Julie's Phenomenal Corn Bread Casserole

Well, folks, without much further ado, here it is: Julie's phenomenal corn bread casserole recipe that has been delighting the whole family for many years:

Corn Bread Casserole

2 large onions, chopped
6 Tbsp butter
2 eggs
2 Tbsp milk
2 (17-oz) cans cream-style corn
2 (1/2-lb.) pkg. Jiffy corn muffin mix
1/2 pint dairy sour cream (1 cup)
2 cups shredded sharp cheese cheddar cheese (8 oz.)

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F ( 220 degrees C). In a medium skillet sauté the onion in butter until golden. Set aside. In a medium bowl, mix eggs and milk until blended. Add corn muffin mix. Mix well. Spread corn bread batter into greased 13' X 9" baking dish. Spoon sautéed onion over top. Spread sour cream over onion. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake 35 minutes or until puffed and golden. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting into squares. Hey, you've done it! Yum and enjoy!!

Potato and Celeriac Purée

Well, folks, without much further ado, here it is: Julie's phenomenal corn bread casserole recipe that has been delighting the whole Nyberg family for many years:

Corn Bread Casserole

Ingredients:

2 large onions, chopped
6 Tbsp butter
2 eggs
2 Tbsp milk
2 (17-oz) cans cream-style corn
2 (1/2-lb.) pkg. Jiffy corn muffin mix
1/2 pint dairy sour cream (1 cup)
2 cups shredded sharp cheese cheddar cheese (8 oz.)

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F ( 220 degrees C). In a medium skillet sauté the onion in butter until golden. Set aside. In a medium bowl, mix eggs and milk until blended. Add corn muffin mix. Mix well. Spread corn bread batter into greased 13' X 9" baking dish. Spoon sautéed onion over top. Spread sour cream over onion. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake 35 minutes or until puffed and golden. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting into squares. Hey, you've done it! Yum and enjoy!!

Slow-cooker pot roast

There must be a myriad of ways to cook a pot roast and when looking up different recipes I find the variations are pretty close. There always is the meat, a variety of vegetables, some liquid, and seasoning. It is rather easy to make a wonderful pot roast on the stove top or by combining stove top browning followed by slower oven roasting. The whole process will take a few hours. Even though the roast can be left alone to cook for most of the time, I usually feel that I can't leave the house with the oven on.

Using a slow cooker to finish a pot roast meal might be just the right answer when you have to be away from home most of the day. I have to admit that I have never been truly impressed with the quality of taste of slow cooker meals. Somehow, many dishes I've tried had this distinct "crockpot taste." The only two dishes I've ever been happy with from the crockpot is a split pea soup that I've been making since I got married and a recipe for French dip sandwich meat that I got from a church cookbook. Other than that I've been rather disappointed by many meals.

There are days, however, when the kids come home after swim practice or an afternoon of piano lessons and are so famished that it's nice to have dinner already prepared. So I will begin a challenge for myself to use one day a week, the day I'm pretty much gone all day, and use the slow cooker to work on dishes that taste like gourmet food. Is there such a thing as gourmet crockpot food? We'll see what I can do to liven up the fare to keep my finicky taste buds happy. Today I will begin with a pot roast.

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp. canola oil

3-4 lbs. beef chuck

1 large sweet onion, coarsely chopped

2-3 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

3/4 cup dry white wine

salt & pepper

Preparation:

Heat 1 Tbsp. canola oil in a large pan and brown meat over medium-high heat, about 5 minutes per side or until nicely browned.

Meanwhile, peel and chop onion and carrots, and mince garlic. Place all the vegetables in the bottom of the slow cooker.

When the meat is browned, remove it from the pan and generously sprinkle each side with salt and pepper. Place on top of the vegetables in the slow cooker.

Deglaze the pan with 3/4 cup of dry white wine until all the browned drippings from the pan are dissolved and pour all of the liquid into the slow cooker.

Turn slow cooker to high and cook for 4-6 hours until the meat is tender. The roast can also be cooked on low for 8-10 hours.

