Cream of Mushroom Soup

Marshall Field’s  Marilyn’s Cream of Mushroom Soup

Eleonore gifted me with a cookbook from The Women’s Guild of Kankakee, where I found a mushroom soup recipe credited to Marshall Field's, once an upscale department store in downtown Chicago. This adaptation has more mushrooms and less fat than the original, and still has great flavor. It is essential anytime your dad visits. Quick and easy!

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil or butter
¼ c. finely diced onion
2 c. (or more!) fresh mushrooms, sliced thinly
2 cans (13 ¾ oz. ea) chicken broth (I like Swanson's low-sodium.)
3 tablespoons butter
¼ cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup whole milk
Fresh ground pepper to taste

Garnish Ideas (optional)

Croutons
Chopped watercress or parsley or other greens
Shaved  parmesan


Heat 2 tablespoons oil/butter in large saucepan or soup pot over medium heat. Sauté onions and mushroom about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add chicken broth, cover, and simmer 10 minutes.

In skillet (preferably non-stick) melt 3 tablespoons butter over medium-low heat. Whisk in flour and salt. Cook for 5 minutes, whisking constantly. (Roux will thicken and darken to the color of caramel and give off a nutty aroma.)

Blend into the roux about 1 cup hot mushroom mixture. Whisk until thickened. Whisk in a second cup of hot mushroom mixture until smooth, then pour roux mixture immediately into the soup. Stir until smoothly blended.

Add milk and pepper. Heat until steamy. Serve with garnish.
Serves 6 (small starter servings)

Tuna Buna Casserole

or is it tunabuna? tuna boona? tune-a-boona?

This is very similar to my mom's - at least how I remember it. And I think the 'buna' thing began with her. Oh - and it's not really a casserole, but it is one-pot cooking and easy.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon cooking oil (vegetable, canola, olive)
1 large celery stalk, sliced 1/4 inch
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 clove crushed garlic
2 cans of tuna (I prefer solid white albacore), drained
splash of cooking sherry or dry white wine

1 can of condensed cream of mushroom soup (wt. 10-3/4 oz.)
2/3 cup (or more) nonfat milk - see instructions below for more information
1/2 cup or more frozen peas

cheese - see notes below for more information
salt and pepper to taste
dash of cayenne (optional)

In deep skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Saute celery and onion until onion is translucent. Add garlic and tuna to the pan and stir for 1 minute. (Optional: de-glaze pan with splash of cooking sherry/wine.)

Add can of mushroom soup to the pan. Fill the empty can about 2/3 full with the nonfat milk; stir to blend in bits of soup remaining in the can. Add to the skillet. Gently stir the vegetable, tuna, soup, and milk mixture until sauce is smooth; add peas and stir.

When mixture is hot and steamy, but not bubbly, reduce heat to low and add cheese, salt, pepper and cayenne. Once cheese has melted, stir to blend. If sauce is too thick, add a little more milk.

Serve over rice, noodles, or pasta.

Notes about the cheese

This is your chance to use up some cheese remnants - parmesan, swiss, cheddar, pepper-jack - in any form - grated, sliced or shredded. Use the equivalent of 1/4 to 1/2 cup of cheese, loosely packed.

Tips

The ingredients are very flexible. Increase or decrease quantities at will. Try adding other vegetables such as fresh mushrooms or - well, actually, there's not much else I would add except for mushrooms.

Orange Chocolate-Chip Muffins

from a visit to the Napa Valley

A favorite at anytime and best when just out of the oven.

Dry Ingredients

2 cups white flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Glaze Ingredients

1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup sugar

Topping

Baker's sugar crystals or
Cocoa sugar
or both

Wet Ingredients

1/2 cup vanilla or orange-flavored low-fat yogurt
1/3 cup canola oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon dried orange zest
1 teaspoon orange extract
1 cup canned mandarin oranges, well-drained

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners. If you are not using a non-stick pan, then sparingly grease top surface of muffin pan to prevent muffin tops from sticking.

Mix together the glaze ingredients and heat in microwave for 30 seconds; stir to dissolve sugar; set aside.

Mix together the dry ingredients and set aside. Mix together the first 5 wet ingredients (all but the mandarin oranges). Combine the wet and dry ingredients, folding gently until just combined (should look rough, some dry spots, not smooth). Add the mandarin oranges to the mix and fold gently.

Spoon the batter into muffin tins lined with paper cups. Generously brush glaze on muffin tops. Sprinkle with baker's sugar crystals and/or cocoa sugar.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until tops are golden.

Variation
Lemon-Blueberry: Substitute lemon yogurt, dried lemon zest, lemon extract, and blueberries  (for mandarin oranges). Do not use chocolate chips. For glaze, use lemonade instead of orange juice, and top with vanilla sugar.

Tips
Separately, mix wet and dry ingredients the night before, but do not combine; cover wet ingredients and store in the refrigerator. In the morning, complete recipe for hot morning muffins.

