Tummy Treasure

Let’s make some jam today, shall we? First, gather your berries and then you want to gather everything you need before you even begin.  Here are some of the things you need:

A boiling water canner.  This is non-negotiable, as the inversion method of jam-making is not FDA approved and may not be safe.  Get this filled with water and on your stove-top, and crank it up to high.  This baby takes a while to get to a full boil. You see the metal handles sticking up? This is the basket, and you need it to keep the bottoms of the jars off the bottom of the pot.  I tried canning pickles once without the basket… the jars burst from the heat from the bottom of the pot. Not fun.

Next you need to get your lids in a small saucepan.  Cover them with water, and put them on the stove at the lowest it will go.  You don’t want this to boil, but you do want the water to be hot enough to soften the rubber seal.

Get your jars and rings out and get them washed up.  If you buy the first jars new, they should come in a package with lids and rings attached.  I wash them all in hot soapy water- if you have a dishwasher, by all means, use it.

Let’s talk about pectin for a minute.  If you’re using a recipe without pectin, you don’t need this.  But what I generally do for jam is buy my pectin and then follow the recipe included with the pectin. This is the easiest way to make jam- and that is what you are seeing here today.  Here I have two different brands of pectin, and interestingly enough, I found that their methods were slightly different.  There is another type of pectin- liquid pectin that I’ve also used, but I’ve found that to be less reliable than the powdered pectins.  If you want a jam recipe that uses less sugar, choose a less-sugar or no sugar pectin, just be aware that they use sugar substitutes in place of the sugar.

My directions today are for the Sure-Jell pectin recipe. By the way, don’t ever, ever mess with the quantities in an established jam/jelly recipe.  They are designed so that the sugar/fruit/pectin ratio provides the perfect set for your jam, and also for FOOD SAFETY.  The sugar is necessary to properly preserve the berries.  Botulism is not your friend, and lessening the sugar in a recipe can bring that tasteless toxin into your home.  Don’t mess with it. (PSA over.)

So, lop of the hulls of your berries and slice them up a handful at a time.

Next, grab your potato masher and mash your berries.  Do this about a cup or so at a time, because you don’t want to over-mash your berries- jam should have plenty of chunks. Mash, and then pour into a measuring cup.  Total, we need five cups of mashed berries and juice.

Mmm, Zander would eat this with a spoon and call it strawberry soup.

Now, before you start cooking, measure your sugar into a separate bowl.  We’ll need seven cups for this recipe.  Set it near to your cooking pot so it’s easy and convenient to grab later on.

When you have your five cups, dump it into your pot.  I find non-stick cookware makes the best and easiest jam.

Add one entire package of powdered pectin and stir it in.

Turn the heat way up- I turn it up to a high medium high, and stir and cook.  And stir and cook until it comes to a full roiling boil.  A full rolling boil means that when you stir the pot, it’s still bubbling and boiling.

Now you’ll add the entire bowl of sugar and stir it in.  Now we do more stirring and cooking while we bring it back up to that full rolling boil.  The full rolling boil is very important.  It must boil like mad, even while you are stirring with a spoon.

Here’s the full rolling boil.  Now we set a timer for exactly one minute, and cook and stir for that one minute.  Then remove the jam from the heat.

It’s almost ready to pour into jars! First, we need to skim off any foam that shows up on top of the jam. Air leaves a space for yucky things to breed in our jam, so we want to get as much of that off as possible. Don’t stress too much about it though, just skim off what you can without removing any of that precious jam.

Here are our canning jars, ready and waiting.  I set mine on towels to catch any drips and protect the counter-tops.  See that green funnel thing?  Works awesome for making sure the jam goes in the jar and not down the outside sides of the jar.  You want the canning funnel if you’re going to be making jam.

Now let’s pour the jam into our jars.  Use a nice sized ladle, and keep the jam moving while you pour it in- you want to try and get an even balance of jelly to fruit in each jar.  Fill the jars to about 1/8 of an inch from the top of the jar. If you have the funnel, there’s a handy line on the inside to tell you when this is.

Once all your jam is in its jars,  you’ll want to take a hot dishrag and wipe the rims of the jars- careful, the jars themselves will be hot to touch.  But it’s important to get any jam dribbles off the rim of the jars.

