Making: Maryland Crab Soup

Author: Susan  |  Category: food, recipe

I love soup. I eat it all year long, usually four or five days of the week. There are a bunch of places near my office that offer tasty soups, and I love making it at home, too.

Here’s how I make Maryland Crab Soup. Sorry there are no measurements but it’s hard to mess it up.

Warm a small amount of olive oil in a soup pot. Add onions, carrots and celery and soften (I used frozen carrots because we had them). Once softened add some fresh ground pepper.

Add frozen peas and cook through.

Add canned white corn.

I usually use V8 juice instead of stock or water for my broth. This time I used half tomato soup and half V8 juice. Once your liquid is warmed through, add a healthy dose of Old Bay. After I stirred this in, I sampled and decided I needed more. Remember that Old Bay will add to the saltiness, so it is possible to go overboard.

Add your  crab meat. It’s totally acceptable to use claw meat for soup even though you’d never want to use it for crab cakes.

Sometime I add some diced, cooked potatoes, too. Others prefer lima beans or green beans to peas. Here’s the official Old Bay recipe for Maryland Crab Soup.

Serve:

Delicious: 

Making _________ (Hint: It’s What Newlyweds Do)

Author: Susan  |  Category: recipe

Answer: Ice Cream

For my bridal shower, my friends Dawn and Chuck gave us a Kitchen Aid stand mixer.  I’m in love with it.  Not only is it a great appliance, but it’s pretty and red.  Friends Amy and Wayan gave us the ice cream maker attachment as a wedding gift.

In celebration of Independance Day (and also because we had fresh, delicious strawberries), I thought our first batch of homemade ice cream was in order.

Here’s the recipe I used (adapted from about three or four others I found online):

Strawberry and Lime Ice Cream

Strawberry Mix-In:
1 pint strawberries, hulled and cut into small pieces
1/3 cup sugar
juice from 1 lime
zest from 1 lime

Cream Base:
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
3 cups half and half

strawberry_lime

Results: YUM! The lime is really tasty.

Combine strawberries, lime juice and zest, and 1/3 cup sugar. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Then, whisk eggs in a bowl until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Slowly whisk in the sugar and continue whisking for about a minute longer. Add the cream and milk, stir until fully combined.

Combine the strawberry and lime mixture into the cream base. Turn on the mixer and slowly add the custard.  Allow the ice cream maker to do it’s thing for about 20 minutes, then spoon into a shallow container and freeze for about 2 hours. 

The bowl for the ice cream maker attachment has to be frozen for at least 15 hours before you can make ice cream … so this isn’t a great spur of the moment dessert (unless you have enough room in your freezer for it all the time) … but other than that, it was really easy to make. 

Then, earlier this week Susan S and Maggie gave us a mess of really ripe peaches.  Don peeled and froze them for me and last night I turned them into Brown Sugar, Butterscotch and Peach Ice Cream. 

Next time I am going to try a sorbet. Or frozen yogurt.  Or more ice cream.  I love this thing!

All Hail, Kale

Author: Susan  |  Category: recipe

Don and I belong to a CSA located in Midland, Va. and we’ve been incredibly pleased with the quality and quantity of produce we’ve seen this year.  We joined another CSA last year and it was not half as good.  The summer produce is just starting to appear (squash, beans!) and so we say goodbye to the early season greens … but not before having to deal with the dreaded kale.

I know that some people just love it, but we’re not some people.  So I’ve been trying to come up with ways to use it to make it less like kale.

News Flash - No matter what you do, it’s still kale.

kale_chips

Salty, crispy, bitter kale chips.

Last night, I made kale chips.  I had seen mention of this on countless food blogs and it seemed really simple (”Even my kids love it,” claimed blogger after blogger).  To make it, you cut pieces of kale into 2 or 3 inch “chips” then place them on a cooking sheet sprayed with olive oil spray.  Spray a little olive oil on top, sprinkle with vinegar and sea salt and bake at 350 - 400 degrees for 15 minutes or so. 

Easy? Yes.  Delicious?  Eh.

The kale does get nice and crispy.  The chips are really salty.  But, the kale is really bitter because, you know, it’s kale.  We ate it all … but it wasn’t the best part of the meal, for sure (that would have been the buffalo brisket or the horseradish mashed potatoes).

Tonight I am working on a clambake for two.  I chopped up some of the kale and put it in the steamer broth with the potatoes, onions, garlic and sausage and then put some more at the bottom of the steamer basket where you would normally place the seaweed.  I HOPE the kale doesn’t make the broth too bitter since it’s so yummy normally.

Farmer John says this might be the last week for salad greens, too … so we’re having a bit of what might be our last local lettuce for awhile. 

Happy 4th of July!