Mrs. Seymour's Chicken Soup

Here's the recipe for Mrs. Seymour's Chicken Soup, posted exactly as she e-mailed it to me. (Oh, Mrs. Seymour is my mother-in-law.) Follow it exactly. The "Jubilee" rice she speaks of is this Lundberg Jubilee rice blend that you can find at Whole Foods. This soup is really amazingly good and easy and magical and fixes all kinds of problems. And then I'll tell you a funny story about celery.

Chicken Soup
I buy a combination of chicken breasts and thighs (at least two breast
pieces and four thighs). Remove all skin except the skin on one of
the thighs. There is something about having a certain amount of fat in
the broth that seems to enhance the medicinal properties of chicken
soup (so you may want to buy organic). You decide if you want to buy
boneless cuts of chicken - the bones add flavor, but can be a problem
to remove from the soup if the chicken really falls apart while
boiling.

Put chicken in bottom of soup pot. Cover with chicken broth (I used
two of the larger boxes of organic broth - my guess would be it was
about 6 cups - sorry, I don't usually pay attention to measurements).
Begin to boil.

While that is getting started, I cut up the vegetables and add them as
I get them cut up.

Ingredients:

• 2 onions
• 6-8 carrots
• 4-6 stalks of celery
• (Really, you can add any other veggies you'd like- I've added cut up potatoes, but then they don't freeze too well. Frozen green peas add a sweet favor - add them in the last 15-20 minutes of cooking time, after adding rice, but they turn that faded green color when you heat up the leftover soup the next day.)
• 1 T marjoram
• 1 t poultry seasoning
• salt and pepper to taste (I added a tablespoon of salt and that really wasn't enough for this amount- the salt also helps with caring for cold symptoms- better to have each person have to add more, than to have it too salty, I guess. )

Once the chicken looks fully cooked, I lift each piece out of the pot,
put it on a plate to cool until it's cool enough to handle, then
de-bone it, cut it up, and put the meat back into the pot.

About an hour before serving add 1/2 -1 cup of rice (I used a blend of
rices, "Jubilee" it's called, you can decide what rice you'd like.
Also, some types of pasta are good.) Keep it at a low boil while rice
is cooking. I actually like it when the rice is almost overcooked and
starting to split.

It is really pretty simple, but it does require a fair amount of
chopping of vegetables.

---
When I made this the first time around, i wasn't quite sure what a "stalk" of celery meant. I took it to mean an actual bunch. So I cut up about four whole bunches of chopped celery into this soup. As I added it to the pot, it seemed kind of like a lot of celery. A little too much. So I reserved a bowlful of these to eat with peanut butter and added in this massive amount of celery to the soup. The soup was good but just a lot of celery. And then later on, I asked Christine and the internets and figured out that no, I really just needed one bunch of celery. I'm an idiot.

Mushroom Risotto

I attempted risotto last night for the first time, something I've been meaning to do for some time. I had a box of Arborio rice sitting in the pantry from Trader Joe's and had hunted down some dried porcini mushrooms at Far West Fungi at the Ferry Building (surprisingly, these were not that easy to find). One ounce pre-packaged in a bag was $6.50 and the perfect amount for this dish. I'll admit, I was nervous about making this as I've heard rumors about how difficult it is to cook, how long it takes, etc. Plus I've only had it a couple of times in my life, including the most divine mushroom risotto at Osteria la Buca in LA when it was still a charming little hole in the wall joint. After some research, including finding a recipe that involved soy sauce (!), I opted for Mr. Tyler Florence's version. It sounded solid and I pretty much followed it to the letter, mostly eyeballing the measurements. The only exceptions are I didn't have any parsley or truffle oil (I've never owned any), though the end result did not seem to lack flavor. I can only guess that adding the latter would take things to another level. It ended up not being the culinary hell I imagined. It was pretty easy, it just requires a tiny bit of patience and attention. And it's oh so worth it. The result was warm homey cozy goodness, which we served as the main dish with a little salad. My favorite part turned out to be the soft and meaty portobellos that soak up all the oils and flavors. My husband also loved it and inhaled his and went for seconds. Note to self: get over yourself and purchase some truffle oil.