Fabulous Quinoa Tabbouleh

Tabbouleh is a favorite salad in our home that also makes wonderful portable brown bag lunches. Made from fresh ingredients, it tastes particularly good in the summertime when there's a bounty of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs. Tradionally made with bulgur wheat, I've lately started using quinoa, an ancient grain that is gaining more and more popularity because of its versatility, easy digestibility and high nutrient content. Quinoa cooks in 15 minutes, but can also be sprouted, which takes a little longer and requires some forethought. It can be served as a breakfast cereal, used as a side dish, or become the foundation for any number of salads. It has a slightly nutty taste that can be brought out further by toasting the seeds prior to cooking. In short: it's a real winner as far as staple items in the pantry go. I recently dished up this tasty version of a tabbouleh salad. Check it out!

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa

2 bundles parsley, finely chopped

1 packet fresh mint (about 1 oz.), finely chopped

1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced

2 tomatoes, seeded and diced

2-3 scallions, chopped

1/3 cup lemon juice (approx. 2 small lemons)

5-6 Tbsp. olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

optional: crumbled feta

Preparation:

Rinse the quinoa well in a fine-meshed sieve to remove the naturally occurring saponins surrounding the grain. If this step is left out, the quinoa may taste a little soapy. When the water runs clear, the quinoa is sufficiently rinsed.

Mix quinoa with 2 cups of water in a small pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 15 minutes. Remove quinoa from the heat and let cool.

Meanwhile, prepare the other ingredients and mix the lemon juice and olive oil for the dressing. When the quinoa has cooled, mix all ingredients together and season with salt and pepper to taste. This salad is great stuffed in pita bread for a portable lunch or as a side dish or all on its own. My daughter and I sometimes toss a small amount of crumbled feta cheese into the mix, giving this Middle Eastern dish a bit of a Greek spin. Either way it is a really good and filling summer salad.

Conquering Collard Greens and Kale

Somehow, over the course of two and a half weeks, we've ended up with three large bundles of collard greens and Swiss chard in our fridge. It was clear that I had to overcome my apprehension about how to best cook these greens and have everyone like them. Something had to be done.

I know leafy greens cook down to nearly nothing, so I wasn't afraid by the 12-cup pile of washed and chopped greens. The bigger question was how to prepare them. In order to preserve the maximum amount of nutrients of foods I cook, I like to consult George Mateljan's book The World's Healthiest Foods or his Web site, an excellent reference for the nutritional content of all sorts of good-for-you foods and their preparation. George suggested steaming for no more than five minutes. I also used one of his suggestions for preparing collard greens and kale to make them tasty–with very good results, so good in fact, that my husband and I gobbled down the entire amount of greens all by ourselves, even though the amount I prepared could have easily been plenty for four eaters.

Ingredients:

3 large bundles collard greens or kale

1/2 to 1 cup sliced scallions

olive oil

tamari to taste

Preparation:

Wash greens, cut the thick stem out and chop the leaves into bite-size pieces. Bring enough water in a large pot to a roaring boil. Place greens in the steaming basket and place over the boiling water. Cover pot and let greens steam for 5 minutes – and no more!!

Meanwhile, heat a little olive oil in a pan, sauté scallions until lightly softened and add steamed greens, tossing them with the onions until everything is mixed well. Serve immediately as a side dish or as a light meal with a poached egg on top.

The Fastest Chicken Noodle Soup Ever

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It still amazes me that you can buy a rotisserie chicken for less than a raw chicken in any super market. With two members of our household sick with colds, I decided the best and most comforting dinner for a sore throat would be chicken noodle soup. I didn't have a lot of time, so a rotisserie chicken from one of our local grocery stores was a good option to speed up dinner prep time. The other ingredients I needed were chicken broth, carrots, celery, noodles, salt and pepper. Ina Garten has a recipe just like mine in one of her Barefoot Contessa cookbooks, the only difference being the addition of fresh parsley in her recipe. I thought fresh parsley sounded like a tasty change from the usual and planned on adding it to my soup. (Although I have to admit that I used twice the amount that Ina uses….) With everything on hand, here's how I proceeded to make a tasty chicken noodle soup almost from scratch in less than an hour.

