Butterfly Cauldron
Monday, January 15, 2007
Best. Soup. Ever.
Welcome to Zan's Kitchen. All recipes, all the town. Apparently, I'm taking the cauldron portion of my name a bit too literally lately. Because I cooked again and since I loves you all, I'm sharing the recipe. It's a pretty basic veggie soup, but I cannot get enough of it. Yum! I've got some put up in the freezer for later and already ladeled out a bowl for tomorrow at work. And yet, I've still got a HUGE pot left. Anyone wanna come over for lunch?
2 lean steaks, cut o'your choice. Mine came from my Mom's freezer :)
1 can beef broth
1 can tomato sauce
Some tomato bullion
Pasta o'your choice
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can diced potatos
1 can sliced carrots
Onion
Sage, Thyme, Crushed red pepper, Basil, Sea Salt, Black Pepper, Tony's seasoning, Oregano, whatever other seasonings you have in your cabinet.
Cut steak into bitty cubes. Toss in the stock pot with beef broth, tomato sauce, tomato bullion, plus buncha water. (Can you tell my Mom never put much stock into measuring? This is how I learned to cook. Just eyeball it, stop when it looks right.) Add chopped onions and seasoning, heat over low to medium heat until slowly boiling. Heating it slowly gives the meat time to soak up the seasonings and get really tender. Stir occassionally -- but seriously, I was online and downloading music the whole time I was cooking, so it doesn't need a lot of attention. So long as the heat isn't really high.
When you get a nice slow boil, toss in some pasta. I used elbow mac, but whatever you got. I don't think spigetti would work, but hey, who knows? Have fun with it. Let this all keep slow boiling until the pasta is done. Add in veggies. I drained all the water off mine, but you can leave it on if ya like. Or you can use fresh veggies. Or frozen. Whatever.
Let everything simmer for awhile, giving the veggies time to get tender and absorb some seasoning. When they're tender to your liking, dish up and eat. Makes more than I'll be able to eat in a week! Yum.
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I think I'm cooking like this as a sort of comfort measure. I'm not feeling terribly well. My head is seriously dizzy and I'm stuffed up like crazy. And so, since I am resisiting the urge (and do not have the money) to go buy myself a gallon of ice cream, I'm cooking the things I remember my Mom making. Huge pots of soup and chickeny goodness, things that have good memories attached to them. I don't know what people do who don't have parents who cooked. I can't remember my childhood without that memory. Something was always cooking. Might not have been much, but we had something. I made myself pancakes last night. My mom used to make pancakes for dinner when my dad was offshore at work. Dad always wanted a meal-meal for dinner, but when he wasn't home we'd have whatever we wanted. Pancakes or waffles or oh! She used to make the most awesome yeast bread cinnamon rolls. They were HUGE and we'd have them, just them, for dinner. Cinnamon rolls and cold, cold milk. *sigh* I may have to call her and get the recipe. Hrm....
2 lean steaks, cut o'your choice. Mine came from my Mom's freezer :)
1 can beef broth
1 can tomato sauce
Some tomato bullion
Pasta o'your choice
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can diced potatos
1 can sliced carrots
Onion
Sage, Thyme, Crushed red pepper, Basil, Sea Salt, Black Pepper, Tony's seasoning, Oregano, whatever other seasonings you have in your cabinet.
Cut steak into bitty cubes. Toss in the stock pot with beef broth, tomato sauce, tomato bullion, plus buncha water. (Can you tell my Mom never put much stock into measuring? This is how I learned to cook. Just eyeball it, stop when it looks right.) Add chopped onions and seasoning, heat over low to medium heat until slowly boiling. Heating it slowly gives the meat time to soak up the seasonings and get really tender. Stir occassionally -- but seriously, I was online and downloading music the whole time I was cooking, so it doesn't need a lot of attention. So long as the heat isn't really high.
When you get a nice slow boil, toss in some pasta. I used elbow mac, but whatever you got. I don't think spigetti would work, but hey, who knows? Have fun with it. Let this all keep slow boiling until the pasta is done. Add in veggies. I drained all the water off mine, but you can leave it on if ya like. Or you can use fresh veggies. Or frozen. Whatever.
