Something Warm and Toasty—Easy Veggie Soup…in the Slow Cooker

It doesn’t take a whole lot for me to get in the mood for soup.

And when we suddenly experienced a 20 degree temperature difference in just a couple of days time (from the mid-90s to the mid-70s), I decided it was time to bring out soup ingredients!

Lest you think I’m a cold-weather wimp, it is going down into the 40s at night. We think that’s pretty chilly for October here.

But I’m still experiencing the fall-time-crunch. So I brought out my handy-dandy Crockpot so I could cook my soup slowly and really get the flavors mixing—and have the soup ready at the end of the day when it was time to feed hungry kids.

This recipe is a no-brainer. In fact…there really isn’t a recipe at all for me. I just put things in the pot until I’ve got the consistency where I want it. And the ingredients change, too—they’re just whatever I have on hand at the time.

The one special ingredient that this recipe has that I think helps out a lot with the taste is vegetable juice as the base. I use a low-sodium V-8 juice because, if you use canned vegetables at all then you’ll definitely get enough sodium. And the V-8 juice gives a nice spicy taste to the soup without the need to add spices.

This recipe makes a lot. I usually freeze about half of it. So you’ll want to adjust it down if you’d rather not freeze any.

Easy Veggie Soup

1 bottle vegetable juice (I used the 46-oz. size. It makes a lot.)
1 cup lima beans
1 small onion
3/4 can of beef broth
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup cubed, peeled potatoes
1 1/2 cups corn
2 peeled and sliced carrots
1 package frozen soup vegetables/mixed veggies
1/4 cup red wine

Put all the ingredients in the slow cooker and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

And enjoy the warmth! :)

Riley/Elizabeth
Delicious and Suspicious (July 6 2010) Riley Adams
Finger Licking Dead (June 2011)… Riley Adams
Pretty is as Pretty Dies –Elizabeth Spann Craig

Road trips rock!

The Fatal Four Tour of Texas was a blast! We loved Round Rock, Houston, San Antonio and Fort Worth and all the places we stopped in between. Pictured above at our signing in Houston are: Maggie Sefton, Me, Wendy Lyn Watson and Hannah Reed (aka Deb Baker). We ate kolaches at the Czech Stop, rocked out to the Stones and met a slew of wonderful fans and booksellers. The picture below is us on our way to yet another signing.



One of the best parts for me was
getting the chance to catch up to
author friends who I don't get to
see on a regular basis. This is me
with Lori Wilde, who was kind
enough to come see us!

I learned so much and shared so many laughs with my writer friends and the delightful readers that I met that I know this trip to Texas will be one that I remember forever.

Thanks, y'all!

Next week I'll be posting a new cupcake recipe! Yay! Sadly, AZ has been hit with thunderstorms today and my power has been sporadic at best, giving me just a few minutes to blog. Eeep, now we're getting hail!

Gotta go!

NEW RELEASE!

I'm thrilled to announce the debut of my new series, the Museum Mysteries.

In Fundraising the Dead, Eleanor "Nell" Pratt, an administrator at a Philadelphia museum, enjoys her job, but it keeps getting complicated when she stumbles over crimes. Who knew the city's cultural community could be so deadly?

Publishers Weekly wrote: Old families, old papers, and the old demons of sex and money shape Connolly's cozy series launch, which will appeal to fans of her Orchard and (as Sarah Atwell) Glassblowing mysteries. ...the archival milieu and the foibles of the characters are intriguing, and it's refreshing to encounter an FBI man who is human, competent, and essential to the plot.

I hope you'll enjoy reading about Nell Pratt as much as I enjoy writing about her. And have fun trying to figure out which parts of the story are real (and appear in my FBI file...)

Available at both major and independent bookstores and on Amazon.

Thanks for taking a look!

Sheila Connolly

PHILADELPHIA FOOD

by Sheila Connolly

Drum roll, please: Today marks the debut of my new Museum Mystery series, which opens with Fundraising the Dead. The series will take you behind the scenes in some interesting Philadelphia museums (and you’ll probably learn more than you want to know about what really goes on there). I’ll bet you never realized that fundraisers make great sleuths—they know everybody, and nobody notices them. Did I mention I used to be a fundraiser? We had files on everybody who was anybody. Anyway, in honor of Nell Pratt’s first public appearance, I’m going to talk about Philadelphia food.

What’s the first thing you think about when you hear “Philadelphia” and “food” in the same sentence? If you know Philadelphia at all, the Reading Terminal market has been providing wonderful fresh meats, fish and vegetables for a century or so. But you won’t get to explore that until the next book!