Ingredients:

6–14-oz. cans low-sodium Swanson's chicken broth

1 cup diced carrots

1 cup sliced celery

2 cups dried wide egg noodles

2 cups diced, cooked chicken meat from rotisserie chicken (keep the rest of the rotisserie chicken for another dish, such as chicken salad)

1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Preparation:

Bring chicken stock to a simmer, add diced carrots, celery, and dried egg noodles and cook for about 10 minutes until the noodles are softened. Add diced chicken and chopped parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste. Heat everything through and serve immediately. Makes about 6-8 servings.

Roasted Acorn Squash Soup with Fresh Parsley

It's been a fridge-cleaning kind of day, and since I found a few more acorn squash left over from last fall's farm deliveries, I decided to try my hand at acorn squash soup. Cooking from the top of my head–without a roadmap, so-to-speak–is always a bit more challenging. Frankly, though, how hard can it be to combine a few simple ingredients and turn them into soup? It's always fun to see what the outcome of a few more-or-less educated guesses on combining ingredients might be when I don't follow a recipe. So, here are the steps I took today and, may I say, the soup ended up being very tasty.

Roasted Acorn Squash Soup with Fresh Parsley

Ingredients:

approximately 4 cups roasted acorn squash

2-3 Tbsp. olive oil

2 cups diced sweet onions

1/4 tsp. dried thyme

4 cups chicken stock (or vegetable broth for a vegetarian version)

1/2 cup fresh, minced Italian parsley

salt & pepper to taste

Preparation:

To roast the squash, preheat oven to 400˚F, cut squash in half length-wise, scrape out seeds, brush the outside with olive oil and place on a lightly oiled baking sheet, cut side down. Bake at 400˚F for about 30-45 minutes, until the squash is soft. Let cool and scrape the flesh out of the skins.

In a large deep sauté pan or Dutch oven, heat olive oil and sauté onions and thyme until the onions are translucent. Add the squash and chicken stock and mix well. Heat over medium-low heat for about 20-25 minutes. Add about 1 to 1 1/2 tsp. sea salt and pepper to taste. Turn off the heat and add the fresh parsley. Mix everything well. Take about half of the mixture and purée in a blender until smooth. Mix with the remainder of the soup and serve. Number of servings: about six.

Clean and Green Start

It's the beginning of a new month and after all the indulgences and heavier food of the last couple of months, the beginning of February has me all fired up about lighter, cleaner, greener fare. So the motto for this month's cooking will be: clean and green.

With that in mind, I started the family off with a great breakfast smoothie this morning. According to them, it was my best smoothie ever and completely dairy-free. Here's what I blended this morning:

Best-ever Breakfast Smoothie

Ingredients:

12 oz. fresh strawberries, washed and hulled

1 1/2 medium bananas (fresh or frozen)

1 large orange, peeled

1 cup water

Preparation:

Add all the ingredients to a high-speed blender and blend for 30 seconds or until smooth and creamy. Pour into glasses and enjoy. Yield: approximately 4 cups or 32 oz.

Variation:

Many times I like to add 1-2 Tbsp. of freshly ground flax seeds and 1 Tbsp. of wheat grass powder. If you add flax seeds, add a little more water, too, since flax seeds will jell the smoothie slightly.

Apple-Orange-Banana Smoothie

When I grew up, my mom's favorite fruit salad consisted of apples, oranges and bananas. I don't remember her ever dressing the salad, but just cutting up the fruit and tossing the chunks to mix them well. The orange keeps the bananas and apples from turning brown, so it's a salad that is not only healthy, but also looks lovely. After the morning walk with the buddies, I made a smoothie based on my mother's fruit salad combo. It is very tasty and quickly blended.

