Cans Get You Cooking!

Our favorite grocery store, Big Y, partnered with CansGetYouCooking.com to sponsor a recipe contest. The "Cozy Crockpot Recipe Contest" required that you submit your best crockpot recipe using at least two canned goods. We entered our Slightly Smoky Ham and Bean Soup (which uses canned tomatoes, canned chicken stock and two types of canned beans) and we won! Hurrah! Click here for the easy to make, light-on-the-wallet, hearty soup recipe.

February's Go Local Magazine

Go Local Magazine is a local lifestyle magazine showcasing life around the Massachusetts/Connecticut line. Its mission is to improve the community by promoting the region (which includes Stafford Springs, Somers, Enfield and Suffield, CT; and Hampden, East Longmeadow, Longmeadow and Agawam, MA) as a destination to live, play, shop and eat, and to showcase the citizens who make it great. 

One of our recipes is being featured in the current (February 2016) issue. You can get a free copy at many businesses around these towns (go here for a list) or check it out online (here). Find it on page 19!

Turkey Pot Pie Soup

Behold the day-after-Thanksgiving sandwich. Juicy turkey breast, a layer of stuffing (or dressing, if you're a Southerner) and a touch of cranberry mixed into the mayonnaise recreate the holiday dinner bite after glorious bite. However, you can only have so many turkey sandwiches before the glory subsides and it's just another plate of leftovers.

When you are at that point and you still, somehow, have turkey meat left, it's time to try something new. Soup? Been there. Pot pie? Done that. In the spirit of the "cronut," the "stuffle," and countless other hybrid foods, we give you (the not-so-cleverly-named) Turkey Pot Pie Soup.

A touch of flour and some half-and-half transports this concoction from mere soup to pot pie territory. Otherwise, the ingredients are the same. Why sage? Because it's still thriving in our garden. Dried herbs (parsley, rosemary, thyme) or whatever you have on hand will work just fine. We made a homemade stock from our turkey carcasses, but go ahead and allow yourself to use store-bought turkey or chicken stock or broth.  If you're feeling creative, get out a cookie cutter and bake some puff pastry into festive shapes. Or be lazy like us and serve it with bread or biscuits.

Turkey Pot Pie Soup

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 small yellow onion, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage

2 carrots, peeled and diced

4 cups turkey stock

1 cup half-and-half

1 1/2 cups your favorite (or your leftover) vegetable (we used a can of peas, drained)

3 cups leftover turkey meat, chopped into bite-sized pieces

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Melt butter in a large soup pot. Add onion and celery, and cook until onions are translucent, about 2 minutes. Add flour and cook another 2 minutes. Stir in sage and carrots. Pour in broth and half-and-half, cover, and bring just to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered, for 10-15 minutes, until carrots begin to soften. Add the peas (or other vegetable) and turkey and cook about 5 more minutes until meat is warmed through. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Love Soup on a Snow Day

Yes, we had another snow day this week. Another Monday, another storm. And yes, this post's title has two meanings. First, we do love soup on a snow day. It's the perfect food when it's wintry cold and you're in your pajamas and you're feeling lazy and you can just throw a bunch of stuff into a pot and let it simmer and call it "soup." 

Secondly, and more importantly, this soup is "Love Soup," a gift from E to Amy at Christmas. Isn't it such a beautiful gift-in-a-jar? Hot, delicious, and with plenty for leftovers! Thanks, E!

Vegetable Barley Soup with the Taste of Little India for French Fridays with Dorie

We truly enjoy being a part of the online food blogging community. We love having the opportunity to share recipes, tips, tricks, family traditions and stories about food and drink. Food is such a huge part of our lives. We are not the type of people who eat to live. Food is not just fuel for us. Rather, it is pleasure - not just the act of eating delicious food, but also the act of creating it and sharing it. It's how we experience other cultures. It's how we show our love and caring. And it's great to be in a "club" with others who feel that way.

That's why we joined French Fridays with Dorie, a group of cooks who all make the same recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table each week. Although we don't have the time to participate as often as we would like, this week we just had to find the time. It was a good week to do so, as the recipe was quite simple and easily made with a few basic kitchen ingredients. And also, because even though it's the end of March, it's still as cold and briskly windy as mid-January around here! So this week we, along with others around the world, made "Vegetable Barley Soup with the Taste of Little India," accented with such warming spices as garam masala, turmeric and red pepper. Perfect for this terrible weather!

We won't post Dorie's recipes here, as we'd rather encourage people to buy the book. The stories that go along with her recipes are entertaining, the pictures gorgeous, and it's a great big book filled with plenty of amazing recipes, making it well worth the cost. But this week, there's a loophole, in that Bill Daley of Tribune Newspapers did a feature on online cooking communities and in the feature, he included this very recipe. Here is the link to that article, and a longer version of the article can be found here. Bon appetit! 

