Made with love.

There are certain things that just can’t be beat when it comes to homemade.

When my BFF posted on Facebook that she was suffering from strep throat and hadn’t eaten in a day, I immediately strapped on my apron and grabbed my knives in preparation to make the “cure all” that I knew would bring her not only nutrition, but also comfort. There would be no opening a can of Campbell's for this girl...oh no no.

Fortunately for me, I am a little bit insane and just “happened” to have all of the ingredients necessary to make her a nice steamy container of chicken noodle soup.

Pulled a frozen chicken leg & wing out of the freezer, plopped it in water with carrots, onion & celery and simmered, skimming the broth every once and a while so the broth was clear and fat free.

Chopped some more carrots, onion & celery along with some mushrooms, threw those in another pot and then waited…..I might have watered my yard at this point to make good use of my time…..Removed the chicken pieces when they were cooked through and let them cool a minute.

Strained the broth in to the pot with the new veggies and simmered a bit more…..skimmed some more stuff from the top. Added a few sprigs of thyme from my backyard and let the soup think about itself for 20 minutes or so. I skinned the chicken and removed all the meat, then chopped it in bite sized pieces.

Boiled a little water, added salt and pasta to it until the noodles were almost al dente, not quite done yet. Rinsed the noodles and set aside

Added in the chicken meat and past and then seasoned the broth with a little salt to taste….fortunately it didn’t need much, the chicken broth was super flavorful and just a little sweet from the carrots.

Voila! So much better than the canned stuff and infinitely better for you!

I dropped it at her house where she was watching movies in her jammies and cuddling with her pug with a voice that sounded like she had been yelling at a concert all night before. Two days later she is almost better....could it be the antibiotics? Or the chicken soup made with love??? You decide.

Inspiration

Sometimes inspiration comes in the simplest of forms. It can come from something you look at, hear, taste or do....today inspiration came to me just from leaving work. Good timing on my part. :)

It's not so much when I left work, although that plays in a little...but more how I left work. Every day when I leave my office, trot down the back stairs to the ballroom and group dining space I pass through the banquet kitchen where on a daily basis I get to interact with chefs and cooks of all manner. I am very lucky to work at a hotel where good food is part of the package and as we all know.....good food comes from good cooks/chefs.

Some nights I come downstairs and raid the hot boxes for hors d' oeuvres before heading home...stuffing myself with lobster BLT's (oh yeah!), prosciutto wrapped melon, fig tarts and ahi tuna on won tons. My job definitely does not suck when it comes to tasty vittles. Some of these items along with others have made their way in to my repertoire in the kitchen for various dinners and parties. I generally will wing it, just taking the general idea and faking it on my own or expanding on it to suit my tastes and moods.

On the way home this evening I was in a quandary as to what to make for dinner....not feeling the sausage vibe after Monday's extravaganza, same with ground beef....it was chilly out which always makes me want something comfort food-like......What did I have in the fridge again?

Arg. My thought process kills me sometimes. I really am a pain in the ass.

While passing through the kitchen on the way to my car I stopped to chat with one of our banquet chefs to see if he had any fun ideas about what (like that is his job, right?). We tossed around a few ideas with a few of the other cooks chiming in occasionally and then I happened to wander over to the stove to peek at what was cooking. And I found my inspiration. Yay!

On the stove was a 5 gallon stockpot with poblano chili's, onions, celery and corn in a creamy broth. Click! Sounded good to me, knew Brock would love it (he looooves the roasted chili's), it would be easy and fairly quick to make and best of all, I had almost everything I needed at home to make it. So my trip to Trader Joe's was all about the wine, with a chunk of bread as an afterthought. :)

The most time consuming part of the meal? Roasting and peeling the damn chili's. I know you can buy the canned ones and they are good in a pinch or in certain recipes, but really they are best when they are fresh, fire roasted, peeled and chopped. The best way to do this is on the BBQ, just throw them on over medium heat and turn continuously until they are blistered and blackened all over (not SUPER burnt though). Being as it was raining tonight, I was forced to do them on the stove...no biggie, but not as even heat-wise. Throw them in a paper or plastic bag and close it up and leave them there for 5-10 minutes. This will steam them a bit and help to loosen the skin. Then just take them out and scrape the skin off with a teaspoon and rinse quickly under cold water. Then you are free to chop, dice, slice or stuff them as you please. This works for all peppers, red, green, Anaheim etc....

Then of course I had to go and make the meal my own. How, you ask? Well it just so happens that I had a jar of smoked chicken stock in my freezer (doesn't everyone??) and chicken thighs as well....so why not add a little smokey flavor to the soup and call it good?

