Beef Vegetable Soup

This is the best Beef Vegetable Soup that I have ever made. There was some discussion about the amount of salt, but the recipe is spot on. Here is the link. I would recommend trying this recipe. And you will end up with a lot of soup from this recipe.

Pizza Night!

Did I mention that I love my new stove! Convection! Perfect Pizza!

Eggs in Purgatory

Wordless Wednesday!

Let Me Introduce You To Our New Stove

GE. It brings good things to life.
The delivery went very smoothly.
It did not rain until the stove was in the house. It is so pretty.

For dinner we had pasta with meat sauce. 

And of course I had to make cookies.
3 trays of cookies in the oven at same time!
I can't wait to make bread.

So What Are We Having For Dinner? Soup and Sandwich!

I had Escarole and Bean Soup in the freezer. The Grilled Cheese was divine! Italian Bread. Provolone and American Cheese. Sweet Capicola. Oh it was tasty!

So What Are We Having For Dinner?

Tonight was that leftover pizza, reheated in the oven. Funny how fast it heated up. I made a big salad to go along with the pizza. Actually I made my lunch for next week too!

The Day I Did Not Bake Christmas Cookies

I should not have typed the other day that the oven was still working fine. Nope. I put in one tray, thank God it was just one tray, of the Snowballs. Snowballs are the first cookie I bake every Christmas. It is my little tradition. I set the temperature and set the timer for 10 minutes. I am preparing the next tray of snowballs and I smell something burning. I look at the stove timer and it is has 6 minutes to go. I open the stove and look at the cookies and the bottoms are black!

Now you have to imagine what the kitchen looked like. I was planning on baking all but one kind of cookie today. I had all my mise en place ready to go.

There was no way I was going to risk the time and money baking in that oven. So I mixed the dough for 3 of the cookies and froze them.

Dinner tonight was a large 1/2 Sausage and Pepper and 1/2 Eggplant Pizza from New Haven Apizza & Bakery. I got the large so we can have leftovers tomorrow night.

I can not believe I have to wait a week for the new stove.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Dinner at my sister's house. Delicious as always. A nice day with family.

Two and three year old cousins playing. 

 

Antipasto.

 Soup. 

And the turkey and all the trimmings.

 My sister's stuffing and Chris's stuffing.

And there was pie! 

And of course wine. Happy Thanksgiving!

Roasted Sauasge and Peppers with Homemade Pasta

On Sunday I roasted Sausage, Peppers and Onions. I added a small portion of homemade sauce that I had in the freezer. Tonight I reheated the Sausage and Peppers and boiled up some homemade noodles that I also had in the freezer. Wow!  Not bad for a Wednesday night! The bread was baked on Sunday.

On other news, I bought I new stove today. I have been having issues with our current stove and we are now down to one burner, the small one, of course. The oven still works so Friday I can hopefully start baking Christmas cookies. The new stove will be delivered next Friday!

So You Say It's Your Birthday

 

Happy Birthday Chris!
Yes, I made a cake. I started it as soon as Chris pulled out of the driveway this morning. Working from home today made baking the cake possible. I don't do a lot of cake baking. Cookies are easy for me but cakes seem like a challenge. My mom baked at least 2 cakes a week. So they were second nature for her. But I was thrilled with this recipe and the results. Moist and light and the chocolate flavor was oh so perfect! This is now my official go to Chocolate cake recipe. I found this recipe on DessertForTwo.com. Mini Chocolate Layer Cakes. I made my cake in a 8 inch square pan. I frosted all 4 sides plus the middle of the layers. There was not enough frosting so I added in some store bought canned frosting. Sorry about that.

Mini Chocolate Layer Cakes

Ingredients-
For the chocolate cake:
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon instant espresso powder
½ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 cup cold water

For the frosting:
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2½ cups powdered sugar
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-4 teaspoon milk (as needed for consistency)


Method-
First, preheat the oven to 350. Lightly spray an 8 x 8'inch square baking dish with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, espresso powder and salt.

Make a hole in the middle of the dry ingredients, and pour in the oil, vanilla, vinegar and cold water.

Stir to combine very well.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let the cake cool completely. Once cool, cut in half. Freeze until ready to frost, if you freeze the layers there should be less crumble when you frost.

To make the frosting: beat together all of the ingredients until light and fluffy. Add additional milk as needed to achieve a frosting consistency.

Stack the two cake layers and add frosting in between the layers.
Frost the sides and decorate.

And yes there was dinner! Balsamic-Braised Short Ribs with Horseradish Mashed Potatoes. The recipe is from Cooking Light. What I liked about this recipe was that I could make it last night and just reheat it tonight. I was afraid if I got busy with work making a Birthday dinner might not happen. This recipe made everything work out perfectly.

Ingredients-
Ribs:
Cooking spray
4 pounds beef short ribs, trimmed
1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
2 cups finely chopped red onion
2 cups low-salt beef broth
1 cup dry red wine
3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups chopped plum tomato

Potatoes:
2 1/2 pounds baking potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters
3/4 cup warm 1% low-fat milk
2 tablespoons fat-free sour cream
1 1/2 tablespoons prepared horseradish
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Method-
Preheat oven to 300°.

To prepare ribs, heat a large Dutch oven coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat. Sprinkle ribs with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Add half of ribs to pan; cook 8 minutes or until browned, turning occasionally. Remove from pan. Repeat procedure with remaining ribs; remove from pan.

Add onion to pan; saute 8 minutes or until lightly browned. Add garlic; saute 1 minute. Return ribs to pan. Add broth, wine, vinegar, sugar, and tomato; bring to a simmer.

Cover and bake at 300° for 1 1/2 hours or until tender. Cool slightly. Refrigerate 8 hours or overnight.

Skim fat from surface of broth mixture; discard fat. Cook over medium heat 30 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.

To prepare mashed potatoes, place potatoes in a large saucepan; cover with water. Bring to a boil; cook 20 minutes or until very tender. Drain. Combine potatoes, milk, and remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Mash potato mixture with a potato masher. Serve with ribs and cooking liquid.

The side dishes were the Horseradish Mashed Potatoes and Roasted Brussel Sprouts With Parmesan and Breadcrumbs.

Chris made our wine selection with dinner.