Kung Pao Chicken

We have a local chinese restaraunt that is the most fantastic place.  It has been around in our community since my mother was a little girl.  Four generations of my family have eaten at this lovely little place.  It is not fancy, but the owners know the customers by name and often come to visit while you are waiting on your food.  The "new" owners came in over two decades ago.  It was one of the first restaraunts my hubby and I would go to when we were first dating.  The Eastern Garden is a piece of our community and our hearts.
Recently, the owner announced they would be closing the doors next summer.  We were so disappointed!  Their children have grown.  The youngest one is headed for college.  The owners are going to move so they can still live as a family while he attends college at a big university.
The last few times we went there I lamented how much I was going to miss them and their food.  I finally asked once what was in my favorite dish, Kung Pao Chicken.  The owner laughed and rattled off all the ingredients so fast I could hardly understand.  The next time, I went in with a pen and paper!  She never has measurements and her instructions are always so fast.  I wish I could just go in and watch them for a day! 
Each time we go in, I ask for another recipe.  Then I go home and experiment with it.  When we go back again, I ask her how I need to change it to get the flavor right.  I have gone home and played with the ingredients and measurements for the Kung Pao Chicken. This is pretty darn close to the Eastern Garden.
My family will miss the Eastern Garden when it is gone.  Over the next few months, we are going to try and go a little more often.  Once they have moved on to bigger and better things, I will make their recipes at home.  Everytime, I will think of the owners and how much they were a part of our community and our hearts.

Kung Pao Chicken

5 carrots
5 stalks celery
2 small zucchini
½ cup peanuts
2 chicken breast halves
3 cloves minced garlic
½ chopped onion
2 tablespoons butter
½ tablespoon red pepper flakes (more if you want it spicier)
3 tablespoons Soy sauce
2 teaspoons Cornstarch
1 cup water
2 cups cooked rice

Mince and chop onion and garlic. Cut remaining vegetables into bite size pieces.

Cut chicken into small bite size pieces.

Fry chicken pieces in large frying pan with butter, garlic, and onion until chicken is cooked through.

Stir in red pepper flakes, peanuts, carrots, and celery. Cook this, stirring occasionally, for approximately 5 minutes. Stir in zucchini and cook another 3-4 minutes, until the zuchini is softened a bit.

Stir together soy sauce, cold water, and cornstarch for sauce. Add into hot mixture and stir until sauce thickens.

Serve over cooked rice.

This makes enough for my family of 6 plus extra.

SOUP DAY!

Yesterday, I decided it was SOUP DAY in our house.  No, not soup for dinner.  SOUP DAY in capital letters.  I decided I was going to make soup and can it for hubby and I's lunches.  I could have done one recipe of soup and we would have had a few soups for lunch.  I could have done two recipes of soup, and we really would have had enough for a while.  But no.  I am an over achiever.  I decided we needed three soup recipes.

It doesn't take that long to make soup, right?
It doesn't take that much longer to cut up vegetables for three soups then one soup, right?
I'll get into a groove, it will go quickly, right?

*snort*

Boy was I wrong!

I started at 8am, fueled by my coffee.  The house was still quiet because the kids were all in their Saturday morning stupor of sleeping in and cartoons.  First, the dishwasher needed to be unloaded and loaded and the counters needed to be cleared.  What kind of soup was I making?  The night before I decided on Taco Soup , My Best Bean Soup , and good old Split Pea and Bacon Soup.  My beans were already in the fridge, soaking and waiting their turns in the soup pot.

I chopped three whole heads of garlic, two large onions, twelve large carrots, and entire head of celery, and five tomatoes.  All ingredients went into their own seperate little bowls.  This doesn't sound like that much, but by the time I was done, I had children circling me like piranha wanting breakfast of some sort.

Break from soup to make pancakes, eggs, and bacon for brunch for the family.

Time to get the bacon ready for the soups.  I had a ten pound box of bacon waiting to be processed into usable amounts for the freezer.  Might as well get that done while my hands are greasy, right?

Okay, back to soup.