So I did. :)

To make the smoked chicken stock (if you are so inclined), you smoke the chicken bones in your cooktop smoker or little smokey and then add them in to the water with your veggies and cook. If you don't have the time (or if you don't have a friend like I do who makes it for you), you can just use plain chicken stock and smoke the chicken a little longer.

This is something I was able to throw together in a little over an hour, making it a great meal for a night when you are running late and just don't have time to putter in the kitchen. It also freezes beautifully, making it perfect for leftovers and care packages.

Smokey Chicken Corn & Poblano Chowder

1 T Butter
2 Small Onions, medium dice
3 Celery Stalks, medium dice
3 Large Garlic Cloves, minced
1 Large Yukon Gold Potato, medium dice
2 Poblano Chili's, peeled & seeded, medium dice

4 Cups Smoked Chicken Stock

1 Can Green Giant Niblets

2 Boneless Chicken Thighs or Breasts (whatever you prefer, I'm a thigh girl myself)
1 T Olive Oil
1 tsp Salt

3 T Flour
Salt & Pepper to taste

1/4 - 1/2 cup heavy cream (optional)

Sweat the onions and celery in the butter until soft and add in potatoes and garlic, stir for 5 minutes or so over medium heat. Add in chili's and stir another 5 minutes. Add broth and let simmer for 15 minutes.

For chicken.....pat dry and brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. At this point you can do one of two things..... if you are in possession of a a cooktop smoker (Great gadget!), smoke with mesquite chips for 15 minutes, then cool. Or if you don't have the smoker just throw them on the BBQ for about 6 minutes to a side over medium heat and remove. They don't have to be cooked all the way through, you still want them juicy. Chop the chicken in to 1/4 - 1/2 inch chunks and add to the soup pot.

Pull about 1/3 cup of the broth aside and let it cool, add 3 T flour and blend well, no lumps allowed. Pour this in to the simmering pot and stir until combined. This will thicken the soup to a chowder like consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste and if you want to add the cream, do so just before serving.

Here's to inspiration!

Back on track!

I truly wish you could see what goes through my head on my half hour drive home from work daily. If I haven't already picked out what to make for dinner the inside of my head resembles the interior of an exotic butterfly aviary with colorful winged creatures fluttering to and fro....do I go with spicy, exotic and colorful? Savory and solid? Light, fresh and tangy? What to do, what to do?

I spend a good portion of my day at work taking other peoples food orders, creating custom menus, talking about food options, detailing out menus and parties and watching them get produced, so it is not big surprise that sometimes I come up against a stumbling block and the butterflies in my head turn in to a rainbow tornado that I can't control. At which point I call Brock and ask him what he wants for dinner. His standard reply is "I'm easy!". Which he is.

And he isn't. But that doesn't help when this scenario comes about.

Every once and a while he does give me a straight request as referenced in my previous post of chili & cornbread. But most nights he leaves me to my own devices and imagination which range everywhere from take out pizza on a lazy night to insanity in the kitchen where every dish, pot & pan I own is dirtied somehow.

But he is open to trying just about damn near everything I make as long as I stay away from a few taboo foods....that in itself is priceless. :)

After my insanely good but not so dietetic chili the other night I have been trying to eat leaner and cook lighter. Some days it works and other days not so much. But after a visit to the gym I found I was down another pound (yay!) and that made me want to amp it up again and do my damnedest to keep the LB's comin' off.

I was also not really up to going to the store after a long ass day that started off with only about 4 solid hours of sleep on the books.

Thus begins the mental inventory of what is in the fridge, freezer and pantry and then trying to wrap my head around what cuisine/continent I wanted to channel. Do I go Italian, American, Asian, Mexican, Southern or fusion???? Good lord there are too many things jumping around in my brain for me to even focus on this.


FOCUS!!!


FOCUUUUUSSSSSSS!!!!


And then????


Ding!! Dingdingdingdingding!!!!


Trader Joe's Potstickers...frozen and waiting for me to add them to tasty broth with veggies.


Oh good lord was that a freaking relief!


Veggies are solid, I knew I had a few snow peas hanging around, carrots, green onions & celery and some crimini mushrooms would round it out nicely.

For the broth I thought I might have to resort to using my stash of "Better than Bouillon" chicken flavor, but was stoked to find a bag of chicken wing tips (from the hot wing post-oh yeah!) and a bag of frozen shrimp with shells on.