Apple-Orange-Banana Smoothie

Ingredients:

1 banana

2 apples

2 oranges

8 oz. orange juice (freshly squeezed is particularly nice)

1/2 cup low-fat yogurt

2 Tbsp. freshly ground flax seeds

Preparation:

Wash all fruit well and cut into large chunks. Put all ingredients into a blender and blend on high for about 30 seconds, or until everything is smooth and creamy. The recipe makes about two 16-oz. servings.

Fresh Pumpkin Pie

This fall we joined a CSA (community supported agriculture), a local farm that delivers a bushel box of organically grown produce every other week to a drop-off location nearby. With the last batch of vegetables we also received a so-called "dessert pumpkin." It's a small pumpkin, very cute, about 5 1/2 inches in diameter and weighing approximately three pounds. It has served as a great centerpiece on our kitchen counter, but now it's time to turn it into pumpkin pie.

I have to admit that pumpkin pie has never been my favorite dessert, and I usually pass it up for apple pie on Thanksgiving Day. Also, I've never made pumpkin pie before, not even with the canned variety. So at first I was a little leery. But the good thing about getting produce from a farm and not knowing what's in the box is that you learn to cook with foods you would never think of buying in the supermarket. I honestly have to say that making pumpkin pie from a fresh pumpkin has taken me to new heights in baking. I really like the taste of the pie, too. I guess you could say I had a pumpkin pie conversion experience…

Before being able to use the pumpkin flesh, I had to cook it. I settled on baking it because it is a very simple method.

Baking a Pumpkin

Ingredients:

1 pumpkin, approximately 3 pounds (makes about 2 cups of pumpkin purée)

olive oil (pure olive oil is more stable at higher temperatures, so use that!)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350˚F. Wash the pumpkin and cut in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and keep them for roasting later. Brush a cookie sheet or roasting pan with oil and place pumpkin halves on it, cut side down. Cover with foil and bake at 350˚F for about 60-90 minutes or until very soft. Scrape the flesh out of the rind and purée in a food processor or food mill.

The next step involves making the actual pumpkin pie:

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

1/4 tsp. ground ginger

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

3 large eggs

2 cups fresh pumpkin purée

1 cup whole milk

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375˚F. Prepare your favorite crust (home-made or store-bought) and line a pie pan with it. Set aside. Combine sugar and spices, add the eggs and beat until mixture is creamy and light-colored. Add pumpkin purée, then milk, and mix until everything is blended well. Pour this filling into your favorite crust recipe and bake for about 35-45 minutes, until the center of the filling is set, but still quivery when nudged. Let pie cool on a rack. It can be served cold, at room temperature or slightly warm. Serve with whipped cream.

Note: The baking instructions are given for conventional oven baking. I used a convection oven, but it still took my pie 35-45 minutes at 375˚F.

Biscuits and Gravy

When we go to Finland–Finland, Minnesota, that is–we always make sure that we have breakfast at Our Place, the restaurant in this town of 400+ people on the North Shore of Lake Superior. It is the local hang-out where people gather to watch football or baseball and where you get a good breakfast, lunch or dinner without feeling robbed. On Saturdays and Sundays only, the restaurants serves the best biscuits and sausage gravy you can find anywhere according to my husband. With the weather turning colder and our appetites increasing for more substantial fare, I gave making biscuits and gravy a first try today. I received a two-thumbs-up approval rating from my husband with the words that I can make that again. Be warned though: This is not a recipe to make if you're watching your waistline.

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Ingredients:

12 oz. Jimmy Dean Sage breakfast sausage

4-6 Tbsp. butter*

4-6 Tbsp. all-purpose flour*

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper

4 cups whole milk, warmed

Preparation:

Cook sausage in a large skillet over medium heat, breaking it up into small chunks, until it is no longer pink. Add butter and heat until melted. Add flour, salt and pepper and cook and stir for a few minutes until everything is blended well. Heat milk in the meantime. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly. Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat and cook for a few minutes until the sauce is thickened. Serve sauce over bicuits. Makes 4-6 servings.

*Tip: If you like your sauce rather thin, use less butter and flour without changing the other measurements. If you like it a little thicker, go for the full 6 tablespoons of butter and flour!

