Turkey and Rice Soup

Now that you have seen the awesome bread bowls I made, here is the super easy soup that went with them! 

1.  Bring Turkey stock and brown rice to a boil in a big pot.

2.  When the rice is tender, add a bunch of turkey leftover from making stock.  

3.  Add in chopped up carrots and chopped up celery.  Other ingredients are totally allowed, but that’s all I felt like putting in.  Season as needed.

4.  Serve in a bread bowl, perhaps with John’s favorite garlic bread and a salad. 

This post was featured on Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade!

Black Beans and Rice…and shrimp… and spinach…

I was going to make shrimp quesadillas with black beans and rice on the side.  I have been really tired lately, though, so I didn’t have the energy to make the tortillas.  Our milk/meat/cheese delivery service wasn’t going to be delivering for a little while, so I had to make do with the cheese we have until then.  AND THEN John tells me that, well, he doesn’t really like the dried beans cooked.  He likes the canned ones better.  I had cooked up a boat-load of back beans and frozen them and was planning on using them.  I was at a total loss.  No idea what to make.  

I grabbed the black beans out of the freezer to defrost and set up the rice cooker with 2.5 cups of brown rice/5 cups turkey stock.  As I was setting it up, I realized that it has a steamer basket.  Hmmm… Maybe steaming the beans to defrost them would make them softer, the way John likes them?  I tried it. 

While that all cooked, I chopped up 1/2 an onion and 3 big cloves of garlic and put them in the pan with a chunk of butter.  

When they were soft and smelled like heaven, I added some cumin, parsley, and salt.

Then, the spinach jumped into the pan.  I’m not sure how it got there, but it did.

When it wilted into the delicious flavors, with some help from extra butter, the now-defrosted and somewhat mushy (YES!) beans were added, along with defrosted raw shrimp.

At this point, I poured in a little bit of turkey stock to help it all along.  When the shrimp looked nice and pink, I added the rice and some more cumin.

For all my exhaustion and doubts, it turned out to be way better than I could have imagined.  It was warm and filling and yummy!

With a salad on the side!

This post was also featured at Real Food Wednesday with Kelly the Kitchen Kop!

Butternut Squash Take 1- Risotto

Fall is hands-down my favorite season.  The beautiful colors on the trees, the gorgeous blue of the sky, the air that you just want to take a bite out of… The list goes on and on!

The awesome fall produce is definitely a perk to the season (as is being able to see the lake from my front window!).  Last fall John and I went Apple Picking and had SO MUCH FUN.  This fall’s first produce meal is Butternut Squash, Risotto Style… MMMmmMMMmm…..

I saw the recipe in a cookbook from the library and knew right then and there I had to have it.  The only little itty bitty problem?  Apparently I didn’t have the ingredients I thought I had.

The recipe called for 1.5 cups of Arborio Rice.  I had barely a cup.  The recipe called for a rind of Parmesan cheese.  Apparently I had a rind of another (cheddar?  goat?).  The recipe called for 2.5 cups of butternut squash, peeled and sliced.  I had a bit more.

Yeah.  I had a lot more. 

So the recipe.  The original recipe is in “Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks” by Linda Carucci and looks amazing.  My version?  It was okay.  Not bad for what I had. 

Not pictured?  The rice flour used to make up for the fact that I was missing enough rice.

An onion was chopped finely and added to a buttery pan.

While they softened, I chopped WAY TOO MUCH butternut squash in the food processor.

2 cups of said squash were added to the softened onions, along with some sage and sea salt.

For perspective, let me show you what the food processor looked like with the 2 cups of squash removed.

Right.  Too much squash.

So the seasoned onion and squash warmed up and the squash started to get sticky.  At that point, I added some chicken stock to the pan and brought it to a boil.

When the squash started to break down and get all mushy, I added the rice and what I THOUGHT were Parmesan rinds.  John informed me later that night that they were not.  I don’t know WHAT kind of cheese they were. 

As it cooked, I kept adding chicken stock.  Unfortunately, when it was done, it needed to be thicker.  I thought quickly and remembered we had some rice flour in the pantry.  Just the thing!

It was stirred in and thickened it right up.  Whew!

Eventually it was alllll done.  

Once some Balsamic Vinegar was drizzled on top, it was good to go!

The verdict?  Even with the… issues, it was yummy!