Drizzly Day Dinner

Quick Chicken Soup

The temperatures here have been cooler and today it rained. Gray skies and soup seem to go together. Sounded like a supper plan to me.

Our cows in the pasture.

I pulled a quart of chicken stew from the freezer. Our church sells it a few times a year to raise money for missions. I love having it in the freezer, ready to thaw. This was our last quart. It will be a few weeks before they make more. Kind of hated to use that last quart yet.

Then I remembered a chicken soup recipe from years and years ago.  It came from my secretary (Judy, if you are reading this, thank you for the recipe!) and I made it a good many times back then. But like many good recipes, it was set aside as I tried new recipes and then it was almost forgotten. I put the church stew back in the freezer and decided to try this soup recipe again. 

The soup recipe was in "the book." All the recipes in it are good ones. My mother gave me a blank book one year for Christmas. The red plaid cover looked Christmasy, I guess. I started keeping my favorite recipes here, along with notes about where I found the recipe or who gave it to me. I also included menus and listed guests that I had entertained. And thanks to my very first secretary, I dated everything. Soon after I started my first job as a home economist, Vennie told me to always put a date on everything I did. She told me, "It won't seem important now, but later you'll be glad you did." That's been good advice over the years.

My red plaid book is falling apart now. But, oh what memories are in there. For many years I told my daughters that if the house caught on fire, someone needed to grab the red plaid book on the way out. I still think it would be high on my list of things to rescue.

So how did the quick chicken soup compare to the church's chicken stew? It was almost as good. (Okay, Mommy--this is close to the church recipe. Now you can have chicken stew way out where you live! But you'll need to double the recipe for your household.) I'm glad I remembered this recipe. The original has been tweaked a little to suit me now—less salt, less butter.

QUICK CHICKEN SOUP (or STEW, if you wish)

2-1/2 cups Swanson's low-sodium chicken broth

3 medium potatoes, peeled & diced

3 medium onions, peeled & diced

2 (4.5-oz) cans Swanson's chicken, drained 

1 (8-oz) can whole kernel corn  (I used 1/2 or so of cup frozen corn)

2-3 tablespoons butter

milk

salt & pepper to taste

Put broth, potatoes, and onions in a pan and cook 20 minutes, or until vegetables are done. Mash with potato masher. Add chicken, corn and butter and cook uncovered, until thickened. (I cooked it about 15 minutes more, stirring occasionally.) Add salt, pepper and milk until desired consistency is reached. (We like ours thick, like stew.) Heat to boiling and remove from heat immediately.

If you refrigerate and reheat later (like I did last night), be careful not to scorch it as you reheat. Keep a watch on it and stir. 

Recipe Notes:

Yes, it is "quick" compared to starting the soup with raw chicken. It really is quick to put together and then it can pretty much simmer unattended while you do other things in the kitchen. I still wouldn't wander far away.

The original recipe called for 1 can Campbell's condensed chicken broth, plus 1 can of water. It also used 1/2 stick butter. I just couldn't do it.

If the thought of canned chicken bothers you, you could use a cup of cooked, diced chicken. I usually have some in my freezer, so it would still qualify as a quick recipe. But you might be surprised that the canned chicken is good in this recipe. It's awfully easy to take a couple of cans off the shelf and just add it to the soup.

When you add the milk, do it a little at a time. You can't "un-add" the milk. We like ours thick, more like a stew. But add more milk if you want it soup-like.

We like ours with saltine crackers and sweet pickles on the side. 

BBQ Chicken

BBQ Chicken

We were in need of a quick easy supper one night last week. I found a recipe online and all the ingredients were in my pantry. The original recipe was a slow cooker recipe for pulled chicken. I'll try that soon, but I had chicken legs in the refrigerator. We like chicken legs and they are always such a bargain compared to the other packages of chicken.

I have no problem with straight-out-of-the-bottle barbecue sauce. But this bumped it up a notch. It was a nice change from using just plain bottled sauce and almost as easy. And there are days when an oven meal is what I need. You could put potatoes in the oven to bake along side the chicken and your dinner would all be done at once. Why didn't I think of that last week?

BBQ CHICKEN

5 or 6 chicken legs (remember I'm only cooking for the two of us)
1/2 cup bottled barbecue sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's)
2 tablespoons Zesty Italian salad dressing
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking pan with foil for easy clean up. Place chicken legs in pan.
Mix barbecue sauce and remaining ingredients. Spoon over chicken. Bake for 1 hour, or until done.

