I wanted to make my husband a special anniversary dinner and one of his favorite things in the whole world is cheesecake. Good cheesecake, not loaded up with anything, so I went rummaging around and decided to make him a New York style cheesecake.
I will give you the basic recipe. Mine is slightly bigger than this recipe because my spring form pan is a little bigger. But if I try to explain how I increased it incrementally, it will get too confusing for people who are just trying to follow a recipe. For those who really want to know, I didn’t increase the filling. It was just that I also had more graham crackers and no place to use them so it was an additional half cup or so of graham cracker crumbs, so I added half a stick more of melted unsalted butter.
I originally found this recipe on the Aldi tab on Instacart. Instacart has these little recipes that they put in next to the different stores that they deliver, and this one looked fairly simple and it was. I did tweak it a little to suit me. I increased the vanilla extract, I increased the sugar slightly, and I added cinnamon and a dash of cardamom. I also substituted cinnamon graham crackers for regular graham crackers. I make my own crumbs in other words and it’s not very scientific. I put them in a plastic bag and I beat them with a kitchen mallet until they’re crumbs.
Full ingredient list
2 cups cinnamon sugar graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
4 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, softened
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar (I say a generous 1/3 of a cup. )
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1/3 cup sour cream
1/3 cup heavy cream
Cinnamon
Dash cardomom
Preparation: 1 Preheat oven to 350°F.
2 In a bowl, mix graham cracker crumbs, about a teaspoon of cinnamon, a dash of cardamom, and melted butter until well combined. Press mixture onto the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan.
3 In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla extract until smooth. Add about four dashes of cinnamon.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. Stir in sour cream and heavy cream.
6. Pour mixture over the crust and smooth the top with a spatula. Dust the top with a few dashes of cinnamon. 
7. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the center is almost set. *Bake with a Bain Marie or pan of hot water* on shelf below shelf you place cheesecake to bake on in the oven* I will also note that I put my springform pan on a lined cookie sheet before putting it into the oven because I have had pans like this leak before in the oven. in the case of a cheesecake. I think it helps. Keep it level as well. The original Aldi recipe does not call for these additional steps and apparently you can bake this cake without a Bain Marie.
8. Turn off the oven and let the cheesecake cool inside for 30 minutes.
9. Remove from the oven and run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the cheesecake.
10. Let it cool completely at room temperature before refrigerating for at least 4 hours or overnight.
Makes 2 1/2 cups sauce. Prep time does not include 1 to 7 days resting time.
1lb. Fresh Chiles, Such As Jalapeno, Serrano, Fresno, Poblano, Habanero, Or A Mix
1Tbsp. Minced Garlic
1/2c. Diced Onion
2Tbsp. Kosher Salt
11/2c. Distilled White Vinegar
Pulse chiles, garlic, onions and kosher salt in a food processor until you have a rough puree. Transfer to a 1-quart glass gar, loosely cover and let stand at room temperature overnight.
Add vinegar, stir and loosely cover. Let stand at room temperature for 1 to 7 days. The longer you let it stand, the more the flavor develops.
Pour mixture into a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Store in the refrigerator up to 4 months.
Note: Hot sauce may separate. This is normal; shake before use.
I make my hot sauce in my Breville blender. Much the way I make my gazpacho. Where I am different from this recipe is all I do everything the same day and then I let it ferment loosely covered for 7 days.
I also add 2 to 3 Tablespoons of minced garlic and I use a combination of red onion and shallots and it’s probably closer to 3/4 of a cup, not 1/2 cup.
I do not mess with the salt because the salt called for in the original recipe is perfect, but often I will use a Tuscan salt blend, or add a little fresh basil.
How I put my sauce together is I start with the salt, vinegar, basil, garlic, and onion and I blend until liquified. Then I add my chili peppers chopped up into chunks a little at a time until liquified. Each batch makes about 2 1/2 to 3 cups of hot sauce.
I will admit that sometimes I add slightly more than a pound of peppers. It just depends what I’ve grown. Today I did a double batch because that’s what was ripe and ready. I filled 3/4 almost of a number 4 crock. I actually do use vintage crocks for this – I have friends who make sauerkraut too and there is nothing like the sound of sauerkraut, fermenting in old stoneware crocks. You literally hear the pop pop pop.
I do not do a hot water bath on this hot sauce. It is a hot sauce that is refrigerated and it has a shelf life of a few months, but to be honest people love it so much it doesn’t last that long. 
