#GreatHallowTweet: Slime Soup

Oh, my lovelies ... it's that time of year again when everything gets a little more eerie around here.  The recipes are influenced by the season and I start sticking plastic spiders into my soup.

Oh yes - this is the second year of the #GreatHallowTweet.  This year, 18 cooks (including yours truly) are participating in this blog hop that features a week's worth of Halloween-themed recipes.  Hugs to my friend Renee for continuing the tradition.  You may also visit the other lovely hosts by clicking on the "GreatHallowTweet" sidebar.

Without further ado, here's my first offering for this year's GHT.  Nigella Lawson's Slime Soup.  Oh yes, the domestic goddess herself must like Halloween, because this was featured on a show of hers called "Fun Food."

This tastes just like you'd expect pureed peas to taste like.  The spiders are crawling in for a closer look.

Slime Soup
by Nigella Lawson

4 cups frozen peas
1 green onion
3 cups boiling water
Chicken or vegetable stock concentrate or a stock cube
1 ball mozzarella, diced (approximately 10 ounces)

Cook the frozen peas and scallion in the boiling water with the stock concentrate, to taste, or stock cube until tender and cooked through. Drain and discard the scallion, and put the peas into a blender.*

Add the diced mozzarella to the peas in the blender. Liquidize the soup until smooth.

*When blending hot liquids: Remove liquid from the heat and allow to cool for at least 5 minutes. Transfer liquid to a blender or food processor and fill it no more than halfway. If using a blender, release one corner of the lid. This prevents the vacuum effect that creates heat explosions. Place a towel over the top of the machine, pulse a few times then process on high speed until smooth.


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

My thoughts on this?  Well, first off - the picture above does not do justice on how ... green ... this soup is.  I think I finally figured out what they must have used as the base for the slime they used to sling on "You Can't Do That on Television."  Secondly, you don't realize how much a whole bag of frozen peas makes until you're faced with a blender full of this soup.  If I was making this again (which I probably wouldn't, unless I wanted to seek some sort of revenge on my nephews or my future children), I would probably halve this recipe.

Finally - this tastes precisely what you would think some pureed peas would taste like.  So yes - it's a cute novelty, but likely not a dish to make a repeat appearance in my kitchen.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

After two years of lovingly writing this bad boy, I've decided to give ShelleyBakes a facelift to look a little bit more modern and streamlined.

One of the biggest changes (other than the general look) is that I've cleaned up the "labels" tab.  My old labeling convention had gotten out of hand, so I am trying to emulate the subchapters that you'd find in a cookbook.  I've also added an "About Me" page that sounded so much cooler when I was formulating intelligent things to say when I was running errands this afternoon.

ShelleyBakes (or "SB" as I affectionately call it) isn't exactly what I planned it to be - which was "Simple Recipes for Lazy People."  But we've grown together since this venture first started in October 2008.  Stay awhile, feel free to comment ... be inspired.  Or run for the hills when you check out my photography - there's a lot of love here.  And a lot of bad photography.

Peanut Bars

My brother- and sister-in-law (along with my nephew-pup Toby) recently moved cross country to Virginia.  And while my sister-in-law took only a few kitchen necessities with her (they arrived ahead of the rest of their worldly goods), she was still able to whip this dish together, which she says is reminiscent of eating a Payday Bar.

You'll have to excuse me, I'm currently drooling ... 

Peanut Bars

1. Bottom Layer:
Butter a 9x13 pan.  Pour in 1/2 of a 16 oz. jar of dry roasted peanuts (Note from my SIL: On a subsequent try you may be tempted to add more peanuts. I only recommend adding to the bottom. More on top do not stick as well :))

2. Middle Layer:
Melt 2-1/2 T butter with 10-12 oz peanut butter chips.  Remove from heat.  Add 1 can sweetened condensed milk and 3 cups mini marshmallows.  Stir to mix, pour into nut lined pan.

3. Top Layer: Add remaining nuts and press into mix.

Rosemary White Bean Soup

Ryan and I had a rare weekend at home recently and after cleaning up my kitchen, I proceeded to trash it by baking scones, cupcakes and this soup from Ina Garten.

The bread is from Daube's Bakery in Rochester, Minnesota.  This is their Onion Vienna bread.  To die for ... 

Just a note ... this soup is one that takes a little bit of advanced planning to let the beans soak long enough.  I started soaking the beans on Sunday morning so we could have this soup for dinner.  Another option would be to soak them overnight.