Looked out the kitchen window last week and saw this bright color. I know they are weeds by some people's definition. But I can hardly call anything this beautiful as "weed." The morning glories have taken over the hydrangea at the moment. That's just fine with me.

Goodbye,September

The lake after Labor Day is totally different from the lake during summer. Only a few boats are on the water. Mostly fishermen. The air this weekend definitely held the promise of fall. (Yes, the calendar says fall has arrived, but it takes longer for it to make it to us here in the South.) Instead of carrying an icy drink down with me, I took a mug of hot tea to the pier. And my knitting. How pleasant to sit in the sun on a cooler day and knit as the sun went down.

The most traffic we saw on the lake this weekend were the geese that paddled by, honking for all they were worth. They are loud birds. 

Pattern: Honey Cowl

Yarn: Madelinetosh DK   Colorway: Smokestack

Needles: size 8

This knitting is done now. Finished it soon after we got home. It's for Big Sister. (She's 14 tomorrow!) A cowl she wished for. I'm not sure I'd want to spend this much time knitting and HOPE she would like it. When they're 14, you'd best ask. Fingers crossed I'll get a photo of her wearing it soon.

See? Our trees are still green. We will enjoy the last of these almost-summer days. Fall will find us soon enough.

Mimi's Meat Loaf

Meat Loaf

I have been making this meatloaf for over 30 years. When we first got married, Daddy-O said he didn't like meat loaf. But I made it anyway. (He's good to eat nearly anything I make whether he loves it or not.) He was surprised to find that he did like this meatloaf, which was not like the kind he had grown up with. Lucky me, because I love meat loaf.

I made it one night last spring when I was on my long stay at Mommy's house. Little Sister was very explicit in telling everyone, "I like Mimi's meatloaf. I don't like Daddy's meatloaf." She said this over and over and over. And over.

Her poor Daddy—he was not the one who made the meat loaf.  But she saw him take it out of the oven and put it on her plate. She held him responsible for the mushy meat loaf her mommy had made. He kept trying to explain to her that he didn't make it. But, it is very hard to reason with a three-year-old!

We finally figured out why Mommy's meat loaf kept falling apart. She used my recipe exactly. But she was putting it in a loaf pan to bake and all the juices and liquid were trapped in the loaf, making it fall apart. I make mine in a LOAF SHAPE, and then put it in a baking pan, about 7x11-inches. Any excess liquid can cook out of the meat and into the pan. Works like a charm.

The other reason I like this recipe is that I get two dinners for one mixing. It makes one loaf to bake and one loaf to freeze. And the frozen loaf comes straight out of the freezer and goes into the oven frozen–—no need to thaw before you bake it. Many time I can't plan far enough ahead to thaw overnight.

MEAT LOAF

2 lb. extra lean ground beef

1 envelope Lipton's onion soup mix

1 cup fresh bread crumbs (or 3/4 cup dry crumbs)

2 eggs

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup ketchup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix ingredients well. (I use my hands.) Shape into two loaves. Place one loaf in a baking dish (not a loaf pan) and bake uncovered for 1 hour, or until done. Let rest 15 minutes before slicing.

Wrap second loaf in heavy-duty foil, sealing carefully and freeze. Label & date.

To bake frozen loaf:  Unwrap and bake, uncovered at 450 degrees for 45 minutes. Lower oven temp to 350 degrees and bake for 15 minutes more.

Sometimes I add a topping of 1/3 cup ketchup, 1 teaspoon brown sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of dry mustard mixed well. (Actually, I don't measure this, but it gives you the idea.) Spread it over the meat loaf for the last 10 minutes of baking time.


I just read another blog—GoodnightGram's Blog—who just wrote about a community meat loaf supper. I don't know where GoodnightGram lives, but must not be near us. Community or church dinners or fund raiser meals here are most likely barbecue. Maybe we should try something different!

It's Been A Long, Long Time

We just spent the most wonderful weekend in the North Carolina mountains.

The weather was perfect. The food was delicious.

While we were out visiting some nearby sites, we happened up on a friend

playing a set at the Heritage Weekend at the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We also stopped by a favorite music store in Black Mountain

and this new uke followed me back home. 

We found another must-stop location as we wound our way down the mountain.

We bought apples, of course. And then spent quite a bit of time trying to 

figure out how they got the John Deere on top of the silo.

And why were we away?

Today is our 35th wedding anniversary.

I love you, Daddy-O.