I get little bottles off of Amazon that I wash really well before using. I bottle my sauce and I label each bottle including the date. I made the sauce and a special sticker to say keep refrigerated and I am good to go. It’s a really simple recipe and homemade hot sauce tastes so much better than bottled.
This year in my sauce I have Hungarian chilies, long, Joe’s long hot cayenne chilies, New Mexico hot chili pepper , Aleppo peppers, Cyklon, and something called Georgia flame pepper.
Anyway, people always ask me how I make my hot sauce . This is how I make it. 
My husband is always finding cool food things for me to try. And I am very excited about the package that arrived today from American Vinegar Works in Massachusetts!
Here is their story:
Modern vinegar production has come a long way. In our opinion, it has come a little too far. Even ‘premium’ labeled vinegars are often produced at an industrial scale that short-cuts the fermentation process to hours instead of the needed months or years. While the bottle may be pretty, often the end result is a one-note vinegar lacking depth of flavor and overwhelmingly acidic.
We have gone a different way. We have embraced the value of time and revived a production method from the early 1800s to create vinegars that are naturally fermented and deliver complex flavors. All of our vinegars are produced, aged and bottled by us in our vinegar works here in the Bay State. No outsourcing, no co-packing, no short cuts. It takes more effort, it takes more time… but the results are brilliant.
How We Make Our Vinegar
Our process is really unique and we believe it produces the best small-batch American vinegars you will find.
We know we are unique because we literally had to custom rebuild the machines we use by consulting historical records and partnering with local universities. The old academic etching you see at the top of this page is a graphic of how our machines looked when they were invented.
Our fermentation process dates from the early 1800s and this was how many quality vinegars were made centuries ago. The problem is that there was a wave of ‘innovation’ in vinegar manufacturing in the 1900s and this led to faster and cheaper vinegar. You will notice that I did not say it led to better tasting vinegar—in fact quality and flavor both suffered materially and this is how vinegar became the one-note acid bomb we now find in most supermarkets.
Our vinegars are fermented in small-batches and take two to three months just to ferment. After fermentation we age our vinegars for up to one year. Our aging process varies depending on the flavor profile we are looking to achieve. The vast majority of our vinegars are aged in 25-gallon American oak barrels previously used to make rye whiskey and bourbon. Aging in old barrels gives our vinegars complexity but does not add a woody or whiskey flavor. We source all these barrels directly from a craft distillery from our neighbors in New York.
What about ingredients? We only use quality American beers, wines, ciders, and sakes as our alcohol base to ferment our vinegars at our vinegar works in New England. Why? Because the taste of the underlying alcohol used directly impacts the flavor of the vinegar. Beyond that we are focused on creating great vinegars with a sense of place. We do not think there is something better or worse about an American wine or beer versus one from Europe for instance. We do, however, think it is important for real food like our vinegars to reflect where it comes from. In this way American Vinegar Works is building great vinegars on the shoulders of the craftspeople that are creating great and uniquely American wines, beers, sakes, and ciders. We are immeasurably grateful to them.
To find the right beer or wine for our vinegars we go through an extensive taste and test process to ensure it has the best taste profile.
~ American Vinegar Works
I’m very excited to try these. I will let you know what I think.
Another thing in this independent company’s favor? They sent a thank you note with the order. A little hand written note. Little touches like that make all the difference when you’re dealing with a company.
And here I thought The most exciting food part of my day was making dinner with Vadouvan French Masala Curry!
Yes, we are a sauce house, not a gravy house. I call it sauce, my father called it sauce. However, my great aunts who used to live at 1128 Ritner St. many moons ago called it sauce and gravy.
I don’t like storms like we had yesterday. The power of water and wind is a scary combination so I made tomato sauce and meatballs.
Stand aside, Susan Noles from The Golden Bachelor I like mine better. I will add a disclaimer that, although I’ve written it down, the recipe still might need tweaking. But I think it’s pretty good, or good enough to share.
Meatballs
One package meatloaf mix (each package is a little over a pound. Maybe 1 lbs. 4 oz.)
1 small onion, diced
6-8 slices of stale sandwich bread crumbed up.
1/3 c or more grated cheese (eyeball it)
1 egg
Salt and pepper, dried oregano, dried basil, garlic powder
Maybe 1/3 cup buttermilk
I start with letting the breadcrumbs just sit out there a while that I have created from stale bread. That way they dry out a little bit. I might do that while I’m starting my sauce.