K's "Semi-Homemade" Gumbo

We were in New Orleans over the holidays visiting with our friends K and J when it suddenly occurred to Amy to ask K how she makes her gumbo. In the proud fashion only a Southerner could pull off, K explained that she started with Zatarain's Gumbo Base and then "doctored it up." Now, Amy loves Zatarain's products. In fact, she once served Zatarain's Shrimp Creole to a New Orleans native who claimed disbelief that something so delicious could come from a Yankee's kitchen. (Well, with a little help.) And if Zatarain's is good enough for K, it's good enough for us.

Missing NOLA (and K and J!) already, we decided to make K's "Semi-Homemade" Gumbo yesterday and it was perfect. We don't serve ours with rice, just plenty of crusty bread to soak up the thick, gravy-like stew. And while we used boneless, skinless chicken thighs and andouille sausage in ours, any mixture of meat and/or seafood that you like can be thrown into the gumbo pot. This recipe made eight servings, so there was enough for dinner and a couple of Louisiana-style lunches. Laissez les bon temps rouler! We're going to have to make this for Mardi Gras!

And doesn't it look so good in our NOLA "Soup"-er Bowls?!?!?

K's Semi-Homemade Gumbo

Ingredients:

1 box Zatarain's Gumbo Base

6 cups water 

1 - 1 1/2 pounds pre-cooked chicken or sausage (or raw seafood), cut into bite-sized pieces

3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil, divided

3 bay leaves

dried oregano, dried basil, dried thyme, salt and black pepper to taste

1 medium onion, chopped

3 celery stalks (including leaves), chopped

5 garlic cloves, minced

12-16 oz. frozen cut okra

1 14-oz. can petite diced tomatoes

In a large pot, combine the gumbo base, water, browned chicken and/or sausage (if using seafood do not add yet), 2 tablespoons oil, bay leaves, and a shake each of dried herbs, salt and pepper. Stir thoroughly and bring to a boil. In the meantime, heat last tablespoon of oil in a skillet. Cook onion, celery and garlic until softened. Add to the pot, then re-season with herbs, salt and pepper to taste. When mixture comes to a boil, reduce heat and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. As all of that cooks, put frozen cut okra in the vegetable skillet with 1/2 cup water.  Bring to a boil, cover, and cook on medium until the okra is soft. Then add the okra and tomatoes to pot. Continue to cook until the 30 minutes are up. (If adding seafood, add after 20 minutes of cooking, return to a boil, then cover and simmer another 10 minutes.) Serve over rice and/or with crusty bread.

Slightly Smoky Ham and Bean Soup

We attended an Oktoberfest celebration thrown by friends C and L, and indulged in some hearty beer, homemade soft pretzels, spiraled ham, grilled brats and other sausages, and fabulous fall desserts (among other things). And then, C and L were generous enough to let us take home the ham bone along with some of the leftover meat. Chris had his eye on that bone all night, so he was delighted, and started trawling the web for soup recipes the very next morning. He finally chose the recipe for "Northwoods Smoked Ham and Bean Soup by Crock-Pot" from ICookbook, an app on his IPad, and as usual, we fiddled with it, adjusted it, and in an effort to avoid errands, did what we could with what we had. 

This recipe has a lot of wonderful qualities. The best part is that this is a slow cooker recipe. That almost all of the work is done for you by that magical little machine, while you are at work, or wherever it is you go during the day. Which is made even more wonderful by the aroma that greets you when you come back from wherever you were. Plus the fact that you are probably tired from wherever you had been, and now dinner is already done. Oh, the fabulousness! 

The ham was sweet, and we wanted a little smoky flavor, so we added a couple of dashes of liquid smoke. We decided against adding pasta, because we felt it was hearty and chunky enough with the beans, and neither of us need the extra carbs right now. It's definitely our kind of soup, similar to, but different enough from our Tuscan Sausage Soup or our White Bean and Leftover-Easter-Ham Soup.

Slightly Smoky Ham and Bean Soup

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 yellow onion, chopped

1 red onion, chopped

4 large cloves garlic, peeled and minced

6 cups chicken stock (we ran out at 5 cups, so used 1 cup water)

1 leftover ham bone (from a large spiraled ham, with meat scraps still on it)

2 cups cubed cooked ham

28 ounces diced tomatoes, undrained

1 tablespoon dried parsley

4 sprigs fresh thyme

4 bay leaves

5 dashes liquid smoke 

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 15-ounce can canellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 15-ounce can small white beans, drained and rinsed

Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and fragrant, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute. Place onion and garlic mixture, stock, ham bone, ham, tomatoes, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, liquid smoke, salt and pepper in slow cooker. Cook on low for 10 hours or on high for 6 hours. Stir in beans, and cook for about 15 additional minutes, or until heated through.

