Butternut Squash Soup

This may be my new favorite soup.  If you've never tried it, do yourself a favor and take advantage of this seasonal squash.  It's easy to make and so rich, buttery and savory.  I adapted this recipe from The Italian Dish.

Butternut Squash Soup

Photo courtesy of The Italian Dish

Ingredients:
-3 tablespoons butter
-2 tablespoons olive oil
-1 cup chopped onion
-2 cloves garlic, minced
-1 tsp chopped fresh sage (about 3 leaves) or 1/2 tsp of dried sage
-2 to 2-1/2 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into cubes
-1/8 cup sherry
-4 cups chicken broth
-1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
-1/3 heavy cup cream
-salt and pepper
-4 ounces pancetta, chopped
-feta or goat cheese

Directions:
**I roasted my squash at 400° for 15 minutes to soften it up.  Otherwise, it is very hard to dice**

1.  Melt the butter and olive oil in a heavy large pot over medium heat. Add onion and saute until soft, 4 to 5 minutes. Add garlic and sage and saute one minute.  Add squash cubes and saute 5 minutes. Add the sherry, broth and cayenne pepper.  Cover and simmer on low for about 25 minutes.

2.  Meanwhile, fry the bacon in a little skillet until nicely crisped.  Drain on a paper towel.

3.  Puree soup, either with an immersion blender right in the pot, or transfer to a food processor or blender. Return to pot and stir in cream.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

4.  Serve in bowls with bacon and feta or goat cheese on top.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. -Romans 8:28

Chicken with Mushrooms & Cream Sauce

This might be one of the best things I've ever made.  It's a Julie Child recipe, so no wonder, right?!  This was the first Julia Child recipe I ever tried and I'm definitely going to be investing in her cookbooks.  My hubs was skeptic (because he doesn't like baked chicken), but even he was wanting me to make it again.  It has butter and cream, so what could be better?  If you want to change up your ordinary chicken, definitely give this a try.  It makes me happy just thinking about how delicious it is.  Does good food do that to anyone else too?  Or am I the only weirdo?  Anyways, here's the recipe.

Chicken Breasts with Mushrooms & White Wine Cream Sauce

adapted from Sugar & Spice

Ingredients for Chicken

-2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, fat trimmed

-Juice of 1/2 lemon

-1/4 tsp salt

-1/4 tsp black pepper

-Big pinch of white pepper

-5 tbsp butter

-1 tbsp chopped green onion or minced shallot

-1/4 lb diced fresh mushrooms

Directions for Chicken

1.  Preheat the oven to 400°.  After trimming chicken breasts, squeeze lemon juice over them and sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides.  Set aside.

2.  In a dutch oven, melt the butter over med/high heat until it foams.  Stir in the chopped green onions or minced shallot and stir for about 1 minute.

3.  Next, stir in the mushrooms and saute for about 30 seconds.  You don't want the onions or mushrooms to brown.  Add your pinch of white pepper.

4.  Quickly roll the chicken in the dutch oven to coat well with butter mixture.  I left mine on each side for about 30 seconds to 1 minute.

5.  Cover with a tight lid and place in the oven for 30-40 minutes.  Check to be sure chicken is cooked all the way through.

Ingredients for White Wine Sauce

-1/4 cup beef bouillon

-1/4 cup white cooking wine

-1 cup heavy whipping cream

-1 tbsp butter

-salt and pepper to taste

-lemon juice

-freshly minced parsley

Directions for Sauce

1.  As soon as the chicken is done baking, remove from the oven, place chicken on warming platter and return the dutch oven to the stovetop.

2.  Place 1 tbsp of butter in the pot and stir to loosen up any mushrooms or onions that may have gotten stuck.

3.  Pour bouillon and wine in with the cooking butter and mushrooms.  Boil down quickly over high heat until it gets thick.  

4.  Add the whipping cream, continuing to stir until it gets thick.  Taste for seasoning, and add more salt and pepper if needed.  I squeezed a little bit of lemon juice in mine, but you don't have to.

5.  Pour the sauce over the chicken and top with parsley.  Enjoy!

I served this with steamed asparagus and it was a great combination of flavors.  Seriously, you'll lick the plate.  I'm not kidding.  Let me know what you think! XO

Cream Cheese Cinnamon Roll Monkey Bread

It's halftime during the Arkansas game, so I'm going to post a new recipe really quick.  I don't know about you, but hubs and I are pretty darn happy that it's football season.