First the Best Bean Soup.  Jars, lids, and bands into the dishwasher.  I wasn't sure how many I was going to use in my SOUP DAY.  I figured close to 25, so that is what I loaded in and started.  I set up my pressure canner to warm up.  Then I finally started my bean soup.  Eight jars went into the pressure canner and had to process for 90 minutes once I got it up to the right pressure.

I had a little break in here.  I had to stay pretty close to the pressure canner, but I could at least focus on other things for a bit.  I helped hubby with a few car work things, agreed to friends coming over to visit and my boys going to a friend's to visit.  I put my daughter in charge of babysitting the pressure canner while I ran people to and fro.

OOOhhhh!  Pressure canner was a half an hour away from done.  This is when I figured it was time to get the next soup going.  Split Pea and Bacon went into the soup pot next.  The only down side was that I forgot just how long it takes for the pressure canner to come down in pressure so you can actually remove the jars.  An hour later I was finally ladeling the Split Pea into six jars and loading those into the pressure canner.  Those had to process for 75 minutes once I got them up to pressure.

Again, a little break while the soup was in the pressure canner to clean the kitchen from soup mess, switch laundry, and drive children to and fro.  (I seem to do that a lot on the weekends.)

About this time, hubby came in asking about dinner.  OY!  Yep, I only had two kinds of soup done and it was already time to start cooking dinner!!

OOOOOhhhhh!  Pressure canner was half an hour away from done.  Time to start the Taco Soup!  Yep, that's right.  I did it again.  Totally forgot how long it takes to cool the silly pressure cooker down.

I finally got the eight jars of Taco Soup into the pressure canner at 6pm.  I couldn't wait any longer to cook dinner.  I had three of my four burners going AND the broiler in order to cook dinner while my last batch of soup was going.  I ate dinner while I babysat the pressure cooker one last time for the day.

By the time the last batch of soup came out of the canner, it was 8:47pm.  I had been cooking for over twelve hours.  I am happy with my 22 jars of soup.  However, I don't think I'll be attempting three kinds of soup in one day again!!

Taco Soup Old and New

I love Taco Soup.  It seems like everyone has their own little spin on this lovely, body warming, soup.  It's great on cold fall days when you need something warm to fill your belly.  It's also really great for parties.  The first recipe is the one I started with.  It was given to me by a friend.  The recipe card is worn and stained and will always have a place in my file.  The second recipe is the one I use more often now.  Only because I am trying to get away from the preprocessed foods.  I do still use the taco seasoning packet because I haven't figured out my own mixture yet.  If anyone has a recipe they would like to share for the taco seasoning, I'd sure appreciate it!

Taco Soup Original Recipe
1 can corn (undrained)
1 can stewed tomatoes (undrained)
1 can tomato sauce
1 can kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can olives sliced
1 lb browned burger
1 packet taco seasoning
Tortilla chips and taco toppings (cheese, sour cream, etc.)
Combine first seven ingredients in crockpot or soup pot.  Simmer until hot.  Serve with tortilla chips and toppings.


My altered Taco Soup Recipe
1 lb ground beef
3 cloves garlic minced
1 small onion minced
3 tomatoes chopped
1 cup dried kidney beans
1 cup dried black beans
1 cup dried pinto beans
1 can tomato sauce
4 cups of chicken broth
4 tablespoons of taco seasoning (this would be just over 1 packet)
2 cups frozen kernal corn
Taco Toppings (shredded cheese, sliced olives, etc.)
Tortilla chips
Soak the three kinds of beans over night in the fridge.  Drain and rinse.
Brown the ground beef with the onions and garlic until cooked through.  Drain fat.
Add in the chicken broth, tomatoes, taco seasoning, tomato sauce and beans.
Simmer until beans are done (or if canning just 30 minutes).
Add corn.
Serve with shredded cheese, olives, sour cream and tortilla chips.
If canning, this recipe made 8 pints of soup.  Process in a pressure canner at 10 pounds pressure for 90 minutes.

Now to start the fire....

Hubby recently moved our pellet stove from the living room into the dining room.  He said it was all hooked up and ready to start as soon as I deemed it cold enough for a fire.
I decided this morning that I was cold.  Even though my house is currently 63*f and I usually try to wait until it is below 60*f, I wanted a fire.  No big deal, right?