A Potato-Fennel Gratin Fit Enough For Company

The best-tasting potatoes–obviously–can be had in fall when they're harvested and the stores are brimming with a large variety of different kinds and sizes. I made the following recipe for a potato-fennel gratin tonight for guests and it was a hit with everyone. The recipe is almost exactly taken from Ina Garten's The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.

Potato-Fennel Gratin

Ingredients:

2 fennel bulbs

1 yellow onion, halved and thinly sliced

2 Tbsp. pure olive oil

1 tbsp. unsalted butter

2 pounds potatoes (russet or Yukon Gold)

2 cups heavy cream

2 1/2 cups grated Gruyère cheese (1/2 lb.)

1 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350˚F and butter an 9x13-inch casserole dish. Remove the stalks from the fennel and cut the bulbs in half lengthwise. Remove the cores and thinly slice the bulbs crosswise. Sauté the fennel and the onions in the olive oil and butter on medium-low heat until tender.

Peel the potatoes and slice them thinly, about 1/8 inch thick. Mix the sliced potatoes in a large bowl with 2 cups of cream, 2 cups of Gruyère, salt and pepper. Add the sautéed fennel and onion and mix well.

Pour mixture into the prepared casserole dish. Press down to smooth the potatoes. Sprinkle the top with about 1/2 cup of grated Gruyère. Bake uncovered for 1 1/2 hours, until the potatoes are very tender and the top is browned nicely. Allow a few minutes to cool and set before serving.

The recipe makes about 10 servings and can be made days ahead of time and reheated at 350˚F for about 30 minutes. (Let the gratin come to room temperature before reheating. If not, the time for reheating needs to be increased.)

Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Gratin

Oh boy! Here is an indulgence that I made for the dinner table tonight, and with something like this on the menu I say, "who cares about dessert? Let's have seconds instead!"

With plenty of butternut squash and sweet potatoes on hand and tired of making yet another pot of soup, I found a recipe for butternut squash and sweet potato casserole on the blog Pinch My Salt that I liked because of its simplicity, wonderful photography and great directions. The only changes I made from the original recipe were cutting the salt by one third, using dried instead of fresh thyme, and adding more garlic. Here's the decadent recipe that will fill your kitchen with great smells. Even my 13-year-old daughter, who was doing homework at the kitchen table while listening to her iPod, looked up at one point and said, "Mmh! Something smells good, mom!" Here's my slightly adjusted version of Pinch My Salt's recipe:

Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Gratin

Ingredients:

1 lb. butternut squash, peeled and sliced about 1/8 inch thick

1 lb. sweet potato, peeled and sliced about 1/8 inch thick

1 tsp. dried thyme

1 generous tsp. kosher salt

fresh pepper to taste

2 cups shredded Manchego (or Gruyère–or even aged Gouda)

3 cloves garlic, pressed

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 400˚F. Butter a 9x13-inch casserole dish and set aside. Peel and slice butternut squash and sweet potatoes, grate cheese, and measure spices and heavy cream.

In the buttered casserole dish, spread half of the butternut squash out and sprinkle with 1/3 of the salt, pepper, thyme and 1/2 cup of cheese. Then spread half the sweet potatoes as the next layer, again sprinkling with 1/3 of the salt, pepper, thyme and 1/2 cup of cheese. Repeat layering with another layer of butternut and sweet potatoes. Finish by mixing 3 cloves of freshly pressed garlic with the heavy cream and pouring it over the dish. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup of cheese, cover the casserole and bake in the oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the cover and bake 20 minutes more until the top is nicely browned. Remove the gratin from the oven and let it cool for 15-20 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

Note: Supposedly, this recipe makes 12 servings, but we live in Minnesota and it's getting cold outside, so we only get 6-8 servings out of this recipe. Oink, oink. :)

Chicken Noodle Soup

Nothing feels better when you're under the weather than an nice, piping hot bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup. I'm not sure if there is any truth to chicken noodle soup speeding up recovery when suffering from a common cold, but folk wisdom has said for centuries that it does. All I know is that it tastes good and my mom was a master at making a very simple, tasty version entirely from scratch. Here is the recipe–it comes in two steps: the first step describes how to make the chicken stock and cook the chicken, the second step describes how to finish the soup.

