Roasted Vegetable Soup

Scrub then cut all the vegetables into 1" to 1-1/2" chunks. Put in a gallon size plastic bag, add oil and seasonings. Shake then pour everything onto a parchment paper lined baking pan.

1 lg. cauliflower
2-3 med. carrots
3 stalks of celery
1 med.-lg. purple onion
2-3T single source EVOO
fresh ground black pepper
garlic chipolte seasoning
parsley garlic salt

Bake in preheated 400° oven 30-40 minutes, moving or tossing once while baking. Roast until just barely soft and fork tender. Transfer to a 4 quart pot, add 3-4c water and 2T Better Than Bouillon - vegetable or chicken flavor and a couple bay leaves. Simmer 15-20 minutes. Remove bay leaves, then blend with an immersion blender. Check flavors, making any adjustments you'd like.

If you're using coconut milk, add it now. I decided to omit that this time. Serve with a drizzle of seasoned sour cream and a sprinkle of dry dill. . .Lin

Roasted Vegetables + Soup + Ajvar-Type Sauce

I got SO many great roast-able vegetables on a recent foodie adventure, a trip to an Asian-International Market with my daughter in The Cities!

The zucchini, little pattypan squash, yellow African eggplants, and garlic were tossed in that EVOO seasoned with all the others shown on the left.  As were the tomatoes and peppers, but, I forgot to add onion! About half way through the roasting time, I remembered, sliced a big Vidalia and added it to the Red-Green pan, for true Italian colors!

All of this roasted about an hour at 400°

As often happens, I didn't note the actual length of time. Keep an eye on everything and move the vegetables around several times. When it's as sizzly, caramelized, and toasty brown-black as you want - it's ready!

I tossed the carrots and beets in some Cayenne-Cumin EVOO I infused last week, so it was still mild. Then also seasoned with cracked black pepper and the Orange Ginger spice.

I blended those with a can of coconut cream, 1/2c Craisins, and 2t curry powder and 8oz. water for a quick wonderful soup. Today it's Breakfast! Garnished with peanuts, craisins and some dill sour cream!

I cooled these two pans about an hour, peeled the garlic and removed the tomato skins, then added about 1/3c of dark Fig Balsamic vinegar, blended and packed it in 8oz. amounts in small zip type bags before freezing.

This yielded 4 packages for future interesting recipes. . .Lin

Roasted Acorn Squash Soup

• 1 previously cut, roasted and frozen acorn squash
• lots of roasted garlic cloves
• 
  2t curry powder
• 2t ground cinnamon
• 1t each: salt and pepper
• 1-2T solid coconut oil

• 2c homemade turkey bone broth
• 1 - 13.5oz. can coconut milk

Peel the thawed squash and put it in a 3 quart pot with the seasonings and coconut oil. Combine by mashing with a wire whisk or potato masher. Heat over medium heat, stir and sizzle a few minutes to wake up all the flavors.

Pour in the bone broth and simmer a few minutes.  Add the coconut milk, stir, then blend with an immersion blender.  Bring back to a low simmer.  Ladle it up and garnish with dabs of sour cream, chives and a sprinkle of cayenne.  I also added chopped walnuts.

Mmmmm, Soup! . .Lin

Cauliflower and Roasted Vegetable Soup

When I roasted the vegetables I should have made more.  They were so good that I didn't have a lot leftover for soup, so I added some.

⅓ lg. head of cauliflower

½-¾c chopped green onion

part of a yellow onion

5 cloves garlic

1-2T coconut oil

4c water

1# leftover roasted vegetables

1T Thai curry seasoning

½t fresh ground black pepper

½ bunch cilantro-leaves and stems

2t Vegetable Better Than Bouillon

¾c coconut milk ~ or ¾c half and half

~ or ½c sour cream

Chop the first group of vegetables, then sauté until nicely browned.  Add 4 cups of water, roasted vegetables and simmer on low for 20 minutes.  Take off the heat and cool a little, then blend with an immersion blender.

