Gotta get some Gumbo

While I'm on leave from work, I have been trying to do some more cooking, within limits of what I can lift and gripping knives for more than a minute really hurts. That being said, I'm trying to go outside the box more and try things I haven't before since I have a little more time to work in the kitchen.

Dude has helped a bit with getting dishes and stuff out for me and last week he said "hey, why don't you try gumbo?" Umm, I have never seen him EAT gumbo before.

I researched it a bit on the Internet then sent him a text message saying that if he picked up some bell peppers and celery, I would give it a go the next day. I had everything else in the freezer or the pantry, so it was cheap as chips to make.


I got this off the Internet either on Allrecipes.com or Cooks.com-I looked at both.

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

1/2 pound sausage, sliced in 1/2 inch slices (I used spicy Italian)

Vegetable oil to make 3 TBSP with the drippings left from sausage

5 TBSP flour

1 cup coarsely chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery

2 cloves garlic, smashed, not cut

1 medium green pepper, chopped

1 medium red pepper, chopped

1 tsp chipotle pepper

2 cups chicken broth

1-28 oz can tomatoes (I used diced)

4 cups cooked chicken, in bite sized pieces

hot rice, cooked

Cook sausage over high heat in a Dutch oven, stirring often. Remove sausage with slotted spoon to a paper towel on a plate, to reserve drippings. Add enough veggie oil to make 3 tablespoons. Whisk in flour, cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly for 5 minutes. Add onion, celery, garlic and peppers. Cook 5 minutes. Stir in broth and tomatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer 5 minutes. Add sausage and chicken, simmer covered for 5 minutes.

Serve over hot rice.

Now, I let mine simmer for about an hour. I just thought it would taste better if the flavors had a chance to meld. The only thing I will change next time is to use jalapeno peppers as Dude burped up the green peppers all night and the jalapenos don't bother him. He really liked it and Drama Queen even scooped some chicken up and ate it with the rice. Score!

I only have a 3-quart Dutch oven. After making this, it just reinforced my need for a new Dutch oven. I had been looking on-line and they ranged from $99 to $waytoomuch.

However, on a trip to HomeGoods with my Mom and sister, I spotted this 7 quart for $70!! I love the color, but it doesn't represent very good on here.

I'm in love...

Thank you for all your kind words and emails on my last post. I have been feeling like I'm standing on a ledge, peering over the edge and hoping I won't fall. I really appreciate all of you-people I don't even know, but were right there with insight and hope. Thank you.

Souper Duper

I'll admit it. I love Olive Garden. I love the salad. I love the bread sticks. I love the Limoncello Lemonade. We all know by now that I'm a fussy eater. Not very adventurous. I like what I like and that's all that I like (am I channeling Popeye?). Before Hermit Crab went back to college, we spent a day together making some purchases for school and just hanging before she left me again. Going to Olive Garden was an easy decision as it is right next to the mall.


She had taken her sister there earlier in the summer (and they didn't kill each other!) HC isn't a big fan of the salad, so she tried the Chicken Gnocchi soup and loved it. She ordered it again this time and I tried a bite....and then another. It was so good. I wish I had ordered it instead of the salad.

I had an idea of how to put it together at home. Then I Googled it. Turns out I was wrong on most parts. Well, some parts. I'm going to try it the way I originally thought, but this is probably closer to how they make it at the restaurant.

Olive Garden's Chicken Gnocchi Soup

1/3 cup butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound chicken, cubed
1/3 cup flour
1/2 a carrot, shredded
1 stalk celery, shredded
1/4 cup onion, shredded
1/2 cup spinach leaves, torn (I totally forgot to buy!)
2 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
3 chicken bouillon cubes
Gnocchi

Melt butter over medium heat in a soup pot. Add garlic and onion and saute. Add chicken and cook through. Add flour and stir in well to cook out raw flour taste. Add milk and cream and stir well. Add carrots and celery and the bouillon cubes. Cook and simmer for 10 to 12 minutes; add gnocchi the last 5 minutes. Serve with bread of your choice (I made a no-knead loaf-yum!)

I'll admit that I'm not a HUGE soup fan-a small bowl every now and then is fine with me. However, if we ever move to Iceland, soup will be in our future-it is like the national dish there!

Chicken soup

I have never made homemade chicken soup before-Campbell's has always done the work for me! I had poached the six chicken breasts and then made the stock. I pulled apart the meat and put into two freezer packages for two different meals. I grabbed one of the packages of chicken, one of the containers of chicken stock, and my orange Rachael Ray cast iron Dutch oven and went to work.

Chicken Soup
1-2 cups cup up chicken
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
6 'new' Yukon gold potatoes, halved and/or quartered
2 carrots, peeled and slice in coins
1 stalk celery, sliced in small half moons
pasta of your choice, I used bowties

Place all ingredients, except pasta, in Dutch oven. Season with salt, pepper, and a bay leaf. Simmer for about half an hour. Pour pasta in and cook to desired doneness. I left mine about another 20 minutes.

