French Dip Sandwiches

One thing I always feared about marriage was mother-in-laws.  I grew up seeing "monster-in-laws" on TV and sometimes hearing people talk about their terrible MIL's.  I knew that the women in my family all had great relationships with one another so I knew their was hope for scoring a great in-law family, but I would be lying if I said it would have been a deal breaker for me if the guy I found had a family I couldn't get along with.

I'm married now so you know I found someone who fit the bill, and let me tell you - I scored big-time on the in-law front.  My husbands brother was one of my best friends in college and I couldn't live without the friendship with his sister now.  She's one of my best friends and our go-to babysitter!  My father-in-law is good as gold, but my mother-in-law has been one of the best blessings from marriage.  She's thoughtful and extremely generous, patient and persistent.  I love her for so many things she's taught me and shown me and I love that we continually find things to bond about, food being one of those things.  

One of my favorite recipes from her are these French Dip Sandwiches.  I've always loved a good French Dip, but this recipe is delicious.  One of the amazing things about this dish is that it is SO easy.  You literally throw it all in the crock pot and let that beauty do it's thang!  Serve on french bread (or I used Bolillo rolls) to soak up all the wonderful au jus.  Mmm.

Basically, you select your roast, place it in the crock pot with all of the spices, cover with water and crank it up!  In 8 hours (or when you can tell it's definitely tender), pull it out and shred the meat.

Return the meat to the crock to let it soak up even more of this yummy broth.

When you're ready to serve, place your meat in the bread/rolls and serve au jus on the side for dipping.

Does anyone else want to straight up drink that broth??  Refrain.  That would be rude.

French Dip Sandwiches

1 (3 1/4 - 4 lb) boneless church roast, trimmed

1/2 c. soy sauce

1 beef bouillon cube

1 bay leaf

3 or 4 peppercorns

1 tsp. dried rosemary, crushed

1 tsp. dried thyme

1 tsp. garlic powder

12 french sandwich rolls, split

Place roast in a 5 qt. slow cooker.  Combine soy sauce and next 6 ingredients and pour over roast.  Add water to slow cooker until roast is almost covered.  Cook, covered, on low for 8 hours or until able to pull apart with a fork.  Remove roast, reserving broth, and shred roast with a fork.  Place roast in rolls and serve with reserved broth for dipping.

**I love this leftover, but this roast is so good, I'll use it for lots of other things like burritos or just paired with fresh veggies as a side.  My mom taught me to use roast for what we call "roast crisps," where she makes a gravy of a little butter, flour and the broth from the meat, mixes in the meat and spreads this on cripy tortillas topped with cheese.  We throw them in the oven for the cheese to melt and eat them with jalapenos. So simple and so yummy! 

Lasagna Soup

You all know already that I'm a soup lover.  This soup is definitely one of my favorites.  I found the recipe about 2 years ago and me and my family fell in love.  Being the soup lover I am, I could have soup at least once a week in the fall/winter, but my husband... not so much.

I think many meals - soup in particular - are sometimes best the second and third time, but my husband does NOT like leftovers.  We have many lunches where I just say we are having leftovers and he will make peanut butter sandwiches instead.

The recipe looks long, but it's a really easy soup to make.  The very best part is the ricotta cheese mixture that goes in the bottom of the bowl under noodles and soup.  It MAKES the dish - I promise!  It's an art to dipping your spoon to the bottom and catching a little bit of this goodness with each bite.

Also, you'll notice in one of my pictures that I've browned the sausage using what I've heard is a potato masher.  Growing up, Mom used a hand mixer to "mash" potatoes and used this potato masher utensil for browning meat.  In college I was helping one of my roommates in the kitchen and got it out to mash the meat and she questioned why I was using a potato masher for meat.  I simply told her that it's not a potato masher, that it helps crumble meat when you're browning it.  She assured me that it was called a potato masher and that was its function, but I'll still refer to it in our house as the meat masher - haha!

Anyway, here's the process with the recipe below!

Heat the oil in the pot and brown the sausage. 

Add the onions and cook until they are soft.

Add the garlic, oregano and red pepper flakes.  (Notice: MEAT masher)

Add tomato paste and cook for 4 minutes, then add tomatoes, stock and bay leaves.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 mins.

While those flavors are developing, make your pasta in a separate pot and stir together the ricotta cheesy goodness.

Once the soup is ready, start  putting together the bowls!  First, some cheesy yum..

Then a few noodles..

Ladle in some soup.

And top with mozzarella!

Lasagna Soup

2 T olive oil
1 1/2 lbs. Italian sausage
2 c. chopped onion
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 t. dried oregano
1/2 t. crushed red pepper flakes
2 T tomato paste
1 28 oz. can fire roasted tomatoes
2 bay leaves
6 c. chicken stock
16 oz. pasta (rotini or bowtie)
1/2 c. finely chopped fresh basil leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Ricotta mixture:
8 oz. ricotta
1/2 c. grated parmesan
1/4 t. salt
pinch of ground pepper

Topping: mozzarella cheese

Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat.  Add sausage and brown.  Add onion and cook until soft.  Add garlic, oregano, and red pepper flakes and cook for one minute.  Add tomato paste and cook for 4 minutes.  Add diced tomatoes, bay leaves and chicken stock.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Cook pasta in a separate pot according to it's directions on packaging.

In a small bowl, mix ricotta, parmesan cheese, salt a pepper and stir until combined.

Right before serving, add basil, salt and pepper to soup pot.

In individual bowls, place a dollop of ricotta mixture in bottom of the bowl.  Spoon noodles on top and pour hot soup over noodles.  Sprinkle mozzarella cheese on top.


