use real butter

Recipe: french onion soup

Oh, you are all so very very sweet. Thank you for the kind wishes and new year’s greetings! I hope we ALL have a great 2010 and beyond. I’m definitely much better now from that nasty sinus infection although there is some lingering congestion, kinda like when some guys don’t get the hint and they just keep hanging around… ;) If you attended a technical university, you will most definitely know what I’m talking about. Anyhow, I realize I’ve fallen dreadfully behind on the comments and well – I’m not sure that I’ll be able to get to them this week just yet. See, I’m in Virginia.

the land of krispy kreme donuts

and southern haaaaaaaaam

I’m chilling out with my parents at their place. Their current house is relatively new (same neighborhood). It isn’t the house I grew up in, but I noticed while walking through the rooms that it still feels familiar to me. Even though the building and the furnishings have changed, there is a sense of coming home.

entering the house

the sunroom overlooking the water

My mom and dad were so excited about my visit that they had been calling me for days before my arrival to plan out every single meal (typical foodies, no?). When your head is full of mucus and you feel like crap, it’s hard to imagine wanting to eat anything – and I didn’t. However, the day before I flew out I suddenly found my spare time thoughts racing from one recipe to another. I had been worried that I had lost my cooking mojo, but it was just the blasted flu and sinusitis muddling up my brain. Mom made me Chinese hot pot the night I arrived – the perfect remedy to any cold or flu. Tonight, my dad prepared a “simple” meal of rack of lamb and I offered to slap together some roasted vegetables to go with it.

brussels sprouts and potatoes for roasting

dad slices the rack of lamb

my parents’ idea of a simple meal

I’m trying to pace myself because 1) I know they have a marathon of food lined up and 2) I haven’t regained my appetite completely… although it’s easier to have an appetite when the food in front of you looks and tastes amazing. In any case, I’ll have the camera at the ready to document the culinary proceedings. Jeremy will join us toward the end of the week after his conference is over.

Being back in my hometown reminds me of my earliest cooking years when I joined my neighborhood 4-H group. We learned to cook French onion soup one day at 4-H and it was forever etched in my brain as something so easy a fifth grader could do it. I think that’s a great solution to overcoming fear – learn to do it young. Man, I wish I had learned to ski moguls and glades as a kid…

onions and thyme

sliced bread for croutons

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: tomato soup

It WAS cold outside. Today the weather is bounding back up to a balmy 24°F around here and that means wind – lots of wind. But before the winds came howling through, we had a couple of incredibly peaceful and calm days. It even snowed (thank goodness). It’s a morning ritual when snow has fallen to check the mountain stats at Eldora, our local ski hill. They reported almost a foot of new snow and a current temperature of -6°F. Normally I wouldn’t go near the mountain if they were below zero because our typical winds would make that a less than pleasant experience. But it was a completely calm morning and the sun was shining so… -6°F didn’t sound so bad!

glorious morning

so the black runs are still roped off

We had a solid first day of the season. I know it’s rather late, but if someone can find my snow… thanks. Eventually, the cold did get the better of us and it was time to head home. As my toes endured the painful thawing process in the car, my thoughts turned to some leftover soup I had waiting in the refrigerator. Last month I had posted about a grilled steak sandwich which I love to pair with a bowl of hot tomato soup. So many people asked about the tomato soup! In all honesty, I buy Pacific Natural Foods’ organic tomato soup. It’s one of the few that doesn’t have milk products and actually tastes good to me. But you people shamed me into making my own tomato soup because it seems ridiculous that I have never done it before.

dice an onion

and some garlic

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: vietnamese beef pho

NaBloWriMo day 14. I’m blogging daily and trying not to lose it.

Eat on $30 day 4. I’ll cover what we ate on day 4 tomorrow since the Daring Cooks challenge usually goes live at midnight. This posting date was set in stone millennia ago, but I made it (and we ate it) last week, so it isn’t part of the Eat on $30 challenge.

It’s my Dad’s birthday! Happy Birthday, Baba! I hope you have an awesome day. Love, JenJen.

Did you see the giveaway for 2 $25 Macy’s gift cards? Go! Go enter! Then come back because this recipe RAWKS!

daring cooks – we slice, we dice, we sizzle, baby!

It’s time for the Daring Cooks again after last month’s hiatus. Let’s pay proper homage to the ladies of the kitchen… the DARING KITCHEN, that is: lovable Lis of La Mia Cucina and irresistable Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice. Our hostess this month is one of my favorite chicas of the food blogging world, Jaden from Steamy Kitchen. I had the pleasure of meeting her in person last month at the BlogHer Food conference in San Francisco – such a sweetheart.

Here’s the official line: The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.

The challenge for October was Vietnamese pho. Jaden gave us a lot of options to choose from, but I went straight for the long version of the Vietnamese beef pho recipe. I have been wanting to make beef pho for years and this was the kick in the patootie I needed. I only made a half recipe since we had to empty our fridge of perishables before starting the Eat on $30 challenge. The first step was to roast the ginger and onion in the oven. While that was roasting, I parboiled the beef bones ten minutes for the precious broth then drained them and cleared the pot of scum.

halved onion and ginger

beef bones

I’ve never made broth with this combination of spices before and I was so excited! The parboiled bones went into a fresh pot of water and were brought back to a boil. I placed the spices in a little mesh pouch and chucked those in with the ginger, onion, fish sauce, sugar, and salt.

spices

my favorite brand of fish sauce (oddly enough, three crabs)

into the pot the onion goes

**Jump for more butter**