It's On!

I know that I've blathered on and on about soups here before. Really how can I get so excited about veggies and stock? I just love that you can take a pathetic looking remains of your vegetable bin and make something so utterly desirable with them.
I make at least two giant pots of soup a week around here and we eat every bit of it. Many soup recipes begin with a similar base, (onion, garlic, celery, and carrots) so why not do all of the chopping at once? While this is a fantastic way to cut down on cooking times, eating your way through an entire pot of soup can be a chore rather than the pleasure that a meal should be. My solution? I divvy it up in single serving containers and place in the freezer as soon as it cools. On workout nights when I am too tired to cook, we each get to pick our own "frozen dinner". A fully stocked soup supply also means that it only takes a few minutes to pack up lunch for my husband. Frozen soup, a salad, a piece of fruit and he is out the door.

Here are some of my freezable favorites. All recipes are easily doubled or tripled.

Sausage Lentil Soup

Curried Carrot Soup (also good with a can of coconut milk thrown in at the end)

Mushroom Barley Soup

Roasted Garlic and Tomato Soup

Creamy Broccoli Soup

You know what is a major time suck? Moving! Especially when that move also involves buying a home. Why do I bring this up? I am hoping that this information will help excuse me from not blogging for four months. Are you buying it? No? Well let me just move on to telling you about my new place.

Choosing to live in southern california had doomed me to rent forever. Then the economy tanked and prices here in long beach took a hearty dive. That is when my husband and I found the bank owned 2,000 square foot loft that we are now living in. Imagine a parking garage. Polished concrete floors, rough concrete ceilings, exposed pipe and conduit. Got that visual? Add a couch and coffee table and you are imaging our loft. It's definitely a unique space to call home but I know that with a couple of years and unholy amounts of cash it will be amazing. Thus far it has proven itself to be bike friendly, an awesome roller rink, and a downright delightful party pad.

Dental Hell

The following is an unpaid advertisement and in no way reflects the principals of this blogger.

This is a real advert that has been living on my fridge ever since it arrived in the mail a month ago. I just can't get over the fact that someone thought this would lure you in to their office. Since I have been blissfully overloaded with work, this is the most interesting item in the kitchen right now. Enjoy.

Corn Party!

Natalie Dee

Clearly I am blogging too infrequently. Here we are at another theme party and scarcely a post has passed between them. The corn party is this weekend. I decided to make Caramel Corn, for the most part because TWO servings of corn would be involved, syrup and kernels. Part of the build up to the celebration is thinking of the corniest Facebook updates possible. Since I am awfully fond of writing lyrics, I did more than was necessary. Can you name all of the bands?

I'm bringing corny back. Them mother shuckers don't know how to act. Let me make up for the maize you lack. Yeah!

Alllll I can say is that my life's a corny grain. I like watching the kernels gather maiize. And aaalll I can do is just pour some ghee for two and peek a bushel view but it's not grain. (It's not grain)

We'll make corn like a pair of black kernels! You free me from the cob You shucked the kernels out of me. Oh well, those ugly days, they made us so sick. We are just kernels now, we've learned the salt and butter trick.

The corn it sleeps alone tonight after, the cobs turn out their lights. And send the kernels swerving into the corniest evening. And I am finally seeing that I was the one worth shucking.

Well this is a corny all about chow my life got flipped turned upside down I'd like to take some butter and salt right there, I'll tell you how I became the corn of popped air.

We are the corn we are the niblets. We are the ones to make a buttery day so lets all dig in. There's a EAR we're shucking We're cobbing all our liiiiives. It's true corn will make a buttery stain falling on your tee.

Lasagna

Though my love of cheese is well established here, I must confess that what makes this lasagna so special is the sauce. Saucing your lasagna can be a tricky business. Add too much and the whole thing turns into a soupy sloppy mess, add too little and you've shortchanged the most flavorful component of your dinner. The compromise? Set aside a hearty portion of sauce to serve alongside your lasagna. 

