Turkey Hot & Sour Soup

When we ended up cooking two turkeys on Thanksgiving for only 6 people it was a given that we would need to get creative with what to do with all of the leftovers.

It happened to be a very cold weekend and one of our favorite soups on a cold day is hot & sour soup. To be honest it can be difficult to find a good hot & sour soup at any of our local Chinese restaurants. So when we came across a recipe for it in a recent Food & Wine magazine it seemed like the perfect way to put some of that leftover turkey to good use.

And with the 'hankering' for hot & sour soup came the idea to make some some quick smoked turkey spring rolls to go along. 

We didn't really have a recipe for the spring rolls they just kind of came together really. 

The soup was actually delicious. Warm, hot & sour and satisfying all the way around. We wish we would of diced the tofu slightly smaller but besides that it was excellent. 

RECIPE:

Hot & Sour Soup (From November 2015 Food & Wine)

INGREDIENTS

• 1 ounce dried wood ear mushrooms (1/2 cup)
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1/2 pound lean pork shoulder, sliced 1/8 inch thick and cut into 1-by-1/4-inch strips
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
• 1/2 cup chopped scallions
• 4 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth
• 1/2 pound soft tofu, cut into 1/2 -inch dice
• 1/3 cup unseasoned rice vinegar, plus more for serving
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon Sriracha, plus more for serving
• Kosher salt
• 2 large eggs, beaten

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a small bowl, cover the mushrooms with boiling water and let stand until softened, about 30 minutes. Drain and coarsely chop the mushrooms; discard the soaking water. 
 
   
2. In a large saucepan, heat the canola oil. Add the pork, garlic, ginger and scallions and cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until the pork is golden brown, about 3 minutes. Stir in the stock and add the tofu, 1/3 cup of vinegar, the soy sauce, sugar, pepper, sesame oil, mushrooms and 1 tablespoon of Sriracha. Bring the soup to a simmer and season with salt. While stirring constantly, drizzle in the eggs and cook until strands form, 1 minute. Serve hot, passing rice vinegar and Sriracha at the table
   Simple Smoked Turkey Spring Rolls12 spring roll wrappers1 Cup diced smoked turkey 1/2 Cup diced carrots1/2 Cup diced white onion1 Cup cooked thin rice noodlesCanola oil
   Lay out the spring roll wrapper flat. Place a mixture (approximately 2 tablespoons) noodles, turkey & veggies. Fold bottom corner over, fold in the two sides (as if folding an envelope), roll tightly.
   Heat canola oil to 360 degrees, fry spring rolls in small batches. Keep warm in oven until ready to serve. 
3. 
   

Bourbon-Caramel Pumpkin Tart

Running a bit behind in getting our 2013 Thanksgiving menu this year. But it was a good one as typical and I promised to post the recipes we used.

G cooked a bit smaller turkey than usual and this year he grilled it. It was delicious.

We always start out with too many appetizers and every year we say, "not this year."

I was so excited to make the Bourbon-Caramel Pumpkin Tart that was on our November issue of Fine Cooking this year. It just looked and sounded amazing. But several hours into making it I remembered just exactly why I HATE BAKING! It just takes too many ingredients, too many steps and far too much time and honestly for all that work it only tasted okay, not amazing.

It was a great meal with family we love that's what Thanksgiving is all about and why we love to host it each year.

Links to our 2013 Thanksgiving Recipes: 

Baked Haricots Verts with Fried Shallots from Fine Cooking

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Dijon, Walnuts & Crisp Crumbs from Fine Cooking

Smoked Chile Scalloped Sweet Potatoes Bobby Flay from Food Network

Wild Mushroom-Bacon Sourdough Dressing Bobby Flay from Foodnetwork

Bourbon-Caramel Pumpkin Tart from Fine Cooking

Mexican Poached Eggs with Chorizo

The morning we brought this beautiful baby girl home we decided that we needed a hearty breakfast to be ready for this new transition in our life.

We were both excited for this new addition and a little worried we may never have time for anything else but puppy supervision. But luckily sometimes she does does do this....