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup (Hühnersuppe)

STEP I

Ingredients for making chicken stock and cooking chicken:

1 4-lb. chicken, rinsed well, innards removed

10 cups water

1-2 stalks celery, cut in large chunks

1-2 carrots, cut in large chunks

1 large onion, cut in large chunks

2 bay leaves

1 tsp. salt

Preparation:

Put the chicken and all other ingredients in an 8-qt. stockpot, fill with water to cover the chicken (approximately 10 cups), and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer on very low for about 1 1/2 hours.

Remove the chicken and let it cool slightly before deboning. Strain broth and discard all of the vegetables. Return the strained broth to the pot. You now have the clear chicken stock and cooked chicken to make the chicken soup you will actually eat.

STEP II

Ingredients for finishing chicken soup:

all the chicken stock from the first step

2 stalks celery, sliced

2 carrots, sliced or diced

1 tsp. salt (or a little more to taste)

pepper to taste

To the chicken broth add celery, carrots, diced chicken meat, salt and pepper. Bring everything to a boil and simmer on low heat for approximately 20 minutes until the fresh vegetables are tender.

Meanwhile bring a pot of water to a boil and cook egg noodles according to package directions. Serve a scoop of egg noodles with each bowl of chicken soup. Makes about 10-12 generous servings.

Tip: Keep noodles and soup separate, so the noodles don't get soggy but stay al dente. Occasionally, my mom served the soup with rice (buttered rice… she always used butter for cooking…) which is very good, too.

Hello Snow!

Big surprise when waking up this morning: it had snowed! Not a huge accumulation, of course, it is after all only October 10, but enough to cover all the roofs and lawns in a thin blanket of white. Our dogs, Lenny and Louie, had a very surprised look on their faces when I let them out the door into the yard. I think they had forgotten what snow was!

Now they're back in the house, everyone is still asleep, but the first pot of coffee is brewing and I'm thinking about making some nice cauliflower-cheese soup. My favorite recipe for this soup comes from Molly Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook. The only ingredient in it that I don't use is caraway because my husband doesn't care for it. Other than that, the recipe is just to our liking. Try it for yourself!

Cauliflower-Cheese Soup

Ingredients:

1 large potato, peeled and diced (about 2-3 cups diced)

1 large cauliflower, cut or broken into florets (put aside 2 cups of florets)

1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped

3 medium cloves garlic, peeled

1 1/2 cups chopped onion

1 1/2 tsp. salt (I like kosher or sea salt)

4 cups water

2 cups (packed) grated cheddar (plus extra for garnishing each serving)

3/4 cup milk (I find whole milk tastes better, though lowfat is okay)

1 tsp. dill

1/2 tsp. caraway seeds (I always leave them out…, but instead a sprinkling of freshly cut parsley for garnish is nice)

black pepper to taste

Preparation:

Place potato, cauliflower (except for the 2 cups reserved), carrot, garlic, onion, salt, and water in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil, then simmer until all vegetables are very tender. Purée in a blender or food processor, and transfer to a kettle or Dutch oven.

If you like a little texture in your soup, set aside 2 cups of the cauliflower florets and steam them reserved until just tender. Add these to the purée along with all remaining ingredients. Heat gently, and serve topped with a little extra cheese.

Fish Stew

An Italian restaurant we visit occasionally serves a delicious fish stew called zuppa di pesce. It's chockful of salmon, shrimp and scallops that swim in a sea of flavorful broth that beckons to be soaked up with crusty bread. Since I've been spending a major part of this week serving leftovers from last weekends party and I still had more than a pound of already poached salmon in the refrigerator, I decided to make my own version of fish stew to use the fish before it turned bad. I added a bag of frozen shrimp and a bag of frozen scallops that I had in the freezer and, even though fresh always tastes better, I thought a stew would be a tasty way to prepare the frozen and the already poached seafood.