Let everything simmer for awhile, giving the veggies time to get tender and absorb some seasoning. When they're tender to your liking, dish up and eat. Makes more than I'll be able to eat in a week! Yum.
-----------
I think I'm cooking like this as a sort of comfort measure. I'm not feeling terribly well. My head is seriously dizzy and I'm stuffed up like crazy. And so, since I am resisiting the urge (and do not have the money) to go buy myself a gallon of ice cream, I'm cooking the things I remember my Mom making. Huge pots of soup and chickeny goodness, things that have good memories attached to them. I don't know what people do who don't have parents who cooked. I can't remember my childhood without that memory. Something was always cooking. Might not have been much, but we had something. I made myself pancakes last night. My mom used to make pancakes for dinner when my dad was offshore at work. Dad always wanted a meal-meal for dinner, but when he wasn't home we'd have whatever we wanted. Pancakes or waffles or oh! She used to make the most awesome yeast bread cinnamon rolls. They were HUGE and we'd have them, just them, for dinner. Cinnamon rolls and cold, cold milk. *sigh* I may have to call her and get the recipe. Hrm....
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Feed your belly
Because I just made this and it is good, I give you Zan's Mama's Spicy Cheesy Chicken Thingy
2 chicken thighs/breasts/whatever
2 cups cheese o'your choice
1 can Rotel
Pasta!
Boil chicken, let cool and remove from bone. Set aside
Boil pasta! Mama uses spigetti (which, yeah, I know is not spelled correctly. What can I say? Hooked on Phonics Works for me!) but tonight I used elbow mac. Because it's what I had. Pick your pasta, you cannot go wrong.
Dump cheese into pasta, stir until nicely coated.
Dump Rotel into cheesy pasta, provided you have not already devoured it. But really, it's worth the wait.
Dump in chicken.
Mix it all up, dig out a bowl and eat.
Mom usually puts in cream of mushroom soup too, I think. But I didn't have it, so I didn't put it in. Doesn't matter, it's all yummy. I recommend draining a bit of the juice off the rotel, unless you don't mind your pasta thingy being a bit watery. Rotel-cheesy-chicken watery, but hey.
I may have to post on cooking. I have discovered to very many people my age do not know how to cook. I don't understand this. Everyone cooks in my family. Even I cook and I'm not a huge fan of it. There's a running joke in my family that I can't cook. It's a joke because I can, in fact, cook. Pretty damn good at it. I just don't, because why would I cook for just myself?
(Although, should I find myself a nice partner I'll be happy to cook. You may leave your applications in the comments. Thank you.)
2 chicken thighs/breasts/whatever
2 cups cheese o'your choice
1 can Rotel
Pasta!
Boil chicken, let cool and remove from bone. Set aside
Boil pasta! Mama uses spigetti (which, yeah, I know is not spelled correctly. What can I say? Hooked on Phonics Works for me!) but tonight I used elbow mac. Because it's what I had. Pick your pasta, you cannot go wrong.
Dump cheese into pasta, stir until nicely coated.
Dump Rotel into cheesy pasta, provided you have not already devoured it. But really, it's worth the wait.
Dump in chicken.
Mix it all up, dig out a bowl and eat.
Mom usually puts in cream of mushroom soup too, I think. But I didn't have it, so I didn't put it in. Doesn't matter, it's all yummy. I recommend draining a bit of the juice off the rotel, unless you don't mind your pasta thingy being a bit watery. Rotel-cheesy-chicken watery, but hey.
I may have to post on cooking. I have discovered to very many people my age do not know how to cook. I don't understand this. Everyone cooks in my family. Even I cook and I'm not a huge fan of it. There's a running joke in my family that I can't cook. It's a joke because I can, in fact, cook. Pretty damn good at it. I just don't, because why would I cook for just myself?
(Although, should I find myself a nice partner I'll be happy to cook. You may leave your applications in the comments. Thank you.)