Mushroom Risotto, adapted from Tyler Florence

Ingredients:

• 7 1/2 to 8 cups chicken broth (low sodium, if available)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 onion, diced, divided
• 2 garlic cloves, minced, divided
• 1 pound fresh portobello and crimini mushrooms, sliced
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons fresh thyme, chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley, chopped (also skipped this)
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon truffle oil (if you don't have it, go without!)
• Salt and pepper
• 1-ounce dried porcini mushrooms
• 2 cups Arborio rice
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated
• Fresh Italian parsley, for garnish (if you got it, use it)

Directions:

Heat the chicken broth in a medium saucepan and keep warm over low heat. Put the dried porcini mushrooms in 1 cup of broth in a bowl to rehydrate and set aside. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add 1/2 onion and 1 clove garlic, cook, stirring, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the fresh mushrooms, herbs and butter. Saute for 3 to 5 minutes until lightly browned, season with salt and pepper. Optional: Drizzle in truffle oil. Then add the dried porcini mushrooms which were reconstituted in the warm chicken broth (I added everything, liquid and all). Season again with salt and pepper. Saute 1 minute then remove from heat and set aside.

Coat a large saucepan with remaining 2 tablespoons of oil. Saute the remaining 1/2 onion and garlic clove. Add the rice and stir quickly until it is well-coated and opaque, 1 minute. This step cooks the starchy coating and prevents the grains from sticking. Stir in wine and cook until it is nearly all evaporated (it should stop smelling of alcohol).

Now, with a ladle, add 1 cup of the warm broth and cook, stirring, until the rice has absorbed the liquid. Add the remaining broth, 1 cup at a time. Continue to cook and stir, allowing the rice to absorb each addition of broth before adding more. Stir, stir, stir. The risotto should be slightly firm and creamy, not mushy. Taste test little bites of it every couple of minutes as you're getting close. Done risotto should be al dente, that is tender but still firm. And by all means, don't overcook it! Transfer the mushrooms to the rice mixture. Stir in 1/2 cup Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, cook briefly until melted. Plate and garnish with the rest of the cheese, and a drizzle of truffle oil and chopped parsley, if you have those things on hand.

Monkey Bread

I was introduced to this culinary confection by my coworker Zack a few months ago. It's basically the Pillsbury biscuit dough you find in the refrigerated section at the store baked into a big bundt cake form with some sugar and cinnamon. And you pull it apart to eat it. Sound trashy, no? But no matter, it's very good and simple to make. The origins of this cake are unclear, some say it's a Texas invention, others point to LA where the recipe first appeared in the LA Times in 1946. And the recipe on the Pillsbury website calls for using the Buttermilk dough and adding in nuts and raisins and anybody who knows me how I feel about these things in baked goods (no, thank you). Zack and his mother cautioned against using this, they warned that these would not be tasty and I trust them.

I baked one earlier this week with Christine over with a variation. Instead of all white sugar that Zack's mamma's recipe calls for, I mixed in some brown sugar. And I'm currently got one in the oven for a birthday in the office tomorrow and I think I've got it down. Also, very important, TAKE NOTE! Just like how there are all kinds of boys out there, there are all kinds of Pillsbury biscuit dough. I was careful to not get the Buttermilk kind. But then when I pop opened all three tubes of it, I noticed that the dough for two of them were yellowy-orange in color and the other was white. Of course, I freaked out and grabbed the wrapping from the rubbish and carefully inspected them to find that the orangey ones were thankfully not Buttermilk but the regular kind but in the "Butter Tastin'" variety, whereas the white colored one was the "Original". I just went over to the product website and yes, indeed, there are many kinds of these biscuits. There's "Grands!" and there's "Flaky Layers" and then each kind have different flavors. So inspect those tubes carefully, never get anything that says Buttermilk, and try to get the same kind so it's consistent. It's confusing, I say!

Ingredients:

• 3 cans/tubes of refrigerated biscuit dough (just don’t get Buttermilk)
• 1/2 cup of white sugar
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar (not packed)
  
• 1 tablespoon of cinnamon
• 1 stick of butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Open packages of dough and cut each biscuit into quarters. Mix sugar and cinnamon together. Roll the dough pieces in the mixture. Set aside the leftover sugar and cinnamon mixture. Grease bundt pan. Place dough pieces inside pan to fill. Melt butter and mix with leftover sugar and cinnamon mixture. Drizzle over dough. Bake for 30 minutes. Recommended: This cake will poof out so put a baking tray directly underneath the bundt cake pan or on the rack under it to catch anything that falls over and out. Remove from oven and cool for a few minutes. Remove cake from pan.

