French Onion Soup

On New Year's Eve, I like a food theme. I think that's because after our traditional Thanksgiving (turkey and all the fixings) and Christmas (rib roast) dinners I need a little culinary whimsy — a little je ne sais quoi.

We've done Chinese with homemade crab rangoon. We've done fondue with homemade cheese fondue. We've had make-your-own pizzas. This year's NYE theme was French with French Onion Soup, Chicken and Mushrooms in a White Wine Sauce and for entertainment, An American in Paris on DVD. The soup tasted just as decadent — though not quite as salty (I always use low-sodium broth) as the kind ordered up in restaurants. Everything was magnifique!

Happy 2017, mes amis!

XOXO,
Amy

French Onion Soup
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups sliced onions (about 4 medium-sized onions)
48 ounces beef broth
2 tablespoons dry sherry (optional
1 teaspoon dried thyme
Nutmeg — hefty pinch or two
Salt and pepper to taste
4 slices French bread (with extra for leftovers)
4 slices provolone cheese (with extra for leftovers)
2 slices Swiss cheese (with extra for leftovers)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (with extra for leftovers)

Melt butter with olive oil in large stock pot over medium heat. Add onions and continually stir until tender and translucent. Do NOT brown onions.

Add beef broth, sherry, nutmeg and thyme. Season with salt and pepper, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Heat oven broiler.

Place oven-safe bowls on a cookie sheet and ladle soup into each. Place one slice of bread on top of each bowl of soup. (Bread may be broken into pieces if preferred.) Now add the cheeses. Layer each slice of bread with a slice of provolone, half a slice of Swiss and 1 tablespoon Parmesan. Place cookie sheet with bowls into preheated oven and broil until cheese bubbles and browns slightly. Serve and enjoy!

Slow Cooker Chicken Adobo

I recently made one of the best new dishes ever, a dinner that everyone in my family loved and wants me to make again. And again and again and again. 

This magical dish: my friend Aimee Nezhukumatathil's Slow Cooker Chicken Adobo. 

I'm going to let Aimee tell you all about her recipe. But first, know that everything she says is true. The chicken is so tender it indeed falls off the bone. You and your family will drool at the smells wafting through your house. Consider this conversation when I came home last Tuesday to chicken adobo simmering away in my crockpot.

Me: "Omigoodness, dinner smells amazing!"

Lucy,  9: "I know, right?!"

Lucy did not want to wait for her dad and sister to get home to start eating. 

Here are Lucy and Penny chowing down and displaying their approval.

Readers, this dish is so good. Here's Aimee to tell you more. --XOXO,  Amy

I know social media gets a lot of flack sometimes (and rightly so in many cases), but one of the good parts for me is reconnecting with sweet friends from long ago. Amy and I were friends in high school and on the Speech & Debate Team together (she was Debate Amy and I was Speech Aimee). After years of Facebooking, Amy and I finally reconnected in person a few years ago at our 20-year high school reunion. (Editor's note: Stop it! We are not that old!)

I've been drooling over the wonderful and very manageable recipes here and am so happy to follow along and cheer Amy's delightful goings-on, even if mostly virtual these days. (Editor's note: This photo is of Club Amy/Aimee at our 20-year high school reunion. I'm on the left and Aimee is in the middle. At the right is our friend Amy Farmer Broderick.)

A little bit about me and my family: I'm working at home now on sabbatical, but I'm an English professor at a small state college in Western New York. My husband is also an English professor at my same college and we have two little boys. We've tried to do as little child care as possible these past eight years, but that often means handing off the kids to each other in a parking lot or driveway. During the week, my husband and I almost always have grading to get done at night and we are both writers and we both love hanging out with the kids. 

This is my drawn-out way of saying that having time to cook can sometimes get tough if we're not prepped and ready to go the night before.

Enter: the slow cooker. 

I'm speaking  to the choir for many here, I know, but my slow cooker was a game changer for me. I can prep a meal the night before (or day of) going to work and come home to a piping hot meal after being on campus all day. 

My mother is from the Philippines  and my dad is from India, and  on those impossibly dark and dreary days here in New York (think Ice Planet Hoth), I crave my parents' home cooking: curries, noodle dishes, garlic fried rice, and my favorite: chicken adobo. Some of my Pinoy purist pals might think my slow cooker version is sacrilege, but my Filipina mama (who is verrrry picky about her adobo) could not tell this wasn't cooked on the stove/oven/outside burners. Once when she was visiting, she asked me three times just HOW I made this adobo, even though she saw the crock pot bubbling all afternoon. She just could NOT believe this wasn't made "the old-fashioned way."

Side note: This is so easy, it's embarrassing. But you do need to be precise with the measurements--even if you're like me and don't usually measure stuff--or you will be in vinegary, vinegary hell.

Sending peace, love and comfort food from western New York,
Aimee

Slow Cooker Chicken Adobo
3 pounds bone-in chicken*
2-3 bay leaves
1 small onion, diced (optional)
8 cloves garlic, crushed
3/4 cup low sodium soy sauce (or regular, if you prefer)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white vinegar, measured precisely

*Note regarding the chicken: Either cut a whole chicken into pieces or buy it already cut up. Or, if in an extra hurry, just use breasts, tenderloins or thighs. Also, the traditional way calls for bone-in, skin-on chicken, but it's up to you if you prefer skinless and/or boneless. The traditional way will, of course, be the juiciest.

Place the chicken in the slow cooker.

