Proof that my son loves me…

He’s only heard about it, never tasted it for himself, but when Nick’s culinary teacher passed out the recipe for French Onion Soup, Nick decided he would make it for me cause he knows how much I love it.

Whoever created the combination of the perfectly warming-to-the-bottom-of-your-toes soup, with the crunchy bread and the ooey-gooey cheese on top, was a genius. And I thank him or her.

In preparation for the soup, I made some homemade beef broth a couple of weekends ago, using soup bones saved from the last time we filled our freezer with beef.

Nick couldn’t believe how long it took for the onions to carmelize and was very impatient during the process. The only change we made, was that we deglazed the pan with sherry, which is not an ingredient that was included in his high school recipe.

It is so much fun to see (and taste) Nick’s kitchen skills developing. He’s such a great kid.

French Onion Soup

2 1/2 pounds onions, sliced thin (we used 3 medium onions)
2 oz butter
6 cups beef stock
2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 t Worcestershire Sauce
salt & pepper to taste
Hearty bread, grated swiss, parmesan or other good melting cheese

In a heavy pan, over medium-low heat, melt butter and add onions, turning so they are all coated with butter. Carefully carmelize the onions without burning. This is a long, slow process and may take as long as 45 minutes. Cook them until VERY brown.

Deglaze the pan using some of the beef stock (we used a splash of sherry).

Add stock, thyme, pepper and Worcestershire. Bring to a boil, then simmer 20-30 minutes. Season with salt & pepper to taste.

Serve with bread and melted cheese.

Yum!

Snow Ice Cream

It has been snowing for the last couple of days. Snowing a lot!

Yesterday I braved the elements and went into the office, but was smart enough to bring my work laptop home with me so I didn’t have to worry about it today…I’m up against a Friday deadline, so a non-working snowday was NOT an option.

It snowed almost all day long. The boys went out and pelted each other with snowballs for a while, and Paul got a hankering for some ice cream. Really – ice cream! It’s snowing big, fluffy white flakes. I think hot chocolate and Paul thinks ice cream. He apparently has always been fascinated with the idea of snow ice cream and today was the day!

We carefully filled a bowl with clean snow, made the base and folded in the snow.

Wanna know something funny? It tasted JUST LIKE REAL ICE CREAM!

Who knew? (Besides Laura Ingalls, of course)

Snow Ice Cream Recipe #1
source: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art38570.asp
Ingredients:

1/2 c. sugar
1 c. cream
2 eggs
2 tsps vanilla
Pinch of salt

Place the above ingredients in a large bowl.
Mix with an electric mixer. Add fresh snow..approx 5 – 6 cups and mix in to blended mixture.
Eat immediately.

NOTE: Always make sure you’ve had snow falling a while before you collect snow for ice cream so you know it will be clean and free from contaminates.

Sighs

This has been a strange week for me. It was my birthday, and it hit me kinda hard. I’m getting old. It put me into a bit of a funk most of the week, and I’m afraid that my family took the brunt of it. Because of timing, my birthday dinner is postponed until next weekend when Nick will prepare a gourmet feast of my favorite foods.

In preparation of one of the courses, I spent today making beef stock with bones that have resided in our freezer for a couple of months now. I thought of taking a photo of the stock, but there’s nothing photogenic about it. It’s just brown.

In an effort to get me out of my funk, Paul and I took a drive last Sunday. Not having a particular place we wanted to go, we just drove north along a couple of smaller highways.

We passed through many small towns, passed a lot of vehicles that had Christmas trees tied to the roofs, and thoroughly enjoyed the scenery. At one point, we pulled into a little parking lot and watched the North Cascade Elk Herd for a while. I wish they were closer, but the scenery was beautiful.

Here’s the same photo, zoomed in so the elk are visible:

We also saw probably 10 bald eagles, but none of them cooperated for a photo shoot. But the river where we spotted 5 of them at the same time was amazing with the fog hovering over the water.

When we got home, the boys had gotten the Christmas decorations out, put the lights on the house and set the tree up. So we spent the rest of the evening decorating the tree and my funk was gone.

Then a couple of days later I looked out my back window and sighed deeply with contentment. After all, THIS is my backyard.

I am blessed.

