Sweet potato and sausage soup

Sharon found an intriguing recipe for sweet potato sausage soup.
I pretty much followed the recipe, so you can just read it by following the link.
It make a tasty but not very photogenic soup, so no pix.

Next time: I think I would take the extra step of straining the soup after it has gone through the food processor, and pass the strainings back through the food processor a second time, just to make it nice and smooth. Also, I did use italian parsley as a garnish, but I left the leaves just coarsely chopped. I think it would be better to chop the parsley pretty fine.

Rolled turkey breast

Take a 3-pound turkey breast, butterfly it, slather with 6-oz of sliced prosciutto and 6-oz sliced, boiled ham, a Tbs of rosemary leaves, three cloves crushed garlic, some sage, salt, pepper.

Roll it up like a jelly roll.
Tie it up.
Place it on aluminum foil. sprinkle with 2 tsb more rosemary, salt, and pepper.

Bake at 400º for 45-55 minutes.
Take out and let rest for 20 minutes before unwrapping and slicing.

Next time: I baked it 45 minutes then took the internal temp and it was only 100º.
So I put it back in until I got an internal temp of 150º, but that was too long.
After the overshoot it got up to 175º.
So, probably taking it out when it gets to 135º would be good.

In any case, it was very tasty.

Cobbler

I found a nice recipe for fruit cobbler in the Joy of Cooking. Three cups peeled, diced fruit, 2/3 cup sugar, 1 Tbs flour combined in a sauce pan. Heat until bubbling.

Meanwhile make a biscuit dough:
sift together 1 cup flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsb salt
Cut in 3 Tbs butter,
Then 3/8 cup milk.
Need 8-10 times on lightly floured surface.

Pour fruit into 8x8 caserole, top with hunks of biscuit dough. Dot with 2 Tbs butter. Sprinkle 1 Tbs sugar all over. Dust with some salsa fina (ginger, cinnamon, grains of paradise, galangal).

Bake at 400º for 1/2 hour.
Serve with a goodly amount of vanilla ice cream.

For the fruit in this case I used two pears, two apples, and seven dried figs.

Vacuum sealing mason jars

I think I have found an inexpensive way (on the margin) to seal standard mason jars with flat canning lids.

You need a vacuum sealer and a vacuum canister that is large enough to hold the size jar you want to use.
Place a clean flat canning lid on the jar (which has been filled leaving enough head room to hold the vacuum).  Place this jar in your canister and attach the vacuum lid.

Saladpalooza continues

We continue with our emphasis on saladacious dining as started in Saladpalooza.

An everything salad.

Pasta Sauce with sardines

 After reading Michael Pollan's "Food Rules", we have been wanting to eat more low-on-the-food-chain fish. This is completely new to both of us so we have no idea where to start. I bought a tin each of sardines and of herring.

Our first effort has been to make pasta sauce with the sardines. We basically used the Fix-it-and-forget-it recipe for italian sausage sauce, but used minced sardines in place of the sausage (and frozen tomatoes in place of the canned diced tomatoes). Freezing the tomatoes whole made it very easy to skin them once they defrosted in the fridge.

Organics to You Box

We got our second box of produce from Organics to You. It is cool that they deliver to the home and have a nice balance between buying a share-like box with being able to tailor the contents to your tastes or current interests.
I am quite happy with the box. They have a great web site where we could preview what we could expect to come in the box so sharon was able to do some research and line up some recipes to try.
Let the adventures begin ...

Spiced Peach in Orange Gelatine

One of my favorite recipes is for a spiced peach mold that calls for "orange-flavored gelatin". I was feeling a little too thrifty to spring good money for a box of gelatin, sugar, flavors, and preservatives. But I wasn't feeling like boiling bones, so I opted to combine this recipe with one for orange gelatin. I made some for our Christmas Feast which turned out well (once I figured out the right amount of gelatin to use).

Saladpalooza -- return of the mixed greens

Time to make more salads. Here are some recent and some not-so-recent efforts...
I pan-fried some chicken to make a chicken salad with pecans and dried cranberries.

German Pancakes in muffin tins

Sharon found a neat idea for making german pancakes in muffin tins then filling them with a fruit sauce. I basically used a half recipe for german pancake except with the butter (melted) mixed into the batter and poured into greased muffin tins. Made nine from the half recipe (3 eggs).

For the topping I mixed some home-made jam with frozen peaches and a little lemon juice in a saucepan and heated until the peaches were warmed through.

Very tasty and makes a nice looking single serving with other stuff, or group a bunch together for a hearty breakfast.