In the last few days, I've made split pea soup and a pot roast. Today I'm braising lamb shanks. I'm thinking I may do a variation on this Nigella recipe. Since I only have fresh Medjool dates, and not many of them, I may substitute dried cherries. It's a great day to warm up your kitchen with cooking and baking!

Love seeing an old post refreshed! Today I made smoked sausage and wild rice soup. Basic and nothing fancy but so satisfying. Moving on to brownies and bread. Who knows what tomorrow shall bring but I have a bag of apples!

we baked a grapefruit yogurt cake from smitten, alison roman's chocolate salted butter shortbread, a spaghetti squash, and caramelized three pounds of onions. sous vide pork chops, kale salad, and the squash were dinner. maybe the onions will be french onion soup for tomorrow.

Pot roast, bean soup, pea soup, cauliflower potato soup, pasta with meat sauce, chili, pork roast with mashed potatoes or dumplings, swiss steak, beef stew, etc.

Storm prep: Bought a cabbage. If we don't loose electricity, it will be stuffed cabbage. If we loose electricity, then it will be sweet and sour cabbage soup.

I learned I cannot turn on my gas stove, if the electricity goes out. I can always turn on the stove top.

Regards,
Cathy2

Cabbage can sit out with the power off, it's the rest of the ingredients that may be challenging without power.

JoelF wrote:Cabbage can sit out with the power off, it's the rest of the ingredients that may be challenging without power.

Soup is vegetarian, so it works better than meat stuffed cabbage.

I do happen to have mushrooms, so I could do a meatless cabbage roll.

What I did learn is gas ovens made from 1990 will not ignite without power. We were wondering if we could bake or roast with the lights out, but it appears not.

Regards,
Cathy2

For some reason, Helen Rosner has been posting pics of a sausage, bean and kale soup a lot recently. I'll be making a batch for lunch this weekend.

https://tinyletter.com/hels/letters/iss ... lo-roberto

WhyBeeSea wrote:For some reason, Helen Rosner has been posting pics of a sausage, bean and kale soup a lot recently. I'll be making a batch for lunch this weekend.

https://tinyletter.com/hels/letters/iss ... lo-roberto

Thanks. I might be joining you in that endeavor. It sounds good!

The GP wrote:

WhyBeeSea wrote:For some reason, Helen Rosner has been posting pics of a sausage, bean and kale soup a lot recently. I'll be making a batch for lunch this weekend.

https://tinyletter.com/hels/letters/iss ... lo-roberto

Thanks. I might be joining you in that endeavor. It sounds good!

Simple and pretty healthy! I've learned that homemade chicken stock makes all of these recipes so much better and so I've been making batches every month or so

One of my favorites, especially now that half my family is vegetarian.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/riv ... minestrone

I've got Taylor's butter bean soup and a smoked ham hock going in a small crockpot and Taylor's chili with extra ground beef going on the stove. A neighbor snagged about 6 lbs of ground beef for me at Mariano's at 99 cents a pound ( ! ) with the understanding that I would turn it into meatloaf, meatballs, and meat sauce for lasagna for both of us. I was going do all three with beef only until I saw pork chops on sale for $1.79/lb at Costco yesterday, so I'll be grinding some of those up to mix in. I do enjoy spending a cold winter weekend cooking.

Cathy2 wrote:Storm prep: Bought a cabbage. If we don't loose electricity, it will be stuffed cabbage. If we loose electricity, then it will be sweet and sour cabbage soup.

I made lamb stuffed cabbages. When I ran out of filling, I chopped the remaining cabbage for Russian cabbage soup known as Shchi. A friend's mother always had a pot of soup simmering with Shchi the favorite. This soup will be topped with fresh dill and sour cream along with some Russian-ish black bread.

Regards,
Cathy2

WhyBeeSea wrote:For some reason, Helen Rosner has been posting pics of a sausage, bean and kale soup a lot recently. I'll be making a batch for lunch this weekend.

https://tinyletter.com/hels/letters/iss ... lo-roberto

I made up a pot of this soup and liked it, but didn't love it. The mediocre quality of the hot Italian sausage definitely was a factor. I didn't feel like going to multiple stores so bought the sausage at Cermak Produce. It was pork based since they don't carry turkey Italian sausage (N. Ridge location.) I used curly kale but would use swiss chard next time. That said, it hit the spot on a blustery Saturday night.

I was so bummed on Saturday. An "icky day" for me is chili and by coincidence Mrs. ChicagoJim had defrosted a steak in the fridge for dinner the next night, and then we realized that we had dinner reservations with friends on Sunday.

There sat the steak and my mind was transmitting "make chili, make chili, make chili"

We even had cheese, sour cream and Fritos - so Chili Fritos was the plan, but a trip to the pantry revealed that we had neither a can of beans or any sort of tomatoes whatsoever. There was no way we were going out to the store, the snow had started, the dog was walked, and we were done for the evening.

So, plan B turned into a game of "empty out the fridge and see what can be done". This revealed enough veggies and sauces that I was able to pull together asian marinated beef cubes, which became a spicy asian stir fry along with the assorted veggies. Good, but I still wanted that chili!!

The GP wrote:

WhyBeeSea wrote:For some reason, Helen Rosner has been posting pics of a sausage, bean and kale soup a lot recently. I'll be making a batch for lunch this weekend.

https://tinyletter.com/hels/letters/iss ... lo-roberto

I made up a pot of this soup and liked it, but didn't love it. The mediocre quality of the hot Italian sausage definitely was a factor. I didn't feel like going to multiple stores so bought the sausage at Cermak Produce. It was pork based since they don't carry turkey Italian sausage (N. Ridge location.) I used curly kale but would use swiss chard next time. That said, it hit the spot on a blustery Saturday night.

Swiss chard would work well. Just had mine for lunch. Was it the best soup I've ever made? Nah but it was relatively healthy and way better than any soup that is available in my cafeteria. This reminds me to start/post in a a thread about good bring to work lunch options!