Kale and Leftovers Soup for Secret Recipe Club

Thank goodness for Secret Recipe Club, because the way this month has been, without it we would hardly have any new blog posts! But belonging to SRC is a commitment, so we had to cook and we had to post, and we're happy about that. In SRC, members are assigned other blogs, and they choose and make a recipe from that blog. This month, we were assigned Kate's Kitchen.

Kate says she lives to eat, and when you check out her list of labels, she utilizes all kinds of ingredients to make all sorts of culinary creations, with her husband Connie as her sous chef and "Chief Taster." We love it! Browsing through Kate's recipes was an amazing trip - from Agave Negro (a delicious-sounding cocktail that is definitely on our to-do list) to Zucchini Ribbons (made with lemon and basil - yum!) - and we had a tough time choosing. But in the end, it was the neighbor's garden that made the decision for us.

Yes, James' Sunflowers and More came through yet again, via a text from Barb asking if we could use some kale. Um, yes, please! It is a super-food, after all! So with kale in hand and in mind, we took another peek at Kate's Kitchen, and found this recipe for Kale and Sausage Soup. And we made it on one of those perfect early-fall days when it was sunny and in the low 60s.

The recipe called for sausage, and by luck, we had two links of Italian sausage left over from a quick sausage, peppers and onions dinner we had made a few days earlier. It didn't call for chicken, but we had some of that left over from a roasted chicken dinner we enjoyed (when we used the carcass and some wilting veggies to make a homemade stock) and thought, why not throw it in? So our version is "Kale and Leftovers Soup," and we loved the results. Here's to a great start to soup season! Thanks, Kate!

Kale and Leftovers Soup

slightly adapted from Kale and Sausage Soup from Kate's Kitchen

1 tablespoon olive oil

4-6 ounces (about 2 links) Italian sausage, removed from casing

2 garlic cloves, minced

3-4 new potatoes, peeled and finely diced

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

5 cups homemade chicken stock (or canned, if necessary)

chili powder, to taste

cumin, to taste

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1 cup cooked leftover chicken, diced

2 cups chopped fresh kale

Heat olive oil in a large soup pot. Crumble sausage and cook in oil until browned. Add minced garlic and diced pototoes, and cook until garlic is fragrant. Add tomatoes and beans, and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring often. Add stock and seasonings to taste. Add chicken and cook for at least 20 minutes, until potatoes are tender and meat is warmed through. Add kale and cook an additional 8-10 minutes, until kale is tender. Enjoy!

White Bean and Leftover-Easter-Ham Soup

Amy's mom had us over for Easter and served one of the best hams the family's ever had. With a gorgeous fat cap, it was moist, tender and full of flavor. But that side of the family is pretty small, and with one picky first grader and her super-picky mom, we had plenty of leftovers. While the first thing that comes to mind for most New Englanders is the traditional split-pea soup, Amy was inspired by this recipe to make a white bean soup. With a few modifications, it was a light and easy post-holiday meal.

White Bean and Leftover-Easter-Ham Soup

adapted from this recipe by Grace Parisi

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large onion, diced

1 carrot, peeled and diced

3 garlic cloves, peeled and pressed

5 sprigs fresh thyme

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

4 cups low-fat, low-sodium chicken broth

3 14-ounce cans cannelini beans, drained and rinsed

fat cap from ham

3/4-1 pound ham leftovers, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

In a large soup pot, melt the butter. Add the onion, carrot, garlic, thyme sprigs and coriander and cook the vegetables over moderately high heat, stirring, until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the stock, beans and fat cap and bring to a boil. Cover partially and cook over moderate heat for 20 minutes. Turn off heat and remove the fat cap and thyme sprigs from the soup and discard. Using an immersion blender, blend the soup to desired consistency. Return soup to heat and add ham pieces. Season with salt and pepper to taste and cook over low heat until ham is heated through. Serve with crusty bread!

Soups by Panera Bread

When Daily Buzz Food chose us to be Tastemakers for Panera Bread soups, we were quite excited. While we've been to our local Panera quite often, we haven't been in a long time and we were looking forward to see what new things they had to offer. Although we received a gift card in the mail to put toward our meal and to compensate us for our blog post, we want to note that all the opinions we state here are our own.

