Friday, March 16, 2007

Taking a Break From Food Blogging

I just can't do it right now. There will be no Soup or Stew Thursday or any other food blogging from me for a while. My job and my family are consuming my life - you all know about my daughter's struggles with ulcerative colitis, colon removal, and her ileostomy - and now there are complications. You all know about my husband's eye injury, and now there are complications. You all know about my work as a teachers' union president - and the complications continue to grow and grow.

I have to step back and prioritize my time - and this (Cookin' with Cyndi) has to take a back seat for a while.

For more information, and great reading, about our bargaining situation, go to Yucaipa-Calimesa Teacher, our blog-by-committee. (At least I'm still blogging!)

So for now, I'm logging off. I might visit some of you now and then to say hello!

Friday, March 09, 2007

Small But Tasty Soup Roundup

I guess people are pretty busy, or they're not fixing soup - we have a small roundup tonight. That's okay!

First up is Paula of The Cookbook Junkie, who sends a Cheesy Broccoli Soup from The New Holly Clegg Trim and Terrific Cookbook. Never heard of Holly Clegg? Me neither. Paula explains, "Poor Holly Clegg. No one has heard of her. Well, one person. Supposedly she's been on a couple of the national morning news programs and she's contributed recipes to many magazines. She's written six cookbooks and has her own website. There's a press item on her site that says that WebMD named this cookbook one of the top 10 healthy cookbooks.


Next up is Ulrike of Küchenlatein, who sends in a soup I just HAVE to try: Lauchsuppe mit Leberkäs-Spiessen, or Leek Soup with Leberkäs Skewers. What makes this stand out to me is the skewers. Leberkäse is similar to bologna, but tastes much better. I buy it often at the German market near my office, and I use it two ways: in Fleishsalat, or cut in thick slices and fried (then put on a sandwich). I like how Ulrike took cubes of crusty German bread and skewered them with cubes of leberkäs, after browning them in a little oil. What a clever and attractive presentation!



Heather of Eating for One contributes Mexican Potato Soup. This is a unique take on potato soup, since it also has corn, bell peppers, cilantro, cumin, and jalapenos. Heather says she got the recipe from USA Today, where occasionally you can find some good ones.





What did I make? I made a soup I've tried before and really liked, Italian Sausage and Spinach Soup. One thing I did differently this time was add a pinch of crushed red pepper with the broth. It gave it a good taste, but wasn't enough to make it hot.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Don't Forget Thursday Soup or Stew!

Get your posts done and let me know by 7:00 pm PACIFIC time tonight!

Email to cholmaneee at uia dot net

Sunday, March 04, 2007

A Meme for the Literary

Several different blogs I read (in the school/education area) have this meme, which I challenge my readers to do, too. I've always considered myself "well read," but this showed me I'm not as well read as I thought. I guess I enjoy the detective novels too much!

Here's what you do:

Look at the list of books below.
* (Bold) the ones you’ve read
* Italicize the ones you want to read
* Leave unchanged the ones that you aren’t interested in.
* If you are reading this, tag, you’re it!

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austin)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling) (known as Sorcerer's Stone in the US)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Thursday Soup or Stew Night #6

It looks like the roundup will be rather small tonight, but there will still be some excellent recipes here.

First, we're joined by Pamela of Posie's Place, who gives us The Best Stew Recipe. It's a Jamie Oliver recipe! I love Jamie Oliver, and this one looks great.










Next, Chris from Mele Cotte sends in Mushroom Beef Stw, made in her crockpot after she saw a link she liked on Kuchenlatein.











Speaking of Ulrike, she decided to try out her crockpot and made a hearty German Pea Soup. Notice that this has what looks like hot dogs in it. Well, I can assure you, they're not hot dogs. They're wiener, or Viennese sausages, which are often found in hearty soups like this.








From another city in Germany, Hamburg, Petra from FoodFreak sends in another great soup, Goulash Soup I remember goulash soup being one of my favorites when we ate out in Germany. It's nice to have a recipe now so I can make my own!









My contribution tonight is some Turkey-Vegetable Barley Soup. I started with a recipe for Beef Barley Soup, added mixed vegetables, and substituted ground turkey for the ground beef. This was excellent. The tomatoes and tomato sauce made it much better than we expected. I made this a couple of days ago, and as it sat in the refrigerator, the barley soaked up a lot of the broth, and it turned into a stew.

Turkey-Vegetable Barley Soup

¾ cup chopped onion
¾ cup chopped celery
¾ cup chopped bell pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
¾ pound ground turkey
3 cups water
1 ½ teaspoon beef bouillon granules
2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
⅓ cup regular barley
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 large bay leaf
1 14.5 oz. diced tomatoes, with their juice
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
In Dutch oven or soup pot, saute onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic with the ground turkey until it loses its red color, breaking it up as it cooks.
Add all other ingredients.
Simmer for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.

I won't be posting for a couple of days. We're going to Anaheim this weekend. I'm helping host a small leadership conference at Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel. I'll let you know how it goes when we come back!

A New Recipe from Cooking Light

The latest Cooking Light came in the mail the other day, and as I was leafing through it last night, this chicken recipe jumped out at me. I made it tonight. It was quick, simple, and really, really good. "Another keeper!" I made it in my toaster oven (because I halved the recipe), and was surprised how quickly it cooked.

Spicy Honey-Brushed Chicken Thighs
from Cooking Light

2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
cooking spray
6 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons cider vinegar

Preheat broiler. Combine first 6 ingredient in a large bowl. Add chicken to bowl; toss to coat. Place chicken on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Broil chicken 5 minutes on each side. (I cautiously did it for 6 each side). Combine honey and vinegar in a small bowl. Remove chicken from oven; brush honey mixture on chicken. Broil 1 minute. Remove chicken from oven again, turn over, and brush with remaining honey mixture. Broil another couple of minutes or until chicken is done.