Add coconut milk, half and half, or sour cream.  Blend again then check flavors.  Add pepper, and Better Than Bullion until you get the flavor you want.

Garnish with a little dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of roasted-salted pumpkin or sunflower seeds.  This is one of the best soups I've made in ages! . .Lin

Roasted Spatchcocked Chicken and Vegetables

Spatchcocked Chicken!

Who knew??  I usually always stuff and roast whole duck, chicken and turkey.  When I've tried cooking unstuffed, they go faster, but seem drier with less flavor.  I saw this done on a cooking show. . .zip-zip-zip and it was ready to roast.  I found a YouTube video just to be sure, and that demonstrator had similar results. . .with the zip-zipping.  So, I sharpened one of my trusty chef's knives, pulled out the closest thing I have to heavy duty kitchen shears and started.  

'Spatchcock A Chicken' they said, 'It's Easy' they said. . .Well, not so much, when you don't have a good pair of Industrial Strength Kitchen Shears.  That's going on my IKEA list.  I found myself apologizing to the chicken and so very happy I never felt a career call to any kind of surgery!  Using a knife and / or a good pair of kitchen shears, cut on both sides of the backbone with the chicken on a firm surface, breasts down.  Mine was 6½#.  Remove the backbone, attached meat and skin.  Save this to make chicken stock.

Sooo, it wasn't pretty, but I think I accomplished the goal, which was to flatten the chicken, stuff compound butter under the skin, drizzle with olive oil and roast.  It takes less time and supposedly has great flavor.  Compound butter is just a fancy way to say seasoned or flavored butter.  You could season yours with lemon pepper, Thai, Mexican or Italian seasonings, or whatever flavor profile you want to impart.  Today I kept it more conventional since I also used it on the vegetables.

Compound Butter

1 stick of butter

2T coconut oil

½t± red and black ground pepper

2 green onions - minced

a good sprinkle of garlic salt

Microwave, just enough to soften, mix and put about ⅔ of it between the skin and meat of the chicken.  Press to spread it out on your chicken on a jellyroll pan lined with parchment paper.

Roasted Vegetables

1 lg. red beet

2 med. carrots

3 sm. yellow onions

1 sm. med. zucchini*

3 lg. cauliflower florets

1 long skinny sweet red pepper

Cut the vegetables pretty much as shown to assure everything cooks evenly.  The beets and carrots cook the slowest.  Scrub them but don't peel.  Keep the beets separate after chopping.  Put them in a bowl and rinse well, until the water stays clear.  Then drain and dry.  Put the other sliced-chopped vegetables in their own bowl.

Melt the remaining compound butter in the microwave and drizzle in about ⅛-¼c good quality dark olive oil.  Stir then pour about a third of this over the beets and the rest over the other vegetables.  Mix to cover everything then put on a parchment paper lined jellyroll pan.  Put both pans into a 400° preheated oven.  Vegetables will be done in 45 minutes.  Stir them after about 20 minutes.  Chicken takes a little bit longer.  Poke and baste it until skin is crisp.  Probably a total of an hour to an hour and 15 minutes.

Save all the chicken drippings, skin and any bones that easily pull out, in a pot in your 'fridge for a couple days to make really good chicken and vegetable broth.

  

Make more vegetables than you need - they taste so good!  *(I should have used more zucchini--it roasted so well!)  I'm sure I'll blend them into roasted vegetable soup in the next couple days, but I wish I had more!  Roast them separately from the chicken.  The vegetables on that pan basically cooked in chicken grease, which isn't a good thing, but after draining them on paper towels, they tasted okay.  Now that I've tackled Spatchcocked Chicken, I'll make this again.  It turned out really well.  Good flavor and it wasn't dry.

Be Bold - Be Creative - Happy Cooking! . . . Lin

Parmesan-Panko Roasted Vegetables

3 lg. garlic cloves - minced

½ med. yellow onion - chopped and some minced

½c extra virgin olive oil

½-1t fresh ground Himalayan pink salt

½-1t fresh ground black pepper

1-2T your preferred seasonings:

(Italian, Thanksgiving Herbs, Chili-Lime, etc.)

