Chicken & Potato Florentine Soup

Not much to write about this week.  Last week at the boat was mostly leftovers.  We spent this weekend in Orlando, driving up on Friday, taking in Epcot on Saturday and driving home yesterday. Disney has a Florida Resident special package where you get 3 days/parks essentially for the price of one.  Earlier this year we did Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom in one marathon weekend.  This time we did the more adult Epcot.  LOTS of walking, beautiful flowers, and interesting rides like Soaring and the Epcot globe.  Special thanks to our new friend Christine, who is a real Disney-holic and arranged a great tour of all the best of the Flower and Garden Festival with its fabulous blooms and exquisite topiary of Disney movie characters.

We stayed with Sally's PharmD friend of many years, Melinda, and she gave me an interesting recipe for a soup she'd found that sounded wonderful to all of us. When we got home yesterday I thawed out a couple chicken breasts and dashed off to the megamart for a couple ingredients.

Chicken & Potato Florentine Soup

This came originally from an Olive Garden tm copycat recipe site. Of course, this is my simplified version of things with the essential flavors but not the complex original ingredient list. The copycat recipe, like the OG original, I'm sure, called for a ton of added salt (which I avoided, as you'll see).  Something you don't really need.  Sally declared this one of the best soups I've ever made.  It's only a moderately complicated recipe, as you do want to do things in three stages.

2 Chicken Breasts, boneless, skinless

16 oz low sodium Chicken Broth

2 tsp Italian Seasoning

1 Shallot, sliced

1/8 tsp fresh cracked Black Pepper

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2 cans Diced Tomatoes - Italian spiced or Garlic & Onion spiced, with juice

2 cans low sodium Great Northern Beans, rinsed & drained

6 oz Carrots, shredded or thin rounds (I used two 'snack packs' of mini carrots, cut into small disks)

3 Potatoes, medium  (I used half a dozen small white 'new potatoes')

2 cups water

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8 oz bag fresh Spinach

4 oz shredded Mozarella

4 oz Cream Cheese, onion & chive flavor, softened

Season the chicken with half of the Italian seasoning and pepper, and saute until browned slightly. Add the broth and sliced shallot, and simmer about 15 minutes until the chicken in barely pink inside. Remove meat, cut into pieces and return to the broth.

Add the rest of the Italian seasoning, tomatoes, beans, carrots and potatoes, and simmer 30 minutes or so until potatoes until the potatoes are just done. 

Add the spinach in a couple of handfuls, stirring and cooking until it is completely wilted. Add the cheeses, slowly, and stir-cook until they are combined in the liquid and not sticking to the bottom.  Ladle into bowls and serve with a lightly toasted slice of a black or kalamata olive bread.

Makes about 5 quarts

YYUUUUUMMMMM!

Falafal

While at Epcot, we ate a late lunch at the Tangerine Restaurant in the Moroccan 'village'. Sally and I got sampler sorts of plates, and she had never had Falafal. I'd had it before, but she'd didn't have any idea. When she first bit into that crispy croquet, she though it was 'mystery meat' -- unidentifiable ground lamb/pork/beef. Much to her surprise, I told her that it was essentially a ground chickpea/fava bean fritter. So next week or the week after, expect to see some explorations of falafal after I pick up some mix from the local health food market, or soak out some dried chickpeas and make my own 'fresh'.  I may opt for the mix as we don't have a food processor -- just a blender -- and working from a ground mix will be easier. If we're lucky I'll make something that looks as good as this:

Stay tuned....

Tamarind Gelato

Attention Norman Love Gelato Shops in Fort Myers!!

The other interesting food discovery of our trip came when we stopped at Mel's favorite gelato place for a cool after-Epcot treat. Among many interesting flavors, I discovered Tamarind gelato! Wow!! Tart-sweet and thirst quenching. My new favorite flavor of all time. Knocks my old favorite Baskin Robbins Daquiri Ice tm flavor right off the top of the list! Of course you have to like the unique tart-sweet flavor of tamarind, which Mel didn't, but Sally and I exclaimed over!  

Now if we can just get our favorite local gelato shop  -- Norman Love -- to make this flavor!!