This time around I'll just give you the basics:

Cheese Steaks: If you haven’t been living in a cave most of your life, you know what these are: a long roll sliced in half, with a layer of shredded beef cooked on a grill (the flat kind, not the barbecue kind), with a thick layer of gooey orange cheese on top. Onions optional. Okay, there are variations, but this is the essential sandwich.

There are two major competitors who claim to be the best and/or most authentic cheese steak vendors in Philadelphia (and probably the world), Pat’s and Geno’s. If you’re in Philadelphia and you want to compare, it’s easy, because they’re across the street from each other, at the intersection of Ninth Street and Passyunk Avenue in South Philadelphia.

Scrapple: This local product has always mystified me. Wikipedia defines this as “a mush of scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal, flour and spices. The mush is formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf, and slices of the scrapple are then pan-fried before serving. Scraps of meat left over from butchering, not used or sold elsewhere, were made into scrapple to avoid waste.” Doesn’t that sound yummy? Once on sleep-over when I was in elementary school, a friend’s mother served it to me without identifying it, and I politely ate it. When I went home and told my mother, her horrified response was, “you ate WHAT?” Needless to say, it wasn’t on our menu at home. Maybe it’s an acquired taste, like Irish black sausage.

Soft pretzels: I really don’t understand these. They’re most often sold by street vendors, sprinkled with coarse salt and squirted with yellow mustard. If you read the Philadelphia papers, you see a lot of health code violations slapped on these vendors. You do NOT want to know what they find in those pretzels.

Hoagies: Now the story gets interesting. Most regions have some variation of this sandwich heaped with meat, cheese, and any number of other items. They call them grinders, subs, and a lot of other things. But the Philadelphia legend holds that the “hoagie” originated with Hog Island, an area on the southwest side of Philadelphia, near where the Delaware River and the Schuylkill River meet (if you’ve ever been to the Philadelphia Airport, that’s the place, thanks to a lot of landfill.) It was home to a major shipyard during WWI and WW2, and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania claims that the Italians working on Hog Island created the sandwich.

Philadelphians are very committed to “their” version of the sandwich: You take an Italian roll, sprinkle it with oil (not mayo!), add shredded lettuce, onions, sandwich meats and sliced tomato, then sprinkle with herbs and salt and pepper. Most also include cheese, usually provolone. No pickles!

These are the biggies. There are other food products associated with Philadelphia: Campbell’s Soup (well, it’s across the river in Camden, NJ); TastyKake, founded in 1914 and still going strong; the Fleer Corporation, which was the first company to successfully manufacture bubble gum (I grew up chewing its Dubble-Bubble, invented in 1928), which sadly went bankrupt after selling off a lot of its products. As for Dubble-Bubble, it went to Tootsie Roll, and they changed the recipe. It’s just not the same.

Aren’t you glad that Nell Pratt likes to eat (but she doesn't really care about cooking, so no recipes)? I plan to send her to a lot of restaurants, where she can hang out with her colleagues to try to solve a few Philadelphia crimes.

Veal Delicious

For years, one of my favorite comfort foods was pasta with cheese. That was it. Pasta, cheese, melt-in-my-mouth, let me die a happy woman.

And then I found out I needed to eat gluten-free, and

I thought, oh, no, what will I do? No more pasta. No more comfort.

Oh, poor me.

Well, for pity sake, that's not the case. I have found some fabulous gluten-free pastas over the last ten years that taste great. And with cheese and other goodies on top, you can't tell the difference. Really! {I've fooled many a guest.}

Recently, I discovered another yummy food. A cheese that I'd never tasted.

Havarti.

I have to admit, the name had always put me off. I thought of sour cheeses that I'd had in Greek food and my mouth puckered. I don't know what it was that I'd tasted way back when (maybe Haloume, sort of a ricotta-style cheese that is actually deliciously tart!), but I risked having Havarti cheese (big risk), and am I ever happy I did.

First rumor dispelled -- it's not from Greece. It's from Denmark.

Second -- oh, yum! It has a buttery texture and aroma, and it can be sliced, grilled, or melted. Perfect for cooking.

I made a Veal Parmesan substituting Havarti for half of the Parmesan and, wow, if I do say so myself. This is a meal that even my celiac friends can enjoy.

VEAL PARMESAN & HAVARTI

Ingredients:

1 pound veal cutlets

1 egg

¾ cup crushed rice chex cereal

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground pepper

1 teaspoon crushed garlic

2 tablespoons oil

½ lemon, squeezed juice

¼ cup chicken broth (gluten-free)

2 mushrooms, sliced

2 cups cooked spaghetti (gluten-free)

1 ½ cups mixed cheese, half Parmesan and half Havarti

1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes

Directions:

Cook the spaghetti according to the package. While the water comes to a boil, do the following:

Meanwhile, whip egg in a pie tin. Drench the veal cutlets in the egg.