Next, we’ll add the lids that have been softening.  I use a set of tongs to remove them from the water- you can also buy a little magnet tool that lifts them out of the water too.  I personally like the tongs.  Just add one lid to each jar.

Then we add the rings.  Again- watch out for hot jar, but twist the rings on the jars.  You want to tighten it so that they’re finger-tip tight, but not so tight that you wail on the jars to get it snug and super tight.  Super tight will trap air bubbles in- remember, air is not your friend.

By now, your boiling water canner should be boiling away and ready to receive some jam!  Here I am using the jar-lifter tool which is indispensable for canning.  It picks up the jars nicely, and I don’t worry at all about dropping the jars.  One by one, place the jars carefully into the canner and the basket within.

Your water should cover the jars by two inches- if it’s not that deep, you’ll need to add more water, and then wait for it to come back up to a full boil.  I sometimes keep a kettle of water going on the last remaining burner, just for this purpose.

A note about the water bath.  When you put the jars in, you’ll notice bubbles come up right away.  This is not your water boiling, actually, this is air escaping from your jam jars- this is a great thing!  However, you’ll want to add the lid to the canner and give it a minute or two.  Then you’ll hear that your water is actually boiling.  Lift the lid to confirm that the water itself, is indeed furiously boiling.  At this point, you can start your timer and time the boil for a full ten minutes.

Once the timer goes off, the jars can be removed from the canner and set aside to cool.  I use cooling racks which I line with towels. This catches water dripping off the jars, while protecting my table or counter-tops underneath.

And finally, once the jars have cooled, you’ll want to wipe them down and then label them.  Include what kind of jam you made and the date.  Jam is at its best within a year of making it, but is still good for several months beyond that.

And there you have homemade jam.  It is a lot of steps, but it isn’t difficult in any way, shape or form.  I find that once I have the first batch of jam in the canner, than it’s  piece of cake to whip another batch together while the first one boils away.  As long as everything is out and ready, I might as well do a few batches.  It IS important to do jam one batch at a time, but once you get the hang of it, it takes nothing but a few hours of time to put up five or six batches of homemade jam.   Just follow the directions in the box of pectin to the letter, and you’ll find yourself caught up in the canning bug in no time.

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Be back soon with a step-by-step how to make jam session.  It’s easier than you think.

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My little square foot garden is finally springing forth some bounty.   This time of year can really make or break a garden, actually.  For several weeks there, I watched and waited and watched some more as seedlings grew more into plants.  I watched the spinach get a little bigger and a little bigger, and then finally, I could harvest some and turn it into salad for the dinner table.  I watched the broccoli begin to bud and then it was a matter of waiting patiently for those buds to turn into gorgeous broccoli heads.  I harvested a few kale leaves and some scallions a few weeks back to toss into pasta… and I have patiently been watching the bok choy and the tatsoi, waiting for them to get just big enough to harvest… and then it got hot.

Which is not good news for most of the above mentioned crops.  The spinach immediatly responded to the heat and shot up flowers and decided it was done.  The broccoli also shot up very quickly and got spindly.  I cut off the small heads, and while I’m hoping for more to develop, I don’t know if it will.  Here is some beautiful baby bok choy I harvested last week for a quick saute:

Two days later the rest of the bok choy went into the compost, as they shot up flowers and became bitter.  The cabbage seems to be managing the heat a bit better, but I think I better plan some things to do with my Caraflex cabbage over the next few weeks.  In fact, I was just chatting about this cabbage to some online friends.  You wouldn’t think there would be much of a difference between cabbage varieties, but if you happen to see Caraflex or Arrowhead cabbage- pick it up, it’s delicious and tender and buttery, and not harsh at all like cabbage can be sometimes.  Here’s the cabbage with it’s outer leaves:

And here it is with them removed.  It really is this shape, and it’s perfect for small servings of cabbage, which is really all we need:

At the same time, while the burst of heat wasn’t good for some of my vegetables, it ws very good for others.  My seventeen tomato plants have all gotten blossoms on them, while the cucumbers and zucchini have also taken off.  Yesterday was the best day so far though, because yesterday I plucked the first of my Swiss Chard leaves.  The chard will grow for me from now until we get a hard freeze, and it’s easily become my favorite vegetable.  Last night, I decided I could stand to harvest a dozen small leaves or so, and I sauteed it up with some garlic and used it to top a pizza. It was delicious and wonderful, I so love Swiss Chard fresh out of the ground!

