Saturday, December 31, 2011

Humble Beginnings for a Beautiful 2012

When I was a little girl, my mother would often make very simple dishes with only a few ingredients from the cupboard to fill our bellies and keep us happy. We did not have a lot of money but did have many blessings. A roof over our heads, a big, grassy yard with mature trees to play in, a mother and father who made sure we never went hungry and always felt loved. Sometimes I crave the types of food that my mother would make for us. Beans with cornbread, a simple Sunday pot roast with potatoes and canned green beans with bacon, the occasional glorious steak dinner (most likely my dad would pick those steaks up on payday to celebrate his hard work with his family around the table). All of these dishes weren't fussy and we wouldn't have known either way. Now that I'm older, I like to 'fuss' in the kitchen with new recipes and ingredients as often as possible but sometimes, you just want to feel at home...

Today is December 31st. In just a few hours, we will ring in a new year as a family and I had an urge to start the year with a very basic, affordable, flavorful split pea soup and cornbread supper in homage to my childhood and all of the lovely things that came along with being a kid in the Walker household. We've got another little one coming along in a few months and though we are blessed enough to not have to pinch penny's for our mealtime budget, I will be sure that my kids know a good home cooked humble kind of meal because often times they just have more heart in them. Kids don't know filet and lobster...they know love in a bowl though. Phae got so excited when I told her I was making split pea soup for our new years eve supper. LIttle does she know or care for that matter that it costs about $10 to make a huge pot of it (and that's if you go organic on the ingredients) along with the Jiffy cornbread mix that I grew up on.

So here's to a beautiful new year with lots and lots of memories around the kitchen table with family. Sharing anything from a humble split pea soup and cornbread to filet mignon and fine wine. Home cooked is love. Always.

Smokey Split Pea Soup

1 tbsp Olive Oil
2 carrots (diced)
1 medium yellow onion (diced)
3 garlic cloves (minced)
3 celery stalks (diced)
2 bay leaves
1 lb dried split peas
1 ham hock
2 32 fl oz containers of low sodium chicken broth
Salt & Pepper to your taste

a dash of hot sauce to taste for garnish


This is a low and slow soup. Start cooking it in the morning and let it go low and slow all day long. The hubs earned some serious brownie points this year for Christmas by purchasing this beauty for me:




You can use any soup pot you have on hand with a tight fitting cover.

Start with a little oil in the bottom of your soup pot. Dice up all of your veggies and get them started over medium high heat with a good few pinches of salt and pepper until they are just getting tender. Add your ham hock and bay leaves at any time you wish to start cooking with your veggies. Once your vegetables are tender and you've got your ham hock in there with them, add your split peas to the mix and stir around to mix everything up. After about a minute, add your chicken stock. Bring the whole thing to a boil by bumping the heat up to high and covering. Once it's boiling, give it a stir and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cover and simmer on low for the afternoon stirring once or twice an hour. If you need to leave the house, no biggie. Transfer your soup into a crock pot and cook on low for the day so you don't have to babysit it.

For a classic creamy texture to your soup, after many hours of cook time, remove the ham hock and bay leaves from the pot and put aside. If you have an immersion blender, it works really well for this part. You want to blend your soup with the immersion blender for a few minutes until it's creamy OR you can let it cool slightly and then blend it in a regular blender in batches for a few seconds per batch.

The ham should easily separate from the bone and you'll want to dice it up before adding it back into the pot with the creamy soup. Bring it all back to a simmer as it's probably in need of reheating before serving.




Jiffy cornbread mix is a great friend to bring along to this party. A box of Jiffy will cost you about $1. I make my cornbread just like mom used to. In a cast iron skillet with a sprinkle of sugar on top and served with a generous pat of butter and some honey if the mood strikes you.

Serve the soup family style and don't forget to put a delicious hot sauce on the table to add a little kick to the soup. I love the Smoked Serrano hot sauce pictured below (it's made here in Colorado). Oh and, just an FYI, Mom would put raw onions on her soup along with the hot sauce. Just saying... :)

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Pregnant Kitchen = Game Changer

I'm at about 26 weeks pregnant and I'll just say that it's greatly affected my desire to cook until pretty recently...in other words, I've been making pretty stupid simple meals with one motive in mind, to fill the bellies of the hubs and my sweet little girl while being able to hopefully stomach it myself and feel nourished.

It's actually been a pretty awesome adventure to see how quickly and simply I can come up with a dinner when time isn't on my side and there are several ingredients which would trigger my gag reflux immediately (garlic was an inconvenient ingredient to have an aversion to. We're friends again though, garlic and I :)...

So I want to brag about my recipe for 'Organic Hamburger Helper' real quick. The idea of buying a good ol' box of Hamburger Helper with that nasty powdered whatchamacallit was so, so tempting but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I had to come up with a way to make what I was craving (simplicity but also actual hamburger helper) healthy and quick. If you have kids you can go ahead and thank me now because this is some really, REALLY good grub on the cheap and Phae went totally nuts for it.

Organic Hamburger Helper

1 lb lean ground beef
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon tomato paste (I buy the double concentrated kind in a tube. Very convenient)
1 can stewed italian style tomatoes (Phaedra requested that I chop them roughly in the food processor so there weren't big chunks of stewed tomato in the dish. Either way is fine, really)
1 box of macaroni pasta or bow tie...fun shapes are fun
Salt and Pepper to taste
shredded parmesan cheese

Boil a large pot of salted water for the pasta and put a large saucepan over medium high heat and drizzle with olive oil.

Add the meat to the saucepan to brown. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Once your water is boiling, add your pasta and give a stir. When the meat is almost cooked through, add your tomato paste and stir into the meat. Then add your stewed tomatoes. lower your heat to medium-low and continue to simmer the meat with the tomatoes. When the pasta is al dente, add it to the saucepan and toss everything together. Sprinkle the dish with a generous, yummy amount of cheese (I liked Parmesan but you can use any kind you and your kids like). This meal is yummy and well balanced with a nice green salad! Happy easy eating!