I am always looking for ways to use my abundance of winter tomatoes (S Florida’s growing season). This is delicious!
Grilled Eggplant Spinach Tomato Soup
- 1 medium size eggplant, peeled and sliced into 3/4 inch slices
- 3 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 bag baby spinach
- 5 garlic cloves, chopped
- 1/2 onion
- 2 TBS basil pesto
- 2 TBS olive oil
- 1 1/2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes or canned
Brush eggplant both sides with olive oil. Grill until nice and golden on both sides with grill marks. About 4 minutes each side. Saute onions in olive oil until translucent with a bit of salt. Add garlic and saute for 2 minutes stirring so it does not burn. Add chicken stock and water. Add spinach and stir until it reduces in size. This will happen quickly. Chop up grilled eggplant and add the rest of the ingredients (except for pesto.) Let this all cook for about 15 minutes. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup. Add the pesto at the end and stir. Serve with croutons. This will make about 6 servings.
- 2 C Flour
- 3 tsp. Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- Pinch Grated Nutmeg
- 1 C Sugar
- 1 tsp. Orange Extract
- 1 Large Egg
- 5 Tbsp. Melted Butter
- 1/2 C Milk
- 1/2 C Sour Cream
- 1/2 C Orange juice
- 1/2 C choc chips
Beat butter and sugar. Add egg, orange extract. In separate bowl mix dry ingredients. Mix together milk/OJ/sour cream. Add dry ingredients alternating with milk/OJ/sour cream mixture. Mix in choc chips. Pour into greased and floured 8 inch square Pirex pan. Bake at 350 (convection bake if you have that) until done. 25-35 min depending on your oven. Do not overbake.
Mix 1/2 C powder sugar, 25 melted choc chips, 1/2 tsp. orange extract with enough orange juice to make right consistency and drizzle over top of cake when done. 9 servings. Serve with your favorite ice cream.
Here are 2 great cookbooks for kids I reviewed for Good Reads with Ronna on LA Parent’s website:
Honest Pretzels by Molly Katzen, featuring all delicious, healthy vegetarian dishes and adorable illustrations.
In the Kitchen with Kids: Every Day Recipes & Activities for Healthy Living by the Junior League, featuring everything kids love made the healthy way.
I highly recommend these two beautiful books for getting your children not only interested in cooking, but teaching them about healthy food choices.
Now on to traveling. If you are planning a trip to Germany, read Germany by Lonely Planet Books. I reviewed the book for Wandering Educators.
The best chocolate cake recipe is Hershey’s Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake. But I have to confess, I do not use Hershey’s cocoa. I use Ghiradelli instead. It’s much better. Also I substitute 1/2 of the milk for Half and Half (Half cream/half milk). You can change the flavor of this easily too. Use creme de menthe instead of vanilla, for a mint cake. Use orange extract with grated orange rind, use amaretto for almond flavor or almond extract and so on. Yum!
Here’s a birthday/Christmas cake I made for our friend, Ben,
Hunter and Gregory Blain, the beekeepers I interviewed the other day sent me a bear-shaped container of the honey from their hive! Click here to read the interview.
It tastes amazing! If you want to really treat yourself, make vanilla iced teas with Bigelow French Vanilla tea and one Tbs of honey. Add a few drops of pure vanilla extract. Yum!
Thanks Hunter and Gregory!
Your entire family will love this. It’s delicious, healthy and easy to make.
Mrs. Glade’s Grilled Eggplant Soup
- 1 large eggplant
- 1 med sweet onion chopped
- 8 sliced cloves garlic
- olive oil
- 4 cups chicken stock
- 2 large peeled and chopped tomatoes with some of the seeds removed
- 2 tbs. basil pesto (homemade or store bought)
- salt and pepper
Remove skin from eggplant. slice into 1/2 inch thick pieces. brush both sides with olive oil. Grill eggplant on both sides until nicely browned, but not burned. In a heavy duty saucepan saute onions in 2 tbs of olive oil on med heat. When onions start to brown, add sliced garlic to the pan. Lower the heat to med low. stir garlic and onions until grlic starts to brown slightly. Don’t burn it, or the garlic will be bitter. Add chicken stock, chopped tomatoes, grilled eggplant (chopped), salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20 minutes until tomatoes are well cooked. Add pesto. (I always have homemade pesto in my fridge). Puree soup with an immersion blender until thick and smooth. 4 hearty servings. Serve with crusty bread. YUM!