If you’ve never gardened, but want to give it a try, I highly recommend the Swiss Chard. If you grow the Bright Lights variety, as I do, you can even plant it in your landscaping, as the bright colors are beautiful and pleasing to look at.

Hopefully today will also be an adventure for us as we look to the skies and wish away the rain!  The kids and I have a date to invade someone else’s garden- the strawberry patch, to be specific, and I really am looking forward to it!

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There are very few ingredients that completely turn me off from trying a recipe, but goat’s cheese is one of those ingredients.  I will never, ever forget the first time I bought goat cheese.  I had planned a special dinner that night, and the highlight of the evening was supposed to be a crostini, topped with goat cheese.  I’d heard so many wonderful things about goat cheese, and all day long when I opened the fridge I would see this lovely log of chevre, and anticipate the dinner hour.  The time came, and I finally ripped open the package and sliced off a tiny wheel and popped it in my mouth.  And promptly gagged, spit it out into the sink and tried to use a metal scrubbie to scrape the residue off my tongue.  Oh, it was so nasty and… well, goaty! It tasted just like the goat pens smelled at the county fair, if you know what I mean.  Just nasty!   Goat cheese was promptly and firmly promoted to the very small list of  “foods not to be trifled with” and I have stayed away from it ever since.

Over the past few years though, rumor and whatnot brought to my attention a local goat dairy.  While I knew my reaction to goat product, I was really excited at the idea of a local goat dairy in my neck of the woods.  Every once in a while they would appear in the local paper for having done something new on their farm, but I never actually saw the product out anywhere.  Finally, while grocery shopping, I saw it, I saw their product in the form of goat yogurt, so I bought a cup, excited to support someone local, and brought it home to try.  While I wouldn’t say I hated the yogurt, I couldn’t eat the whole cup. It still had that goaty taste in the background to me.  I do remember thinking though that if I ever were told that I couldn’t eat cows milk yogurt that I could get used to the goat yogurt over time.  I didn’t buy any more of it.

Yesterday though, the kids and I walked over to our brand-new local farmer’s market. Our initial report of the market is that there is plenty of room to grow, and I’m really anticipating over the next few weeks that the veggie farmers are going to show up with their produce, because that’s what was really missing in quantity. We picked up a few things, supporting those who did come, when the kids walked over to a stand and pointed out some honey.  Sure, we could get the honey, and then someone asked if we wanted to try some cheese.  I looked, and sure enough, we were at the stand for Caprine Supreme, the local goat dairy.  I wanted to turn down the offer of the cheese sample, but the kids were eager, so I put on my game face and popped a curd in my mouth, bracing myself for the nastiness I was sure would come.  And was surprised when it never did.  In fact, that goat cheese was delicious! The kids liked it too, and then proceeded to sample some of the goat yogurt- which they also both LOVED. We ended up buying some cheese, and on the way home, both kids finished off the yogurt sample and told me we should buy some of the goat yogurt, because it was the best yogurt they’d ever had.  Huh. Then Abigail asked me if she could try some goat milk sometime because she thought the cheese and the yogurt were both really delicious.  Those are her words by the way, “really delicious”.

So next week, we’ll go back to the Caprine Supreme stand and pick up some yogurt, and hopefully some fresh milk.  Talking to the owner, what makes their goat dairy stand out is that it is prepared as fresh as possible.  When they make yogurt or cheese, the milk goes straight from the goat to the vats for cheese or yogurt making.  With traditional dairies, sometimes that milk sits or has to get trucked to the cheese plant, and can sit for a while (refrigerated of course) before being transformed. (Standing time apparently translates to that gamey goaty flavor.)  Not at Caprine Supreme.  They make their cheese and yogurt right on the farm in their own creamery.  It’s fresh as fresh can be.  Even better, they don’t add any additives to their yogurt either.  Where we’re so used to thick American style yogurt that is eaten with a spoon, the goat yogurt is European style, so it can be scooped with a spoon, or drunk with a straw.  Apparently the time of year dictates how thick the yogurt actually gets.