So I take a big mixing bowl and that’s what I put the bread/breadcrumbs in.
If I don’t have enough stale bread to make the meatballs with, I use Panko bread crumbs and eyeball it. After you make meatballs a while, you can tell by the way it feels when you’re mixing it together if it needs more moisture or more bread crumbs.
To the breadcrumbs, I add the onion, the herbs, some salt and pepper, a liberal amount of garlic powder, and the grated cheese. I like a greater cheese that is a Parmesan and Romano blend, and if I can get the grated cheese blends that are more than two cheeses I get those.
And this is grated cheese not shredded cheese. It’s the stuff that feels almost dry. I make the distinction because I told somebody verbally how I made meatballs one time and they didn’t like the way they turned out because they used shredded cheese and shredded cheese doesn’t work.
Next I add the package of meatloaf mix and mix it together thoroughly.
After the meat mix is incorporated into the breadcrumb mixture, I next add one raw egg. I just crack it right in on top. Some people like to mix the egg up before they add it, it’s your choice.
Finally, I add the buttermilk. Everything should be moist but hold together nicely when you make little balls and I don’t make big meatballs. I make meatballs that are not bite-size but you can cut them in half with a fork and each meatball is essentially two bites so they’re about an inch and a half raw and round.
Meanwhile, and I should’ve said this earlier, I have preheated an oven to 350° F.
I have one of my sheet pans because it does have a lip, lined with nonstick aluminum foil. I roll out all my Meatballs, one by one and lined them up on the baking sheet on the foil. Then I throw them into my preheated oven and I would say about 35 minutes and they’re good to go into the sauce. I don’t completely cook them through in the oven but I need to make sure that the meatballs are crispy and firm on the outside. Then they finish cooking in the sauce, but they don’t fall apart.
I guess I should tell you how to make the sauce, right? I will start by saying I love the Mutti brand tomato products. I discovered them a few years ago and use them whenever possible.
The Sauce
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 28 oz can purée or 1 24 oz jar Mutti Passata
1 hot pepper – I like a Fresno pepper for this or a Serrano (seeded and minced)
2 onions chopped (I use one red and one yellow onion)
6 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
1 chopped carrot
1 bunch flat leaf Italian parsley chopped
Dried oregano Basil Salt and pepper
1 Bay leaf
Sauté the pepper, carrot, the onions and garlic in extra virgin olive oil with salt to taste. When the onions are translucent or cooked down even further next you add your tomatoes you let everything come together over a slow and steady flame and then you add the parsley, and finally 1 Bay leaf.
Tomato sauce is really easy you don’t have to over complicate it. In other sources depending on what I’m doing I will add sweet peppers chopped up I like red and orange and yellow. I don’t add green. I don’t really like sweet green peppers except for stuffed peppers. Other times I add mushrooms.
Often times with my sauce, if it’s not just meatballs, I will start with browning the meat. Sausage, pork or lamb, sometimes beef. I will brown in salt and pepper and extra virgin olive oil. Then I will pull the meat out and blot grease by putting it on plate lined with paper towels. Then I will go on with the sauce, adding the meat back in the end.
Anyway, back to this sauce. After the onions and garlic and pepper and carrot were cooked a bit and the onion translucent, first I add the tomatoes, then the passata or purée, then the tomato paste.
I cook over a low flame, stirring occasionally for about 20 minutes. Next I check for salt. I don’t like things too salty.
Then I add the chopped parsley, stir that in, and when the meatballs come out of the oven after they have rested 10 minutes, I add the meatballs to the sauce and everything sits on a very low flame for a couple of hours. You have to stir every 20 minutes or so because you don’t want it to stick.
I should tell you that you can double this recipe. And if your grocery store doesn’t have meatloaf mix, you can do a combination of ground beef, pork and lamb or ground beef, pork and veal.
Prepare your favorite pasta and I suggest putting the sauce on the pasta and mixing it in one bowl and putting another bowl with the meatballs so people can have as many or as few meatballs as they choose.
You can serve with a salad, as well as a nice crusty loaf of bread if you choose.
Yes, these are cookies I baked this year, and they are on a beautiful vintage white milk glass cake stand that I got at the Smithfield Barn a few years ago!
Christmas is a magical time and season for me. I love decorating and I bake, so it is always something I look forward to.
