Comfort Food

I am an emotional eater, that's for sure. Stress, disappointment, or sadness...any emotion that leaves me with an emptiness inside, drive me to the kitchen. Even though I know that eating will not solve whatever problem I am struggling with, I want the food to fill the emptiness. I've worked through this a little, but I still find that being in the kitchen, staying busy, and a good piece of chocolate are a little bit of therapy for me.
This morning we learned that the dad of Clay's best friend passed away. We are all very sad. We will miss this wonderful, kind, and caring man. He was an involved parent, a great baseball coach, and a good friend to many people.
Here is a family favorite that I kind of made up. It's the kind of dish that warms you up inside when the insides need warming. And we all need a little warming here today.

Roasted Vegetables with Sausage and Chicken

1-2 Tbs olive oil
1 summer sausage, cubed
2 chicken breasts, cubed
1 onion
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 small butternut squash, peeled and cubed
4 medium potatoes {pick your variety, but we like red}
Salt and pepper to taste

In a roaster pan, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add onion and cook until translucent. Add sausage and chicken and brown. Remove from heat and add other vegetables. Stir together well to coat vegetables lightly with oil. Season according to taste. Cover.
Here is the unknown. The cook time.
Ask yourself "How much time do I have?"
You need at least an hour to get the vegetables tender at about 400.
If you have more time, turn the heat down and let it roast slow. I cooked this with a pork roast, instead of sausage and chicken the other day, for 3 + hours at 250. The roast was a little dry, but the vegetables were perfect. When I do this, I add a can of Sprite. It always turns out. However you cook it, just cook until the vegetables are to your liking.

One Hour Buttermilk Rolls

Grandma Lester was an amazing woman. And she could bake amazing bread. This is her recipe for rolls, and it's the only one I use now. They are so easy and absolutely delish!!!

One Hour Buttermilk Rolls

2 Tbs yeast

2 tbs sugar

1/4 C warm water

1/2 C melted butter

1 1/2 C warm buttermilk

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

4 1/2 - 5 C flour

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in warm water. Let sit for 10 min. Add remaining ingredients.
{on the buttermilk, I just use the powdered kind so I always have it on hand without worrying about it going bad}
Beat until dough is smooth and pulls away from side of bowl. Cover and let it rise 10 min. Divide dough in halves until you have 16 rolls. Give one of the pieces to the kids to play with. Form other 15 pieces into rolls, and place in a lightly greased 9x13 pan. {3x5} Cover with a light dish towel and rise 30 min. Bake at 400 for 14-20 minutes. Enjoy them straight from the oven.

Chicken Noodle Soup

There is nothing quite like chicken noodle soup on a cool day. And although (for here) the days aren't that cool, we had a Harvest Ball at church and soup was on the menu. Even though I didn't take my baby boy, and Sam was at a birthday party, and Nate was at a CE course on dental implants, I sent my three middle children with their Aunt Lindsey, so...I felt obliged to send some food.

Years ago I started making turkey noodle soup using a turkey leg for the meat and broth. But then along the line somewhere, it repulsed me. So now I go with the fresh white meat chicken breast. I'm still improving on this recipe, but I have picked up some tips to make it just a little better here and there.

I wanted to take pictures...I think I actually started to...on Nate's work camera because mine is dead right now. But the camera is where it should be...at his work. So here it is...without pics.

Chicken Noodle Soup

4 chicken breasts

4 quarts water with corresponding amount of boullion/chicken broth

1 onion, chopped

1 bunch celery

1 pound carrots

1 pound noodles

In a large stock pot, add water, boullion. {Pick the kind you like best. They are not all made equal, and you will get a different flavor depending on your base. That's what will determine the taste of the soup. Do I have a recommendation? Still working on that.}

Add your chicken and onion {cut to the size you like best...this is where I am torn. Do you make them big enough to be easy to pick out? Or do you make them small enough that no one will notice? I've pretty much decided on small, itsy bitsy onion bits, and big chunky celery and carrots. You can chop your vegetables to your own liking. That's just my preference.}