Needless to say, I’m a little surprised at our find yesterday, but also delighted.  While we bought some cheese curds, I’m already thinking about trying a few of the other cheeses, and they turn out as I expect, I’ll be pulling out all those cookbooks and magazines that feature the recipes calling for goat cheese.  Fresher than fresh goat cheese actually tastes good.  Who knew?

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If you have spent ANY time here at Tummy Treasure over the past few years I’ve been blogging, you know how I feel about brownies made from a mix.  You know how much I want to like them, and you know that every once in a while I pick up a mix, make it up, and then feel cheated.  You will also know that it doesn’t seem to matter what incarnation of homemade brownie I’ve made, I like them all, as long as they’re whipped up from scratch.

This week though, I needed some brownies for a project for the kids- and I promise I’ll share about that later- and I really hesitated before grabbing a brownie mix.  I thought about just eliminating the brownies from their list of things they needed, but decided that for what they were going to use it for, a mix would suffice.  As I wandered down the baking aisle, I saw the bright yellow signs that told me some mixes were on sale, and for that I was happy.  I was even happier when I saw that the brand of mix on sale happened to be Ghirardelli brownie mixes.  I’ve ALWAYS wanted to try them out, but for the price of the mix, I could buy all the ingredients to make brownies from scratch.  On sale though, they were a bargain, so I picked up a box and away I went.

Yesterday I made the mix- it was straightforward, add water, oil and egg, beat together and then bake.  My first notion that these brownies actually might be tasty came when I licked some batter off my finger.  And then proceeded to lick the rubber scraper clean, and eye up the remainder of the batter in the bowl. I’m not normally a batter person, but golly, this tasted like real chocolate!  The brownies baked and cooled, and at long last, I was able to cut into them.

Holy buckets, if I didn’t know better, I would swear these brownies were homemade.  Honestly and truly, these brownies are delicious.  They are dense and have the perfect brownie texture- somewhere between fudgy and cakey.  Oh, and they taste like real chocolate!  I didn’t detect any hint of fake brownie mix flavor at all.  My only regret?  This mix makes a 9 x 9 pan of brownies and not a full size 9 x 13.  Then again, maybe that’s a good thing.

I would totally buy this mix again. In fact, the next time I find this on sale, I may very well stock up a bit, because these brownies from a box totally rock.  I’ll still be making homemade brownies, but for ease of use, I really have to recommend Ghirardelli’s brownie mix as a great back-up plan.

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Summer is finally here in our neck of the woods! And while it’s overcast and a bit cloudy today, Saturday it was absolutely gorgeous outside.   We pulled out the pool for the kids, loaded it up with water, and they were playing in it by 10:30 in the morning.  It wasn’t until about 2:00 in the afternoon that I realized that they’d been playing in the hot sun all day, and that perhaps I should douse them with sunscreen.

Um, yeah.  Don’t forget to smear sunscreen on your beauties as they enjoy the summer sun.  Some sunshine exposure is excellent for your health- in fact, the experts say that 20 minutes of sun exposure  will produce more than enough vitamin D for optimum health- but sunscreens of 8 or higher will block that wonderful vitamin from getting through.

On those rare instances though where you forget the sunscreen, let me just give a little shout out to this wonderful product!

Ocean Potions Instant Burn Relief ICE has been wonderful for helping my little lobsters feel a little less like they are in pain.  It’s basically aloe vera gel- which is important for getting moisture back into that burned skin- with a hint of tea tree extract and lidocaine, which soothes the burn pain almost instantly.   And according to my kids, it works wonderfully!

Of course, you’re going to do a much better job at keeping those sunburns off your children and not need this product- right?