So we made a breakfast that included some of our favorite flavors and also met our Paleo lifestyle that we desperately are trying to get back on after vacationing for 5 weeks. 

We made some patties out of our favorite bulk chorizo that we love and fried them. Then we sliced some avocado topped them with some poached eggs and roasted tomatillo salsa. It was a perfect breakfast for our big day in becoming puppy parents.

Recipe:

Mexican Poached Eggs with Chorizo 

1/4 lb. good quality bulk chorizo sausage, made into patties

1 avocado, sliced

4 eggs

1/4 cup of your favorite salsa

Form chorizo patties, fry until cooked. Slice avocado and lay on top of chorizo patties. Poach eggs. Place eggs on top of avocado and spoon salsa on top. 

Moving On and The Wild Sage in Spokane

Choosing your attitude or approach to how to handle situations is a belief I give high regard. It's something I work to to model for my staff and students daily..."You can choose to whine about only 38% of your class meeting standard or you can figure out what to do differently based on that data." or "You can choose to cry about dropping your lunch on the floor or you can get back in line and get a new lunch."

It's also how I choose to live my life. Closing my father's estate is consuming a big chunk of our life right now. Its not fun, sometimes its sad and some times its even slightly maddening. We inherited a storage unit that sits 500 miles across the state that my father has been renting for @ least 15 years ( we figured out he'd spent over $20,000 on that unit...he should of owned that 8x12 foot space wouldn't you think?) . He'd talked about getting over there to deal with it for years and it just never happened.

So we, along with my sister & Mike, decided we were done paying that rent and made a trek over the mountains to Spokane to get it done. It definitely was not a weekend any of us were really looking forward to but we choose to make the most of it, get the job done, try to enjoy;a cocktail or two, maybe a good meal and each others company ...so that's what we did. We left Friday after work and didn't get checked into the hotel in Spokane until after midnight.

Saturday morning after a diner breakfast, that stated ," we have the world's best hash browns" we made it out to the storage unit. We really had no idea what we would find or want but we knew it had to be done. After the kind helper sawed the lock open for us we found a storage unit covered in 15 years of dust. I don't know if I've ever truly seen 15 years of dust before this experience. It was a long day of, "Oh, remember this" , "My goodness he really had all of those" and "Wow, what are we going to do with this." We all worked hard and after renting a UHau trailer and a trip to the dump we got it done, for my dad and for us.

After accomplishing this daunting task we were all parched and hungry. We decided after getting back to our hotel and getting cleaned up that we'd take a cab downtown and figure out where to go once we got there.

We had the cabbie drop us off by the mall and from there we went to O'Doherty's Irish Grille that G and I have visited on several different Spokane trips. Just a great place for beer, pub food and trying to figure out "how did they get those dollar bills on the ceiling?"

While there we met a friendly couple from Trail, Canada who recommended that we have dinner at the Wild Sage. They said it was the best food in Spokane. We went with it. We were lucky enough to snag an eight thirty reservation. Which we all thought was perfect because it allowed us sometime to check out somewhere else on the way.

And we stumbled across, Bistango Martini Lounge. And we are glad we did. G is convinced he had one of his top 5 cocktails there. Tracy & I each had our own version of a swanky drink.

Something with jalapeno for me.

And something with cucumber for Tracy.

But we all agreed the boys chose best. They had the bartender make them a special spicy Serrano Chile drink with cilantro that was by far the most yummy of our 3 choices.

Next we were off to Wild Sage. We finally found it after having our smartphone maps lead  us a stray a bit. And we are happy to have found it.

We started off with the tapas sampler dish that our friendly Canadians also recommended and another round of tasty drinks. This time something called the Robjito that was like a citrus flavored mojito and really very tasty.

The ambiance was great, the energy level was alive and the service was fantastic.

Tracy had the breast of duckling that she really enjoyed.

Both Mike & G had the wild prawn pasta.

And I had the "from the water" dish of the night that was Parmesan crusted halibut over polenta.

We also decided to splurge on a bottle of Abeja Merlot.

We ended our night full and exhausted. The next morning we headed back home with our uhaul trailer full of dad's stuff.