In to the pot goes.....



About 8-10 Chicken Wing Tips
Shrimp Shells from about 10-12 Shrimp
1 Onion, chopped
1 Carrot, chopped
2 Celery Stalks, chopped
6 cups water

Bring to a boil and turn down to a simmer, skim off any foam that rises to the surface and discard. Simmer for about a half an hour and then strain.



While the stock is simmering, chop, slice & dice....

2 Medium Carrots, peeled-slice on the bias
2 Celery Stalks, sliced thin on the bias
4 oz Mushrooms, sliced
4 oz Snow Peas, sliced in 1/2
3 Green Onions, sliced thin

Slice Shrimp lengthwise in 1/2 and set aside

After stock is strained, return to the pot and add the carrots, mushrooms and celery, add a tablespoon or more of soy sauce to the pot depending on your salt preference. Cook for about 15 minutes and add in the snow peas, shrimp, green onions and 6-8 frozen potstickers (can be pork, shrimp or veggie). Simmer gently until won tons are cooked through and shrimp is pink.

Adjust seasoning as needed with soy sauce, Siricha hot sauce, sesame oil or even oyster sauce if you like.



Now your toes are going to hurt from all the weight falling off, right????

Diet schmiet...

So exactly how is one supposed to go on a frigging diet when the weather is cold and all you crave are warm comforting foods? Mostly warm comforting foods that are made with things not on your frigging diet and need to be sopped up with delicious vessels made from carbohydrates that are definitely NOT on your frigging diet.

Definitely having one of those evenings....maybe I have been depriving myself so much that my body actually CRAVES it.

Oh yeah, that must be it.

I do pretty good until nights like this when I walk in to the store and go just a little insane....Brock requested chili and cornbread for dinner, and although he would have been fine with the Von's brand from the deli, you know me by now and know that I went and got all the makings to make it from scratch because it would be better for us, right?

Wrong-o!

Brock makes his favorite "quick" chili from a mixture of random beans and canned chilis only known to him along with green chilies and the "secret ingredient"....chorizo. Fattening as hell, but it has SUCH good flav-a!!

So here I am in the store looking at the chorizo debating between pork and beef, looking at the calories and fat grams (Seriously? How DO you pack 22 grams of fat in to 1 serving the size of a tablespoon??? What else is in there besides fat???) and opting to go for the beef since I was doing beef chili. As it turns out, there is the equivalent of about 1/2 cup of solid matter in one 1# link once you have cooked it, drained it and squeezed all the fat out through a paper towel or cheesecloth. I like to think that I removed all the fat this way...please correct me if I am wrong!

Whatever, it's not like I eat like this every day. And the addition of flavor is worth it, I just won't be telling my doctor about this.

And THEN...because I was having chili, you know I had to make cornbread right? Because it is like a PB&J, BLT, cheese and wine....some things are just meant to go together. So of course the cornbread calls for butter and milk, but then I go and add green onions for flavor & color....and cheese because Brock likes it that way.

Again, I say whatever! Double workout tomorrow and better lighter cooking the rest of the week.

But for now I share with you a delicious chili recipe that is damn easy to prepare....

Ground Beef Chili

1 Large Onion, medium dice
1 Red Bell Pepper, medium dice
3 Cloves Garlic, fine dice

Sweat the above in 1 T olive oil until soft.

Season with 1 tsp Chili Powder.

Add
1 -15oz Can Diced Tomatoes with juice
1-1/2 cup Beef Broth or Stock

Simmer gently and add

1# Lean Ground Beef, browned & drained
1# Link of Chorizo, browned and drained REALLY GOOD

1-15oz Can Kidney Beans, drained and split in 1/2

Take 1/2 of the Kidney Beans and add to the chili, keep the other half aside and add a little water. Puree in food processor or with immersion blender and add to chili.

Simmer for a while and season to taste. Serve with Cornbread and whatever garnish you want....if you don't care about an extra calorie or two, use cheese, sour cream or other delicious dairy based condiments. Cilantro & green onion are also delicious additions.

You know, this blog is almost as good as going to a priest for confession, I feel better already!

Family addiction

So I am not super in to television....in fact, my colleague makes fun of me a bit and is super impressed when I actually recognize a TV personality or tell her that I couldn't drag myself away from the latest episode of Glee! I went without TV for almost 10 years and probably wouldn't have it now if it weren't for Brock. I do enjoy having it in the house, but if I didn't have it, would probably not miss it much.

Except when it comes to family night.