Crush the rice chex cereal. Add salt and pepper, and set in another pie tin. Dredge the veal cutlets in the rice cereal.

Heat the garlic in the oil on medium high. When the garlic is brown, set the veal into the oil and turn the heat down to medium. While the veal browns, squeeze in the lemon juice. Cook two minutes. Turn the veal, cook two more minutes and add the chicken broth. Cover and cook ten more minutes on medium low.

Now add the sliced mushrooms and cook two more minutes. When that is done, remove the veal cutlets from the pan and set into a broiler pan.

Mound the grated cheese on each of the slices. Set the pan under the broiler and broil four minutes.

To serve: set drained spaghetti onto a plate. Set one to two cutlets on each portion of spaghetti. Decorate with mushrooms and cereal “roux” from the saute pan. Sprinkle with parlsey flakes.

* * *

If you'd like to know more about The Long Quiche Goodbye and want to download a few other recipes from me (on recipe cards), click on this link to my website: Avery Aames. I've posted recipes in the "morsels" section. There's lots of other fun stuff, as well. And sign up for the fan club to get in on the next contest...coming soon. October's newsletter just came out! You'll find it at this link: NEWSLETTER

What's Your Favorite Cookbook?

Over the years, I have noticed that I reach for the same worn cookbooks when I’m looking for a recipe. It’s not that I don’t have new cookbooks, but sometimes the prettiest, shiniest, most trendy cookbooks don’t fit the bill. Don’t get me wrong, some of them rapidly make it into my tried and trusty category. Which is actually my point. Some cookbooks just seem to have recipes that taste right to me, and others -- not so much. Fortunately, we all have different taste, and I’ve wondered sometimes if I prefer certain cookbooks because the author likes the same flavors and foods as me.



Flashy doesn’t count here. A friend gave me CHEZ PANISSE DESSERTS, a cookbook that’s about as plain vanilla as a cookbook can be. It has a soft cover and NO PICTURES! In our visually oriented society, that’s hard to imagine. The recipes, however, are worthy of a five star restaurant. Not surprising perhaps, since the author, Lindsey Shere, was the pastry chef at Chez Panisse. The recipes are extremely clear and well written and make it easy to navigate through a complicated dish. CHEZ PANISSE DESSERTS contains my favorite recipe for Dobos Torte, sometimes called Dobosh Torte. Of Hungarian origin, this is the cake you want to serve to a snooty domestic diva mother-in-law. Formal and regal, it’s a once-a-year knockout indulgence. Fabulous. Seven thin layers of cake with chocolate hazelnut buttercream in between, and a thin glossy burnt sugar top. There is nothing more elegant, and Lindsey Shere’s recipe is classic.



I am not, however, a recipe snob, as evidenced by the very worn cover of my copy of the original JOY OF COOKING. The book is so thorough that I use it as a reference. Anyone who is a newcomer to cooking will find it invaluable. I think it makes a really nice bridal shower gift for a young couple because it’s so comprehensive.




One of the newer cookbooks in my kitchen is the Better Homes and Gardens OUR BEST RECIPES. It has a fun feature showing how some recipes have changed over the years. Our mothers’ version of classic dishes has lightened up quite a bit. Do you write in your cookbooks? I do. I make notes after I prepare the dish, like -- substituted dark corn syrup for molasses. I note who liked recipes and who didn’t. It’s fun later on to see that I made the Walnut Mocha Torte for New Year’s in 2007, who was there, and who liked it. Of course, some recipes get the dreaded “don’t bother” or “yecch” note, but those are few and far between in the cookbooks I’m mentioning today!



Possibly my favorite cookbook is Susan G. Purdy’s HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT, TOO. Another picture-less cookbook (note to editors -- use pictures, you’ll sell more cookbooks!), it hits the spot every single time. Susan Purdy and I must have exactly the same taste palate, because these recipes are always just right. Happily, she has reduced the fat and calories in all her desserts and explains how she did it -- but you’ll never notice. This woman is a baking wizard of the highest order, and I would buy any other cookbooks she puts out without giving it a second thought. In fact, I would be first in line!

So, what’s your favorite cookbook?

Rainy Day Split Pea Soup

After all my complaining about hot and humid weather, Mother Nature flipped a switch and shot us straight into temperatures cold enough to turn on the furnace and want to snuggle by the fireplace.


Is it just me or does anyone else hear evil cackling?