Dude wanted more noodles, but I didn't have as much room in my pot as I would have liked, so I only used about a half cup of noodles and it wasn't enough. I made some fresh bakery dinner rolls to go with and packed it up for dinner at work. It was so good! I can't believe how easy it was and how much better it tasted not out of can.

Does everyone have big plans for Superbowl Sunday? Not us. Dude doesn't like football, but I bought some snack food and am making some guac so we can watch. I'm hoping the Saints can pull it off. It would be nice to see a first time winner (still waiting Vikings...).

Off to paint some more trim work in my new scrap room and I have a pot simmering on the stove with the ham bone and ham pieces from last nights' dinner. Trying ham stock so I'm not wasteful and also Dude wants me to try making a ham and potato soup. Hmmmmm.

Meatloaf soup

For the last two weeks, I have been feeling.....blecky. Runs the gamut of stomach ache, to chills, to nauseous. Just not on my A game. After a wonderful night with our friends, I came home still not feeling well. Sunday was a waste of a day. I kept walking around the house picking up some laundry, then sitting down. Did some dishes, sat down. Took a nap, sat down-tired from the nap you know? The hubs went in for OT and I totally slept through him leaving, so he was on his own for dinner. I did notice the hot dogs and buns were missing, so that must have been in the lunch box. As I was perusing the fridge-which I had just cleaned out Saturday morning-there wasn't much in there. Eggs, cheese, milk, condiments, OJ, kids' leftovers, some veggies at the end of their lives, and a 2 pound chub of ground beef I had gotten on sale on Thursday. Normally I buy 80/20 because I like a little fat to keep burgers and meatloaf moist, but it was a good deal so I picked up the 93/7. As I was staring at it, I kept asking myself "what can I do with you, my little chub-o-beef?" I'm usually not one to just make up a dish. You would never guess by looking at my tornado-went-through-the-house-and-no one-wants-to-help-me-clean-it house, but I'm a little anal in the kitchen. I need a plan. A recipe. Some direction. Oh sure, I have jazzed up a recipe with another spice, or swapped out an ingredient that I know the family won't like-but never just made something up. I thought of all the awesome blogs I read and how these creations just seem to flow forth from them. What would they do? Probably come up with something so I awesome I would just drop my jaw. That didn't happen here, but it was actually quite good and didn't scare me away from trying to make something else up in the future. Here is what came about. Since I just did this on the fly, I don't really have concrete measurements, but I will guesstimate.




Meatloaf soup

2 pounds ground beef

1 cup chicken flavored stuffing mix, crushed

1 box plus one can beef broth (can not shown)

2 carrots

2 stalks celery

grated onion, about 3 tablespoons

1 red pepper

ketchup and mustard (not shown)

pasta of your choice-this was the hardest for me: pasta or potatoes

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grind up your stuffing mix in blender. Pour crumbs into a bowl. Cover with about 1/2 cup of beef broth. Add about 2 TBSP ketchup and mustard. Stir to combine. Break meat into clumps and drop in bowl. Grate about 3 TBSP of onion over the top and grate half a carrot into bowl also.

Using hands, fold all ingredients in to incorporate.

Using a small cookie scoop, make uniform meatballs and place on cookie sheet. I got about 28 meatballs. Roast in oven for 25 minutes. Rotate pans from upper to lower racks about halfway through cooking time.

While meatballs are baking, slice up the carrots, celery and pepper and drop into a Dutch oven with a little butter and oil.

Stir occasionally so veggies will soften.

When meatballs are done, pour remaining broth from can and the full box into the Dutch oven. Carefully move the meatballs from the cookie sheet to the pot. I saved about 8 meatballs for my daughter in case she wasn't feeling adventurous. Simmer on stove for about 40 minutes. Stir in pasta of your choice. I used the small rings that you normally use for salads. I let it go about another 15 to 20 minutes. The rings got much bigger than I expected and soaked up a lot of the broth, so next time I need to use less (I think I poured in about a two thirds cup of rings). Serve with some nice crusty bread which I didn't have any of.

Result? Pretty good. I think it needed more seasoning. I did throw a little salt and pepper in after putting meatballs in the soup. I wanted to make it first without seasoning since there are seasonings in the stuffing mix and didn't want them to be overwhelming in case I guessed wrong. Maybe a little cheese or bacon in the meatballs? The meatballs stayed very tender.

Oh, I called it meatloaf soup since I put all the ingredients in the meatballs that I normally put in my meatloaf.

Off to frost a cake-nothing homemade, just out of the Pillsbury box. But yellow cake and chocolate frosting might make me feel better! Then off to work. Long week this week, so will probably cook on Weds and Thurs this week to get some stuff up.

More snow coming. I just want to wear short sleeves and put on my flip flops and wash my car. Sigh.