Delicious Made From Scratch Cream of Celery Soup
September 30, 2010 by admin
Filed under Soup and Stew
By Frank Ernhart
b) It tastes better!
Go ahead and read “their” recipe, then read mine and then YOU decide which is better.
Here is what is in one popular brand of commercial cream of celery soup contains. It reads like a chemical dictionary: water, celery, wheat flour, soybean oil, salt, margarine, (soybean oil, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, water, salt, whey [milk], soybean mono & diglycerides with partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oils), soy lecithin, potassium sorbate [preservative], citric acid, vitamin A palmitate, beta carotene [for color], whey powder (milk), corn starch, modified corn starch, monosodium glutamate, cream, whey protein concentrate (milk), soy protein concentrate, natural flavors, disodium phosphate, onion powder, garlic powder, spice, beta carotene (for color), soy lecithin. They don’t say how they cook it because that isn’t required by the government’s food labeling laws.
2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoon all purpose flour
2 stalks of celery, chopped fine
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions:
1 – Heat the olive oil in a 1 qt saucepan, then add celery and sauté’ until crispy tender (about 5 minutes)
2 – Blend in the flour and cook with stirring until liquid is smooth. About 1 minute.
3 – Slowly blend in the chicken stock, then the milk, until the liquid is smooth, then slow simmer for about 15 minutes.
4 – Add salt & pepper and serve.
Comment – Now that you have seen what the commercial soup has in it are you still willing to use it in place of this simple recipe?
My name is Frank Ernhart. I am a retired engineerin, self-made chef with over 1600 recipes, some original, some previously published all FREE. The website is http://www.frankernhart.com
How to Make Southern Candied Yams Side Dish
How to cook candied yams from host of the Joy of Soul Food, cooking with Pamela Holmes. Healthy, fast, soul food with a twist. How to cook soul food recipes.How to Make Southern Shrimp and Grits with Succotash.
September 24, 2010 by admin
Filed under quick and easy, Seafood, Video
How to Make a Southern Breakfast
www.davecancook.com Cooking with Dave Jr.
Category:
Howto & Style
Tags:
video, breakfast, southern breakfast, ham, omelet, sausage, bacon, grits
Southern Smothered Round Steak
Andouille Smoked Sausage in Red Gravy
- Image via Wikipedia
This dish is from the Cajun areas of Louisiana. The sausage and gravy are spicy with cayenne peppers. If you want it less spicy, use a mild sausage and decrease the cayenne or leave it out completely. Serve this dish of Andouille over rice covered in the red gravy.
6 tb Unsalted butter
1/2 c Diced green peppers
1 1/2 lb Andouille smoked sausage cut in2-inch pieces
1 tsp Minced garlic
8 tsp Tomato sauce
3 c Onions, diced
1/4 c Chopped parsley
6 1/2 c Beef stock
1 c Chopped green onion tops
1 1/2 tsp Cayenne pepper
3 c Cooked rice
3/4 tsp Salt
1/2 c Chopped celery
Melt butter in a heavy pot or dutch oven. Add the sausage, cover and cook without stirring about 7 minutes.
Turn over and sprinkle 2 c. of onions on top. Cover and cook another 7 minutes.
There should be dark brown sediment on the bottom of the pan. Add 3/4 c. of stock and scrape the pan bottom to get all the flavor incorporated. Add pepper and salt, stirring and scraping.
Cover and cook 2 minutes, stirring once. Add celery, green peppers and garlic. Cover and cook 3 minutes, stirring once.
Add tomato sauce and cook uncovered 5 minutes, stirring and scrapping the bottom occasionally. Add 1/2 c. onions. Cook 8 minutes until large puddles of oil have broken out and tomato mixture is thick. Stir only if sticking.
Add parsley and 1/2 c. of the green onions. Add 3-1/4 c. more stock and scrape. Cook 20 minutes until liquid is thick dark red gravy. Stir occasionally.
Stir in remaining stock and onions. Bring to boil, reduce heat, and simmer, stirring frequently, about 14 minutes, until gravy is noticeably thicker but still juicy. Remove from heat and serve immediately over rice.
Soul Food – Southern Blackeye Peas
Steps for Soulful Southern Black-eye Peas
Step 1: Sort the peas. Remove any stones, leaves or odd shaped peas.
Step 2: Place peas in a colander and rinse to remove any dirt.
Step 3: Saute. In a large pot, add olive oil, chopped onions and garlic. Saute until tender.
Step 4: Add smoked turkey, chicken broth and black eyed peas.
Step 5: Cover. Bring to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 1 hour or until tender. When the hour is up, remove from the heat and let sit covered for about 15 minutes.
Step 6: Add red pepper flakes, black pepper or pepper vinegar for seasoning.
Buttery Peas and Zucchini
More Zucchini, photo by Merelymel
If your garden is like mine, you are probably running out of ways to use zucchini. This recipe is a quick and easy side dish for any meal. Cut the zucchini into thin sticks and it will cook very fast.