Lasagna

1 lb hot italian sausage

1 large yellow onion chopped fine

8 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

1 cup red wine

2 tsp dried oregano

1 1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

3 (28oz cans) crushed tomatoes

1 TBLSP sugar

2 eggs

1 cup parmesan 

15oz ricotta cheese

1/3 cup chopped fresh basil

2lbs mozzarella, sliced

1 lb barilla lasagna noodles (The kind that do not need to be cooked before the lasagna build.)

Remove sausage from it's casings and crumble into a large dutch oven. Use the back of a spoon to break apart sausage as you brown it over medium heat. When sausage has browned nicely remove it from the pan using a slotted spoon. Eyeball the pan, if it looks as if there is less than 1/3 cup oil left from the sausages add olive oil, or if there is more than 1/3 cup remove some of the sausage drippings. Add onions to pan and cook until translucent. Add garlic to the pan and cook for 1-2 minutes making certain that garlic does not brown. Add sausage back to the pan, along with 1 cup of red wine. Cook over medium heat, until wine has reduced in volume by half. (About 10 minutes) Add the oregano, thyme, dried basil, salt, pepper, tomatoes and sugar to the pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally for 30 minutes. Taste the sauce and add more salt if needed. Set sauce aside.

In a medium bowl mix the eggs with the parmesan. Once combined, stir in the ricotta, then gently fold in the basil. 

Lightly grease a 9 x 13 pan* with olive oil. Coat the bottom of the pan with 1/2 cup sauce. Layer pasta, ricotta, mozzarella slices, and sauce in pan repeating until all the ricotta is gone. Create one final layer of pasta, (Coat this one lightly but completely with sauce. Any pasta that is not covered won't cook properly.) You should have quite a bit of sauce left over. Set this aside to serve with the completed lasagna) Top with a final layer of mozzarella slices and bake at 400 degrees for 1 hour. 

*If you'd like, you can make two smaller lasagnas rather than one big one. After you have cooked both lasagnas, cool one, wrap it well in foil and place in a freezer bag. The lasagna should stay fresh for 3-4 months in the freezer. Don't forget to freeze some sauce as well! To serve, defrost the lasagna completely in the fridge and then bake at 400 degrees for one hour. 

Best Day Ever

My husband's album was released on iTunes today! I can't tell you how excited I am. So many hours went into the making of this cd. Even though I have heard every note about a billion times, I still love every bit of it. It's THAT good. Check it out here. If you don't have iTunes you can also listen to a few songs at RollonRed.com.  OR just hit the big pink button. You'd be crazy not to! 

Big Three Oh

A Cheesy Post

Cheese and I? We're BFFs. Despite the fact that I am mildly lactose intolerant I make a point of including this delightful dairy bomb in every meal. I've always thought of myself as the sort of person who could never get enough cheese. I was wrong, I was beaten by a formidable foe known simply as "The Cheese Party".*
My husband travels often and the timing of his last trip couldn't have been more fortuitous, he landed at 4pm on the day of the notorious event, his suitcase packed with french cheese. The overhead bin on a transcontinental flight is not the ideal way to store perishable food so by the time we hit the party we were rocking some interesting odors. Fortunately, our friends are blessed with adventurous palates and the cheese was sampled by nearly everyone. I just couldn't do it. I love trying new things but when massive amounts of bacteria may be involved I have a really tough time forcing myself to dive in. Fortunately there were plenty of other cheese temptresses to distract me from that foul odored fare. In fact, by party's end I could not eat another piece. I even skipped my usual midnight quesadilla! I was not about to let our friendship die so first thing next AM I reunited with my favored friend, fromage. It was a rough road back, but we are besties again.

The recipe that I made for the cheese party, Baked Goat Cheese with Caramelized Onions, Garlic, and Mission Figs can be found here. I served from a crock pot so the goat cheese stayed warm and soft throughout the party. (As soon as the goat cheese cools it can be difficult to spread.) The addition of the caramelized onions and figs transform each bite with a delightful mix of salty, tangy, and sweet flavors. And at the end of a lazy Sunday, the leftovers make a lovely light dinner served with a green salad.

*Brought to you by the makers of The Potato Party