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The very first time I cooked with millet, I was pleased with the results, but I confess, it didn’t leave me clamoring for more.   And even though I read on a lot of lists that millet is really very good for you, in practicality, there just aren’t that many recipes out there that actually call for using millet.  But the other day, I was flipping through the legume section of my How To Cook Everything Vegetarian and I saw this recipe for a Pinto Bean Tart With Millet Crust.  I have to admit that I think that normally, I would have just flipped past the recipe and never given it a second look, except that in the back of my mind, I remembered that my friend Bob from the CLBB made the recipe and thought it was delicious.  And every single time I flip past  that recipe I think that Bob made it and that I should really give it a second glance.

So I gave it that second glance, saw just how easy it was going to be to put together, and when I cooked up pinto beans for our bean burgers the other night, I cooked up enough to make the tart as well.  There were a few steps to getting the tart together, and overall, it take a small bit of time, but in the end, I think it was worth it.

The first step was toasting and cooking the millet.  Toasting grains is one of the best smells to have going on- it just smells nutty and delicious, and reminds me a lot of the smell of kettle corn as it’s cooking.  After the millet was toasted, it needed to cook and soften for about 25 minutes, so while that cooked up, I assembled my filling ingredients.  The filling was really easy, everything basically went into the food processor.  I chose to add a can of green chiles to my filling as well as a few handfuls of shredded cheddar cheese.  I left out the corn, for no real reason, but I did surmise that this tart was going to be very smooth and creamy, and I just didn’t want the chunks of corn taking away from that.  Once the millet was done, I used the back of a spoon to press it into my sprayed pie plate.  It pressed in rather nicely, and then I poured in the bean mixture.  I topped the whole thing with a sprinkle of cheese (trying to appeal to the kids here) and popped it in the oven in a water bath.

The recipe said it would be done around 30 minutes, so I pulled it out and let it rest for a few minutes before cutting in.  When I sliced in, it was still very soft in the middle, so I put it back in the oven for an extra 20 minutes.  Then it was done- and I have changed the recipe to reflect the new time.  I sliced it and served it up with sour cream and green salsa.  The crust, while delicious and nutty and a touch crunchy, did not hold together, and I have to wonder if mixing one of the egg whites in with the millet would be a good idea to get it to hold better.

This was way better than I expected.  I mean, I expected it would be tasty, but this was downright delicious.  The crunchy and nutty grains played off the creamy beans so well!  Abigail even ate most of her piece!  I kept going in for one more bite, wondering how so few ingredients could turn out something so wonderful, and I really, really liked the millet prepared this way.  The bits on the edges got crispy and really tasty.  Mmmm.  Something I also noticed last night was that the combination of beans and whole grains really satisfied.  We ate dinner before six last night, and I never even felt like eating anything else the rest of the night- it really stuck with me, but in a good way.

I’m finding myself wishing there was more than just one tiny leftover slice for lunch today.

Pinto Bean Tart With Millet Crust

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I have two recipes this week using pinto beans.  As it sort of starts to warm up here, I seem to be heading back into vegetarian mood.  There is just something about warm weather that makes me not want to eat so much meat, so this is the time of year I really get a lot of use out of my vegetarian cookbooks.  This week, I happened to be in the mood for some beans.

Last night, it was bean cakes.  I’ve made these before, only in a black bean variation.   In fact, I’ve made them a few times before, but last night, I decided to try out pinto beans and see how they worked in the bean cakes.   I followed the variation for the Cheesy Baked Red Bean Cakes, using cheddar cheese and Mexican oregano in my mixture.  The pinto beans seemed to have a lot more moisture than the black beans, as I ended up adding another 1/2 cup of flour to get the cookie dough consistency to the beans.  They still came together quickly enough, and it didn’t take long at all to have my non-stick foil lined with eight pinto bean patties.

I baked them up for 30 minutes, although at the 20 minute mark, I flipped them over to brown both sides of the patties.  When they were done, I placed them in tortillas, topped them with more cheese for the kids, spinach leaves (from the garden!), sour cream and salsa, and told the kids they were “burger burritos”.  My deception didn’t work, unfortunately.  Abigail did manage to eat about half of her burrito, but Zander only took a few bites before asking for just cheese.  Abigail said she liked it… but I’m just not convinced of that.