We love to make soup and make it often out of fresh, seasonal ingredients. Therefore, when we do try soups from the grocery store, we are usually disappointed. We stopped buying canned soup altogether, because of the high sodium content, lack of flavor, and general mushiness of the contents. That is one thing we have to give Panera. Their soups are definitely fresh, with great care obviously taken to ensure they are made with high quality ingredients. They are flavorful and delicious, hot and tasty. And with a variety of choices that change daily, there is one that will suit everyone's taste and dietary needs. Speaking of which, it's great that they label which ones are low-fat, all-natural, and/or vegetarian, and they post the calories in each portion right on the menu (see below).

It's that extremely busy time of year, so we decided to get our Panera to go. We each chose items from the "You Pick 2" menu - a pretty good deal that offers a cup of soup with either a sandwich or salad as well as a side of fruit, bread or chips. Amy went with the French Onion Soup and Asian Chicken Salad with a side of baguette; Chris had the Low-Fat all-Natural Chicken Noodle Soup and the Chipotle Chicken Panini, also with a side of bread (it's our opinion that one must have bread with soup!).

While the salad (amazing dressing) and panini (great smoky flavor) were delicious, the soups were the star of the show. It's hard to see in the picture below, but the chicken noodle soup was chock-full of fresh carrots, onions and celery that (thankfully) weren't mushy, tender all-white chicken breast, and perfectly cooked egg noodles in a nicely seasoned, not too salty, chicken broth. Our only complaint was that we didn't opt for a bigger portion!

The French onion soup had plenty of soft, sauteed onions, nicely caramelized in butter and seasonings in a dark beef broth that had lots of flavor but wasn't too strong. There were hints of tomato in the layers of flavor and a unique blend of Asiago and Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. As a nice touch, the homemade croutons were packaged in a little bag on the side so as not to get too soggy.

It is obvious to us that the soupmakers at Panera know what they are doing. And while our Panera location is pretty close to us, we have noticed that our local grocery store has recently started selling Panera soup in its freshly made foods area. Having been reminded (thanks to Panera and Daily Buzz Food) of how fresh, well-made, and deliciously satisfying they are, we'll be picking them up more often to enjoy on those days when making our own just isn't in the cards. To sum up, Panera soups are highly recommended by A Couple in the Kitchen - they are almost as good as homemade.

Tea-Smoked Chicken and Leftover Tea-Smoked Chicken Pho

We found a two-ounce package of this distinctive tea in our cupboard. It smelled so good - smoky, caramel-y, rich. Neither of us could remember where it came from, but we had just bought a brick of pu'er tea on a recent visit to Boston's Chinatown, so we decided to use this package to make Tea-Smoked Chicken.

Before we go on, we should share a hard-earned tip. When you are tea-smoking a chicken, open the windows in your kitchen, turn on a fan or two. This method of ours makes a LOT of smoke. It reminded us that we need to replace our smoke detector batteries...

 

Anyway, we digress. First we dry-brined the chicken in kosher salt for about three hours in the refrigerator. Then we smoked the chicken on our stovetop with a smoking mixture of the pu'er tea, raw rice and sugar; this took about 25 minutes. Finally, we baked the chicken with a basting glaze made from garlic, ginger, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce and Szechuan peppercorns. The meat was very juicy, really tender, and extremely flavorful. The skin was salty and smoky and sooo very yummy. Tea-smoked success!

We really enjoyed this chicken, and so we ate quite a bit of it that night, but when two people sit down to eat a whole chicken, there's bound to be leftovers. So the next night, we used our easy pho recipe and made Leftover Tea-smoked Chicken Pho. And we had leftovers from that, too! So from one $5 chicken (on sale!), a few pantry ingredients, some tea (which, it turns out, is pretty expensive, but you can use any tea you want!) and a little bit of fresh produce, we ended up with six individual meals. That works for us!

Tea-Smoked Chicken

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken

1/4 cup kosher salt

2 ounces loose tea

1/2 cup uncooked rice

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon Szechuan peppercorns, crushed

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon minced ginger

pinch granulated sugar

Rub the chicken inside and out with the kosher salt. Place in refrigerator and allow to dry-brine for 2-3 hours. When ready to cook, heat oven to 375. Line a large roasting pan with two layers of aluminum foil. Combine the tea, rice and sugar in a bowl and pour into the roasting pan over the foil. Place a roasting rack over the tea mixture and set the chicken on the rack. Create a tent of aluminum foil over the whole pan and set over high heat on the stove top. Allow the chicken to smoke on high heat for 15 minutes, then turn heat off and let it sit in the smoke for another 10 minutes. In the meantime, prepare the basting glaze. Whisk together the peppercorns, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, garlic, ginger and sugar and brush about half of it over the chicken. Place uncovered in the oven and bake for 30-45 minutes (or until temperature reaches 165) , basting occasionally with the remaining glaze. Allow to rest for five to ten minutes before serving. Use leftovers to make pho using this recipe.