My brother-in-law Tim recreated his own version of the restaurant's fish stew a few years ago and it is delicious. I had his recipe and another one from a cookbook to get me started, but ultimately I had to use what I had on hand. The resultat: really good! So here's the recipe:

Fish Stew

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp. butter

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 lb. mushrooms, sliced

1 cup onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1-1 1/2 lbs. salmon, poached

8-oz. bag of frozen shrimp

12-oz. bag of frozen scallops

1 14-oz. can diced tomatoes

2 14-oz cans chicken broth

1 cup dry white wine

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. dried basil

salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

Heat butter and oil in a 4-6 qt. large pot over medium high eat. Add mushrooms, sprinkle several pinches of salt on top of mushrooms, and sauté for a few minutes. When the mushrooms start drawing water, add onions and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are tender. Add salmon, shrimp and scallops and stir. Add diced tomatoes with juices, chicken broth, wine, oregano, basil and pepper. A couple of good cranks with the peppermill will be fine. Bring mixture to a boil and immediately turn down heat to a low simmer. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until flavors have blended. If using fresh fish, simmering the stew may be increased to 30 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings if needed.

Suggestion: Our Italian restaurant–and my brother-in-law Tim–also add fresh chopped asparagus to the soup. That is really good. If you choose to add asparagus, just cut fresh spears into 1 1/2-inch chunks and add to the soup during the last 10 minutes of simmering.

Hunt for the Perfect Overnight Waffle

A waffle is like a pancake with a syrup trap.

–Mitch Hedberg, comedian–

If you have, like me, searched high and low for the perfect waffle recipe, look no further because I have arrived in waffle heaven. And as soon as you make the recipe following below, you will be there, too. The waffle batter is prepared ahead of time–at our house that usually means at night–and used for breakfast waffles in the morning. I stumbled upon it at gourmet.com, and lo and behold, it actually is a Fannie Farmer Cookbook recipe. This is the best waffle recipe ever if you like tasty waffles that are crisp on the outside. The only comment I have to make is that the batter is very thin and will not bake properly in a Belgian waffle maker; however, it is perfect for a traditional or classic waffle iron. So, without much further ado, here is the perfect waffle recipe:

Overnight Raised Waffles

Ingredients:

1/2 cup warm water

2 1/4 tsp. dry yeast

2 cups warm milk (I like using whole milk)

1/2 cup melted butter

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 tsp. baking soda

Preparation:

Use a large mixing bowl because the batter will rise considerably. Start by mixing the warm water and yeast in the mixing bowl. Let sit for 5 minutes. Then add the milk, butter, salt, sugar and flour and mix until all the ingredients are blended well. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit overnight at room temperature.

In the morning add the beaten eggs and baking soda to the mix and stir. To bake waffles, pour about 1/2 cup of the very thin batter onto a hot waffle iron and bake. Serve immediately and top with fresh fruit–berries are delicious–and maple syrup. Makes about 7 seven-inch round waffles. Any unused batter can be stored for a few days in the refrigerator.

Mixed Veggie Medley

When I woke up this morning, I felt like consuming something light and clean. A look into the fridge revealed a number of great-looking veggies, so the idea of a nice fresh juice came to mind. I knew Emily would appreciate it, too. This is not an inexpensive juice, but the taste is definitely worth the effort. So much goodness in one little glass!

Mixed Veggie Medley

Ingredients

4 large carrots

4-5 apples

1-2 cucumbers

2 stalks celery

1/2 head broccoli (about 3 cups)

1/2 bunch Italian parsley

Preparation

Wash all produce, cut into pieces small enough to run through a juicer, and juice. Makes approximately 1 quart of fresh, delicious juice.

Sweet Corn Soup

The first time I had corn, raw, I was fifteen and my parents had decided to take my brother and me on a week-long fall vacation to a farm in Bavaria. Being big-city kids, my brother and I enjoyed being outdoors and helping with the harvest at the time. The day we helped with harvesting corn, I remember sitting on top of a huge pile of corn on the trailer the tractor pulled off the fields at the end of the day. But before leaving the fields, the farmer we stayed with peeled an ear and handed it to me, saying, "eat." I dug my teeth into the corn and thought it was quite tasty. Up until that day, I didn't know people could eat fresh corn. Actually, I didn't know anyone who ever ate fresh corn. Corn, in my experience, was fed to the animals. At least in Germany.