For health-kick, substitute 1 cup whole wheat flour + 1 cup white flour; and sub in plain yogurt with 1 teaspoon of vanilla added. These muffins will be a bit grainier, less sweet, and the flavor of the chocolate and orange dominate.

Carl's Spaghetti Sauce

in his own hand, 1989

There's no other name for it.

The basis for this recipe came from our good friend Emily - Rex's mom. It has been our family go-to spaghetti sauce ever since.

Below is how I make it, evolved from Carl's version, shown.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon oil
1 pork chop with bone (optional)
1 lb. lean ground meat
1/2 c. finely diced onion
1/2 c. finely diced green pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried sage
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 fresh ground pepper
splash of red wine (optional)
1 dried bay leaf
2 large (28 oz. each) crushed tomatoes
1-16 oz. can tomato sauce
1-6 oz. can tomato paste
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1 can of mushrooms, drained (optional)

In a stockpot or other large pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. When oil is heated, if you are using a pork chop, add the pork chop now (or skip to the ground meat step). Brown the pork chop until deep-golden on both sides. Remove pork chop to a plate and set aside; cover with foil to keep warm.

Add ground meat to pot; brown; drain. Return to heat and reduce heat to medium.
Add onion and green pepper to meat and cook until onion is translucent, stirring occasionally.
Add garlic and next 6 ingredients (through pepper). Stir for 1 minute.
Splash in some red wine to de-glaze the pot. (stir to remove stuck-on bits from bottom of the pot)
Return pork chop to the pot and add crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, and bay leaf.
Stir occasionally until heated through, reduce heat to medium-low or low, just enough to maintain a simmer.
Simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
Add chopped parsley and if desired, the mushrooms.
Adjust seasonings. Remove pork chop and discard (or eat!).

Serve over pasta, or just eat it from a bowl (call it Italian Chili).

Tips

Why use the pork chop? The pork chop adds a rich flavor, and the bone will thicken the sauce.

There's a lot of room for error in this recipe. Don't sweat it if you don't have every seasoning on hand. Use what you have, add what you like, adjust to your taste.

Crushed tomatoes vary, and some are much chunkier than others. Try a few brands to know what consistency you like best.

Fresh mushrooms are a better plan than canned. If you use them, wash, slice, and add with onions and green peppers.

I usually double this recipe and freeze leftovers for future meals.

Fresh Tomato Salsa

or for the purists, pico de gallo

We eat this as fast as I can make it. Aside from chips, it makes a great topping for chili, salads, and eggs. Or just eat it by the spoonful.

The ingredients are imprecise in quantity, leaving much to your taste buds. Go ahead and alter any quantity to your liking. OK to leave the cilantro out for those without the cilantro-lover gene.

Ingredients

8-10 plum tomatoes, just ripe (and still a bit firm) - diced, 1/4-inch, then strain off excessive juice
1 small red onion, finely diced
the juice of 1 or 2 limes
1/4 cup of minced cilantro
1 TBSP olive oil (optional)
1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced (or 1/2 tsp garlic salt)
Salt and pepper to taste

Put everything in a bowl and stir gently until well-blended. Taste. Adjust seasonings. Enjoy!

Tip

Dicing tomatoes cleanly requires a good knife. My go-to knife for nearly all my dicing and chopping is a 5" santoku knife. I keep it sharp, and it never fails me.

Basic Multigrain Pancakes

or the pancakes you were raised on

Chris preferred a simple Bisquick pancake, which is the pancake I was raised on (among other prepared box mixes). Prepared mixes are easy and satisfy a hunger for pennies. If the time and ingredients are available, the flavor and nutritional value of these made-from-scratch, multigrain pancakes can't be beat. The origin of the recipe is cookbook author Jane Brody.

Dry Ingredients

2/3 cup whole-wheat flour, preferably stone-ground

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup cornmeal (or other grain such as oat flour, barley, buckweat, millet)

2 tablespoon wheat germ

2 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)

Wet Ingredients

1 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup skim milk

1 egg white

1 whole egg

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix together all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. In a second bowl, combine all the wet ingredients, whipping them enough to lightly beat the eggs. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir just enough to combine (batter should be rough, with some dry spots, rather than smooth).

Heat a griddle to medium heat. Grease it lightly with vegetable oil, butter, bacon grease - whatever is available. Pour batter onto griddle to form individual pancakes. Turn the heat down to medium-low and cook the pancakes until the bottoms are golden brown and the tops begin to bubble. Flip them over, and cook until the undersides are golden brown. Serve immediately.

Tips

A fair substitute for 1 cup buttermilk is this: Add 1 TBSP apple cider vinegar to a measuring cup; add nonfat milk to make one cup; stir; let stand 5 minutes.

The batter can stand for about 10 minutes outside of the refrigerator, or for an hour or more refrigerated.

If a griddle is not available, a large non-stick frying pan will do.

Variations

Add fruit! Gently fold into the batter, such as blueberries or sliced strawberries.