Andy and I on the other hand… let’s just say that we almost had a brawl over who was going to get the leftovers.  Ultimately, it came down to the fact that neither of us thought they would be very good cold, and since Andy doesn’t have access to a way to heat food, he left the cakes at home for me for lunch.   These Baked Bean Cakes are just so delicious, regardless of what variation I make.  And since they’re so easy, I’m considering making up a few batches of different kinds just to have on hand for quick lunches or dinners.  I think they’d freeze very well.   The sole change I would make to this version would be to add a dash or two of chili powder to the mixture.  It seems that no matter how I make these baked bean cakes, they are absolutely delicious- so much so that my meat eating husband doesn’t even miss the meat.  And of course, since the primary ingredient here is beans, these are beyond budget friendly.

Tonight, I’m really going to stretch and make something completely unusual with pinto beans and some whole grains… come back tomorrow to see how it turns out.

Baked White Bean Cakes

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My apologies to all my loyal Tummy Treasure fans as I’ve been trying to get back in the blogging groove.   We’ve had a very busy several weeks here, and now are finally officially enjoying summer vacation.  Hitting the drive thru a few days a week just doesn’t make for exciting blogging fodder, but I think maybe I’ve turned a corner, and the kitchen is re-opening for a while.

On the menu later this week, I have a few dishes planned that utilize pinto beans, so I thought I’d get a head start and make my beans ahead of time.   If you’ve spent any time here, you know how much of a fan I am of dried beans, and you also know that my usual method of cooking them doesn’t require any advance soaking or prep.

But then I began wondering if the soaking actually made any difference at all, and since I had plenty of time on my hands, I decided to see if soaking overnight made any difference with cooking dried beans.  The process is easy enough, rinse the beans, cover with water and soak overnight. So I did that.  What shouldn’t have surprised me though, is that the next morning, the beans were very plump and much larger in size- I daresay they doubled!  Total, I would say they soaked for about 15 hours.

I then rinsed the beans again, dumped them in the pot, covered with water and added salt and pepper to season the cooking water.  I put the pot on the stove, covered it, and turned the heat up to high to bring it to a boil.  Once it was boiling, I turned it down to a simmer and walked away for 30 minutes.  When I came back, I was very surprised to find that my beans were almost done already! In fact, if I were using them in a long simmering soup or stew, they probably would have been fine to take off the heat right there.  I ‘m planning on using them for bean burgers and a tart later this week, so I need them soft, they will end up mushed, so I gave them another 20 minutes, and they were perfectly done.  Soft and tender and delicious right out of the pot.

Very interesting.  My usual method of not soaking the beans results in a much longer cooking time. Now I will say that I didn’t notice any significant change in the quality of the beans with either cooking method, but I really liked that with the soaked beans, my beans were ready in under an hour. That is a significant time savings, and well worth noting for future reference.  When I looked up legumes in my How To Cook Everything Vegetarian, Mark Bittman notes that he finds 8 to 12 hours ideal for the soaking times, and actually suggests setting beans to soak in the early morning before leaving for work, and then finishing them up when returning home- and I can totally see doing that.  If I worked outside the home of course.

So overall, I’m both surprised and pleased with the results of soaking the beans first.  I still agree wholeheartedly that you can cook dried beans without the soaking, but if you have inkling and are looking for a little less active cook time, soaking is the way to go.

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That means that we haven’t been home for a few days, and our home looks like the dumping ground it’s been for a few days.  It also means it’s time for some pictures of Abigail all decked out in dancing beauty.

For now you’ll have to settle with this photo of her ballet costume.  I completely spaced yesterday and I did not get a photo of her tap outfit and hair before she left.  Which is too bad because her hair was awesome straight out of the rollers.  But she did promise me that later today she’ll put on her costume to allow Mommy to take a picture or two.

The theme this year was In The Spotlight, and all the songs were from Broadway shows or well known movies.  For ballet, she did “I Feel Pretty.”

Okay, I’m back with the tap pictures.  Abigail really surprised us this year by really taking to the tap class.  She had a blast with it, and really improved on her abilities a lot.  Her song for tap was “Give My Regards To Broadway.”