Now to start the fire.

First of all, the outlet next to the pellet stove has not been repaired.  The pellet stove will require an extension cord to plug it in.  Thank goodness, the cord from hubby installing the pellet stove was still there.  I ran the extension cord across the room to the nearest functioning outlet.

Now to start the fire.

Wait.  No one cleaned the pellet stove out the last time it was run.  I can clean the silly thing.  20 minutes later, the pellet stove is relatively free of ashes and the glass is mostly clean.

Now to start the fire.

Crumple the paper, add the pellets into the basket.  Lamp oil.  Where is the lamp oil?  We kept it on the shelf above where the pellet stove used to be.  Now there is an entertainment center there.  The shelf is behind the entertainment center.  But look, there's the lamp oil!  I am short and cannot reach it.  I get my kitchen step ladder and set it up in front of the entertainment shrine.  Reaching as far as I can without toppling the TV I can barely reach the lamp oil.  There is just enough left in the bottle to start the fire maybe two or three times.  Mental note, add lamp oil to shopping list.  Put lamp oil on pellets and paper.

Now to start the fire.

Where is the lighter?  Where is ANY lighter?  Matches?  Come on, there must be some source of flame here.  I wander around the house looking all the likely places that a lighter would be placed.  Then all of the unlikely places there might just be a lighter or matches.  Finally, I find hubby's little hand held blow torch that lights itself.  That will work!

Now to start the fire.

Everything is set up.  Fire is lit.  I am no longer cold or in need of a fire because of all the activity has warmed me nicely.

That's okay though.  I forgot to turn on the auger.  So, in the time it took me to write this post, the fire went out.

Lasagna

This is not a quick dinner.  It has a lot of prep work, but it is oh so worth it!  I wrote this recipe in a different format.  I wrote down everything as I did it.  If you gather all of your ingredients, you should be able to work your way through the recipe and end with fantastic lasagna!

Ingredients:

2 cups spinach
2 cups ricotta cheese
2 eggs
2 cups broccoli
1 small zucchini
¼ pound sliced mushrooms
1 15oz can tomato sauce
2 pounds ground beef
½ onion
3 cloves garlic
1 pound mozzarella
½ pound Romano
½ pound parmesan (plus more for topping)
6 lasagna noodles

In separate bowl mix…

2 cups fresh spinach chopped
2 cups ricotta cheese (the smaller container is just under this amount, I use that)
2 eggs

Prep the Vegetables…

2 cups chopped broccoli
1 small zucchini sliced thinly (I found that my cheese slicer actually worked really well for getting the thin slices lengthwise of the zuchini)
1/4 pound sliced mushrooms
1 can tomato sauce (15 oz)

Make the Sauce…

2 pounds ground beef
½ onion chopped
3 cloves garlic chopped
1 jar of your favorite marinara sauce

Brown the ground beef, onion, and garlic together in a deep frying pan.  Mix in the sauce and remove from the heat.

Cheeses all shredded…

1 pound mozzarella
½ pound Romano
½ pound parmesan (plus more for topping)

Cook 6 lasagna noodles for 12 minutes.  Remove from water to cookie cooling rack.  Lay them out flat in a single layer.  If they are stacked, they will stick to eachother.

Assemble…

In a 10.5in x 11.75in x 2in baking pan pour just enough tomato sauce to cover the bottom.  Add remaining tomato sauce into the meat sauce.

Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. 

Lay in 3 noodles spread evenly in pan.
Lay in a layer of mushrooms
Lay in the spinach and ricotta cheese mixture
Lay in a layer of zucchini slices
Lay in a layer of meat sauce
Cover in Romano cheese
Lay in 3 noodles spread evenly in pan
Lay in a layer of chopped broccoli
Lay in a layer of remaining meat sauce
Lay in a layer of remaining mozzarella cheese
Layer with parmesan cheese

Bake at 425* for approximately an hour, or until bubbly and lightly browned on top.  Let cool for a few minutes before cutting and serving.  Top with extra parmesan cheese.