Curried Carrot Soup

I found this recipe by Rachael Ray on the food network. To spiff it up, I also made little mini bread bowls from rye bread. I'll give you the soup recipe first, then the directions for the bread bowls.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan

2 tablespoons butter

1 medium onion, chopped

1 1/2 pounds packaged baby carrots, from produce section

6 cups chicken stock, available on soup aisle

1 tablespoon mild curry paste or 1 1/2 tablespoons curry powder

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

Coarse salt

1 cup sour cream

Plastic condiment bottle or medium plastic food storage bag

6 blades fresh chives, cut into 1-inch pieces

Directions

Preheat medium pot over medium high heat. Add olive oil, butter, onions and carrots and saute 5 minutes. Add 4 cups chicken stock, curry and cayenne, and about 1 teaspoon salt to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover and cook until carrots are very tender, about 15 minutes. Place pot on a trivet next to food processor. Process soup in 2 or 3 small batches until soup is smooth and carrots are fully pureed. Transfer processed soup into a large bowl as you work to make room for more soup in the food processor. Return completed soup to the soup pot and place back over low heat. If the soup is too thick, add remaining stock, up to 2 cups, to achieve desired consistency. Adjust seasonings. Place sour cream in a plastic condiment squeeze bottle or into a medium food storage bag. Cut a very small hole in the corner of the bag with scissors. Ladle soup into bowls and squirt a swirl of sour cream around the bowl from the center out to the rim. Drag a toothpick from the center of the bowls out to the edges, forming a spider web design on soup. Pile a few pieces of cut chives at the center of each bowl to resemble green spiders in their webs! Cool!

Then, for the bread bowls:

Using a rolling pin, roll out each slice of bread as flat and thin as you can get it. Round the edges slightly. Tuck into muffin pan, pressing the bread against the edges of the tin. Spray with olive oil spray or give a light coat with a brush. Sprinkle on oregano and parsley. Bake at 350 until the bread is dry (about 10 min.). 

Parmesan Asparagus

I'd give you the recipe for the mashed potatoes...but I used instant...so nothing exciting there. The asparagus though, I can give you that recipe.

Ingredients:
2 TBS olive oil
1/2 pound fresh asparagus
3 TBS lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 c. finely grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Heat the olive oil in your skillet or frying pan. 
2. Saute the asparagus until tender, about 5 minutes. 
3. Pour the lemon juice over the asparagus and season with salt and pepper. 
4. Cook another 2-3 minutes. 
5. Remove asparagus from pan and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. 

Cheesecake Snowman with Raspberry Sauce

Okay, I know...it looks like the snowman was murdered...it didn't look like that in my head. Oh well. It still tasted fantastic. One of the girls told me that she didn't like cheesecake normally but she loved this one, so I'd say that's a win.

I found this recipe in a set of recipe cards stuck in one of my cookbooks. I have no idea where I got the cards, but I like them. This was for Holiday Cheesecake Presents. They cut their cheesecakes into squares and decorated them with gel icing to look like presents, but since the dinner was snowman themed, I cut mine into circles with my cookie cutters and then tried to make the raspberry sauce look like a scarf, and when that just made it look like the the snowman had had his neck split open, I just drizzled the sauce over it.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c. graham cracker crumbs
1/3 c. butter or margarine, melted
3 TBS sugar
3 pkgs (8 oz. each) Cream Cheese, softened
3/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs

Directions:

1. Mix crumbs, butter, and 3 TBS sugar; press onto bottom of 13x9-inch baking pan .
2. Mix cream cheese, 3/4 cup sugar and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs; mix until blended. Pour over crust. 
3. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate 3 hours or overnight. Cut into bars. Decorate bars with decorating gels and sprinkles to resemble presents. Store leftover bars in refrigerator. 

Makes ~2 dozen bars

Effortless Egg Nog

Add a snowman face to your glasses with dry erase markers. 

1/2 Gallon cold milk

1 pkg (3.4 oz) instant french vanilla pudding mix

1/4 c. sugar

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

In a large bowl, whisk 3/4 c. milk and pudding mix until smooth. 

Whisk in the sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. 

Stir in the remaining milk. 

Refrigerate until serving. 

Curry

Wow, somehow I managed to delete this post within seconds of posting it. So here goes take two.

This is a dish that Ethan introduced me to shortly after we got married. He bought the stuff and made it one day when I was at a night class, so I came home to dinner already made. It looked kinda weird  and it smelled even more weird. I'd never eaten anything like it before. I was pretty skeptical, but I have to say I ended up really liking it, and it's something we've had fairly often since then. I love it because it's quick, easy, and you can just kinda throw in whatever you've got laying around. It's pretty hard to mess up.