Now, here's a tip that I just learned. Tender chicken is better that tough chicken, and I have gone so far as to bake my chicken to be more juicy because I thought that you couldn't get tender chicken by boiling it in a pot of water. Here's the trick. Don't boil it. Put the water on medium heat. If it begins to boil, turn it down to a simmer. This way you won't get all that scum on top and the chicken should be really tender and delicious. I can't really tell you how long to cook it...isn't that annoying? A guessing recipe. Just cook it until it is done, not pink, registering the appropriate temperature for cooked poultry. It should take about as long to cook as it takes to clean and chop the rest of your vegetables and soothe a fussy newborn. If you have the Bullet Express, this is not a good time indicator for cooking chicken...chicken takes more than 8 seconds. Take the chicken breasts out of the pot.

Add the carrots and celery, bring it to a full boil, and cook until tender. I like mine pretty soft, so I keep it on for about 10-15 minutes. Add noodles and cook according to package instructions. {I usually like the hommemade variety that have to cook for 30 min, but I am usually so crunched for time that I use whatever noodles or pasta that I have on hand. I think thicker is better on the noodles...rotini is pretty fun to try.}

Cut up the cooked chicken and add to your soup. Serve with fresh, hot rolls. Use the recipe from the next post. They are to die for, and easy to make.

Gooey Pumpkin Buttercake

The Sunday after Henry was born President and Sister Matthews brought over these luscious little pumpkin bites. They were beautiful and just as delicious. I wish I had taken a picture. I'm pretty sure that if I recreate them the way she did, they will pale in comaparison. But, I did call and get the recipe because I was pretty sure that I would one day crave them again. {and my mom really wanted the recipe too} Sure enough, I just happened to have a can of pumpkin on hand and...would you believe it...a yellow cake mix. So, I whipped up the recipe in the quick 9x13 pan format. {baby boy creates tight time demands} I didn't even have the whipped cream to put on top, and we had it gone in no time. It's rare to find a treat that everyone will eat. Everyone ate this. I'm thinking Thanksgiving for sure. I don't know if I will eat pumpkin pie again.

Gooey Pumpkin Buttercake

Cake
1 pkg yellow cake mix
8 Tbs butter melted
1 egg

Filling
8 oz cream cheese, softened
15 oz can pumpkin
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
8 Tbs butter, melted

3 1/4 C powdered sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Cake: Mix together cake mix, butter, and egg and pat into bottom of greased 9x13 pan.

Filling: Beat cream cheese until it is soft. Add pumpkin and mix until well blended. Beat in eggs, vanilla, and butter. Add sugar and cinnamon and mix until smooth.

Pour filling over crust.

Bake at 350 for 40-50 min. Be careful not to overbake. {my crust got a little dry}

Fun options:

Make this in mini muffin tins {that's what Cindy did}

Line mini-muffin tin with paper liners. Spray liners lightly with Baker's Joy. Press a small scoop of cake mix into paper liner. Fill with filling just below top. Filling will expand some with baking. Bake at 350 for 16-18 min.

If you want to make this with standard sized muffin cups, follow the same procedure, but allow 26-28 min for baking.

Top each cake/piece with a dallop of whipped cream and freshly grated nutmeg.

Chili & Corn Bread

Cold, grey and snowy days beg for soup for dinner. I'm pretty sure of it, because every time we get a day like that I start going through my soup recipes to find one I have all the ingredients for. Most of the time, I have everything I need for chili.

I had never really liked chili all that much. I don't like my food too chunky. But, several years ago Nate concocted a recipe to take to a ward chili cook-off. If I remember right, he won. The problem has been that the ingredients were not measured that first night, and usually we just throw in a bit of that or a little of this or lets try this in it tonight. So, last night I measured, just so I could post an accurate recipe. It turned out great for my tastes. And it hit the spot last night.

