

There hasn't been very much bicycling here lately as the big storm blew through. It rained, it rained really hard, it rained really really hard. And I don't even live in a place where it rained hard.

So, here's the way I did it tonight. This is all going to happen in a single pan and a single narrative.

Here are the main ingredients with an antique toaster for scale. The background story on the toaster involves Christmas at GE. I am not the only one who knows it.I haven't used that brand of tomatoes before but when I saw it in the store I was instantly smitten. Who doesn't want to use tomatoes canned by God's brothers?

A single pan, the chicken breast goes in first to start browning. The meat takes the longest to cook but truthfully everything is going to get plenty of time.Big chunks of onions, big chunks of pepper. There is also some chopped garlic in there.

I thought about it while I was doing it and big chunks seemed like a better choice. The sauce is going to have lots of ingredients. Big chunks make identification of the ingredients easier. Further, big chunks give you an opportunity to fully experience the taste.In the next step we have fresh mushrooms in there as well and God's brothers tomatoes are poised.Here is everything together in the single pan.The pasta cooks separately so I guess maybe a two pan description would be a trifle more accurate. A word on pasta, complex carbohydrates are the preferred form. This is whole wheat pasta, a more complex carb than ordinary white flour noodles. But even with complex carbs, the secret of pasta is portion control. You want enough to enjoy the experience but you have to not go over the line. This photo includes our Pfaltzgraff pattern plates for scale.I am going to rely on TOPWLH to make a comment on whether it was good or not. I cooked it, I shouldn't say.