Red Velvet

I haven't been baking for very long. Maybe a couple of years and my signature item is Red Velvet Cupcakes. The Paula Deen recipe from the Food Network is the only recipe I've known and loved and perfected, or so I thought. I carted my dogs over to my dear friend and partner in crime, Christine's, and we baked our very first red velvet in her kitchen one weekend afternoon. I thought it was an impossible feat (How do you get it so red? What exactly is that taste?) and actually had it on a list of goals for the year (I know, such paltry goals I have). It was a success and every time I made it, it seemed to get better. It was even the exact same recipe found on the Philosophy Red Velvet Cake shampoo/shower gel sitting in my bathroom. I found that you had to use the fakey red food coloring from the supermarket (none of that natural dye from Whole Foods) to get it just right. I also made it a point try to out red velvet in any form whenever I visited different bakeries in Los Angeles and while traveling. In my opinion, the best red velvet cupcake you can buy is from Auntie Em's. I don't care what Oprah said, the one from Doughboys is just obscenely moist. Sprinkles is pretty decent. Crumbs, no. Cake Man Raven from Brooklyn was almost perfect.

Doughboys' too moist red velvet

Auntie Em's

Victor's perfect Red Velvet Cake

Until I was at a birthday party not very long ago and Victor brought this gorgeous red velvet birthday cake topped with raspberries. It was by far the most amazing red velvet cake I've ever tasted. I demanded to know his secrets and he sent me the recipe from Epicurious on his magic phone. I made the Epicurious recipe, version 2.0, when I was visiting friends in Denver over New Years. It uses a quarter of the red food dye stuff but the cake turns out deliciously red as a red velvet cake should be. It calls for basically the same ingredients as v 1.0 but the method is slightly different. Red Velvet 2.0 was fabulous and even better. And the icing was a bit too cream-cheesy since it's intended for a cake so I added a little more powdered sugar than it called for and it was very good.

My friend Erin recently e-mailed me yet another recipe from Amy Butler, which I will call 3.0 This calls for butter and margarine! This one is yet to be baked but when I do, there will surely be an evaluation of it.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookie

Last week, my deskmate and colleague Zack and I were faced with the need for some freshly baked cookies when we reached our afternoon slump. We settled for microwaving a paltry bag of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies we found in the vending machines for $.65 accompanied by a half pint of milk. Needless to say, they were not very good. So tonight (as I typed out my very first post), I baked some chocolate peanut butter chip cookies. I actually don’t have very much cookie making experience and wasn’t sure where to start. So I took the recipe straight from the back of the sack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Chips. I only adjusted the time a bit because they weren’t quite baked all the way through. They smelled fantastic and turned out very delicious, chewy, and really lovely with a glass of soy milk. The recipe certainly does not need improvement.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 1-1/4 cups (2-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  
• 2 cups sugar
  
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  
• 1-2/3 cups (10-oz. pkg.) Reese’s Peanut Butter Chips
  

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; set aside.

2. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with mixer until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Gradually add flour mixture, beating well. Stir in peanut butter chips. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet (I put these on parchment paper and they turned out fine).

3. Bake 10-12 minutes. (I found that after the 8-9 minutes as per the directions, the cookies were definitely not done all the way through. Do not overbake; cookies will be soft. They will puff while baking and flatten while cooling.) Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.

Inauguration

Hi. This is my new online outlet (or blog, as they are commonly called - but I just hate that word) for recipes, reviews, ideas, crafts, things that strike my fancy, and all sorts of general tidbits of wonderfulness. This all sounds very vague, I know, but I’m usually pretty vague, not because I’m some mysterious unicorn, but because I’m just not quite sure (plus, I’d rather not make any promises I can’t keep) and I’m sure this will evolve as we go along. But I have a pretty good idea of what I’ll be posting, so don’t worry, I’ll try to be useful and somewhat interesting. I created this mostly because I started posting up recipes on my personal online journal and it just doesn’t seem like an appropriate place for them. So this will be their new home, where they will try to outlive my tendency to be forgetful. So let’s hope I don’t forget to update this site from time to time.

I’d like to point out that I am never usually the original source of recipes, crafty things, or very good ideas. These are mostly all lifted from other persons, sites, or books where they know what they are doing. Perhaps I’ll experiment and make some adjustments, find an easier way to do something, or put my own twist on it. But I’m definitely not trained in the kitchen or any other place for that matter (I hold a somewhat impractical BA in Communication Studies). But I will always try to cite and link to the original source when I can (remember).