Rosemary White Bean Soup
from "The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook"

Ingredients

    * 1 pound dried white cannellini beans
    * 4 cups sliced yellow onions (3 onions)
    * 1/4 cup good olive oil
    * 2 garlic cloves, minced
    * 1 large branch fresh rosemary (6 to 7 inches)
    * 2 quarts chicken stock
    * 1 bay leaf
    * 2 teaspoons kosher salt
    * 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

In a medium bowl, cover the beans with water by at least 1-inch and leave them in the refrigerator for 6 hours or overnight. Drain.

In a large stockpot over low to medium heat, saute the onions with the olive oil until the onions are translucent, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the garlic and cook over low heat for 3 more minutes. Add the drained white beans, rosemary, chicken stock, and bay leaf. Cover, bring to a boil, and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, until the beans are very soft. Remove the rosemary branch and the bay leaf. Pass the soup through the coarsest blade of a food mill, or place in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until coarsely pureed. Return the soup to the pot to reheat and add salt and pepper, to taste. Serve hot.

You must have been a beautiful baby ... (Yellow Cake & Fudge Frosting)

My beloved turned 33 a couple weeks ago.  And he asked if I would make cupcakes for his regular Dungeons & Dragons group that meets on Wednesdays.  Specifically, if I would make yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  It gave me the perfect excuse to make Smitten Kitchen's Best Birthday Cake and her Instant Fudge Frosting.

At one point, this cupcake said "33" - that's before I took a bite out of it.

A couple of notes ... first off, the cake?  Wow.  This was some of the fluffiest batter that I've ever seen in my life.  So much so that I do not see myself going back to box cakes (and as you all know - I don't have kids, so these words might be foolish and rash.)  I ended up making 18 cupcakes and had enough batter leftover to make a round pan.  (I get lazy after a bit with cupcakes - and I only have one cupcake pan.)

The frosting?  Meh ... not so much.  But here's a disclaimer - I'm not a big frosting fan, so no one should be surprised that I preferred my cake without frosting.  Because I'm contrary like that.

So are you ready for some eye candy?  Here's a picture of my lovah now ...

Yup ... he's a cutie

And here's proof that at least one of us has the genetics to make adorable babies ...

18 months old.  And on a hideous couch.

Love you honey!  I am thankful every day that I got to marry my best friend ...

A warm weekend in October. With some (HCT) Mummies

Again - no words are needed.  But links to websites are probably helpful - especially if you wonder why my husband and I would drive 300 miles to see a bunch of musicians who dress up like mummies.

On Oct. 9, Ryan and I drove to Rock Island, Illinois (via North English, Iowa to see his grandma) to see Here Come the Mummies. (Their official site is offline currently, but when it's back up it will be here.)  And if you wonder why they dress like mummies, see here.

This is Java and if you have to know what he's doing, he's playing a Cow Belt.  Yup - a Cow Belt.

 

The venue was the Rock Island Brewing Co.  We got there early for dinner and refreshments - the RIBCO is one of their "signature" burgers and featured onion rings, bacon and your choice of cheese on top of a 1/2 pound burger.  Um ... yeah.  It was one of the best burgers I've ever had.  Ryan had "The Warmth" which was a marinated chicken breast with jalapenos on top.  It was so hot I would have thought that it came directly from the fires of hell.  It even made Ryan break his two beer rule because he needed something to quench what should have been called "The Blaze."

The food, the beer and the ambiance were worth the drive (we ended up logging over 540 miles that weekend to swing up to Decorah, Iowa to catch the dregs for our 10-year class reunion - sorry classmates!  You were trumped by mummies.), but the concert was indescribable.  Thank you, Rock Island, for a wonderful night.

Apple Cheddar Scones (and some fall scenery pics)

Sometimes, I don't need words.

 

The pictures above were taken at the Sekapp Orchard in Rochester, Minnesota. What the pictures don't show you are the multitude of parents and their adorable children who were out that Saturday morning picking out the perfect pumpkin to carve.

And since I'm now obsessed with all things apple and because I wanted to make something delicious for Sunday morning snacking (this was after staying up until 2 a.m. getting anihilated by my husband's mad Dr. Mario skills.  You'd think that after winning only one of six games that I'd give up, but no ... I'm plotting next weekend's revenge.), I made these Apple Cheddar Scones that were created by Dorie Greenspan and featured in her book "Baking: From My Home to Yours."

The picture is a little bit of false advertising because they actually use dried apples instead of fresh, but that only makes this recipe perfect for year round.

Just a couple of warnings ... this is one hella-messy recipe, but is well worth it.  Also, when I originally made these, I wasn't sure how much they would spread in the pan (they do, so separate them a bit) and I'd also use some parchment paper on the baking sheet.