Mom, Dad, Brock and I convene weekly (or bi-weekly) at my parents house and root for the best teams during football season, watch DVR'd episodes of yesterday's Jay Leno because we can't stay up that late and when American Idol starts, we have a standing dinner date for the day after it airs. (No commercials thanks to DVR....helloooo!)

I know we are dorky, but I love us all the same. And you know that in some way you have the same addiction somewhere...be it Grays Anatomy, Dirty Jobs or any of the other shows that are totally escaping me because I don't pay attention to TV. :)

Tonight finds us a few days after the first two hour episode of American Idol in Moms kitchen....sun setting, wine glass full (the whole "on the wagon" thing just wasn't working for me...) and a pot of Feijoada on the stove.

Yeah, you read right, that is not a misspelling....pronounced fay-zhwah-duh...it is a Brazilian Black Bean soup that is filling, comforting and pretty healthy when made as listed below. You can of course fatten it up if you want, but as most of us want to slim down instead of fatten up I am guessing and hoping you will follow my lead.

There is a little bit of bacon in it, which is not considered healthy by some (whatever!), but it is an integral part of my existence so just deal with it....or replace it with turkey bacon if you are super against using the pig variety (Really??? Turkey bacon? How does that work??? Have dissected turkey and found no bacon!). But remember, your body does need fat in your diet to absorb vitamins, so consider this little bit of bacon fat a vitamin bearing visitor....you just need a little time on the StairMaster to make it go away. :)

Brazilian Black Bean Soup
~Mom's Feijoada~

6 Strips Thick Sliced Bacon, diced
8 oz Turkey Smoked Sausage, diced (has less fat than regular LITE Kielbasa!)

1 1/2 cups Onion, chopped
3 Cloves Garlic
1-2 Serrano Chiles, diced (depends on your heat preference)
2 tsp Chili Powder

2 Cups Black Beans, drained & rinsed
5 Cups Chicken Broth or Stock

6 Cups Collard Greens, stemmed & chopped
2 Cup Tomatoes, seeded & diced

1 1/2 Cups Cooked Rice (preferably brown basmati)
Fresh Orange Wedges

Saute bacon in a soup pot or dutch oven until crisp, remove and drain. remove most of the bacon fat and brown kielbasa in remaining drippings. Remove and drain. Wipe the pot clean.

Add a little olive oil to the pot and saute the onions for a few minutes and then add the garlic and serranos, stirring so the garlic does not burn. Add in the chili powder and saute until all veggies are soft.

Stir in the beans and mash a bit, start adding broth a cup or so at a time, scrape up the browned bits from the bottom. You may not need to add all the broth depending on how thick you want the soup....Add in the bacon & kielbasa and simmer for a bit.

Meanwhile in a big saute pan, heat a little olive oil and add the greens & tomatoes little by little until the greens are wilted.

Add the greens & tomatoes to the beans and season to taste with salt. Serve with the orange wedges on the side.,,,the orange wedges are a MUST!

**If you want more kick, you can also add diced serrano chiles (more of them!) as a garnish.

A bit of Summer in the heart of Winter

Sometime in the latter part of summer when the last of the heirloom tomatoes were giving themselves to us one at a time so stubbornly (did anyone else have a bad tomato year?) I came across a few plants on the first tier of my Dad's ranch that were overflowing with golf ball sized cherry tomatoes. They didn't have the sweet tart "pop" of the sweet 100's that we prefer for salads and eating raw, but were more mild and filled to bursting with seeds and juice.

Never one to waste something like this, I set out to fill two 5 gallon buckets and a large bowl with these little gems and tried to figure out how I could somehow easily preserve them so that somehow I could have fresh tomatoes somewhere down the line when the farmers market doesn't yield them and the supermarket tomatoes are tasteless fleshy blobs.

So I stemmed them and soaked them. Triple washed them and went through them to get rid of any blemished, squishy or not quite ripe ones. Sorted out the bugs and picked off the last of the tops and proceeded to cook them down, batch by batch.

And there were a LOT of batches.

Then I strained out the seeds from a couple of batches.

But there were a LOT of seeds!

So I got a little lazy and cooked them down a bit and mom helped me pack them up in 1 quart Ziploc bags that we froze and split between us. In reality, she actually packed them up because by the time they were cool, I was in my bed a few miles down the road.

Since then I have used a bag or two for spaghetti sauce, but tonight decided that I wanted something so comforting that I think every American child has it imprinted on their brain as one of the top 10 comfort foods of all time.

Tomato Soup served with......

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches! (you knew that was coming!)