Many years later, after having moved to Minnesota, I found out that most people in this part of the world spend the time from mid-July to mid-August eating corn-on-the-cob almost every day–more or less. Corn-on-the-cob, heated for only a few minutes in boiling water, then slathered with butter, salt and pepper or sprinkled with a little Parmesan cheese, is a staple in our house every summer. We eat so much that the ears quite literally start coming out of our ears, and by the time we're tired of corn, the season is over, and, satiated, we can wait and anticipate the new crop next year.

Today, I found myself in the kitchen with a scant dozen ears that I wanted to transform into something other than corn-on-the-cob. My sister-in-law Julie has a wonderful recipe for corn chowder that is out of this world, but I thought it would be a bit heavy for the high temperatures and humidity we've been experiencing this weekend. I settled on a recipe for sweet corn soup that I found in Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food. According to the girls, it's delicious–they already had seconds. What I love about it is that the ingredients are simple, the soup is easy to prepare, and it is tasty.

Sweet Corn Soup

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 very large sweet onion (roughly 2+ cups chopped)

10-12 ears of fresh corn

salt (I like kosher and/or sea salt)

2 qts. water

Preparation:

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat, but be careful not to brown the butter. Add the chopped onion and sauté until the onion is softened and translucent, about 15 minutes. Yes, the onion will quite literally swim in butter, but that will all change once the corn is added.

Meanwhile, chuck the corn (cut the kernels off the cobs). After the onion is softened, add the corn and sauté for 2-3 minutes. Add salt liberally. Then add the water.

Increase heat to high and bring to a boil. Boil soup for a few minutes, no more than five minutes. Turn off the heat and puree in batches to desired consistency. Adjust seasoning with salt if needed. Yield: about 3 quarts.

Fresh Basil Pesto from the Garden

It's been pretty much three months since I last blogged, but tonight's dinner was just too fabulous to pass up writing about. We've been busy with construction in the house and family visiting from Germany, so there was not a lot of time left for me to blog. It's good to get back into the swing of things and record memorable meals for posterity.

I have made basil pesto many times, but I don't recall the last time I thought it was really outstanding. Tonight's pesto was the best I recall from recent years. Maybe it was the unbelievably fragrant homegrown, organic basil that made the difference–or the time I took to meticulously toast the pine nuts or the high-quality organic extra-virgin olive oil I used. Whatever it was, tonight's pesto was better than any pesto I remember. So it's worth writing about. Try it for yourself. Indulge, and let the goodness of summer explode on your taste buds!

Fabulous Fresh Basil Pesto from the Garden

Ingredients:

2 cups tightly packed fresh basil (equals about 4 cups lightly packed or 2 oz.)

1/4 cup toasted pine nuts

1 very large clove of garlic

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese (a very generous 1/4 cup that is!)

and more freshly grated parmesan cheese to sprinkle over the meal

Preparation:

I do have a mortar and pestle, but enjoying the convenience of modern kitchen equipment, I always make my pesto in the food processor.

Add the first three ingredients–basil, pine nuts and garlic–and chop coarsely. Then, while running the food processor blade on the continuous setting, slowly pour in the olive oil. Add the cheese and, voilà, your pesto is ready to be tossed with hot pasta. Serve in pasta bowls and add a sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan cheese on top. Enjoy!

By the way, pesto can be frozen as long as the cheese is not added. So, if you plan on freezing your pesto for later use, freeze it without adding any cheese and add the cheese after your pesto is defrosted. Pesto is also good on sandwiches. My favorite sandwich consists of two slices of sprouted grain bread, pesto smeared on both slices, and 1/2 avocado and a sliced tomato sandwiched in between. That's yummy! Yield: about 1 cup of pesto.