Dinner Tonight- Tortilla Soup

Cold weather asks for a good soup, and it has been quite cold lately- at least for Texas standards, we were down to 27F this week! Brrr. I got this awesome recipe from my mother-in-law, and it's super yummy and best of all incredibly easy to make! I make it weekly during our harsh winters, and have come to think of it as the ultimate comfort food. 

You can make it spicier by adding chopped jalapenos to it, the original Rotel makes it just right for Dear Husband and I. You can also add a little cumin and/or cilantro if you are feeling adventurous. 

In Advance- I like to cook a lot of chicken on a lazy Sunday, then shred it, freeze it and have it ready for the week):
Cook 3-4 chicken breasts ( boneless, skinless) and shred it into small pieces. You can cook the chicken any way you like it, be sure it is seasoned ( I season mine with Deli Mustard). 

Tortilla Soup: 

- Cover bottom of dutch oven with 1/3 part chopped celery, 1/3 chopped onion and 1/3 shredded carrot. Saute for about 7 minutes, until onions are translucent.
- Add 4-5 cups of water ( depends how much chicken you have), 2 chicken bouillons ( from Knorr) and salt and pepper to taste. Or you can skip the water and bouillons and add chicken stock instead, your preference.
- Add 3/4 can of Rotel ( more if you like spicy)
- Add 1 can of whole kernel corn ( drained)
- Add shredded chicken ( you can always buy rotisserie if you haven't pre-cooked your chicken)
- Simmer for 15 minutes
- Enjoy!

  Top your soup with shredded cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips. YUMMY!!!

Dinner Tonight- Baked Pasta

Just before Christmas we had dear friends over for dinner and they requested this dish. It is supposed to be made with spaghetti, I decided to try something different and used spiral-shaped pasta instead, and it was not as good in my opinion. I will stick to spaghetti from now on.

Ingredients: 

1lbs. spaguetti

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 lbs. ground beef

1 teaspoon garlic salt

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper

6 button mushrooms, sliced ( clean mushrooms with damp paper towel before slicing)

2 minced cloves of garlic

2 (14.5oz) cans diced tomatoes

1 (15oz) can tomato sauce

2 teaspoons dried Italian seasoning

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 1/2 cups shredded Italian cheese blend

Directions: 

Cook spaghetti according to package directions. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil. 

In a large Dutch oven, cook beef and garlic salt over medium-high heat until beef is browned and crumbly. Drain; set aside.

In the same pot, add remaining 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, bell pepper, mushroom, and garlic, saute until tender. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Add beef, bring to a boil. Remove from heat. 

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 13x9 baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Spread 1/2 cup sauce on bottom of prepared pan, Top with half of spaghetti noodles, half of spaghetti sauce, and 1 cup of cheese. Repeat layers with remaining ingredients, ending with cheese. Bake for 15 minutes, or until  cheese melts.

                                  The main dish.

We served it with a simple homemade white bread; and had tomato brushetta ( made by Dear Husband) and olive tapenade ( store bought) to top it up.

Dinner Tonight-Seafood Pasta

Both Dear Husband and I love seafood, so we decided to make seafood linguine. Dear Husband wanted mussels, but our fishmonger was out of it, so he settled for Littleneck Clams instead. And I chose huge sea scallops.

We did not use a recipe for this, but this is more or less what we did:

• Soaked the clams in water.
• Drained the clams and let them rest in the fridge for a bit.
• Made a sauce out of beer, finely diced shallots, onions, tomatoes, garlic, butter, thyme, banana peppers ( just because we had a ton in the yard) bay leaf, salt and pepper.
• We steamed the clams just until they opened, and got them out with a spider.
• Meanwhile, we cooked the linguine until it was al dente. We drained it and put it back in the pot.
• We took about half the clam sauce and dumped into the pasta, adding lemon zest and parsley. The rest of the sauce we poured over the clams. 
• As for the scallops, I rinsed them, patted them dry, and put them in a smoking hot cast-iron skillet along with some olive oil and butter. I added some kosher salt and let it cook for two minutes in one side, turned them over and cooked for an additional minute. They came out perfect!

To accompany the pasta we made some rustic Italian bread, so delicious and crunchy just the way you get at nice Italian bakeries, I will post that recipe separately.

                                      Scallops over seafood linguine.

                               Clams steaming in the sauce- it smelled GREAT!

 Clams ready to be served- the sauce was terrific for dumking a hot, buttered slice of bread in.

                               Our rustic Italian bread, made from scratch.

Dinner Tonight-Pork Roast

I know I started this blog for baking, sweets in particular, however I do enjoy all types of cooking and since everyone has to eat dinner every night, I decided to start a new feature- Dinner Tonight. Because let's be frank, the worst thing about cooking dinner is deciding what to make. I hope this gives people some ideas. I know I love to go to other blogs to get inspired.

I asked Dear Husband what he wanted for dinner and he said pork loin, dilled new potatoes and green beans.

For the pork I made a real simple paste: garlic cloves, chopped onions, fresh rosemary, olive oil, white wine and salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste; and blended it for a couple of minutes. Sorry I didn't measure anything, but I was after a garlicky taste so I loaded up on it. You only need enough liquids to make it a thick paste, you don't want it to be runny. I then took my pork loin, and after ridding it of excess fat, poked a lot of holes in it with a knife. Next I poured the paste onto the loin and made sure it got into the holes, rubbing it all over. I marinated it for a couple of hours in a plastic container, and put it on a roasting pan along with some more white wine. I used a Moscato I had open in the refrigerator but it was too sweet, next time I will try a drier wine or just some chicken stock. I then roasted it at 350 degrees for about an hour ( I had a 1.2lbs loin), turning and basting every 15 minutes or so. You want your pork to be cooked but not overdone, as it gets dry and rubbery. Pink with no running juices is good.

Dear Husband used the pan drippings to make gravy, but that's his specialty, I have no idea how he did it...maybe he will get inspired and post it here on a comment.

For the potatoes, I wanted the "New Potatoes" variety but they did not have it at my local grocer, so I bought small red potatoes instead, and it was fine. I put them into a pan with just enough cold water to cover it, and then boiled them until a fork inserted into the potatoes came off easily. To serve we coated them with butter and dill( they were NOT peeled).

The green beans got their ends snapped off, and were boiled until tender but with a little bit of a "bite" left, the way Dear Husband likes them.

And of course, being from Brazil, I just had to cook rice. I sauteed chopped onions, olive oil, salt and minced garlic, added the rice, pan fried it for a little bit, then added cold water. You need two cups of water per cup of rice. I brought it to a boil on high heat with the pan uncovered, once it was nearly done I turned the heat down and put a lid on the pan. Perfect rice every time. I like to use the " Bastami" variety.

                                        The pork loin before going into the oven, with the paste on.

                                                                   Dinner was yummy!