People seem to have their soup memories from growing up. I have a friend whose soup memories are chicken soup. A lot of mine involve ham and bean soup.
My late father was the soup maker growing up. My mother will tell you it was her, but it really wasn’t. Every winter he would make a ham and bean soup. It would have cabbage, ham, beans, sometimes he would even dice up a hard, Italian salami, and vegetables.
When my vegetable box came this week, there was a beautiful cabbage in it. I realized from my recent pork share order that I had a big smoked ham hock in the freezer. I also had some leftover ham that I had frozen when we had not eaten all of a ham for just this purpose.
Yesterday I started with the dried beans. I boiled water and poured it over the beans and a big mixing bowl with some herbs and spices and salt. I left the beans to soak overnight and this morning I began the soup.
First I sautéed garlic, onion, celery, and the ham hock and ham. Then I added, cut up baby carrots because that’s what I had in the refrigerator. After that had all cooked together for a few minutes I poured in the liquid the dried beans were soaking in. I also added a 14 ounce can of crushed tomatoes. (Mutti, my favorite tomato brand.)
After that cooked together for a bit, I added a container of bone broth, the cabbage I had gotten in my vegetable box all diced up, and water. Note when you dice the cabbage small for a soup it’s sort of melts away and it’s not obtrusive.
To this, I added herbs. I still have sage and thyme growing in some of the pots in my garden, believe it or not. I also added some Herbes de Provence, and a couple dashes of New Mexico chili powder. I also added a salt free pepper blend that I use called Pennsylvania pepper.
And two cheese rinds. I can’t forget that! I save them in little baggies in the freezer for sauces and soups, and things like macaroni and cheese.
I brought the soup up to a boil, then I turned it down to just above a simmer, and just kept checking on it throughout the day and giving it a stir. I did not do it with the lid completely off because I wanted the beans to cook properly. I used one of my little pot lid risers and had the lid on but up a smidge.
The soup because it has cooked low and slow all day has thickened and reduced and melded together beautifully.
You know you don’t really necessarily need a specific recipe for a lot of these soups. It’s what you have on hand.
So it is a cold night and I went old school. Casserole called essentially no peek chicken.
You cook boneless skinless breasts or thighs in uncooked rice broth Campbell’s condensed soup with vegetables and basically this is my own invention because I had sort of southwestern on the brain and I had cilantro to use.
I used a can of the diced chilies and tomatoes from Aldi, a can of the condensed Campbell’s cream of cheddar soup, one of those little small wheels of queso fresco, a small onion diced up, a small bag of thawed frozen corn, oregano, salt-free chili powder, 1 1/2 cups of dry rice, 1 1/2 cups chicken broth, and four boneless skinless chicken breasts.
Basically you preheat your oven to 350°, and while you’re doing that you grease a rectangular baking dish and you put your chicken breasts in the bottom. I add a slight drizzle of olive oil to the chicken breasts.
Then, in a big mixing bowl, I put the dried rice, the onion, the can of chilies and tomatoes, the can of condensed soup a bunch of cilantro I had chopped up and the chicken broth and I mix it all together. I don’t add salt. I add oregano and sprinkle a little salt free chili powder.
I pour everything over the chicken breasts, add one of those little wheels of queso fresco all crumbled up and cover the pan tightly with nonstick foil.
You put it in your preheated oven for an 1 1/2 hours, maybe less depending upon your oven and you do not ever take the tinfoil off to peek, but as it’s getting close to done, you can stick a thermometer into the foil through one of the breast to check your temperature.
Yes it’s a little 1960s housewife but it tastes pretty good. Last time I did it with cream of mushroom soup and fresh mushrooms, etc.
Last night’s roast chicken with a curry paste in leftover form first became a bone broth.
Then, after broth was cooked and strained, the chicken I had leftover that had been separated from the carcass prior to bone broth was shredded and added back along with finely chopped vegetables (fresh spinach, red cabbage, red onion, celery) and simmered along to perfection.
Some of the mashed potatoes left over from the chicken became gnocchi- just enough to cook separately and fresh for bottom of the bowl and soup ladled over it.
Now last night’s chicken was a happy experiment. We love curries and I thought why not try a curry roasted chicken?
I made a curry paste and used it to roast the chicken with it.
It wasn’t too complicated to make the paste. It was a couple different kinds of curry powder that I have, red curry paste, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder.
I thought that the leftovers would make a good bone broth and they did. And last night I decided some of the leftover potatoes would make great gnocchi.
And it all worked! In an era of expensive grocery prices, it was a thrifty solution to stretch groceries and make leftovers more fun!
I love growing basil. It’s one of my favorite herbs. And since I started growing it from seed and using my greenhouse to grow it , it’s a game changer. It is a stronger plant and it lasts longer when you grow from seed yourself. And it loves being in the greenhouse with the chili peppers I grow.
Today I made pesto out of some of the basil and served it on tortellini for dinner.
Now my late father made his pesto using a mortar and pestle. I use my blender. And below are the ingredients for my pesto and literally it just goes in the blender and I pulverize it. I refrigerate it until I’m going to use it and I just love pesto when homemade like this.
Pesto
3 – 4 cups fresh basil leaves
Bunch of fresh flat leaf Italian parsley or lovage
It’s such a simple thing, and it is a very uncomplicated dessert or breakfast treat with plain Greek yogurt. Strawberry rhubarb crumble.
I had rhubarb in my vegetable box from Lancaster County PA the other day and I had some strawberries in the refrigerator.
Here’s how you make it and it couldn’t be more simple:
2 1/2 cups diced rhubarb
1 1/2 cups diced fresh strawberries
1 1/4 cups white sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 large egg
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup quick-cooking oats
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup butter
Preheat oven to 375°F.
Grease a 9 x 13 baking dish if you have one if not, I used a deeper vintage 8 x 8 Corningware baking dish.
Combine rhubarb, strawberries white sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, egg, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1 teaspoon ginger together in a large bowl until evenly coated.
Put fruit mixture in the bottom of the baking dish.
Mix 1 ½ cups flour, the rest of the brown sugar, oats, and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon together in a separate bowl. Cut in butter using a pastry cutter or two forks until topping is crumbly. Sprinkle topping over rhubarb layer.
Bake in the preheated oven 40 to 45 minutes until it’s bubbling up around the edges of the topping. The topping will be brownish and color and smell delicious.
You can serve warm or cold and it is really good with plain Greek yogurt for breakfast.
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, 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.