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This morning the mail-person placed the July/August issue of Everyday Food in my mailbox.  From time to time, I really enjoy this magazine, but other times, the whole issue will not catch my interest at all.  This one though, is worth grabbing. The cover is “60 Days of Summer” and there are literally dozens of recipes that are making my mouth water.  There’s a whole tutorial on grilling vegetables- which ones need pre-cooking and which ones don’t.   There’s a segment on kebabs, and a segment on summery mixed drinks- all of which look very tasty to me! The high point though was definitely the segment called Salsas, Pickles and Relishes with a master recipe for Fast Homemade Pickles, which can be used with just about any vegetable.  I, for one, am dying to try it out.   The whole magazine wraps up with a series of delectable looking summer desserts.

I am smitten with this issue, and on the chance that you are not a subscriber, I just thought I’d share, and mention that this would be a great issue to pick up if you happen to see it while you’re out and about.

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But I have to share this soup, because it ended up being quite delicious.  Plus, if you live anywhere near me, you’ve also been experiencing this cold fallish weather, and have been in the mood for warming comfort food.  Hopefully the weather will get the memo soon that it is supposed to be summer around here!

Anyway, I have a fridge full of leftovers from a company weekend, and it became my mission to incorporate them all into meals for the week.  The other night I used some leftover chicken and scallions to top a fantastic BBQ chicken pizza, which I think is definitely becoming a favorite for Andy and I.  And last night, for the last crock-pot dance night meal, I decided to make a soup.  AS I rummaged through the fridge I pulled out some cut up veggies, some chicken, some corn and some black beans.  It was the corn and black beans that decided for me that I was going to make a taco soup.

So I started with a tablespoon of bacon grease.  What? You don’t keep bacon grease on hand?  You should! I’ve started keeping a small dish of bacon grease in the fridge, and I use it often when I’m making soups or stews, or something that could use just a hint of flavor.  It only takes a small bit to flavor a whole pot.  I started my soup with bacon grease instead of oil.  To this I added half a Vidalia onion, softened that for a minute, and then added red bell pepper, celery, and carrot.  I let these cook up a bit, and then I added a few cloves of minced garlic and a good handful of chopped cilantro.  As soon as those hit the pot I was rewarded with the beautiful aroma of garlic and cilantro. I stirred that up for a few minutes before adding the last pint I had of home-canned tomatoes.  As that simmered and stewed away, I got out some chicken broth, but before I added that, I was mentally going through the spices I would need to add to this soup to make it taste more like tacos.  I wondered… and sure enough, I had a packet of mild taco seasoning in the pantry, so that went in.  I let it get all stewed up and cooked in the tomato-veggie mixture for a few minutes, and then I added the chicken broth. I brought the whole thing to a boil, then turned it down and added shredded chicken, a can of corn,and a can of black beans.

My soup was done.  The whole thing went into the crock-pot to stay warm while we went to dance, and we were rewarded by a rather delicious soup.  I served it with shredded cheese, dollops of sour cream, and crushed tortilla chips.  Or in the kids case, they used the soup like salsa and scooped it up with tortilla chips.  It was great!  Obviously, if you have an aversion to taco seasoning packets you could add cumin and chili powder and extra garlic to a flavor you like, but I really was happy with the burst of flavor that the packet added to the soup.  In fact, I won’t hesitate for even a second before picking up a few more packets to keep on hand for the next soup season, because it really was a great way to add a lot of flavor- with little or no effort.

I’ll work on getting the picture on here later, but in the meantime, here is the recipe.

Taco Soup

In a large soup pot, melt the bacon grease over medium heat.  Add the onion, and cook for about two minutes, stirring from time to time.  Once the onion is just beginning to soften, add the celery, carrot and bell pepper.   Cook and stir for another five minutes, or until all the vegetables are soft and fragrant.

Add the garlic and cilantro.  Stir and cook for about 2 more minutes, or until bright and fragrant, and then add the tomatoes.

Add the taco seasoning packet.  Stir and bring to a boil, and then add the chicken broth.   Bring the whole pot to a boil, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add the black beans, corn and chicken, and cook for an additional 15 minutes, or until completely heated through.

Served with shredded cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips on the side.

Makes about 8-10 servings.

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