Currently suffering from a head cold, allergies and an earache I decided about mid day that this was exactly what my inner child was crying for.

So here I am in my kitchen enjoying a few of my Christmas presents and making a nice batch of Tomato Bisque to go with grilled cheese sammiches. :)

New bamboo cutting board made by my sweetie....that gets stored so nicely in it's custom made rack. How awesome is he? If you are in the market, I can put in a good word to Santa or St. Valentine or the birthday fairy.


Shiny red Dutch oven with which to make all kinds of delicious meals. Isn't it nice that we are so color coordinated for our maiden voyage in the Dutch oven???



Fuzzy red Mary Jane slippers with sparkles to slog around on my cold tile floors (they had to match the Dutch oven, ya know?) . You know you think they are sexy....

And a new laptop with which to type my blog from right in my kitchen instead of schlepping my lazy ass upstairs to type on the old desktop. :)

Christmas was unexpectedly great, this year in general was pretty awesome. Hope yours was just as blessed.

Tomato Bisque

1 quart tomatoes in juice-you can use canned if you have to!
1 medium onion, diced
1 carrot, peeled & diced
1 stalk of celery, diced
2 large cloves of garlic, diced
1 bay leaf
1 T sugar

Bring all ingredients above to a simmer in a soup pot for about an hour or until carrots are tender. Strain through a sieve remove bay leaf and smash as much of the vegetable through as you can. Return to soup pot.

2 T butter
2 T flour

In a small saucepan, melt the butter and add the flour, stir and cook for just a few minutes. Add to soup pot and whisk over low heat until incorporated and the soup starts to thicken a bit.

1 C Milk (whole milk or cream, no low fat stuff as it will curdle)

Scald milk and add to the soup. Season with S&P as needed.

If you are looking to step outside the box, you can flavor this with any number of herbs or spices including the traditional Italian basil, oregano and rosemary. You can garnish with croutons or lump crab meat, swirl in a little creme freche for ultra decadent soup.

Or you can serve it as is with a buttery toasted grilled sourdough Swiss and cheddar filled sandwich that is cut in to triangles and call it a day.

Guess what I did?

Cry Baby Soup

OK really? Refrigerated onions? Don't cut the root end until the very end? Chewing gum? An unlit matchstick under your tongue? Lighting a candle? Bread in your mouth? Carrot up your nose? Cutting underwater? A lit cigarette in your mouth (a la Peg Bundy!) Breathing just through your mouth?

And don't even mention putting on swim goggles while slicing up an onion, it just ain't gonna happen. Although I am assured by my moms best friend from college that it does indeed work for her.

Maybe I am sensitive, but I ALWAYS cry when cutting onions. There are none of the above that have worked for me and believe me, I have tried most of them. Fresh onions, old onions, shallots are especially bad....my eyes tear up and I dab. Then I dab again. Then I use my bicep and sleeve to rub away the tears. Then I rub my knuckles in to my eye sockets to try and alleviate the burning. (Yes, I know this is bad for me and my skin, but like a 3 year old I really don't care). With mascara and tears running down my face I then slap my knife down, wash my hands and run to the bathroom to wipe off the evidence and blow my nose.

Because we all know, crying makes your stupid nose run. Especially in allergy season. Which is year round for me now.

So glad I was home alone for this because truthfully I looked like hell. And if I can't be truthful with you then why am I here?

Oh the lowly onion. You are kind of a pain in the ass to peel. Stinky and sharp when raw (except those few lovely sweet varieties!). Exuding amino acid sulfoxides when we cut you, our eyes well up with tears...I cry....I cry.....

Sorry, momentary lapse in to what I thought might be poetry.

For reals though...the onion is the base for all stocks and broths....the foundation of sauces on every continent...they come in multiple shapes, colors and degrees of stinky & sweet. Yet there are a multitude of ways that onions are prepared to complement or enhance a dish, but only a few where it is the star.

Tonight I made French Onion Soup with Guinness where the onion is the true star of the meal. A nod to a version Brock & I have enjoyed many times in downtown Ventura at Dargans combined with my own culinary idols recipe from her book "How to Cook". Um, that would be Julia just in case you didn't know.

Remember how I have waxed poetic on the virtues of homemade stock????? This is where it comes in to play. No bouillion in the world is going to make this soup taste as good as a homemade stock or broth.