When we are growing up, we are in the midst of our parents’ traditions. Then we start to develop our own traditions which a lot of the time have their base in family traditions.
My mother and great aunts and grandmothers always baked Christmas cookies….so I continue that. Now there are some of the old school cookies that I have not mastered like pizzelles or true shortbread, but I have my own cookies that I make, including a new one for 2023: white chocolate peppermint meringue cookies. The base recipe which I doubled and changed came from the A Cook’s Tour of Shreveport Louisiana by the Junior League there which I will also share. (And this is a fabulous and out of print cookbook, but you can find it on eBay and Etsy.)
So here’s my recipe based on theirs:
4 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
3/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 cup white chocolate chips (mini sized if you can find them.)
3/4 cup crushed candy canes or other peppermint candy
1/2 cup ground hazelnuts
Preheat oven to 300°F
Chill beater attachments for mixer and metal mixing bowl about an hour ahead of time.
Beat egg whites, salt, cream of tarter, and extracts until soft peaks form.
Add sugar gradually until incorporated and stiff peaks form.
Fold in white chocolate chips, crushed peppermint candy, and nuts.
Drop by teaspoons about an inch or so apart. I bake these on parchment paper.
Bake each batch at 300° for 25 minutes. You will know they are done because they get puffy and they even may crack slightly on top.
I moved them, parchment paper and all to the cooling racks. I just slide them over from the cookie sheet that way when they cool they just come right off the parchment paper and I put fresh paper on the cookie sheet for the next batch also in between batches, I keep the cookie mixture chilled in the refrigerator.
My adaptation makes about 4 dozen meringues.
I also have a couple of recipes I was gifted. First was my childhood friend David’s grandmother’s pound cake recipe which I have made that is awesome. I was so excited when he gave me this recipe.
Another recipe I was gifted yesterday and will make it:
And then there is this shortbread recipe that someone found dropped in a grocery store and posted that I will try that I hope makes it back to it’s owner:
Now, one of the things that I learned from all my great aunts, both my grandmothers, and my own mother is when you’re having people over you get out the plates. No plastic glasses no paper cups no paper plates. Do it old school. It didn’t used to be old school, but now it is old school, because so many people who think plastic and paper are fine, and I’m not quite sure what they are saving their china plates and glasses for. China and glassware are meant to be used, and you can’t take it with you, so you might as well get it out of the cupboard and dust it off!
Funny I remember during Covid checking out this program by a “lifestyle expert“ only she used paper plates, plastic glasses, paper napkins. And this was a tutorial in instructing people how to entertain. Not a little kids party, but adults.
If you are going to set a table, then set a table. And you’re not doing it so the pictures look fabulous on social media, you’re doing it because you love it and you want to show your guests you care about them. Paper and plastic just don’t have the same appeal. And they never will no matter how a “lifestyle expert“ tries to tart it up along with a board for everything. Entertaining isn’t about social constipation. It’s about making things lovely for yourself and your guests so everybody enjoys themselves. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just put in the effort.
And if you don’t think you have the right things, check out a garage sale, a church sale, a holiday flea market. There are dishes and linens everywhere and you can pick them up for pennies on the dollar in most places, especially china because apparently it’s like “brown wood”. Sorry, not sorry while I like some accessories from West Elm, I will never be your West Elm child with art bought at Home Goods.
Yes, I am a crazy worshipper of old things. Especially at Christmas. I remember once in a past life, I had an almost sister-in-law at one time that did not put out holiday meals on pretty platters and things, it was all tinfoil containers and brown plates and paper napkins. How can you take the time to decorate a beautiful Christmas tree like she did and then the dining room table looked like an outdoor BBQ picnic table minus a fly swatter? But then, again, these were the people whose favorite blood sport was criticizing other people who weren’t there, so I guess it all fit?
And yes, do I dread unpacking everything and then having to pack it all up at times? Yes of course since I am not Martha Stewart with a Martha squad to clean up and set up….but then, when my dishes come out of their protective bags and the glasses come out of their storage containers and I iron the linens, it makes it all worth it. Kind of like the Christmas decorations.
My traditions for my female friends from high school, and a few others is a ladies tea. And it’s an excuse to dress up the table and I love it. It’s no politics, no world problems no local issues, it’s just Christmas.
One of my favorite flea market finds.