½c parmesan cheese

½c seasoned panko bread crumbs

In a big bowl combine garlic, minced onion and the rest of first group of ingredients.  Mix then set aside while prepping the vegetables.

3 big carrots

3 stalks of celery

1½# small mixed potatoes

1 med. head of cauliflower - florets

1 can garbanzo beans - drained and rinsed

Cut these in rough chunks, keeping in mind that the carrots and celery will usually take longer to cook than the others in this particular mix.  You may want them a little smaller.

Once the vegetables are ready, add the parmesan and bread crumbs to the bowl, mixing well and quickly, then add the vegetables, stirring and tossing them in the bowl to be sure they're all well coated.  If necessary, drizzle with a little more olive oil to get all that great crumbiness to stick.  Pour out onto a large jellyroll pan covered with parchment paper.

Bake in a 390° oven for 15 minutes after it comes to temperature.  Take it out of the oven, move the vegetables around on the paper to be sure they're all still well coated.  Return to the oven for another 25 minutes.  Raise the heat a bit of you want to dry them out, finish cooking, and have those flavorful crumbs brown them up a bit.  After the second time in the oven, check them.  If they still need a little more time, shut the oven off, and leave them another 15 minutes.

If they're done and browned to your liking, remove the pan now and let cool on top of the stove.  Serve now, or if you too are making this ahead, when cooled, put in a covered container and refrigerate.  To serve, put carefully, back on a parchment paper-lined pan and 'bake' to just dry and heat them, for 20 minutes at about 350°.

Okay. . .take a moment to inhale!!!  C'mon now. . .Another deep breath. . . !  😀 Your kitchen will be beautifully scented by now!  Stop and appreciate this! 😊 Today's the Monday before Thanksgiving, and living in the USA, I'll be having my the part of my family, that lives nearby, here, at my Little-House-On-The-Creek, for a big Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.  I'm doing some pre-cooking to avoid the 'last-minute-Thanksgiving-morning-frazzle' factor!  I also have a potluck lunch for my Tuesday Morning Bible Study tomorrow.  I'm going to make (yet another) variation on my Mediterranean Pasta Salad for that.  If it turns out well, I'll post my recipe later.

Happy Monday Everyone!
To those of you who celebrate it along with me. . .HAPPY 🙏 THANKSGIVING to you!! . . . Lin

Company Chicken with Roasted Vegetables and Rice

This recipe formulated as soon as I saw this incredible deal on these chicken packs.  Three pounds of chicken legs for $2.03!! — 66¢ / pound!!  I wanted to make something that could be done ahead, was simple and didn't take a lot of coordinating at the end to make sure it was all hot at once.  These three are all easy, forgiving dishes.

3# of chicken legs (or thighs)

1 24oz. jar Barilla Marinara

2-4 lg. cloves garlic - minced

1 med. onion - finely chopped

½c dry white wine

Skin the chicken, then put it in a 9"x13" glass baking pan.  Combine the marinara with the other ingredients.  Pour over the chicken, turning it over a couple times, to be sure all surfaces are coated.  Cover with aluminum foil — place in the 'fridge overnight — or skip this step and put it right into a 275° preheated oven.  Bake, with the foil on, for an hour and a half, basting once or twice during that time.

Meanwhile, fix pasta or rice.  This is just a recipe of regular, long-grain, 20-minute cooking rice.  I used 1c of rice and 2c of water, 1T butter, ½t seasoned salt.  Melt the butter in a 2qt pot, add the rice and seasonings and stir a while until everything's snapping.  Add the water, cover the pot and simmered it on low heat.  I made roasted root vegetables a couple days earlier, to also serve with this.  When dark meat of chicken is slow cooked, it tastes SO good with the sauce and rice (or pasta). . .Lin