We ended our trip visiting Mike & Tracy's wedding venue Swiftwater Cellars at Suncadia.

It was a beautiful afternoon to take in the views and

 enjoy some winetasting before getting back home.

This task accomplished is just one step closer to moving on in accepting our father's passing and work towards just remembering and missing him!

Homemade Cinnamon Bread

Although I did make G those decadent chocolate chili ganache cupcakes for his birthday all he really asked for his on birthday was a loaf of cinnamon bread. And actually he meant for me to just buy a loaf at Metropolitan Market.

But given my slowly emerging and awakening baking confidence I thought, "Well why not attempt to bake a loaf of cinnamon bread myself?" I mean hey if I can spend 3 days making some scrumptious croissants I'm sure I can pull off a loaf of cinnamon bread. And in reflection we were both glad I actually gave this a try.

I found a very straight forward recipe on The Pioneer Woman. She has a fantastic step by step photo tutorial so how could I go wrong.

I started as usual gathering all of the ingredients.

And then I just jumped in full steam ahead. I'm in love with dough hook on my Kitchen Aid now. Who knew the magic it could do.

Like I mentioned the step by step photos really helped me so go check them out here.

It was pretty exciting to get my dough rising and rise it did after 2 hours.

Next I rolled it out, measuring to my loaf pan and trying to keep it rectangular.

I wasn't quite as successful with that part as you can see.

And then finally the fun part started. By this point it was really starting to feel like I was going to be successful with this baking endeavor.

After the second round of rising into the oven it went and after 45 minutes it was looking pretty gorgeous.

The house smelled amazing.

I let it cool and then we wrapped it in a towel to save for morning. G loved it, he ate 4  toasted and buttered pieces for breakfast on his birthday.

I did buy a loaf of cinnamon bread just in case mine didn't turn out (my baking confidence isn't totally stellar yet.) but it's in the freezer now because mine turned out fantastic.

We did several special things to celebrate G's 42nd but by far the cinnamon bread was his favorite present. Which of course made it 100% worth making for him.

The Pioneer Woman's recipe for Cinnamon Bread link.



GCC: Pork Meatballs with Lemon & Thyme over Homemade Whole Wheat Angel Hair Pasta

I'm a bit late this week in posting my Gutsy Cooks Club recipe for the week. Bare with me here (if you want to go straight to the recipe please scroll down).....Given the absolutely unexpected events of this week I'm both astonished and now content in pulling this off at all this week. Although this is not the place to dump my grief it is the place we created to share our stories through food and this is one of our stories.

A little less than 2 weeks ago we brought my father who had been diagnosed in 2010 with prostate cancer to stay with us because although up until the past few months he had been symptom free thus far...recently he had deteriorated to experiencing a great deal of pain, loss of strength. We wanted to get him eating, taking his meds and meet with him along with his oncologist. We fully expected to pull this off in a week or two and have him back on track.

He really loved this dish!

The first night we did get him to eat some leftover baked ziti with sausage. He raved that it tasted "just like lasagna." The way we most expressed our love for my father in the past 10 years was by cooking for him. He loved food & of course we love cooking which made for a great relationship.

After being at our home 4 days his strength, lucidness, appetite and pain became unbearable for us to watch. Jointly with everyone who loved him and his oncologist we decided he needed to go to the ER. He was insanely anemic and within the first two pints of a blood transfusion the color that we hadn't seen since before Christmas came rushing back into his skin. Although he was admitted to the hospital that day we, along with his doctors and nurses, were confident within the week he'd be coming back to our house following his first chemo treatment. (Frankly, we all knew the cancer had spread almost everywhere in his body and significantly so in his bones thus the excruciating pain he was experiencing...we knew at this point the chemo would not put him into remission but rather just slow the progress down a bit, relieving his pain a bit and giving him up to another year with us. Time we wanted to have.)

Those next few days while he was in the hospital felt like an extreme waiting game: waiting for his liver and blood levels to be "good enough" for him to have a CT scan to see how significantly it was in his organs, then waiting for the results of the scan, then waiting to get him moved up to the oncology floor to start chemo and come home. The waiting was so hard. But finally 4 days into the hospital stay we all met with his oncologist, he appeared "according to the tests "  that he was finally strong enough for his first round of chemo. We left him @ 8:00 p.m. Thursday expecting him to receive his chemo within 12 hours and come home with us within 24 hours later.

