Chewy Sweet Potato Dog Treats
I’m a bit of a nut about eating a bunch of junk, so it stands to reason that I feel the same way about what I feed to our pets. We currently have 2 cats and a dog, all of them adopted. Our dog, Buster, …
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Abreo Restaurant Rockford, IL
Happy New Year 2014! My husband & I celebrated New Year’s Eve at Abreo Restaurant, in downtown Rockford and it was amazing, just as we knew it would be. We’re big fans of Abreo, who catered our wedding, and this is our first time there …
Navy Bean and Ham Soup
Leftover ham? My motto is: make soup!
I’ll keep this post short and simple. These are guesstimated amounts since soup is a wing-it kind of thing for me and I don’t really measure. The key is really ratio – add more of what you like, less (or none) of what you don’t.
To make your ham stock, cover the bone with cold water in a large stockpot. Add onions, garlic, veggies, a few peppercorns. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until liquid is reduced by half, about 2 1/2- 3 hours. Strain out bone and veggies, discard. Strain stock again through a fine-mesh sieve.
When I make stock, I use the veggie ends that most people typically discard, such as asparagus bottoms, broccoli bottoms, celery bottoms, carrot tops, etc. This way, nothing goes to waste.
Homemade Navy Bean Soup with Ham Recipe
- 1 lb dried navy beans, soaked overnight, drained and rinsed
- 6 cups stock made from ham bone and veggies (see note above)
- 3-4 cups diced ham
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, chopped
- 4 carrots, sliced
- 2 celery stalks, sliced
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme (I dry my own, so it’s very high quality. By all means use fresh, if you have it)
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano (see my note on thyme)
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- Black pepper, to taste
In a large stockpot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onions and stir for a minute or two, then add garlic. Cook for about 3 minutes, until onions are translucent.
Add stock, herbs, and spices and bring to a simmer.
Add beans and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, partially cover, and cook until beans begin to become tender, about 1 hour.
Add ham, carrots, and celery and simmer for another 30 minutes, or until beans and veggies are tender.
Want to customize this? Add veggies of your choice here – chopped tomatoes, potatoes, kale, asparagus, broccoli – whatever you like and have on hand.
Definitely serve with some crusty bread. This soup is delicious, hearty and will warm you up on a cold winter night.
Enjoy!
Homemade Chocolate Truffles
I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. I decided to make chocolate truffles this year, after taking a year off from making them. If you have a touch of OCD, these are not a project that you should go into lightly. It’s very messy and can …
Crisp Roast Duck
Roasting a whole duck, so that the skin is crispy and the meat is still moist, is actually a very simple, classic process. I love to make this at the holidays, but I also make it once or twice in the summertime by using our …
What’s Happening Hot Stuff?
When life gives you hot peppers…make hot sauce. I grew scotch bonnet peppers for the first time, this year. Last year it was bhut jalokia peppers, also known as ghost chilies, which certainly lived up to their hot, hot, hot reputation. On the Scoville scale, ghost chilies rank high at 855,000–1,463,700 heat units. Scotch bonnets aren’t quite as hot, but still pretty potent with a rank of 100,000–350,000 units. To give this all perspective, the average jalapeno averages around 5,000 units.
I’ll also tell you this: my scotch bonnet plant was much smaller, yet bore much more fruit than the ghost chili plant. The ghost chili plant grew incredibly large, yet it seemed to take forever and a day for the peppers to mature and ripen, The scotch bonnet plant was much more compact and loaded with peppers, which it continued to produce until the frost came.
So, when time for the final harvest arrived, I had so many scotch bonnet peppers that making homemade hot sauce with them seemed the obvious choice. I also had a good amount of very hot jalapeno peppers that I’d let turn red on the plant, so they also became hot sauce. After a number of weekends and batches, I combined the two in one final batch.
Overall, the red jalapenos give the best tasting hot sauce of the three, but the scotch bonnet hot sauce is the hottest, without a doubt. So pick your poison and make some sauce with it. These are very basic recipes – feel free to use the hot pepper of your choice. Also, get creative with spices and see what you can create. Never be afraid to play with your food.
Homemade Hot Sauce Recipe
- 6 cloves garlic, unpeeled
- 1/2 cup finely diced carrot
- 1/2 cup finely diced onion
- 12 scotch bonnet peppers, stems removed
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon sugar
Makes about 3 small bottles of hot sauce.
Roast the garlic over low heat in a medium saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, tossing the cloves around every few minutes. When they’re soft and starting to blacken a bit at the edges, they’re ready. This usually takes about 15 minutes or so. Remove garlic and peel, placing softened garlic in a blender. Set aside.
Add onions and carrots to saucepan and cook for 5 minutes, until starting to soften. Add peppers, vinegar, salt and sugar and simmer until peppers are completely soft, about 20 minutes.
Pour the pepper mixture into the blender with the garlic and puree until smooth.
Using a fine-mesh sieve placed over a bowl, strain the pepper mixture. Use a spoon or spatula to press out as much liquid as you can.
Let cool and pour into bottles. Refrigerate until ready to use.
I followed this same basic recipe using my very hot red jalapenos, but only added about 8 peppers, since they’re larger than scotch bonnets. I use different colors of raffia twine, wrapped around the bottle necks, to easily know which bottle is which sauce.
Easy, right? My only warning is to be very careful when handling hot peppers. Also, a little ventilation while cooking the peppers is helpful and recommended – this stuff will definitely clear your sinuses while you’re simmering and pureeing!
If you end up with a ton of hot sauce like I did, this is also a great gift idea for your hot-sauce loving friends and family.
Enjoy and happy weekend!
Braised Chicken with Lemon, Sage and Milk
It’s pretty rare that I come across a recipe that I’ve never heard of, or at least some semblance of, before. So when I came upon a Facebook post from The Kitchn, stating that Jamie Oliver’s Chicken in Milk is probably the best chicken recipe of …