Consequently, I went for a bracing soup this week. Based on a recipe in The Best of Gourmet 1988, it's been a favorite of mine for a long time. I've monkeyed with it, of course, but it turns out delicious every time. The good news is that it's an easy recipe in that everything basically goes into a big pot and simmers for three hours. The bad news is that after ignoring the soup for three hours, it needs to be pureed, which is messy but worth doing because it results in a lovely velvety texture.

The original recipe called for 10 cups of water, but I prefer the denser consistency achieved by using less water. If you don't have kielbasa handy, the recipe also works with pork chops or ham. I think it's best if you have leftover pork bones to toss into it (be sure to take them out before pureeing!). It's a nice way to use the leftover bone from a ham. Kielbasa probably adds more flavor since it's already laden with spices, but I've made it many times with ham and it's always great. On one notable occasion, since I didn't have an onion, I substituted an entire bulb of garlic, chopped. It was still delicious.

One other big bonus is that this can be made ahead of time. It keeps nicely in the fridge for a couple of days. Serve by the fire with a loaf of crusty bread and a creamy cheese.

Rainy Day Split Pea Soup

2 tablespoons butter
1 onion (or, should you be avoiding vampires, 1 entire garlic bulb)
1 pound dried split peas
2 cups carrot slices (about 5 average carrots)
3/4 cup sliced celery
1 kielbasa
1 ham bone (or several pieces of leftover bone from pork)
8 to 10 cups of water
1 large bay leaf
salt (to taste -- depends on how salty the kielbasa is)

Over medium low heat, melt the butter and saute the onions until soft. Add the peas, carrots, celery, kielbasa, pork bones, water and bay leaf. Bring to a gentle boil, cover and simmer for three hours. Hint: for a thicker soup use 8 cups water, 10 cups for a thinner soup.

Puree in a blender or food processor. Hint: no matter how large your food processor or blender, do this in batches and pour them into a large container so you can stir them all together when done. Serve hot.

If you want to dress it up, toss some croutons on top. No croutons? Use mini cookie cutters to cut pieces of soft bread and toast them at 400 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. Add to soup at last minute as a garnish.

Enjoy!

Easy Chicken Parmesan Casserole from Cleo Coyle

I'm kickin' it old school today with a red-sauce favorite: Chicken Parm. This version is an easier (and healthier) one than your classic breaded and fried version. But first...

Guess what the big culinary news was in New York last week? I'll give you a hint: Four Stars.

An Italian restaurant received four stars from The New York Times. Why big news? Because The Times hasn't given an Italian restaurant four stars since the 1970s.

"Great restaurants may start out that way," wrote the Times' chief restaurant critic (Sam Sifton). "But an extraordinary restaurant generally develops only over time, the product of prolonged artistic risk and managerial attention. An extraordinary restaurant uses the threat of failure first as a spur to improvement, then as a vision of unimaginable calamity. An extraordinary restaurant can transcend the identity of its owners or chef or concept..."

Yes, the man actually used the word "extraordinary" five times in the first two paragraphs. And the restaurant that earned this honor was...Del Posto.

Never been, you say? Well, how 'bout you and I go there right now for a *virtual* dinner? Just click the arrow in the window below. (FYI - I'm ordering the 100-layer lasagna; and, for dessert, the chocolate tree, of course...)

Now you may not have eaten at Del Posto, but odds are you've heard of two of it's three owners: Lidia Bastianich (of the PBS cooking show, Lidia's Italy) and Mario Batali, yes, Molto Mario of Food Network fame (who started out in NYC as the chef-owner of a little, bitty restaurant named Po in Greenwich Village, one that I was lucky enough to experience before Mario sold it and moved on to lusher culinary pastures).

The truth is I've never been to Del Posto, and after this review...well, as they say in Italian restaurants located in other parts of NYC: fugettaboutit! (At least right away.) Manhattan's obscenely rich and obnoxiously famous will now be lined up in an endless queue that won't have room for little old me. Do I care? Not in the least. And you shouldn't, either.



A view from inside Otto.

The next time you come to NYC, as a tourist or commuter, I have a different restaurant suggestion for you: Batali's less formal but still amazing Greenwich Village restaurant Otto.

No dress code at Otto's (that's Batali's philosophy, BTW, and I do love him for it). Orgasmic Italian food (salumi to die for, artisan pizza, and homemade gelato). Inventive decor. (It's designed to look like an Italian railway station.)

The prices are quite reasonable for a night out in New York, and...it's fun. Elegance and pomp are a trip, I grant you, but you just can't beat fun.

So you see, there are always alternatives. Like the recipe I have for you today...

