CAULIFLOWER SOUP

CAULIFLOWER SOUP

Ingredients

Basic soup base for almost all soups.

 ____________________________

1/4 cup olive oil (or butter)

1 large onion, finely diced

1 celery stalks, finely diced

2 carrots, finely diced

(I used carrot strings chopped )

_________________________________

 Ratio for ALL soups should be

1 stalk of celery to 2 carrots.

1-head of cauliflower, separated,

steamed for 10 minutes.,

3 slices of Monterey jack pepper cheese

(or your choice of any cheese)

2 diced very small potatoes for thickener.

2 quarts chicken stock

Also can add flavor with

“Better than Boullion” in glass jar.  Great stuff. Just use 1 Tablespoon

1 bay leave

2 cloves garlic minced fine

pinch of cayenne pepper

pinch of dried thyme

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

In a large saucepan, sauté onion, celery and carrots over medium-high heat.

Set aside.

In pot, add the broth and cauliflower.

Cook for 10 minutes.

Add the potatoes, onions, carrots, celery, and  bring to a simmer and cook another 15 to 30 minutes until soup is thick.

STIR OFTEN.

Remove bay leaf.

Add cheese but don’t overdue the amount.  Stir until melted.

Taste it.  You can always add more cheese.

Puree soup.  I use an immersion blender.

Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

I did not add meat.  but you could.

OPTIONAL:

Ham, in some form.  Ham bones,

hocks, chopped ham,  etc…

3 to 6 oz.

BUTTER

If you love butter, maybe you should see the new movie out called, "BUTTER".

Lots of x rated words and not for kids but really funny.  I will never look at butter the same way again.

MY FACEBOOK CAKE

     This is my saga of my Facebook Cake.  I had to make a cake for a meeting tonight.  Since I am watching my pennies, I wanted to used something I had in the house.  So off to the pantry where I found a yellow cake mix.  This was fine but I did want to jazz it up a bit.  I was exposed to a great cake my a friend who loves to bake. It had crushed pineapple in it as well as pudding and whipped cream.  
     Well, the cream was out.  Its over 100 degrees today so I didn't want whipped cream sitting in my car.  What to do, what to do.  Finally I looked on the internet for ideas.  
Eureka.  I found my recipe.  Well, part of it.  I merged two good cakes into one great idea.  Basically I substituted orange juice for the water in the mix.  Then I baked it as directed.  Simple.  This worked well.  
     I cooled the cake for about 20 minutes. Then I heated up a large can of crushed pineapple and add about 2 tablespoons of brown sugar to it. When it was more than lukewarm, I poured this mixture over my cake which I had poked with a fork.  Again, this worked well.
Next, came making a praline topping to cover the pineapple.  I mixed coconut, brown sugar, butter, milk, and chopped walnuts together.  Melted the  butter of course.  Again, this was working perfectly.
    I started the broiler in 100 degree heat and placed my cake with the topping to brown, but careful to watch it so it doesn't overbroil and be ruined.
    Can you guess what stupid thing I did next?  I remembered I had one little thing to do for some photos I had put on Facebook.  I raced in to do that LITTLE thing and was there for about 10 minutes when I realized my cake was still under a broiler and in great danger.  I flew into the kitchen and pulled my precious baby out of the oven.  Too late, the burned sugar, coconut, walnuts and pineapple was not asking me to take the first bite.  NOOOO. It was telling me to start over. Alas, there was not time for that. 
I picked at the topping that had bonded together perfectly in its blackness and I filled an empty pie tin  with my burned praline topping.  The cake, without that burned crust, looked okay.  
    I grabbed the topping  ingredients and started over.  Added it to the cake and again put it under the broiler.  Pulled it out in time and believe me, it was a hit.  Delicious flavor and no one knew or cared that it had a rough childhood.  I just told them it was my first Facebook cake.

CORN CHOWDER

Pat’s  Corn Chowder with Chiles

Ingredients:

3 slices of bacon, cut into ½ inch pieces or smaller

2 T  Butter  

1 ½ whole yellow onion diced

1 green or red bell pepper chopped fine

1 carrot chopped fine 

              Cook   10 minutes

Add:

3  16 oz bags of frozen corn  or fresh on the cob

2  whole chipotle poppers in Adobo Sauce, Finely diced  (very hot - 1 would work )

1 whole 4 oz can Chipotle peppers diced green chilies.

32 oz. fluid low sodium chicken broth  (or vegetable)  or more

2 potatoes chopped into small cubes or more

½ t Kosher salt   to taste

5 T  corn meal or Masa

4 T Flat parsley

32  non fat milk  (cream, half and half okay too)

Salt

Directions:

Saute bacon pieces a couple of minutes.

Add diced onion, carrots, and bell peppers .

Add both kinds of chilies, chicken broth, salt

Bring to boil. Reduce heat.

Add milk.

Mix Masa with water. Add to soup.  (I just sprinkle it in the soup and stir.)

Cook 15 minutes. 

Too thick?  Add water until it looks good.

 I added at least another pint of water. 

Add chopped parsley at the end.  Cook for 3 minutes or so.

Salt to taste.

__________________

Notes:  All ingredients can vary.

Its nice to know you can’t go wrong.

Well the chilies are the ones that can give you trouble. 

Do not use more then TWO.  They are hot.  And smokey.

Rebuild Cinque Terre

        Click here.   REBUILDING MONTEROSSO AND CINQUE TERRE

THIS IS A WONDERFUL PLACE TO SEE.  I HOPE EVERYONE GETS TO VISIT CINQUE TERRE SOMEDAY.

The Italians love their country and their homes like all of us and its been a terrible experience for them.

PARMA RESTAURANT IN FRESNO

Wednesday was a day to reconnect with old friends over great food.  We picked Parma's because she always has fresh made pasta and wonderful Italian food.  The best recommendation comes with presentation.  I had to control myself and photo the plates before we dived in.  You would have thought we hadn't eaten in days.

Thank you for a lovely lunch and great company, Jim, Linda, and Ed.

Appetizer

3 pastas

Creme Brulee


Pat