Guinness French Onion Soup

3 Large onions, sliced thin
3 T butter
1 T peanut or vegetable oil
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 T flour
48 oz (6 cups) Beef stock
1-16oz can of Guinness
(They come in 4 packs, drink the rest or serve to your loved one)
Salt to taste

Sourdough bread slices, about 3/4" thick
1/2 C Gruyere Cheese
1/2 C Swiss Cheese

Melt the butter and add oil, add onions and saute on high for 10 minutes until translucent. Add sugar and salt and turn on med/low. Stir often for about 30-45 minutes until brown and caramelized...scrape the bottom of the pan as needed.

**Note & FYI the sugar helps the onions to caramelize...as referenced in the pear bread pudding, sugar + butter = caramel flav-ah = goooooo-ooood!

Add flour when the onions are dark and stir thoroughly. Add 2 cups of stock and stir....add the rest of the stock and stir. Then turn up to a simmer and cook for about an hour.

Toast the bread in the oven, remove and cover with the shredded cheese. Broil until melt-y. Serve the soup topped with the cheesy bread and enjoy! Just like my handsome guy below. :)

**And for the cheap eats tag....if you don't have enough to buy Guinness, just make it all with beef broth or stock. :)

Albondigas!

Shortly after my last post re: the change of seasons (the next night), I came home with visions of comfort food in my head. Calling Mom for ideas we tossed around split pea soup, chicken noodle soup, chowder, stew and finally hit upon the winner.

Albondigas. Mexican Meatball Soup. Which I am told my Bapa (moms dad) can live upon as long as he rotates in Clam Chowder & Wonton Soup on occasion.

Everyone that has eaten at a Mexican restaurant has likely had this soup as a starter at one point or another. If not, I will totally spoil you for life. In a restaurant you are likely to get 1 meatball, some nice beefy type broth, a carrot chunk, a zucchini chunk, a few onions and possibly a potato. Garnished with some lemon & tortilla strips it makes a very nice starter. This Albondigas is a meal hearty enough to fill the beefiest of men (meat & potatoes please....) and filled with enough veggies that you don't have to mess with a side salad and again can camouflage the goodness that is a veggie in something that your M&P man or uber picky kid will hopefully love. It is a mix of a few recipes and there are myriad variations you can make if you want to get creative. Add corn, hominy, peppers, round turkey, whatever you like, it will most likely still be terrific.

The best compliment I got came from my sweetie as he was leaning over the steaming bowl complaining that it was so good, but too darn hot to eat as fast as he wanted to. I like to think I have spoiled him for any future restaurant versions. :)

First we make tha meatballs......from scratch!

Oh yeah! Did I mention that Brock got me the grinder attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer for Christmas???? So not appropriate for 70+ pounds of sausage (another story....), but so convenient when you want to grind a little pork in to your meatballs!



1# ground Beef, 15% fat is perfect
1# (ish) pork roast, excess fat trimmed (the ONLY time you will hear me tell you discard pork fat!)

You can buy the pork already ground if you do not have the attachment, are not as industrious as me or just don't give a crap. :)

Mix in 2 eggs (from dads farm if you are so blessed)
1T Cumin
2 T Garlic Powder
3 T Salt, Kosher is preferable
1/2 cup cooked white rice (perfect meal for those Chinese food leftovers!)
1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Make them in to pretty little 1-1/2" balls and bake on a sheet pan @ 425 for about 25-30 minutes.

I made alotta meatballs :) Leftovers are good!

For the soup....

Chop in to 1" chunks:
1 onion
3 celery stalks
4-5 carrots, depending on size and how much you like them
1 large white potato

Saute this in a little olive oil in a soup/stock pot with 1 tsp chile powder.
Add 3 minced garlic cloves & 4-5 rough chopped tomatoes.
(You can substitute 1-28 oz can of plum tomatoes in juice if you wish, just smush up the pieces a little bit before adding)


Stir for a minute and add....
3 Cups beef stock or broth (watch your salt if using processed broth or bouillon)
3 Cups Water

Turn to Medium/High and let it cook for a while until veggies & potatoes are tender.
Adjust seasoning with S&P and chile powder and add meatballs in to the pot.

Dice up some tortillas in to strips (corn or flour depending on your preference), lay on a sheet pan and bake @ 425 for about 20 minutes, flipping every 5-7 minutes or so until they are browned & crispy. Serve up the soup with the crispity strips and enjoy. And yes, I said crispity....just like the Butterfinger commercials. :)

It should look kind of like this and taste sooooo good.


One of my lovely friends tells me that she loves my "leftovers" and that I am welcome to bring her some anytime. She got some meatball soup today, I hope she enjoyed as much as Brock & I did last night!

Salud!