And yes, I actually do serve tea because years ago I acquired a slew of Spode Christmas tea cups and saucers at the flea market for next to nothing. And then this year at the Saint David’s Fair, I acquired the tea service that goes with the cups….again for next to nothing.
For Christmas plates I have vintage American China that I got a few years ago at the Smithfield Barn that has a very simple Christmas tree design on white plates that I love. They are not super valuable and they aren’t porcelain. They’re more like old hotel grade China, so they’re a little sturdier. But I love them and they’re festive.
And for hors d’oeuvres and nibbles and desserts I use those plates that people used to hang on their walls and now they are like bargain basement – the vintage Royal Copenhagen Christmas plates. A few years ago, I contacted the company to make sure I could actually use them to eat off of because there are some plates that are purely decorative. And the company wrote me back and said yes you can, so I do. And I literally see them now for a couple dollars a plate. Some of them are a little more expensive on eBay and Etsy especially if they are particular collector years, but plates are meant to be used. Above, I pulled two screenshots off of eBay to give you an idea of the plates.
I also like the clear glass, vintage dessert and salad plates that you can find all sorts of places that have the etching underneath the surface of the plate. They’re very simple, but they’re very pretty and they can go in the dishwasher. I know the ones I have are depression glass. Some were gifted to me, others I have found at church, rummage, sales and flea markets. Again very inexpensive if you find them in person a little more if you see them on eBay and Etsy but they have to be shipped.
Anyway, I hope all of my readers have a very Merry Christmas! Enjoy the recipes and enjoy the time you spend with others this holiday season.
Thanks for stopping by!
I don’t remember where all of the pixies came from, but the two little angels are Italian and they came from Melangell Antiques on Old Pottstown Pike in West Chester.
I am supposed to be sitting still for five days. I had a rather large area on the back of my head go under the little scalpels of a Mohs surgery. But I’m not lifting anything, and I do have to move around my house some, so soup it was.
I don’t know what it is about fall, but once fall is here, it’s like you have this seasonal clock within you that wants to make soup. This week it’s roasted curried squash soup.
The first steps are making the broth and roasting the squash. Then I let everything cool down and come blend it all together. It’s acorn squash, delicata squash, and butternut squash. I’ve been getting a lot of squash in my veg box from Lancaster and my friend gave me some.
I made my own bone broth once again. I’m not supposed to lift really heavy things so I didn’t do it in my large Instant Pot, which is heavy. I did it the old-school way in my soup pot.
The broth was sweet onions, a big bunch of celery, carrots, bones from a roast chicken, and chicken necks and gizzards. I’ve told my readers before that I save chicken carcasses, plus the necks and gizzards in the freezer for just these occasions.
The squash was roasted on salt and spices in a 400° oven drizzled with olive oil. I used curry powder, salt, pepper, Za’atar. I used the same seasoning preparing the broth only I added a little cumin and a little Shawarma seasoning.
After the broth was ready and squash roasted I let everything cool down to room temperature. I strained the broth, tossing the bones but keeping the carrots and onions and celery. I scooped the roasted squash out of their skins and added to the broth pot along with the broth vegetables. Next I blended everything together with my immersion blender and warmed the soup slowly and incorporated a cup of half and half. It would also work with coconut milk or you could eat it without the additional creamy component.
It’s a rainy day. It has been damp and rainy and then gray and damp and now it’s raining again. It is the first day of fall, and a perfect day to make soup.
Potato leek soup came to mind. I had all of the ingredients!
When I heard it was going to be a rainy weekend, I went to the freezer to retrieve the end bits of whole chickens that I save along with gizzards and necks from whole chickens that I had roasted. I save all this to make bone broth with.
So this morning instead of getting out the Instant Pot, I did bone broth the old school way, in a big soup pot on the stove.
I took the gizzards, and necks, and two 1 quart containers of roasting pan juices and chicken carcasses and tossed it into my big Great Jones soup pot.
I mention the brand because I love Great Jones cookware. I discovered them a few years ago on the Today Show when they were just starting out, and I had some pots that I wanted to replace, so I tried a couple. Now, a few years have gone by and the majority of my cookware for every day stuff is from them. I will never, however, give up my love for vintage Dansk Kobenstyle Dutch ovens.
In the soup pot, along with the chicken carcasses and necks and gizzards, I added a few things. Salt, 2 cups of rosé wine, because that was what was open, a half dozen carrots, one onion, two bay leaves, and spices. I chose Shwarma seasoning and Za’atar. Don’t ask me how much I just threw a couple of dashes in. Then I added some more water so that the soup pot was about 2/3 full. The pot called “Big Deal” is 8 quarts.
