Moroccan Spiced Chicken Soup

Baby, it's cold outside! Warm up your home and your family with a hot bowl full of healthy vegetables and hearty shredded chicken. Spiced with cumin, curry and paprika, the onions, celery and carrots are simmered along with shredded chicken, chickpeas and chopped zucchini. This Moroccan soup is more likely to be served as a light supper rather than as a first course. These will be leftovers the family will ask for! Reheat  and serve over rice, quinoa or couscous.

This recipe is highly customizable! Use what vegetables your family likes, or what vegetables you have on hand. Here is what I used:

Olive Oil
Onion
Carrot
Celery
Garlic
Dry Sherry
Ginger
Chicken
Chickpeas
Crushed Tomatoes
Chicken Stock
Spices
Zucchini
Chicken Bouillon

I know I didn't list amounts above, that is because you should feel free to use as much or as little of the ingredients as you like. Here is the step by step pictorial of what I did:

Black Forest Cake

If you think you don't have time to make a dessert for the holidays, think again! This Black Forest Cake is so decadent, and extremely simple to pull together. Baking is a thoughtful and delicious way to show others how much they mean to you. They don't have to know this warm and gooey cake was this easy...the best part? I made this in my crock pot, which frees up my oven for other things.

Simple ingredients: Chocolate Cake Mix, Cherry Pie Filling, Butter and if you like nuts you can add that too.

Lucky Leaf provided me with an assortment of their Premium Fruit fillings to sample for myself. I was able to make whatever I wanted with their products, and this entire post is my own opinion - I received no compensation for my written review. The beautiful 43 page Recipe Book they sent along with the products is filled with inspirational photos and easy to follow recipes. Next on my list is the Cherry-Chocolate Macaroon Pie. OMG, it's a recipe that only takes 30 minutes to prep, 22 minutes to bake and serves 8. Can you tell I have a thing for cherry's and chocolate? Read on to find out how you can receive some Lucky Leaf this holiday season.

Mint Love Letters with Spicy Lamb Sausage

A few years ago Jim and I took a trip to New York and chose to spend one special dinner at Mario Batali's highly acclaimed restaurant, Babbo. This may by my favorite memory from the whole trip.

The restaurant is quaint and service is helpful and friendly. We dined side by side in a romantic atmosphere and just enjoyed each others company and the wonderful food. Oh the food. The food and the wine. The wine and the food. It can make me cry just thinking about how beautiful everything was.

My favorite course by far were these Mint Love Letters with Spicy Lamb Sausage, a signature dish of Mario Batali's. The homemade sheets of pasta were so fresh and dainty. Inside the ravioli was the most unusual combination of mint, sweet peas and salty parmesan. The ravioli's were tossed in a spicy lamb sausage tomato sauce. These are explosive little flavor packages. Notice, you get three for $20.

When I ran across the recipe on Food & Wine, I knew that I just had to make these for Jim so we could recreate that very special evening in New York. The sauce came out perfectly! The first batch of ravioli, although it tasted spot on, were not very pretty. My second batch had a much better presentation - just wait until my next blog post where I show you what I can do with a little practice!

Keep reading for the step by step recipe with pictures...

Homemade Potato Gnocchi

Gnocchi is one of my favorite Italian dishes. Like bruschetta, it's an Italian food word that people have some trouble with. Never fear, the Italian pronunciation police are here.


The "gno" makes a "nyo" sound with a silent "g".


The "cch" is pronounced as a hard "k".


The "i" is an "ee" sound as in "tree".


"nyo kee"


Gnocchi is the plural form of the word. The singular is "gnocco." So you might order a plate of gnocchi and savor each delicious gnocco on that plate. The smaller forms are called gnocchetti.
 

These thick and soft dumplings can be made from a variety of ingredients. You will most commonly find Potato Gnocchi, but they are also made from semolina, ordinary wheat flour, bread crumbs, or ricotta.

After making gnocchi from scratch at home I began to notice the entree listed on the menu at fancy Italian restaurants and it’s SO expensive. This boggles my mind because it is SO inexpensive to make.  It may take a little planning ahead since you need to let the potatoes chill after you bake or boil them...but you can make these in stages and even freeze the gnocchi to eat them whenever you want.

Homemade Pizza Dough from a Bread Machine

Would you say that fancy toppings make a great pizza? I believe a great pizza starts with the pizza crust. The dough should be the most important part and if you get that right, then it will only take a few toppings to get you to that perfect pizza pie. You are aiming for both a crunchy and chewy crust, like a French baguette. It needs to be plastic enough to expand with the increase of gas and elastic enough to hold the expanding gas.

I love homemade pizza dough, but I don’t want to mess with all the fuss of the many steps. My solution is to use my bread machine. Here is the recipe I use for Traditional Pizza Dough (for 2-lb. bread maker):

1-1/4 cups water
1-1/2 Tbsp. olive oil
3-3/4 cups bread flour

The best flour to use is bread flour made specifically for bread machines because it is high in protein which can accommodate more gluten.

1-1/2 Tbsp. sugar
1-1/2 tsp. salt
1-1/2 tsp. active dry yeast

Pizza dough gets its rise from the yeast. Active dry yeast is regular yeast that has been dehydrated and broken into granules. When adding it to your bread machine, add it last and don’t let it touch any liquid. I make a small well in the center of the flour (making sure not to punch through to the liquid below).

Homemade Mozzarella

When I read how easy it was to make homemade mozzarella, I had to find myself a kit and give it a go. As you can see by the melty cheese pizza above, my experiment was a great success!

Experiment is a perfect word for this project when you look at what comes in the kit. Citric Acid, Vegetable Rennet Tablets and Calcium Chloride. Making homemade mozzarella is surprisingly economical. The kit, which costs $5.00 comes with enough supplies to make four batches of about 3/4 lbs each. The only thing you need to buy is a gallon of low pasteurized milk.

Five for Friday

For Jim, I love you so much. Here are five for Friday:

1. My new bag. I love that you helped me pick it out and you were so patient as I tried all of them on.
2. Waiting to see Moneyball with me.
3. Staying with me downtown when you really wanted your own bed.
4. Cleaning the kitchen when I was gone for jury duty.
5. The biggest one this last week is the way you understand me and back me. Your love and support means the world to me.