I promise I'm almost to the recipe part....We came home that night had a glass of wine and I decided that since my dad had still barely eaten more than few bites of his hospital meals that I would make this week's Gutsy Cooks Club recipe of Homemade Whole Wheat Pasta and Pork Meatballs with Lemon & Thyme and bring it for him for his lunch to the hospital on Friday. My thoughts: "He loves pasta, he'll eat it if only because I went to the trouble of making it  and bringing it in for him."

I didn't set my alarm that night for this reason and regretfully forgot to bring my phone upstairs to our room as well (maybe the first time ever I had wished we still had the land line.)

When I came downstairs Friday morning my phone was on the dining room table ringing, as I picked it up I could see there was also 5 missed calls! My sister was on the phone, hysterical, rightly slow. The hospital had called her, they couldn't reach me, she tearfully told me our dad was in ICU, she was saying the nurse had told her to get there, dad had asked for pain meds at 5 a.m. when they checked him around 8 a.m. he was unresponsive, gurgling..."he coded" the rapid response team worked on him, and resuscitated after being out 10"minutes...I needed to get there ASAP.

Either to spare my still fresh pain or speed this post up...we made the decision that we had sat at my kitchen table and discussed with my father 5 days earlier to remove the life support that he didn't want to be keeping him alive. Within 4  surreal and excruciatingly painful hours my father passed in the presence of all of us that loved him most.

It's still not real, I've woken up the past 4 mornings since then....overwhelmingly feeling sad, still not believing this could of happened so fast.

But today, Monday, after spending the morning at the mortuary, making arrangements...I was ready to do something from our "normal" life again just to feel like maybe sometime soon I will feel normal again.

I decided I needed to cook. I needed to make the recipe that I was going to make last week for my dad.It was time consuming, needed lots of gadgets and would keep me busy for almost 3 hours straight. I needed to cook this recipe.  So I did.

I had actually already taken out the pork from the freezer on Friday so there was no excuse not to do it.

I started with the pasta. I went with the whole wheat pasta recipe. We've made our fair share of homemade pasta but we had not made whole wheat before. Nor had we used our angel hair Kitchen Aid attachment yet. Originally I had thought the angel hair would be easier for my dad to eat if we cut it for him.

With the pasta ready to go I moved on to making the meatballs. I actually also had some pork chops that needed to be eaten so I cut the pork up into ribbons and pulsed it in the food processor a bit and added it to the ground Sweet Italian sausage that I decided to use for  making the meatballs. Which I had never done before but it actually worked pretty well.

I soaked the breadcrumbs in milk.

Sauteed some onions and I added garlic too.

And made the meatballs. We actually ended up freezing half of them.

After cooking the meatballs and setting them aside I started the Lemon Thyme Sauce.

The meatballs were fantastic. The fresh whole wheat pasta was very good, almost like a soba noodle I suppose.

We enjoyed the  meatballs and pasta with a bottle of 2008 Fume' Blanc from Robert Mondavi. An everyday white we are really loving right now.

The sauce was okay.  A bit too lemony I think, next time I might use only half the lemon called for and add just a pinch of sugar to round it off a bit.

I'm pretty sure this wouldn't of been the favorite meal I had ever cooked for my father. But compared to the hospital food he'd been eating and that I know he would of loved the meatballs it still would of been a hit with him.

When I tell folks I'm 43 they imagine my parents being older. My father was 63. I never thought 63 would seem so young but it is. It was far too young for my dad to pass away at. I will miss cooking for him so much. He loved of our food blog and actually bought me my latest lens for my camera as a birthday present in November because he really got a kick out of the fact that I took photos of all of our food.

It will be a long, long time before I stop thinking, "oh, dad would love this dish" every time we eat or make something that we know he would like. Maybe we never will.

Recipe Links:

Whole Wheat Pasta

Pork Meatballs with Lemon & Thyme