I cooked everything together I guess about three hours. Then I allowed the broth to cool slightly, and I removed the carrots to their own bowl to be used in the next stage of the soup. I removed all of the bones and gizzards, leaving just the broth. I then skimmed the fat off of the top of the broth.
Then I rough chopped two red onions and tossed them in the pot with the skimmed broth. I had already sliced a bunch of fresh leeks and had them soaking in ice water to make sure all the sandy soil had lifted away. I drained the leeks and tossed them into the pot.
Next I took dozen small potatoes that I had harvested from my own garden a week ago, and quartered them. The potatoes went into the pot as well. I also have the carrots I had made the bone broth with. They were sliced smaller and added back.
The last step before the next cooking stage, was to add thyme and tarragon, which I have fresh and growing in my garden.
Everything cooked together another two hours.
I then got out my little Cuisinart immersion blender and emulsified everything in the pot as it was cooking. I kept the soup on low, stirring often, and let it cook down another hour.
It was now cooked down enough that I tasted it and I adjusted the salt and pepper and added a little more seasoning. I even added a very small cheese rind. Just to add another layer of flavor.
The soup tastes very good and this is my spin on potato leek soup. I have not added any cream. A lot of the recipes I consulted before creating my own don’t call for cream.
The soup will now cool and then it’ll be put away and after the flavors meld for a day or so, I will serve it for dinner.
This is a semi homemade kind of a cooking post. Languishing in the chest freezer. I found a random graham cracker crust. I had been thinking of making a pie because I had leftover cherries and a couple of apples that needed to be used.
So I decided that I was going to make my fruit pie with my graham cracker crust. I let the graham cracker crust thaw, and while I was doing that, I got the crumb topping and the fruit prepared for the filling.
A fruit pie is not rocket science. It is fruit, sugar, lemon, or lime juice, and a few tablespoons of flour, or some people use tapioca. And spices if you’re adding any. In fruit pies, I like cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger.
First, I pitted all my black cherries. I will admit that is a bit labor intensive because I don’t have one of those handy little pitting machines. I added them to the bowl with sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom. Not a lot of spices because it’s a summer pie not a fall pie — just enough to give it a delightful flavor profile.
Next, I peeled my apples and sliced them paper thin like I was going to make a Tarte Tatin. I added them to the cherries and the sugar and spices and added the juice of two small lemons. That’s what I had on hand I said that to the side.
For the crumble topping I used half a stick of unsalted butter, cubed, into little pieces, a handful of oatmeal, brown sugar, a dash of cinnamon, and flour. I used one of those fun pastry cutters to cut everything into a crumble status.
Oh, and I almost forgot. I had an oven preheating to 350°.
Pie assembly was very simple. I put the filling in the graham cracker crust. Next I patted in and slightly mounded the crumble topping over the filling.
**I assembled this pie on a baking sheet because I put pies on a baking sheet in the oven so if they bubble over, they don’t cause a huge oven mess**
My final step before the oven was using my silicone piecrust cover around the edge of the graham cracker crust, so nothing burned.
I baked my pie for about 50 minutes in my preheated oven, and the result was surprisingly delicious. I had never used a graham cracker crust before on a summer fruit pie. I actually like the way it turned out. I forgot to take a picture of the pie before I cut it last night so above is just a photo of a little slice.
I am sorry this is a little of this and dash of that recipe, but that’s kind of how I roll in the kitchen half of the time. But I am writing this down enough that I can repeat my happy pie accident.
The pie tasted great, and the graham cracker crust was a good complement to just a fruit pie. It also cut down the preparation time considerably since I didn’t make a crust from scratch.
There is a summer salad, that Wegman’s makes and it’s a corn and bean salad. For a store made salad it’s not bad, but it’s too sweet. And that is the thing with a lot of salads involving beans and even corn, sweet is added to the dressing and it just doesn’t taste right.
So I decided to try to make my own version of it because I had leftover ears of corn from the weekend.
First, I removed the corn from the cob with one of my paring knives. I stand the ears up in the bowl with one of those corn holders in the top to hold it because that way when I hold the holder, it keeps my hand away from the knife, and then I just shear off the kernels. After that, I broke the kernels up some because they don’t necessarily get broken up because they come off the cob almost in little strips.