Now Chicken Parmesan is the kind of red-sauce dish a typical New York restaurant snob would call an Italian cliché. But I'll tell you what: People LOVE their clichés, including New Yorkers: egg creams, black-and-whites, Nathan's hot dogs...just three of the dozens I could list for you. And despite all the shiny new, California-style burger joints and up-market shake shacks sprining up all over Manhattan Island, you'd have to nuke the place before most of the population would let you take away their "slices to go."

Of course, Chicken Parmesan is delicious made the old-style way: breading and frying the cutlets, covering them in cheese and sauce and baking. But today I'll give you an alternative to consider--a healthier one because there's no frying involved and instead of all that breading there's just a light layering of crushed garlic croutons.

Many of you may have seen some version of this casserole before (it's really nothing new) but for those who have not, I hope you'll enjoy the way I make it. The tricks to getting it absolutely right (in my opinion) are three:

(1) Use chicken tenders or slice your chicken breasts into strips so that the chicken will cook through (and become so tender as it poaches in the sauce that you can cut it with a spoon).



Start with Caesar salad style
garlic croutons and roughly crush them.

 (2) Do not use breadcrumbs (too small). Instead, start with the kind of garlic croutons you would use in a Caesar salad then roughly crush them up (by putting them in a ziplock platic bag and lightly hammering them with a rolling pin or back of a large spoon).

(3) Pre-bake the chicken before adding the cheese. This gives the very best results--beautifully cooked chicken and cheese that's melted to perfection. Otherwise, you'll either have undercooked chicken or cheese that's freakin' burned.

And now...the actual recipe!

Easy Chicken
Parmesan Casserole

To get this recipe in an easy PDF form that you can print, save, or share, click here.

INGREDIENTS:

5-ounce package of garlic croutons

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic (minced)

½ teaspoon dried oregano

Salt and pepper (a light sprinking)

2 pounds chicken tenders (or breasts cut into strips)

5-6 fresh basil leaves (chiffonade)

2 cups of tomato sauce (jarred or a favorite recipe*)

2 cups shredded mozzarella

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

*For a basic tomato sauce recipe from Chef Mario Batali, click here.

DIRECTIONS:

Step 1 – Prep oven and croutons: Preheat your oven to 350° F. Place garlic croutons in a plastic bag and beat with a meat hammer or heavy object until they’ve been crushed into smaller pieces. Do not beat these babies into breadcrumbs. But do break down any large, chunky pieces into smaller bits. Set aside.


Step 2 – Toss chicken with oil and spices: In a 9 x 13-inch glass baking dish, drizzle the olive oil. Add the chicken tenders, garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper, and stir well to coat the chicken pieces with the oil and spices. Spread the fresh basil on top of the chicken.

Step 3 – Add sauce and pre-bake: Pour the tomato sauce on top of the chicken, distributing evenly. Slide into a pre-heated 350º F. oven for 30 minutes. Remove. Do not turn off oven!

Step 4 – Add layers of cheese, croutons & cheese: Spread half of the mozzarella and Parmesan evenly over the sauce. Next sprinkle all of the crushed croutons onto the sauce. Finish with a sprinkling of the remainder of the two cheeses.

After pre-baking, layer on half of the cheese...

Now add the crushed croutons....

Finally, add the rest of the cheese...

Step 5 – Final bake: Return the pan to your 350 degree F. oven for another 25 to 30 minutes. Casserole is done when all of the cheese is well melted. Remove pan from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before cutting into squares or spooning onto plates.

Re-heating: This dish makes amazingly tasty leftovers. For the very best result, before reheating, add a bit more sauce and cheese on top. Place in a small casserole dish, cover with a lid or aluminum foil, and reheat in a 350º F. oven for 20 minutes. Or simply place in a microwave-safe dish and zap uncovered until warmed through.

Buon appetito,

everyone!

Eat with joy!

 ~ Cleo Coyle, author of
The Coffeehouse Mysteries


To get more of my recipes,
win free coffee, or learn
about me and my
Coffeehouse Mysteries,
visit my online coffeehouse at:
CoffeehouseMystery.com

Click to see the
Coffeehouse Mystery
Book Trailer

Murder by Mocha

Now a national bestseller

For a peek at this culinary mystery's bonus chocolate recipes, click here!

"...a tasty espresso-dark tale of
multigenerational crime and
punishment lightened by the Blend's
frothy cast of lovable eccentrics."

~ Publishers Weekly

To order from Amazon, click here.

To order from Barnes and Noble click here.

 

 

 Roast Mortem

Includes firehouse recipes!
To see some of this culinary mystery's featured recipes, click here.


A Reviewer’s Pick 

Favorite Book of the Year ~ 2010

Bookreporter.com

 

Now a national bestseller
in paperback!

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