This morning, I did a trial run for a cake/monkey bread that I'm bringing to our Sunday School breakfast tomorrow morning.  Of course, I found it on Pinterest.  And ya know, I had to try it out before I fed 30 people.  It was so yummy.  Not so healthy (at all), but delish. 

Cream Cheese Cinnamon Roll Monkey Bread

Adapted from Cookies and Cups

Ingredients:

-3 packages of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls (I bought the skinnier tubes)

-1 package of cream cheese

-1 stick of butter

-1 cup of brown sugar

-2 tbsp water

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 375°.  Meanwhile, grease a bundt pan and cut the cream cheese into little blocks.

2.  Take each cinnamon roll and tear it in half.  Put a little cube of cream cheese in between the two pieces of cinnamon roll and roll into a ball.  Drop it into the bundt pan.  Repeat until you have a can and a half of cinnamon rolls in your bundt pan.
3.  Meanwhile, in a sauce pan, heat the stick of butter over medium heat. As soon as it's melted, add the cup of brown sugar and water. Mix well.  Bring to a good boil.  Remove from heat and pour half of the mixture over the cinnamon rolls in the bundt pan.

4.  Finish rolling out the remaining cinnamon rolls with the cream cheese and pour the rest of the sauce on top.

5.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden.  Just a tip - this can be very gooey because of the cream cheese, so I baked it for the maximum time.  It came out perfect in my oven.

6.  Let it cool for a few minutes and then dump it onto a plate.

7.  Take the left over containers of cream cheese frosting (that came with your cinnamon rolls) and drizzle it over the top.  I only used 2 of the 3 containers, and I put it in a different bowl and heated it up so that it'd be easier to drizzle.  You don't have to do this step, but I figured why not.  It came with the frosting anyways, might as well use it!

8.  Enjoy and try not to clog your arteries.  

This is very rich, but seriously good.  It's great for a large crowd or for a Thanksgiving/Christmas morning breakfast.  I hope you enjoy!

DIY Monogram Coasters

I've got another Pinterest project under my belt.  I came across this pin on how to do your own monogrammed coasters.  We needed coasters so I figured why not give it a shot.  It's a little bit more detailed than I first thought and it took me awhile to hunt down some good backgrounds and format everything, but I'll gladly share the backgrounds I did find in case anyone wants to do this.

The materials needed are: 4x4 white tiles (found mine at Home Depot in the bathroom tile section), modpodge, sponge brush, felt pads for the back of coaster, scissors, clear coat acrylic sealer, and a computer/printer.  These are the steps:

1.  I started by creating a text box in Microsoft Word. I made my dimensions 4x4 since I was using a 4x4 tile.

2.  I downloaded the font, monogram kk, and used it to make our initials inside the text box.  You have to play around with the spacing and size elements to get your monogram to look right.  You'll want to right click each letter, select "font", click "character spacing" and play around with the scale, spacing and position.

3. Once you have your monogram made, google different background images, right click and save them on your computer.

4.  Go back to your Word document and click in the text box, just to put the cursor back in the text box.  Go to format, shape fill, and then select picture.  Insert whichever picture you like, play around with the font colors & print it out.

5.  Cut out all of your square monogram pictures.

6.  Put one coat of modpodge on a tile, then lay your monogram picture on top.  Be sure to smooth the edges so you don't have any bubbles.  Allow this to dry for 1 hour...and REALLY wait that hour.  I tried to do it quickly on one and it smeared the ink because it was still too wet...not the look I was going for.

7.  After an hour has passed, put 2 coats of modpodge on top of each monogram picture, allowing 15 mins between the coats.

8.  When it's all dry (I waited until the next day), apply 1-2 coats of the acrylic sealer and let dry again.

9.  Lastly, stick on 4 of those little felt pads on the back of each coaster.  You wouldn't want to scratch up your table!

And you're all done!  This was a fun, cheap project and it's personalized just for me.  Total cost:
  $1.28 for tiles ($.16 each x 8 tiles)
+$3.00 for felt pads
+$5.00 for clear acrylic spray
$9.28 for monogrammed coasters

**I already had modpodge and sponge brush

So, I did this for less than $10.  I priced these on Etsy and they range from $15 to $30 for a set of 4 plus shipping.  So that means I did my project for a quarter of the cost, or less depending on which buyer I went with.  My hubs can appreciate me saving the mulah. ;)

 

Hope y'all have a wonderful weekend! XO