My Grandma Nellie pounded into my brain that if a recipe is too rich – savory or sweet – I should never consider cooking or baking it.This has always stuck with me, or rather haunted me in a way. I picture a 2 inch version of Granny standing on my shoulder with her hands on her hips while I’m reading recipes. “Don’t you dare bake that!”
My favorite TV chef by far is Ina Garten. She sometimes uses more cream and mayo than I’d ever consider using, but her basic cooking philosophy is marvelous. I’d love to have her over for dinner for great conversation and to show her that I am just as good a cook as she. Both she and her husband seem like interesting people. Some years ago Ina had a recipe for Pecan Squares, which must be the ultimate tasting food, because they are so rich, sweet and fattening. I have that cookbook and recently saw a repeat of that old episode. So I decided to please my late Grandma by trying to figure out just how many calories are indeed in that recipe. Here’s what I came up with:
These are approximate for the entire recipe (20 servings)….
- Butter (9 sticks!!!) = 7,290 Calories = 520 grams saturated fat
- Honey = 1030 Calories
- Brown Sugar = 2,485 Calories
- White Sugar = 258 Calories
- Eggs = 240 Calories = 4.5 grams saturated fat
- Pecans = 6,575 Calories = 66 grams saturated fat
- Cream = 210 Calories = 15 grams saturated fat
- Flour = 1,800 Calories
- Total Calories = 19,880
The recipe suggests these are cut into 20 bars, so that is about 1,000 calories for each bar and over 30 grams of saturated fat. (1 Pecan bar is equal to the calories of 5 Hershey Chocolate Bars.) Each Pecan Square has 3.6 Tbsp of butter alone. I don’t want to figure out the cholesterol. It would be too upsetting.
What if you cannot resist and you eat 2 of these? Do we want our kids to get used to tasting and loving foods as rich as these? Do you want to consume that many calories and grams of fat and not even get full eating it? Do you want to know how many hours of running it would take to burn all that off? I say no to all the above.
Okay my curiosity got me, and I looked it up. A 120 lb. woman would have to run for 2 hours and 15 minutes at 5mph to burn off one Pecan Bar!!! OMG!!!!
There’s nothing wrong with occasional indulgence, but my Grandma Nellie was right. Sometimes too much is just too much.
Sorry Ina. I still love your show.
Planning a picnic or BBQ? Here is one of my family’s favorite recipes I created . . .
Mrs. Glade’s Warm Apple Cider Vinegar Potato Salad
http://free-clipart.net/
This is like eating mashed potato salad with a zing. Yum! It tastes the bet warm or hot, but is also good refrigerated. Your family will love it.
- 3 lbs. of red potatoes (quartered) I prefer organic
- 1/2 large sweet onion chopped fine
- 1/2 – 3/4 cup real mayonnaise
- 3 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 clove crushed garlic
- 1/2 Tsp salt
- 1/4 Tsp pepper
Boil potatoes until very soft and starting to fall apart. Drain in colander. Chop onions and set aside. In large boil whisk all the other ingredients. put hot potatoes along with onions into sauce and mix well. Serve hot or warm. If you like dill, you can chop some fresh and put it into the sauce. Serve with extra salt and pepper.
Since I received the mega lemon yesterday, I have been drinking a lot of water with fresh lemon juice and honey. I also used part of it today to make these incredible Lemon Buttermilk Chocolate Chip Muffins.
Lemon Buttermilk Chocolate Chip Muffins
- 2 Cups flour
- 1 tbsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1 Stick Salted Butter (no margarine, yuck!!!)
- 2 Large Eggs
- 3/4 Cup Buttermilk
- 1/4 Cup Fresh Lemon Juice
- Grated Rind of 2 Lemons
- 1 Tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
- 3/4 C of Choc Chips (Ghirardelli i best!)
Preheat oven to 350. If you have a convection setting, use it. If not, no worries. In one bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, beat eggs, buttermilk, lemon juice, rind, vanilla. Add drop of melted butter to temper the mixture and not scramble the eggs. Then add rest of butter. Blend in the dry ingredients just until mixed Do not over-mix. Fold in chocolate chips. Put into 12 baking cups in muffin pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes depending on your oven. test after 20 with knife in center muffin. This recipe doubles well also.
Yummy!
