Cooking
Necessity is the mother of invention. Nothing could be truer in the kitchen. It's amazing what you can cook when you have very little in the pantry. It can be much more challenging and yet gratifying to try to figure out what do with the ingredients on hand than to come up with a new menu from scratch.
Coming home from vacation means coming home to an empty fridge. If you're lucky. If not, you've probably got some smelly clean up to do. Keeping certain canned foods on hand can insure that you will be able to make a meal from virtually nothing. A few things I always keep on hand are garbanzo beans, jars of artichoke hearts and canned pumpkin puree. With garbanzo beans you can make a one-pot meal, you just combine the beans, cooked couscous and a few chopped steamed vegetables. With artichokes you can make a simple pasta sauce by chopping the artichokes and adding them to store bought tomato sauce. Or just saute some garlic in olive oil and add the artichokes to that--voila! instant pasta sauce. Finally with canned pumpkin you can make a terrific soup.
Here's how I make quick, "nothing-in-the-house" cream of pumpkin soup. In a pot cook 2-3 tablespoons of salsa from a jar over low heat for about 2 minutes, mix in a 14 oz. can of pumpkin puree, a chicken bouillon cube and a cup of milk. You can use some heavy cream or half and half for part of the milk if you have it on hand. Stir and heat on medium, but don't boil. This tastes much fancier than you might think but taste it and add salt, more milk, some water to thin it down, whatever you like.
Enjoy!
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- Imbb 11 - Beans And Greens Soup Revisited
Back in June, shortly after I started this blog, I made a soup from leftover beans that I really enjoyed. However, because of the time involved in making the beans, I had not gotten around to making the soup again. For IMBB 11, I decided that I would...
- Happy Halloween!
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Cooking
No Recipe Pumpkin Soup Recipe
Necessity is the mother of invention. Nothing could be truer in the kitchen. It's amazing what you can cook when you have very little in the pantry. It can be much more challenging and yet gratifying to try to figure out what do with the ingredients on hand than to come up with a new menu from scratch.
Coming home from vacation means coming home to an empty fridge. If you're lucky. If not, you've probably got some smelly clean up to do. Keeping certain canned foods on hand can insure that you will be able to make a meal from virtually nothing. A few things I always keep on hand are garbanzo beans, jars of artichoke hearts and canned pumpkin puree. With garbanzo beans you can make a one-pot meal, you just combine the beans, cooked couscous and a few chopped steamed vegetables. With artichokes you can make a simple pasta sauce by chopping the artichokes and adding them to store bought tomato sauce. Or just saute some garlic in olive oil and add the artichokes to that--voila! instant pasta sauce. Finally with canned pumpkin you can make a terrific soup.
Here's how I make quick, "nothing-in-the-house" cream of pumpkin soup. In a pot cook 2-3 tablespoons of salsa from a jar over low heat for about 2 minutes, mix in a 14 oz. can of pumpkin puree, a chicken bouillon cube and a cup of milk. You can use some heavy cream or half and half for part of the milk if you have it on hand. Stir and heat on medium, but don't boil. This tastes much fancier than you might think but taste it and add salt, more milk, some water to thin it down, whatever you like.
Enjoy!
- Smoky Tomato Soup Recipe
It's easy to get so caught up in the idea of eating seasonally that we forget that there are certain things that aren't necessarily seasonal, for example vegetables grown in hothouses or greenhouses like Belgian endive, cucumbers and mushrooms,...
- Creamy Cauliflower Fondue Soup Recipe
I love the challenge of figuring out what to cook with what's fresh and in season. But I have to admit, I'm getting awfully tired of winter. In the beginning of winter I love all the root vegetables and greens, the hearty stews and pasta dishes,...
- Imbb 11 - Beans And Greens Soup Revisited
Back in June, shortly after I started this blog, I made a soup from leftover beans that I really enjoyed. However, because of the time involved in making the beans, I had not gotten around to making the soup again. For IMBB 11, I decided that I would...
- Happy Halloween!
It seemed like such a great idea…pumpkin and black beans. I think I was pulling something out of the freezer when it came to me. There was a little leftover pumpkin in there and I thought, “I bet that would be good in chili.” I mulled it over...
- Pumpkin Corn Meal Muffins
The other day Clotilde’s post on Chocolate & Zucchini was about corn muffins she had made from a mix. She asked if anyone had from-scratch recipes for corn muffins to recommend. A recipe for Pumpkin Corn Meal Muffins submitted by a reader was really...