What You Need:

1 box (or bottle) curry seasoning (you can use whatever brand you want, but after some experimenting, we've decided to stick with this one)

S&B Golden Curry. It comes in a whole range of spiciness levels, so you can pick what works for you. I never had any trouble finding it in Thatcher or Rexburg, but only one of the three stores here carries it.

1lb cubed meat ( use the pork roast chunks I keep on hand, but you could also use raw pork, beef, chicken, shrimp, lamb, or anything else you have handy, although I'm not sure what else one WOULD have handy)
1 onion, diced
2 cups water, unless you're using a pre-made sauce in which case you don't need water (start with a little less than this and add more if you decide you want it)
A little oil or butter for stir-frying
Veggies, we use carrots and bell peppers, but you could also but celery or anything else you've got laying around.
Rice (start this cooking when you start your curry and they should be done around the same time)
If you're doing this with already cooked meat it's pretty simple, here's What to Do:

Stir fry your veggies until they are crisp/tender (meaning they're mostly soft, but still have some crispness left in them, you don't want mush). Add the meat and water (or sauce if using a bottled variety, if you are than you are done now) and bring to boil.

Waiting for my water to boil. 

Now turn your pan down so it will simmer, break your bar of curry seasoning into pieces, and stir in your curry seasoning. Stir until it dissolves and then simmer for a few minutes to let it thicken. Start with about half the bar and then taste it to see what you think. I don't normally put in the whole bar, it's just a little too strong. I think I leave out one of the pieces.
Serve over warm rice or noodles and you're ready to go.

For cooking this with raw meat:
Stir fry your meat and veggies until your onions are just starting to brown. Add the water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until meat is done. Break apart your curry seasoning and add to skillet. Simmer a few minutes to thicken and then serve over rice.

Chocolate Praline Pumpkin Pie

Can she bake a pumpkin pie Billy Boy, Billy Boy? She CAN bake a pumpkin pie, she's the apple of our eye, she's a young thing and cannot leave her mother!

This year Abigail made the pies for Thanksgiving --her first attempt. The crust was the obvious challenge and it was pretty challenging. Abby tried a new recipe for crust that was said to be "no-fail" but it did NOT live up to the name. The recipe called for oil instead of shortening and it was far too flaky to bend, which made fluting the edges impossible. But Abby pushed and poked and finally sort of made it work. The filling was delicious as always and Abby learned how to do marbling. The crust was really flaky and tasted okay. But I think she will be looking for a new recipe for crust.

Chocolate Praline Pumpkin Pie

1 can (16 oz.) pumpkin

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

3 eggs

1 can (5 oz.) evaporated milk

½ cup milk

½ cup semi-sweet chocolate pieces

1 9-inch deep dish pie shell with high fluted edge (do not prick)

Praline pieces

Whipped cream

Stir the pumpkin, sugar, and spice together in a large bowl. Add eggs and lightly beat into mixture. Stir in both milks and transfer ½ cup of mixture into a small saucepan. Pour the rest into the pie shell. Add the chocolate pieces into the saucepan and cook over low heat until they are melted. Carefully spoon the chocolate mixture over the filling in the shell and gently swirl with a narrow spatula to marble. Cover the edges with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Remove foil and continue to bake for 30 minutes longer or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. (BTW-the chocolate will sometimes stick a little to the knife, even though the pie is done. If it has been in for more than ten or so minutes longer and the top begins to seriously crack - the pie is done, even if the knife isn't completely clean.)

Praline Pieces:

In a small heavy skillet, combine ½ cup coarsely chopped pecans, 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon margarine. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly for 6 to 8 minutes until the sugar turns a rich brown color. Spread the mixture on a buttered baking sheet or foil and separate into clusters. Cool. Break clusters into smaller chunks. Garnish each piece of the pie with whipped cream and sprinkle the praline pieces over top.

Prickly Pear Raspberry Lemonade

This stuff was delicious. Before serving it I dropped frozen raspberries in each cup to serve as the ice cubes (and because it looked cool)

Ingredients:
1 qt. prickly pear juice
1 bag frozen raspberries
1/2 c. lemon juice
between 2-3 quarts water
lemon berry and/or raspberry lemonade drink mix (I used the single serving sized packets that you put in your water bottle) OR sugar (optional)

1. In blender, blend prickly pear juice and raspberries
2. Pour in 1 gal. pitcher and add lemon juice.
3. Fill the pitcher the rest of the way with water.
4. At this point you can be done, it all depends on how strong and/or sweet you want it. If you like the taste, stop. I liked it, but I wasn't sure if our guests would like the strong prickly pear after taste, so I added 1 packet each of lemon berry and raspberry lemonade to help with the flavor.