Next, I chopped a sweet white onion. Not particularly huge just regular sized or medium. I added that to my bowl. After the sweet white onion, I chopped up a little more finely a small red onion. to the corn and onions I added a little Jane’s Crazy Salt, and gave it a toss.
I thought peppers would be a good addition to this salad so the next step is chopping up red sweet peppers. I happened to have a bag of those small seedless red peppers from the grocery store that I had used in another recipe so I cut a bunch of those into rings and added them.
The final ingredients before the dressing were two cans of beans, drained. What I had on hand were cannellini or white kidney beans and a can of pinto beans.
I’m sorry I didn’t write down the proportions of the vinaigrette, but what it was is easy. The juice of three fresh limes, olive oil, garlic powder, Jane’s Crazy Salt, olive oil, and a combination of balsamic and red vinegar. I just whisked all those ingredients together until I felt I had the right consistency. I didn’t want it to be too oily.
Then I mixed the salad all together with the dressing and chilled until dinner. It’s really good and the fact that it is not sweet like most commercially available I think makes it better.
So what do you do when you end up with two giant heads of celery less than a week? You make soup. I went through recipes for cream of celery soup and I didn’t really want something that delicate. I wanted something with a little bit of flavor, so I came up with my version. Yes, wing it soup.
I saved some of my celery for the salmon cakes I’m making on Friday, but the rest of it got a rough chop and tossed into one of my soup pots with about 3 tablespoons of butter, four cloves of garlic, also chopped, and rough chopped onions. I also added salt, thyme, a couple of bay leaves, and 1/3 cup of water. I put the lid on the pot and let the vegetables cook down a few minutes.
Normally cream of celery soup calls for leeks but when I went to Aldi this week they didn’t have any, so I used red onions and yellow onions specifically are used one big red onion and two regular yellow onions.
To the onions and garlic and celery, I next added two chopped up yellow Yukon Gold potatoes I had. I also peeled and chopped small a bunch of parsnips that arrived in my vegetable box from Lancaster this week. We use Doorstep Dairy if you’re interested and are in their delivery area.
I let all the vegetables kind of meld together and cooked down about another 15 minutes. Then I used a box and a half of prepackaged chicken stock. Each box is 32 ounces so in total, I added 48 ounces of chicken stock. Two that I added a dash of Herbes de Provence. I brought it all up to a boil, then reduced to low and covered, and let everything cook.
When the parsnips and potatoes were both soft, I removed the bay leaves, and I took out my Cuisinart hand blender and puréed everything. I then let it all cook down more. I did this part of the cooking on low heat, and I stirred fairly often, so nothing stuck to the bottom of the pan. This was probably about another 40 minutes.
Then I added half a cup of half-and-half, and a dash of curry powder. Not a spicy curry powder just Keen’s Traditional Curry Powder. I know that sounds weird to add, but it just struck me that it would make a good addition to the flavor profile and I was right. I love curry so I do add curry powders to a lot of recipes.
I then use my hand blender once again, and emulsified everything a little more. I served the soup with Italian breadsticks. I have always loved breadsticks, and people always forget about them.
Now you have my semi homemade recipe for cream of celery soup. I will note I rarely use heavy cream when I do a cream based soup because I don’t like the extra thick and heavy, which means I will use half-and-half, canned unsweetened coconut milk, or even buttermilk. I think this recipe could be done with any of the above, but I just happen to have half-and-half in, so that’s what I used.
I know people don’t like it when I say a dash of this or a dash of that, but it really just is depending on what your taste level is and if you’re unsure of some thing you can always add a little less at first because you can always add a little more later.
Good soup, even semi-homemade, does take a little bit of time, but the thing about soup is you can cook it while you’re doing other things. So if you work from home it doesn’t really interfere with life.
I have been working really hard to try to use and not be wasteful with food. That even includes with leftovers. Like a pasta sauce and ricotta that was the leftover last week became baked ziti.
Food prices are crazy and what’s even nuttier are what the stores are out of from week to week and it’s not even Covid anymore. And with high food prices, it doesn’t mean you can’t eat well, it just means sometimes you have to be a little more inventive and use what you have versus buying lots of new things. I have been shopping more at places like Aldi, because they have great prices and their products are not bad.
Anyway, this is an easy enough soup to make, so I thought I would share it with you, because it did turn out to be quite delicious. I will probably have more for lunch today since it’s damp and rainy.