The Button Jar

Sometimes a bargain really is a bargain. Almost 30 years ago, I bought a big bag of buttons for five dollars at a nearby outlet store. (The jar was a rescued Christmas cookie jar.) I sewed a lot back then and figured I could use at least some of these buttons. Little did I know how much we would use these buttons. Just not always like I was thinking. Every now and then I would find a few buttons for dresses that I was making for our little girls. 

But the button jar became more than "sewing supplies." Our girls learned to pour by scooping up buttons in a cup and pouring them into pans. They stirred and stirred on the days they made button soup. When her big sister went to school, little Jessica sat at the kitchen table and learned to count by putting buttons into paper cups with numbers I wrote on the side—one, two, three, four.... And she learned to sort and began to make patterns by lining them up. And still I would take out a few buttons for a shirt I was working on.

When Big Sister (granddaughter #1) started spending the weekend here as a preschooler, she found the button jar. At one point there were some giant buttons in the jar. She often made cakes by filling miniature loaf pans with pecans we picked up in the back yard. And then she put the biggest buttons on top of her "'cakes" to decorate them. Later, she opened a pie shop in our den (complete with menu signs and price lists) and became a seller of button pies. And still I would pull out buttons for a costume I was sewing.

This summer Little Sister (granddaughter #2) would pick up the jar and say, "Heavy" as she moved it to her play area for a little button cooking. And still I found buttons for a sweater I knitted for Baby Girl (granddaughter #3.) 

Pattern : Cradle Cardigan

Yarn:  Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino (color-Tender)

Needles:  Size 5 

Pattern:  Baby Hat with Top Knot—Tegan

Yarn:  Debbie Bliss Cashemerino

Needles:  Sizes 3 & 6

This sweet little set is already boxed and ready to ship tomorrow to Baby Girl. She has grown so much since we saw her, that I'm hoping this is the right size. 

Baby Girl is too little to know that she's already benefited from the button jar. I couldn't believe that I found the perfect buttons to match this unusual shade of pink. One more time, the perfect buttons were in the button jar. I'm pretty sure there are enough buttons left for another thirty years. Might be the best five dollars I've ever spent.

Life Is Good

Bourbon Marinated Pork Tenderloin

As I was driving early this morning to a ukulele gig, a wild turkey and a black crow were walking down the highway, side by side. Kind of looked like they were buddies, out for a stroll. As I got up to the birds, they stepped aside and let me pass. I looked in the rearview mirror as I drove on, and sure enough, they were continuing their walk. For real.

Where else could I live and see sights like that? I love rural life. Now, on to the recipe.

After the ukulele band played, I headed home, knowing that supper would be easy tonight because I had put pork tenderloins in to marinate first thing this morning. If we had to pick one single recipe that was the only one I could share, I think this would be it. It is our son-in-law's favorite thing that I make.

 

Daddy-O handles the grilling chores here. He's good at it. And yes, he really uses a meat thermometer. It's the surest way to cook to the proper temperature.

I've posted this recipe on the blog a few years back, but I'm happy to post it again. It's just a really good, surefire recipe that's often a celebration meal for us. But tonight we just celebrated getting supper on the table. 

BOURBON MARINATED PORK TENDERLOIN

2-1/2 lb. pork tenderloins (usually one package contains 2 tenderloins and is about this weight)

3/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1/2 cup bourbon*
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
4 garlic cloves, minced (I use 2 teaspoons of jarred minced garlic)
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Rinse tenderloins and pat dry.

Combine soy sauce and remaining ingredients in a gallon ziploc plastic freezer bag or shallow dish. Add tenderloins. Seal bag or cover dish and chill 4-12 hours. Turn once or twice while they marinate. Remove pork from marinade, discarding marinade.

Grill, covered with grill lid, over high heat (400 to 500 degrees) for 30 minutes or until meat thermometer inserted into thickest part of meat reads 155 degrees, turning occasionally. Remove from heat; cover with aluminum foil and let stand 10 minutes or until thermometer reads 160 degrees.

If you don't have a grill, or if it's raining, it's also good cooked in the oven.
Put tenderloins in an oven that has been preheated to 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes, until thermometer reaches 160 degrees. Let rest before serving.

Tonight I served this with baked sweet potatoes and fried apples. I know there probably should have been something green on the plate, but this suited us just fine. I put one tenderloin in the freezer. (Wrap it properly.) I've done that many times. It's just as good later.

 *Someone gave us a bottle of black cherry bourbon as a gift. It is a really sweet bourbon. (So I'm told. I don't drink any kind.) We discovered that we can use this sweet bourbon and leave out the brown sugar. It tastes just like the usual way we make it. I've also eliminated the salt from the recipe. No one has noticed.