Recipe adapted from http://www.afarmgirlsdabbles.com/2011/03/24/lasagna-soup/

Kim's Brownies

Whoever has the best mom out there, please stand up.  Well, she's probably wonderful but she probably won't hold a candle to mine.  I could list out all of her amazing qualities, but this is my food blog and I'd never get to the food!  Let me just tell you, if you don't know her - you're missing out.  If you do know her, you know exactly what I mean... She's the best.

We talk every day (sometimes several times) and our conversation almost always leads to food.  She tells me about a new recipe she tried or I ask her about something she used to make and how in the world to get mine to taste like hers.  She's the absolute best cook I know and most of the recipes I post will come directly from her box.

One thing she makes that she gets MANY requests for is her brownies.  She got the recipe from her friend Kim and her recipe card calls them "Kim's Brownies."  These brownies have a wonderful dense cake-y texture with the most wonderful fudge topping.  The best way to eat them is to pop one in the microwave for about 10 seconds to loosen up the fudge topping and let it drizzle down the sides with a big glass of milk on the side.  Goodness.  

First, gather your ingredients... Then find a super cute, blue-eyed assistant.

Get that cute assistant to help mix first four ingredients.

Slowly incorporate flour/cocoa into the buttery, sugar mix.

As you guessed, have the assistant help you pour the batter in a greased pan.

Throw it in the oven and wait a bit to start the icing on the stove.  When brownies are almost ready, melt butter in a saucepan and add milk and cocoa. Boil for one minute, remove from the heat and add powdered sugar.  Mix this until powdered sugar has dissolved.

Pour the icing on the hot brownies and let icing set up a bit before cutting into the pan (I know... the wait is excruciating!)  Once the icing has glazed over, cut yourself a square and ENJOY!

Don't forget to share with your assistant!  (Here's his wink to you.)

Kim's Brownies

2 c. butter, melted

2 c. sugar

2 t. vanilla

4 eggs

2 c. flout

5 T. cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cream melted butter, sugar, vanilla, and eggs.  Combine flour and cocoa in a separate bowl and slowly fold into the sugar/butter mixture until well combined.  Pour in a greased 9 x 13 pan and bake 35 mins.

Icing:

1 c. butter

3 T. milk

2 T. cocoa

2 c. powdered sugar

Melt butter in a saucepan and add milk and cocoa.  Bring to a boil for 1 min, stirring occasionally.  Remove from heat and add powdered sugar.  Whisk until powdered sugar is dissolved and pour over brownies while still hot. 

Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

I love soup.  It's really that simple.  I don't remember ever meeting a soup I didn't like.  I have tasted some soups that I didn't LOVE, but for the most part... it's pretty hard to mess up soup.  I wanted my first recipe to share to be one of my very favorites and just the name of it makes my mouth water.  Creamy chicken and wild rice soup.  Mm.

I'll start by saying that one of the reasons I love this soup is that I also love the perfect blending of carrots, onion and celery.  It's a great base for many dishes but it really creates that first layer of flavor in this soup.

When I first found this recipe, it was a little different.  It wanted you to throw raw chicken in the chicken broth with the cooked veggies to poach.  I got very sick in high school from food so anytime a recipe says raw, I do whatever I can to make that NOT raw.  Egh.  I have this adorable mini crockpot that a sweet lady from my church home gave me when I went off to college.  I can't tell you have many chicken breasts this little crock has cooked, but she's one of my favorite friends in the kitchen.  I can throw a few breasts or tenderloins in there in the morning with some water and by the afternoon, I can shred the chicken with the tiniest poke of a fork.  Gosh, she's handy.  I've never tried it but I'm sure you could use canned chicken if you like that, but I have also used rotisserie chicken before and that works great.  (I don't usually leave the grocery store without a rotisserie chicken!)

Anyway, here it is!  I love to serve this with cornbread (we love to add jalapenos and cheese to ours!) , crackers or bread for dipping.  This is also super good leftover or even works well to freeze.  Enjoy!

(I am also not going to claim to be a photographer...  My kitchen has terrible lighting so hopefully I will be thinking next time I cook this and take better pictures.)

Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

2 T butter
2 T olive oil
1 c. onion, diced
4 ribs of celery, chopped
4 large carrots, cubed
6 c. chicken broth
3/4 lb chicken breast, cooked
6 oz box Uncle Ben's Long Grain Wild Rice, Original
1 1/2 c. half and half
1/3 c. flour
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, heat oil and butter.  Stir in onion, celery and carrots on med heat for 10 mins until soft.  Season with salt and pepper.  Pour in broth, chicken, and rice with seasoning packet.  Cover and let simmer for 20 mins to cook rice, stirring occasionally.  In small bowl, whisk half and half with flour until smooth.  Pour into soup and reduce to low heat.  Cook until rice is soft and soup is lightly thickened.  Serve with crackers, cornbread or sourdough bread for dipping.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog!  I have grown up in a large family of southern cooks and can't wait to share all of our family recipes with all of you (along with some wonderful dishes I've found online and stolen from my awesome friends - shh!)  I LOVE to cook for my little family of four and anyone else who enters our home.  I don't claim to be a fancy chef (or a wonderful photographer - sorry!) but I believe in cooking good, simple food that uses common, easy ingredients.

I was raised with the thought that homemade gifts are the most genuine kind - and haven't received any complaints yet!  I have a passion for making things with my hands and I know some of those special gifts will make their way onto the blog in some way or fashion.

I have a wonderful husband who supports me 100% in all the crazy ideas I come up with and two precious children - Bowen (2) and Layton (7 months) who are the absolute "why" to my everything! I am a stay at home mom and thank the Lord each day for this wonderful blessing of spending each day with my kids and making our home a happy place.