In a separate bowl, combine the other ingredients and stir until just mixed. Pour the mixture over the chicken and cook on low for 6-8 hours, until chicken is super tender. That's it!

Try not to drool when you walk into your kitchen the rest of the afternoon or when you come home from work.

Serve your chicken adobo over rice and with whatever veggies you like. Yields about six servings. Enjoy!

Oh, as Amy discovered and my husband will attest, the leftovers--if you have any--are as good or better!

Smokehouse Spaghetti

I'll keep this entry short. You will make this dish. You will make this dish for one reason: bacon.

Smokehouse Spaghetti is one of my favorite dishes my mom made when I was growing up. I've tweaked Mom's version ever so slightly -- mainly leaving out the can of mushrooms with juice called for in her version. Mom also uses garlic salt if she doesn't have fresh garlic around, but I always have fresh garlic on hand. Now, this baked pasta is a favorite with my kids and hubby, too.

Penny and I recently made a double batch of Smokehouse Spaghetti. I asked Penny why she likes it and her response: "Because it's like spaghetti and lasagna together."

You will make this dish. I hope you will tell me about it, too.

XOXO,
Amy

Smokehouse Spaghetti
12 ounces spaghetti
1 pound lean ground beef
1/4 pound bacon, cut up
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Pepper
15 ounce can of tomato sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1 cup shredded provolone, mozzarella or Italian blend cheese, divided
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
Grated Parmesan cheese for serving, if desired

Start water for pasta to boil. Add spaghetti when water is boiling and cook until done.

In your biggest skillet, fry beef, bacon, onion and garlic together, seasoning with pepper as desired. Drain.

Stir in tomato sauce, oregano and basil into the beef  and bacon. Add a little water -- just enough to basically clean out the inside of the can of tomato sauce. (If you are making my mom's version, here is where you would add the mushrooms and juice.) Simmer for 15 minutes.

Add spaghetti, which you have drained by now, to the meat and sauce mixture. Stir to incorporate fully.

Spray with Pam the bottom and sides of a 9X13 dish. Place half of spaghetti and meat sauce mixture into dish. Top with half of each kind of cheese. Repeat layer. Bake in 375-degree oven for 25 minutes.

Smokehouse spaghetti can be frozen, so I always make two at one time. Keep in mind that once thawed you will have to up the cooking time on the previously frozen smokehouse spaghetti,  because it is not going straight from stove to oven.

Pressure Cooker Potato Soup

I'm trying to perfect my mom's soupy potatoes -- that's what she calls this dish. It's a work in progress and a goal I don't think I will ever quite achieve. Some things just taste better when someone else prepares them for you. Like Mom's soup and tuna salad. Like my husband's vodka gimlet.

Anyhow, in this rendition of soupy potatoes, I use the pressure cooker, so I get to enjoy my soup right away. I also added pancetta for a little more flavor. It hit the spot. My husband and our two daughters enjoyed it with the girls asking for it in the next day's lunch -- and that's quite the achievement, let me tell you.

XOXO,
Amy

PS: This isn't the first of Mom's soups I've done in the pressure cooker. Check out my Midwestern Vegetable-Beef Soup.

Pressure Cooker Potato Soup

4 ounces pancetta
2 medium to large onions, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 to 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme (or oregano)
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
5 pounds potatoes (russet, Yukon gold, red), peeled and diced into 1/2-inch cubes
8 cups vegetable or chicken broth
Salt and pepper to taste

Sautee pancetta, onion, thyme and parsley inside pressure cooker for a couple minutes, until fragrant. Deglaze inside of pressure cooker with some of the broth, scraping pan of crunchy bits of onion and pancetta. Add potatoes and remaining broth. Cook under high pressure for six minutes and do a quick release when time is up.

Note: You could cut the ingredients in half. I like to make a lot so we can eat soup for days and share with our neighbors.

Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls

A while back a friend on Facebook posted about preparing cabbage rolls. While I wanted to make them, too, there are just way to many steps involved for a cabbage dish I wasn't sure anyone in my family but myself would appreciate.

Flash forward to a couple weeks ago, a friend on Facebook posted a link to unstuffed cabbage rolls. Genius. Now, we're talking. I whipped up these unstuffed cabbage rolls, adding red wine vinegar to the original recipe.

The verdict: we loved this meal. Well, Jeff, Penny and I did and we ate it for two dinners in a row. I couldn't believe it. The husband is not a big fan of cabbage or eating the same dinner back-to-back. Lucy, however, couldn't get past the mere sight of cabbage in her bowl.

Next time I might add a dash of paprika in keeping with the Eastern European heritage of the dish. You could easily add rice, provided you added more water along with it.

Next time you are searching for old school style comfort food, I hope you think of unstuffed cabbage rolls. I certainly will.

XOXO,
Amy

Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls
Serves 6 to 8

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 pounds lean ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small to medium-sized cabbage, chopped, making sure to remove the hard stem that runs up the middle
2 cans (14.5 ounces each) no salt added diced tomatoes, not drained
1 can (8 ounces) added tomato sauce
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper

In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add ground beef and onion and cook, stirring, until beef is no longer pink and onion is tender.

Add garlic and continue cooking for one minute.

Unless your skillet is big enough to accommodate all the other ingredients, transfer the beef mixture to a large pot or stock pot before adding the other ingredients.

Add the cabbage, tomatoes, tomato sauce, red wine vinegar, water, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes or until cabbage is tender.