1- 10 oz pkg Peas in butter sauce, frozen
2 tb Water
1 med Zucchini- Cut into thin strips
1 tb Pimiento; diced
Cook the peas according to package directions. Pour into a serving bowl; cover with plastic wrap and set aside.
Meanwhile, in a skillet, simmer 2 tablespoons of water and zucchini over medium heat until water is evaporated and zucchini is tender.
Stir in peas and pimiento.
How to Make Great Coffee at Home
September 15, 2010 by admin
Filed under Current, Featured, Know Your Ingredients
By Alex Ritter
Homemade Coffee, photo by javaturtle
If you are a coffee drinker, you may have noticed that the coffee you brew at your home never tastes as good as what you can get in restaurants or at Starbucks. This simple fact sometimes prevents people from brewing their own coffee at home, but going out of the house every day for your morning brew is both inconvenient and very costly. If you simply follow the tips outlined below, you can brew your own great tasting coffee at home and save yourself a lot of money.
- Use Fresh Coffee Beans
- Use High Quality Water
- Brew at the Correct Temperature
Fresh beans are essential to making a great cup of joe. Ideally, you should grind your own whole beans every time you brew a pot because coffee loses its flavor as soon as the beans are ground. Just think of the month old can of pre-ground Folgers or Maxwell House you have in the pantry. It smells amazing when you first open it, but it is all down hill from there.
Whatever contaminates, particles, or flavor agents are in your water will end up in your coffee. If you don’t like the taste of your tap water, why would you expect to like the taste of the coffee that your tap water produces? If you could afford to use bottled spring water every day, that would be great, but it wouldn’t be any cheaper than going to Starbucks. Instead, you should filter your water with a simple home water pitcher. Several brands of these filter pitchers are on the market for a good price. Brita, and Pur are two popular manufacturers of water filters that you can try.
Coffee beans give up their best flavors just below the boiling point of water. If your coffee maker doesn’t get the water hot enough, you won’t be able to extract the best flavor from your beans. Instead, you will get dull, bitter flavors that you won’t enjoy. To make sure you are brewing at the right temperature, make sure you have a good quality coffee maker. Higher end makers will come with a temperature setting feature. If your maker has this, be sure it is set at or around 190 degrees Fahrenheit.
If you follow these steps you will be making great coffee at home in no time, and yo will be saving yourself a few dollars every day.
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If you are still looking for that coffee shop experience at home, you might want to consider a Keurig single serving brewer. Keurig machines use single packets called k cups to brew the perfect cup of coffee every time. For k-cup reviews, and info on Keurig Coffee Makers, check out bestkcupcoffees.com.
More on Making the Perfect Cup of Coffee:
The Perfect Cup of Coffee- Tips and Tricks to Help You Make It
The Perfect Cup of Coffee – The Tips and Tricks to Help You Make It
September 14, 2010 by admin
Filed under Featured, Know Your Ingredients
The Perfect Cup of Coffee – The Tips and Tricks to Help You Make It
Make a Perfect Cup of Coffee, photo by javaturtle
The art of coffee making is actually very simple as long as you stick to a couple of fundamental rules. It is imperative that you stick to those rules though, because it can go catastrophically wrong if you don’t. If you do follow these steps, your coffee will turn out great every time. One fundamental rule is that you should always use the best ingredients.
Some of the materials you need:
• Water
• Whole coffee beans
• A coffee grinder
• A coffee filter
• A coffee machine
• Airtight container (storage)
• Baking soda (cleaning)
• Vinegar (cleaning)
The two most important materials are water and coffee beans. Water makes up approximately 98-99% of coffee, so if your water tastes bad, your coffee will taste bad too. It is important to buy whole coffee beans, because the fresher you grind the coffee, the better. What brand you want to buy is completely up to you. A copper filter is preferred over a paper filter because it lets through the coffee oils that the paper filter traps.
If you insist on using a paper filter, the brown paper filter is definitely the way to go. The coffee’s oil is essential to the taste of the coffee. The recommended way to clean your coffee pot is to use baking soda with a little water and vinegar. First, put ¼ of a cup of baking soda with a few drops of water and scrub the whole pot. Then add vinegar to the pot and let the pot bubble. After that, rinse the whole pot off with warm water. Some people prefer to do it twice to make sure they didn’t miss any spots in the first time. The resulting coffee pot should make better tasting coffee than a pot washed with dish washing soap.
When you are ready to brew your coffee, make sure your water is hot, but not boiling. The water temperature should be around 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit. You should always make sure that you are using enough coffee for each cup, or else your coffee will be too bland.
The perfect ratio of tablespoons of coffee to a cup in my opinion is two tablespoons to one cup of coffee. After brewing a good cup of coffee, you can add any additional things you like. It’s all about trial and error; you just have to keep trying to get everything just right. Once you get everything right, the coffee will taste just great. The coffee will be definitely worth the time and effort you paid, and I am sure you will use that recipe for many many years.
More on Making Coffee:
