Pumpkin Pie Ice-Cream

This ice-cream is amazing. It seriously tastes just like pumpkin pie. If you don't like pumpkin pie, it's not for you! The key to this ice-cream is using fresh pumpkin, not from a can.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup fresh pumpkin puree (you can substitute 1 15 oz can of pumpkin puree)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 white sugar
1/4 brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Directions:

1. If you are going to use fresh pumpkin puree get a pie pumpkin from the store. Cook the pumpkin. I do this in my vegetable/rice steamer. After you cook the pumpkin puree it in a food processor.
2. Then put puree in cheese cloth and then into a colander for about 15 minutes to drain the extra water.
3. Heat cream, white sugar, and brown sugar in a sauce pan until it barely begins to bubble, stiring constantly, do not let it boil.
4. Remove sweetened cream from heat and let cool to room temperature.
5. Beat pumpkin puree, sweetened cream, salt, and the spices for 3 minutes on medium-high speed.
6. Pour mixture into your ice-cream maker and turn on for about 30 minutes or following the directions of your particular machine (add some walnuts if you want a bit of a crunch).
   
7. Enjoy!

White Pizza with Portabella Muschrooms

I don't normally like vegetarian pizza. But this is filling and delicious. Try this and you won't even notice that there isn't meat on it.

Ingredients:
Pizza dough
2 portabella mushroom caps
2 cups fresh mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup feta cheese
1/4 cup olive oil
lots of garlic
1 teaspoon rosemary
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Directions:

1. First, the white sauce: Mix 1/4 cup olive oil with about 1 teaspoon rosemary, 1/2 teapoon oregano, and 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning. Add about 2 cloves of crushed garlic. Stir and let sit. This can sit days if you want. But an hour is probably the minimum for it to infuse the olive oil with flavor.
2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
3. On a piece of foil put a small bulb of garlic. Let this roast for about 20-30 minutes.
4. Stretch out your dough on a pizza sheet. Poke holes in it with a fork to prevent big bubbles.
5. Cook dough for 5 minutes at 450 degrees.
   
6. Remove dough from oven and set aside.
7. Saute portabella mushrooms in olive oil until tender.
8. Now assemble the pizza.
9. Evenly spread the infused olive oil over the pre-cooked dough.
10. Spread about 2 cups of freshly grated mozzarella on the pizza.
11. Add the mushrooms, roasted garlic, and feta cheese. You can also add some Parmesan.
12. Cook pizza for 7 minutes on a pizza pan.
13. Then cook for an additional 3 minutes with the pizza directly on the oven rack.
14. Enjoy!

BBQ Chicken Pizza

This pizza is a classic! It's great with thin or regular crust and makes great left-overs.

Ingredients:
Pizza Dough
BBQ Sauce (I prefer Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce, but just choose one you like)
Red Onion (caramelized, I do this by putting the diced onion in my cast-iron pan with about 3 tbl of olive oil. This takes about 20-30 minutes. You can put raw onion on instead if you like, but the caramelized onion gives the pizza a nice smokey flavor.)
Chicken (cooked)
2 Cups mozzarella cheese
Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup fresh cilantro

Directions:

1. Make pizza dough.
2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
3. Spread dough out on your pizza pan.
4. Pre-cook dough for 4-5 minutes.
5. Remove from the oven and cover dough with bbq sauce.
6. Place chicken liberally over the pizza.
7. Cover with mozzarella cheese.
8. Rough chop your cilantro.
9. Sprinkle the cilantro over the pizza.
10. Add some Parmesan cheese.
11. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and the edges of the crust are browning.
12. Enjoy!

Beef Broth

I know. It doesn't sound exciting. Who wants to make beef broth? Great food begins with great ingredients. Making your own broth is an excellent way to have the best tasting food around. Follow these easy steps and your way to some savory broth (And for you official people this is more like a stock than a broth, still tastes good...).

Ingredients:
3 beef marrow bones (or any other beef parts, feet, ect.)
Stalk of celery
6 carrots
1 large onion
pinch of salt
2-3 bay leaves
2 cloves garlic
8 cups water

Directions:

1. Chop celery and carrots.
2. Add marrow bones, vegetables, and the rest of the ingredients to a crock pot.
3. 
4. Cook for 8-12 hours. The more it cooks the more it will concentrate the flavor. As you cook it water will steam off which means the flavor is being condensed into an ever decreasing amount of water.
5. Let cool.
6. Strain out the big pieces using a colander.
7. 
8. Filter the broth by running it through something that can remove the remaining little pieces.
9. 
10. Using a baster put broth into ice cube trays.
11. Freeze.
12. You now have 1 oz pre measured frozen beef broth ready to use anytime!
13. Enjoy by using this for French Onion soup!

Crusty French Bread

This bread is great tasting, pretty quick and goes perfect with salad, soup, or to make garlic bread with.

Ingredients:
2 cups warm water
1 tablespoon yeast
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
5 cups bread flour

Directions:

1. Dissolve yeast, warm water, and sugar in bowl.
2. Let sit for 10 minutes, until bubbly.
3. Add salt, oil, 3 cups flour, blend for about 2 minutes
4. Add 2 more cups of flour to make the dough stiffer
5. Knead for 10 minutes
6. Put in greased bowl, cover, and let rise til doubled
7. Divide dough in half and shape into two long rolls (like french bread!)
8. Take a knife and cut diagonal slices on the top, just through the top of the dough
9. Sprinkle with cornmeal
   
10. Let rise again until doubled
11. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes
12. If you want really 'crusty' crust you can spray the dough with water while baking
13. Enjoy!

Amazing Tomato Soup

I love soup for lunch when the weather gets cooler, which tends to happen early in Boston. Last week I made tomato soup very loosely based on a recipe from Food & Wine. This is a quick soup and is ready in less than an hour from start to finish. It makes four to five servings as written.

Here’s a tip—you don’t need to peel your garlic cloves before you put them through your press. In fact if you don’t peel them, your press will be a lot easier to clean up.

Finally, I almost never add salt and pepper while cooking something. I prefer to add them at the table.

Ingredients:

1 T butter
1 T olive oil
1 small or ½ medium white onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, put through a press
2 t smoked paprika (it makes a difference to the taste so get smoked paprika)
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes (I prefer fire roasted tomatoes)
3 T tomato paste
1 ½ C water
1/3 C light cream
1 sprig of thyme until the thyme plant dies, then use about ½ t dried thyme
1 bay leaf

Directions:

1. Melt the butter and oil together in a pan large enough to hold all the ingredients.
2. Add the finely diced onion and garlic to the pan and sauté until tender and translucent, about five minutes.
3. Add the paprika and stir well.
4. Add the tomatoes with their juice, the tomato paste, the water, the thyme and bay leaf.
5. Stir well and simmer for about 15 to 30 minutes.
6. Remove from heat and stir in the cream.
7. Enjoy!

Curried Rice with Chicken

Originally this recipe was called Curry Glazed Chicken and it didn’t have rice or vegetables in it at all. But I have no problem with altering recipes both to provide more complete nutrition and also to stay within a budget. Meat tends to be pretty expensive compared to vegetables and rice and so this recipe morphed into a mostly meatless main dish.

Also a word about spices—don’t buy into the hype that you must replace all your spices every three days or something silly like that. If you can still taste the flavor, why would you replace your spices? Plus spices aren’t always cheap. We’ve found that if you shop the ethnic aisle of your supermarket you can often find what you need for less than the same product housed in the spice aisle. And don’t overlook online sources. We get a lot of ours from Herbco, including the curry powder I use in this recipe.

As written, this recipe serves two. You can easily double it though.

Ingredients:

1 C cooked rice (I use brown rice and steam it outside in my trusty steamer)
1 boneless, skinless chicken thigh, cooked (sauté it, bake it, microwave it—whatever works for you) and diced
1 inch cube of fresh ginger, peeled and finely diced
¼ C honey
1 T Dijon style mustard
2 T curry powder (adjust for your own taste buds—remember, we like it hot)
½ white onion, coarsely chopped
1/3 C frozen peas
1 small or ½ medium carrot, peeled and diced. Note: I omitted the carrot this particular day because I served the Spicy Carrot Salad with it.
1 T canola oil

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan large enough to hold all the ingredients. Sauté the chopped onion.
2. Meanwhile, in a microwave proof bowl, mix the honey, mustard and curry powder together. Heat in the microwave until the honey is fairly runny.
3. (If you are using carrots, add them to the saucepan and continue cooking until cooked through, probably about five minutes.)
4. Add the ginger and continue to sauté.
5. Add the peas and chicken and heat thoroughly. If the pan gets a bit dry or things are sticking too much, add a little water or a bit more oil.
6. Add the rice and the sauce.
7. Mix thoroughly and let the sauce heat through.
8. Enjoy!