Nate's Prize Winning Chili

1 lb bacon

1 1/2 lb ground beef

1 onion, chopped finely

1 pepper {use your favorite color}, chopped finely

12 oz can pepsi

12 oz ketchup

4-15 oz cans tomatoes

2 cans chili beans

2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp cajun seasoning

Cut bacon into bite-size chunks and brown. I don't thaw it all the way, and then cut it right in the wrapper. It's so much easier. {use your raw meat cutting board}

Remove from pan to paper towel. Pour off all but 1-2 Tbs grease. Add onion and pepper, and brown until onion is translucent. {I had an orange pepper, so that is what I used this time} You want the vegetables to absorb that yummy bacon flavor. Add the ground beef and spices. When beef is done, pour off grease. Add pepsi and ketchup. Stir together and simmer while you're opening cans.
I think the key to a good chili is in the tomatoes. If I could, I would use them straight from the garden. Some brands taste really tin-cannish. This is a brand that I really like. They used to sell them at WalMart. I'm going to have to find them elsewhere because last time I went to buy some they didn't have them anymore. Another thing to consider about the tomatoes is how chunky you like your chili. Like I said before, I don't do chunky, and neither do my kids...entirely my fault I'm sure. So, I just threw three of the cans {the contents of the cans, silly}into the Vita-Mix and pulsed it on low a couple of times to decrease the chunk value of the ingredients. You could also just use tomato puree. I just really like the flavor of these tomatoes, so that's how I adjust. Now you can add the tomatoes and chili beans.
Stir everything together and simmer for a couple of hours. If you don't have the time for it to simmer, simply add the spices to the sauce and not to the meat. When you add the spice to the meat, you have to give it time to infuse the spice throughout the sauce. Add the bacon and stir it in before serving.
And there you have it. Go make some cornbread.

Now here, I will give credit where credit is due. This is a recipe from the Lester Chicks Cookbook. It is had by only a handful of ladies, and it is one that I reference more than Martha Stewart. I never really liked cornbread either until I tried the cake mix variety. And then I ventured out from there. Again, one of my favorites. Moist. Yummy. Serve with lots of honey.

Corn Bread

{Marci DeWitt}

1/2 C butter, meleted

2 eggs

2/3 C sugar

1 C buttermilk

1 C flour

1 C cornmeal

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 375.
Mix together butter, eggs, and sugar until smooth. Stir in buttermilk. In another bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Add dry mixture to liquid mixture and beat until smooth. Pour into greased 9x9 pan. {I like to use my stoneware pie pan} Bake 25-30 min, just until set in middle.

Pumpkin Zucchini Bread

I think that I have been browsing one too many food and baking blogs lately. I'm pretty sure that this format will be reminiscent of many of those. Although the photography may be lacking, it was fun to document, and to actually make the bread in order to photograph it. However, I am asking myself tonight...why do we call this bread and not cake? Just because we bake it in a bread pan? And then we add the zucchini to make us think that it is good for us? Right.

For anyone who has zucchini coming out of their ears.{I do} This is hands down the best recipe I have found to use this great vegetable. I have altered it a bit to fit my tastes. I have two other recipes from Chris {traditional} and from Jenny{Lemon} which are very good. I will post them eventually. But, fall evokes a feeling of needing to eat pumpkin. I tried it and my family is hooked.

Pumpkin Zucchini Bread

3 eggs

2 C brown sugar

1 C pumpkin

1 C butter, melted

1 Tbs vanilla

3 C flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp cloves

1 C zucchini, grated or shredded

Mix together eggs, sugar, pumpkin, butter and vanilla until mixture is smooth.

Sift together dry ingredients and then add to pumpkin mixture. Mix until smooth.

Stir in zucchini until it is well incorporated.

Bake in 2 loaf pans for 40+ min at 350.

Or, if you have this wonderful pan, bake it in this, you'll have leftover for another little pan.

Oh yeah, add chocolate chips...it's really not good for you anyway, so go for what tastes good. You could stir them in, but I just sprinkled them on top. {afterthought}

As with any quick bread, bake until the center is no longer jiggly, but just barely. It goes from moist and delicious to dry in just a couple of minutes, so watch it carefully after the 40 minute mark, checking every 2 -3 minutes for doneness. Do the toothpick trick if you can't tell by looking.

Freeze it for later, if you can. Mine is always gone in a matter of days.