Individual Apple Pies, Bleu Tuna Melt and Brazilian Jaboticaba

It seems like we've skipped Spring and gone straight to Summer here in Southwest Florida, with temps (and humidities) in the mid-to-high 80s. I went down to the Farmer's Market the other day and met my friends from Pine Island Botanicals, who always seem to have something new and different to share. This week they had:

Jaboticaba

This southeastern Brazilian fruit is sometimes called the Brazilian Grape. But Jaboticaba don't grow in bunches, or even at the ends of twigs. They grow directly on the trunks and branches of the mature trees!

These large berries -- about the size of scuppernog grapes -- are purple-black in color with a firm skin and small seeds. Taste-wise they most closely (to me) resemble scuppernogs, too. But when you bit into one, an explosion of really much more complex flavors hits your tastebuds! Although I've yet to try it, I'll bet they make a really special jam, and I understand they are common as a juice drink as well. We enjoyed just eating them out of hand, and you will too, if you can find them.

Individual Apple Pies

This recipe is based on one I discovered years ago in a copy of the 1870 Willamette Farmer, the late 19th century agricultural newspaper of the Willamette Valley in Oregon; at the time the breadbasket wheat supplier to the eastern states. Back in the very late 1990s, I collected a large number of recipes from the first year the newspaper was in print, and published them as The Willamette Farmer Cookbook. If you can find a copy, you'll see some interestingly different recipes. I may re-release the book later this year as an e-book along with my second historical fiction novel set in 1880.

Like my culinary hero, Alton Brown, I'm not fond of uni-taskers.  But for this recipe, you really need an apple corer to do it right. Trying to quarter the apples and then re-assemble them is a LOT of work, and the $6 or $7 you spend on the corer well worth it, as you can later core pears as well. I'm still looking for other uses for the tool...

1 Apple per person -- I like Honeycrisp for this, or any sweet apple, not a Granny Smith or Red Delicious.

Pie Crust - make your own, or buy the frozen rolled up crusts and use about 1/2 crust for each apple

Brown Sugar -- a couple tablespoons per apple

Ground Cinnamon -- call it a 1/4 teaspoon per apple

Preheat the oven to 350.

Core the apples and set them aside. Mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon. Thaw and unroll the pie crust dough (or make and roll out your own).

Place the apples, small hole down, on a flat surface, and spoon the core holes full of cinnamon sugar. Pack it tight. Cut the dough into pieces that can be wrapped around each apple to completely cover it, without stretching to dough very thin. Wrap each apple in dough and set them on a silpat tm or non-stick baking sheet, and bake for 30-45 minutes. Serve. Try plating in a bowl with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or English Custard.

You could also do this with seeded half-apples. Spoon a 1/4" thick bed of cinnamon sugar onto the dough, set the apple cut face down on the sugar and pull the dough over to seal.

Bleu Tuna Melts

Sally had never heard of a Tuna Melt before she met me. It rapidly became perhaps her favorite sandwich. She prefers mustard in her tuna salad.  I preferred ordinary mayonnaise, until a few years ago when the fridge was bare of mayo, but there was a bottle of bleu cheese dressing... Try it, you'll like it.

Heat skillet or griddle to medium.  No oil, as the bread is buttered

1 or more cans Solid White Tuna (Not 'chunk'. Solid gives you more meat and less water per can.)

1/2 stick of celery per can of tuna.

'some' Bleu Cheese Dressing

Cheese - whatever you like. We prefer white cheddar

Bread - whatever you like. We like a nice multi-grain...

Butter

Make the tuna salad -- chop the celery, drain the tuna. Combine tuna and celery with the dressing as the binder. You know the drill. Slice the cheese about 1/8" thick.

Butter both sides of each slice of bread. Gently lay down the cheese and tuna salad, and top with the second slice of bread.

Transfer to the hot pan with a turner, and cook a few minutes until the bottom is GB&D. Gently, carefully flip the sandwich and repeat. Can be served with chips, a nice dill pickle slice, or several other possible sides like soup or beans.

Oven Smoking

I love smoked meats, cheeses, you name it!  But I've never had a smoker, or for that matter one of those oven smoker pans int which you put chips and food. The other day I was at the mega-mart and found these heavy foil smoker bags, complete with chips, on the remainder table. For half price I decided to give them a try. 

 I thawed two chicken breasts, dusted them with a bit of Everglades tm Seasoning, tucked them in the bag and rolled up the end.

As I said, it's gotten hot around here lately, so I didn't want to fire up the oven. I used my electric skillet and set the temperature about 25F lower than the package recommendation for a conventional oven. I also cooked to temperature (using a meat thermometer at the recommended time to check for correct temperature). The result was very flavorful, not overpoweringly smokey, very moist chicken. I'll be using these again!

Pretty Cheesy!

Interesting week, but not particularly foodie.   I got a lot accomplished on the second steamboat historical fiction novel I'm writing, titled The Saw-Grass Steamboat. On Friday Sally and I went up to Land O Lakes, FL, east of Tampa, and spent the night at a nice AirBnB property.   If you get up that way, have dinner at Ukulele Brands, a waterside restaurant-bar there with a real Keys feel.  Great food, great price and huge quantities!

Saturday I competed in the Dulcimer division of the Florida State Old Time Music Championships over in Dade City, and won third place. Got home by about 4 PM and zonked out. Sunday, I was lazy.  Made breakfast omelets.  The only other thing I did was make the following lasagna and the cheese fritters.

Lasagna with no-cook noodles

Based on a Mueller's Pasta tm recipe. I've used the special no-boil noodles before, but this recipe uses ordinary (not extra expensive) noodles.  This was a little different process for me -- not cooking the sauce, but adding cooked meat and mushrooms to it; combining cheeses with beaten eggs. I've always kept sauce and meat separate and never added eggs. This is a really tasty and easy version.

As always I doctored things up. I used Paul Newman's Sockarooni tm and Italian Sausage tm sauces, with crimini mushrooms that I sauteed. We both like a little spinach in our lasagna, so I added a layer of that too.

12 oz (3/4 package) Mueller's Lasagna, uncooked

15 oz Ricotta cheese or 2 cups cottage cheese

2 cups Mozzarella cheese, divided

½ cup Parmesan cheese

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 28 oz jars of your favorite Pasta Sauce

1 lb 90/10 Ground Beef 

9 oz pkg of fresh spinach, wilted in microwave for  minute or two and drained

6 oz sliced Crimini Mushrooms, sauteed

Preheat oven to 350. 

Combine ricotta, 1 cup of mozzarella, parmesan, and eggs; mix well.  In another bowl, add browned meat and mushrooms to pasta sauce; mix well.

 

Spread 1 cup of the meat-sauce mixture in 9 x 13 pan. Put 1/3 of the uncooked lasagna noodles over sauce (I used 3 long ways and 1 across).  Spread 1/2 of the cheese mixture over noodles.  Top with 1/3 of meat-sauce mixture.   Repeat layering.  Top with noodles and lastly the meat-sauce mixture.  Make sure every bit of noodle gets covered, otherwise those bits will still be hard.

Cover with foil. Bake 55 minutes. Uncover, sprinkle with reserved Mozzarella cheese. Bake an additional 5 minutes uncovered, or until cheese is bubbly. Let stand 15 minutes before cutting and serving.

Apple & Cheese Snack Plate

Sally asked for a snack the other night "with apple and little bits of cheese". So here's what I made, and she devoured. Half of a filleted apple, and thin slices of her favorite English-style white cheddar cheese. Mine was pretty and tasty too.

Pimento Cheese Fritters

Remember the Pimento Cheese recipe I gave you a couple weeks back? We had just enough left from sandwiches and cracker dipping sessions to make a few of the fritters I talked about. These take 'fried cheese' to a whole new level! Pimento Cheese and panko bread crumbs, a griddle and some oil!

Anglo-Indian Dishes

For Easter Dinner we had a nice partial bone-in ham, sliced and served at room temperature, the way Sally and her Mum prefer it, boiled red potatoes and fried Brussels sprouts. Personally I like my ham heated, but majority rules, as they say.  Plenty of leftovers for dinner and sandwiches for the week.

Trifle

For dessert, Sally (the closet-gourmet) made her English family-style Trifle. I'd never seen one like this, and thought you should see it too. It's a bit time consuming, but well worth the effort! If you can't find Ladyfingers to purchase, you can certainly make or buy a spongecake, and slice it into strips about 3" long x 3/4" wide and 3/8" thick.

