Corn and Vidalia Onion Soup

Here's another tasty recipe I whipped up after cleaning out the fridge. This was pretty darn good, even though my roommate talked me into going to Sweet Tomatoes that night. :p


Corn and Vidalia Onion Soup

1 Vidalia onion (or any sweet onion)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon butter
6 ears of corn
1/2 gallon milk
Salt and pepper to taste


Chop onion finely and add to large pot. Saute over medium heat in vegetable oil and butter until translucent. Cut the kernels off the ears and add them as well. Pour in milk, add salt and pepper, and cook till corn and onions are tender (about 15-30 minutes). Milk level will have dropped, which is fine. Serve by itself or with sandwiches.

Oyster Soup

So I'd said something about being veggie for about a month, right? Well, that was before a dear friend gave me a copy of M.F.K. Fisher's "Art of Eating". One chapter is called "Consider the Oyster", which left me drooling for big, fat, fresh ones. So as soon as I got some money, I went to the store and bought a dozen for six bucks (an absolute steal, since a few years ago they were $1.50 each). I brought them home, and made the soup below. I'd forgotten that my roommate hates oysters, so she ended up with something else for dinner--and there was more for myself and my husband.


Oyster Soup


1/4 cup butter

2 tablespoons flour

4 cups milk

one dozen oysters

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon garlic flakes

1 tablespoon onion flakes



Shell the oysters over a bowl to catch the juices. Take a few of the smallest oysters and chop them up. Set the oysters and juice aside. Melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux. Add the milk slowly, then the garlic and onion. and stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture thickens slightly. Add the oysters, turn off the heat, and call everyone to dinner (by the time they're seated and ready to go, the oysters will be done. Otherwise, wait ten minutes.)Serve, if you can, with French bread and white wine, or throw some potatoes in after the milk is hot, cook them for 10 minutes, and drink the wine anyway.

Grilled Portobellos and Grilled Corn

Hey, folks. It's been a while--haven't really had too many interesting food adventures to post about, plus it's been a harrowing year. At any rate, we've been having a problem with running out of groceries during the last two weeks of the month. I decided to take charge of the finances and our nutrition, at least for a while, and go veggie. After all, vegetables are cheaper than meat, and all of us are supposed to be on a diet anyway (SUPPOSED to be, mind you.) The first run of the black eyed pea burgers didn't go so well, but I'll post about that later. To make these, make sure you spray the everlovin' snot out of your grill. Remember, mushrooms have no fat, and the marinade WILL make them stick.


Grilled Portobellos


4 portobello mushroom caps

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

6 tablespoons ketchup

3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

4 hamburger buns

Cheese and condiments (optional)


Combine the portobello mushrooms and spices in a ziploc bag and let them marinate for an hour or so. Heat up the grill (and oil it THOROUGHLY), then place the mushrooms on it. Grill for five minutes on each side. Place mushrooms on buns and add condiments. Serves four.


Grilled Corn


3 ears of corn

1/4 stick of butter, softened

salt and pepper and garlic flakes to taste


Mix the butter, salt and pepper into a paste. Peel down (but don't remove) the husk from each ear of corn. Rub the silk off each ear, then rub the seasoned butter onto the ears. Carefully pull the husk back over the ear, rubbing into place (the butter will help the inner husk stick). Grill on medium heat for about five minutes per side, or until tender. Serves three hungry people, or six as as side dish.

Ham and Barley Soup

And what, pray tell, have we subsisted on over the past month? Leftovers and fast food. [:)] So yeah, not much in the original cooking department here. But now that it's after Christmas, I get to come up with new and excitiing recipes. This one is a variation on something I found online.


Ham and Barley Soup


1 ham bone (preferably with quite a bit of meat on it)

1 1/2 cups hulled barley

1 onion, chopped

1 teaspoon dried garlic (or 2 cloves fresh)

1 bay leaf


Start boiling the ham bone on high heat in an 8 quart pot with the bay leaf. Saute the onion (and fresh garlic, if using) in a pan till the onion becomes translucent and fragrant. Add to the pot. (Add the dried garlic at this stage, if using.) Add the barley and continue to boil over medium heat until the meat falls off the ham bone, about 1 1/2 hours. Get rid of the bone, take out and chop up the meat, put it back in the pot, and serve. Serves four.

Turkey Chili (aka Chili II)

I'm a big Alton Brown fan, and 99% of his recipes turn out just as good as, if not better than, other/original versions. The first time I tried to make his chili, I was missing a bunch of ingredients, so I used what I had. It was delicious. When I tried making his chili recipe "properly", it didn't work for me at all. Tortilla chips in chili? And no beans? Not to mention it just didn't taste right to me. So, I came up with my own version of his chili. I like it because the adobo powder gives it a slight sweetness, and the chicken stock adds body. Plus it takes maybe an hour from start to finish. You can start this in a crockpot before work, and come home to tasty fixins.Warning: This one is so good you may need to double--or triple--the ingredients.


Chili II


1 Pound Ground Turkey



1/2 tsp. Kosher Salt

2 tsp. Peanut Oil

12--24 Ounces Chicken Stock

1 Tbs. Tomato Paste

1 tsp. Ground Cumin

1 Tbs. Chili Powder

2 Tbs. Adobo Powder

1 can Kidney Beans, drained



Season the meat with salt. Brown the meat in the oil. Add the chicken stock, then the tomato paste, cumin and chili powder. Add the adobo powder and beans.Cook for about an hour. Serves two very hungry people or three mildly hungry ones.

Pot Roast With Vegetables

My mom gifted me with a pot roast a few weeks ago, and I finally got around to cooking it. It wasn't as hard as I thought.


Pot Roast with Vegetables


1 2lb pot roast

1/2 cup water

1 squash, cut into sticks

2 zucchini, cut into sticks

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup garlic powder

1/4 cup onion powder

Salt and pepper to taste


Combine spices in a separate container. Season the pot roast with 1/2 of the spice mix. Brown on both sides in an ovenproof pan and add water. Cover roast and place in oven at 350 for an hour. When 30 minutes are left, season vegetables with the rest of the spice mix and add the oil. Toss well. Place next to pot roast in oven and bake for 30 minutes as well. Serves 4-5, perhaps with leftovers.

Spam Musubi, Chicken Nuggets and Sweet Potato Fries

My poor fiance was sick today, so I made him breakfast. Dinner was even better, but you'll see that in a second.


As far as breakfast, I have to blame Andrew Zimmern for this one. We were watching the Hawaii episode, and all of a sudden my man got a craving for spam musubi. We didn't have the right kind of rice, but we had everything else, so...


Spam Musubi in a Bowl

1 cup brown rice

1/2 can Spam

Salt and pepper to taste


Cook the brown rice according to the package directions (usually 3 cups water to 1 cup rice, cook till the rice grains swell and burst and the water disappears, about 30 minutes). In the meantime, cut the Spam into small cubes and brown them in a pan. Put the cooked rice in a bowl, season with salt and pepper, and add the Spam. Serves three.


Dinner was a reasonably speedy affair. I found chicken thighs in the freezer and made short work of them. Thank goodness for YouTube videos...


Chicken Strips


6 chicken thighs, sliced into strips

2 cups breadcrumbs

2 cup panko breadcrumbs

4 eggs

3 cups oil

Salt and pepper to taste


Heat the oil in a pan. Meanwhile, beat the four eggs in a bowl and lightly season with salt and pepper. Combine the breadcrumbs and season them as well. Dry the chicken strips and dip them first in the egg, then cover them with breadcrumbs. Fry them in the hot oil till golden brown. Serves three.


The sweet potatoes... what can I say? I turned them into french fries, my favorite side! YouTube came to my rescue again. It's the best way to figure out how to slice a root vegetable into fry shapes.


Sweet Potato Fries

1 1/2 sweet potatoes, sliced into sticks

1 cup cornstarch

Sugar (or Splenda) and salt to taste


After the chicken strips are done, lightly coat the sweet potatoes with cornstarch and fry them in the hot oil till golden brown. Sprinkle with sugar (or Splenda) and salt to taste. Serves two.