Comfort Foods

Comfort foods are a very personal thing. Within the same family, everyone has their own unique preferences.

Now Farmer Paul, he’s a gravy guy. Biscuits and sausage gravy, fried chicken liver with potatoes and cream gravy, pork chops with potatoes and cream gravy, turkey with giblet gravy…you get the idea.

Nick…well, Nick likes everything. But he really loves Tuna Pasta Salad. Austin goes for homemade burgers and baked beans and Ryan is all about Spaghetti and Pizza.

For me, it’s a good brothy soup. Zuppa Toscana-style potato soup, meatball soup and, best of all, chicken/turkey Noodle soup. Not just noodle soup, but Noodle with a capital “N” soup.

This is the soup I grew up with. A delicious, cooked-for-hours broth with chicken or turkey, carrots, onions, sometimes green beans and mounds of homemade noodles. It’s simple, but it’s just so…so…so warm. Austin and Ryan don’t care for the noodles much. Paul and Nick can take them or leave them as long as there’s plenty of broth. And that works great for me, cause I would just as soon eat all the noodles myself and leave the rest of the soup for them.

I wish I could give you an exact recipe for the noodles, but I can’t…sometimes it takes extra flour, sometimes extra milk. But this’ll get you started:

Before you begin the noodles, your broth (with your veggies of choice) must be completely cooked, ready to eat.

On the clean counter, make a pile of about 4 cups of flour. Then make a little ditch in the middle. Crack in 4 eggs, add 2 teaspoons salt and 4 Tablespoons of milk. Start mixing the wet ingredients with a fork, slowly incorporating the flour into the mixture.

At some point, it’ll get too hard to keep mixing with the fork. So get in there with your hands and mix until it comes together. Knead it a few times until it forms a smooth ball of dough, and then you’re done.

Make sure the counter is generously floured (you don’t want the noodles to stick), roll the dough out to about 1/8″ – 1/4″ thick. Use either a pizza cutter or a big knife to cut it into strips about 1/2″ x 1 1/2″. Drop the noodles into the pot of rapidly boiling stock. Stir the noodles down occasionally. After the noodles are all in, continue cooking for 10 minutes.

Eat as soon as it’s cool enough that you don’t burn your mouth.

And plan for leftovers…it’s even better the next day!

Wings of Buffalo

I’ve mentioned before that there are some things that are better made in a restaurant than at home. The internet if full of copycat recipes that home cooks devour, hoping to recreate their restaurant favorites in their own kitchens.

My experience is that some of these are very close. Some are good, but not very close to the restaurant version. And others are waaaaaay off and don’t even taste good! Of the one’s I’ve taken a stab at, the most successful by far is the sauce for buffalo wings.

A lot of places seem to have very liberal definitions of wings. They stretch the definition to include everything from BBQ to Hotter-than-Hades. Real buffalo wings, at least in our household, are lightly breaded, fried & tossed with the magical combination of Frank’s RedHot Sauce and Butter.

Over the years that we’ve been making the wings at home, I have modified and morphed the recipe until it is now exactly the way we like it.

I’ll make 50-60 pieces at a time. Any leftovers are put in the fridge, un-sauced, and the kids heat them up for lunches and snacks over the next couple of days.

My procedure (not really a recipe) is as follows:

1. Cover the wing pieces in buttermilk. Dump in a bunch of Frank’s RedHot Sauce. Mix and let marinate for 1-3 hours.
2. Mix together a flour dredging mixture of flour and seasoned salt. Don’t know quantities, but if you were to taste a little pinch, you could taste the flavor of the seasoned salt, but it wouldn’t be very salty.
3. Heat oil (I use and electric skillet to monitor the temperature easiest) to about 350′.
4. Dredge wings in flour and put in hot oil. Fry until cooked through.
5. While wings are frying, melt 1/2 stick of butter and mix in a bunch of Frank’s RedHot Sauce. Taste it until it’s the spiciness you want.
6. Remove wings from oil & drain on paper towels. Place still-hot wings in a large bowl. Drizzle Buffalo Sauce over them, toss to coat.
7. Do your best to cook them as fast as they are eaten.
8. Any leftover sauce can be stored in the fridge for use next time.