1 package Ladyfingers (sponge cake 'sticks')

2 packages Red Jello (she used Cherry and and Strawberry)

1 can Fruit Cocktail (find one without pineapple, mango or orange, or the Jello won't set)

Custard Powder to make a pint of custard.

Milk to make a pint of custard

Sugar to taste

Whipped Cream

First she separated the lady fingers and arranged them around the rim of the bowl. Then she made up one package of Jello let it start to set, then poured it slowly into the bowl, rearranging ladyfingers as necessary, to stand upright. Then off to the fridge to set completely.

Next a second batch of jello was made with the drained fruit cocktail incorporated, and that poured on top of the first batch. Off to the fridge again.

While the second jello was setting, it was time for the custard. We use the English Bird'stm Custard Powder available at your local megamart English/Ethnic section. Others will do, but it's just not the same. Don't use Jello or other brand pudding. It won't be the same at all -- apples and oranges kinda thing. Heat the milk and sugar, add the custard powder and stir. Cool slowly by stirring to prevent a 'skin' from forming on the custard. Pour the custard atop the set jello and spread to create a layer. Third time to the fridge to let the custard set up.

Lastly, spray or dollop a nice thick, yummy layer of whipped cream on top. Pause for the photo op:

Then devour!

Kala Chhole

'Kala Chhole' translates, more or less, as Black Chickpeas. Once again I was tasked to create a planned potluck, this time with a Bangladesh theme, for the original nationality of a departing doctor. At my nearby Indian market I found dried Kala Chana -- black Chickpeas or Garbanzos. Then I picked up a packet of Chhole Masala -- Chickpea Spice blend.

2 cups dry Chickpeas

1 Onion, diced

1 can Rotel with Green Chiles (or use fresh tomatoes and chiles)

1 tsp Chile powder

1 tsp Coriander powder

3/4" thumb of fresh ginger, minced

1 tsp to 1 Tbsp Chhole Masala -- depending on your heat tolerance

Many people soak dried legumes over night. But it has been proven that this does not decrease the cooking time, or increase tenderness or anything else except take up space in the fridge.

Cook the garbanzos at a low simmer for about an hour or until tender -- that is slightly chewy outside and creamy inside. If you have a pressure cooker, this is a good use for it, to cut down the time and energy. Reserve the Chana with the cooking liquid. 

Saute the onion until soft. Add the chile powder and coriander and cook another couple minutes. Add the chickpeas and liquid, ginger and tomatoes and cook again for a few minutes. Then add the Chhole Masala. Start with a teaspoon and work up, unless you really like hot Indian spices (then start with a tablespoon). Simmer until everything is infused, and the liquid is reduced to a thick gravy. Add a bit of cornstarch-water as thickener if necessary.

Makes a great side dish for a party or a variety of meals.  Serve warm with Nan or another bread.

GMO

I just don't undertand what all the fuss is about! We humans have been making and eating GMO foods for several thousand years. Long before Gregor Mendel did his thing with peas and added science to the process. Otherwise there would be no foot-long sweetcorn -- it would look like those tiny ears of corn in Chinese food. No big, juicy tomatoes. No broccoli or cauliflower, or Brussel sprouts etc. No large cucumbers, large tasty potatoes or dozens or varieties of beans. No subtle varieties of wine!  Not to mention no golden retrievers, shih tsu, miniature poodles, or dogs of any kind. No fluffy Maine coon cats, or Arabian stallions, or really wooly sheep. No beef cattle or milk cows.

Virtually all of our common produce, as well as our domestic animals, are the products of genetic modification. I don't see anyone saying get rid of them.

G.M.O. Gregor Mendel Object!!! Now I get it!!

Whether you do it one gene and generation at a time, or splice the little suckers together I don't see a difference. Granted, I don't want unethical science types splicing poisons or monkey elbows into my Green Giant peas...

But then I'm anti-monopoly anyway, and thus ethically opposed to government supported mega-agri businesses like Monsanto (One grain to rule them all, one grain to bind them...), Tyson (forced chicken growth farms), Smithfield (sold out their pork product business to the Chinese), Hershey (stop trying to prevent compeition from Cadbury), General Foods (artifically sweetened cereals, overly salted canned goods), or factory farms of any kind who are trying to (and succeeding) at controlling the regional or world production of basic foods.