Roasted vegetable soup

As soon as the evenings started getting cooler, I had to make this soup. Something about it screams "fall" to me, though it would be excellent any time of year. I started by roasting a combination of carrots, cauliflower, and diced butternut squash. I love to roast vegetables because roasting intensifies the vegetable flavour. Once the vegetables were tender, I added them to some deeply-flavoured homemade kitchen stock I had simmering on the stove. After allowing the vegetables to simmer a bit with the stock, I pureed the mixture with my immersion blender and added a few drops of tobasco sauce to give the soup a bit of kick without being overpowering. I garnished the soup with sauteed carrot strips and chopped chives. Simple and satisfying on a cool fall day...

Grandma's lemon-poppyseed cake with citrus glaze

I was really excited recently when, while organizing some old letters and photographs, I found one of my Grandma's recipes written in her own hand-writing. This meant a lot to me because my Grandma passed away about nine years ago and making one of her recipes is a wonderful way to reconnect, remember, and honor her. Grandma loved to entertain family and friends. I remember going to her home for breakfast and being welcomed with a dining table full of food. Fresh fruit salad, cinnamon rolls, muffins, potatoes, eggs, bacon and sausage, and probably a couple other things as well. There was always tons of food at Grandma's house. Though the lemon-poppyseed cake was a pretty straightforward recipe, it was really delicious and I think Grandma would have been pleased with it. If I close my eyes, I can once again almost feel the happiness of sharing food around Grandma's table...

New Mexican green chili

This blog entry is dedicated to my wonderful "mother-in-law", Merilee Hicks. Merilee grew up around Sante Fe, New Mexico and introduced me to the area and the food a couple years ago. She's one of the few people who love food and cooking as much as I do. I made this batch of chili with a little extra love, since it was for her. I started by braising a boneless pork shoulder in chicken stock along with onions, garlic, jalapenos, cilantro leaves, cumin, and ground red pepper. An hour and a half later, I added quartered tomatillos and roasted poblano chiles. Two hours later I removed the pork and pureed the vegetables with and immersion blender before shredding the pork and returning it to the pot along with some frozen corn kernels. A few minutes later I served the chili with sour cream and cilantro.

Baked angel hair timbale

This dish really has a "WOW" factor when you bring it to the table. It's based on a recipe in Giada's Family Dinners by Giada De Laurentiis. Giada's recipe called for using 6 Japanese eggplants, but since I was making the dish for someone who was unsure about eggplant, so I used only one. In place of the rest of the eggplants, I used red and green peppers and zucchini. I sauteed all the vegetables with some garlic until tender. I removed the vegetables and then in the same pan, I cooked some Italian sausage (turkey sausage would work great here.). Once the sausage was cooked through, I added some good red wine and simmered it until the wine reduced. Then in a big bowl, I combined the vegetables, sausage, 3 cups of homemade marinara sauce, and red pepper flakes. When well-combined, I added cooked angel hair pasta and again stirred well and allowed to cool. While that was cooking, I rolled out puff pastry and transferred it to a springform pan. Then to the cooled pasta mixture, added grated parmesan cheese and 1 pound of diced mozzarella cheese. I poured the entire mixture into the springform pan and covered it with more puff pastry and then trimmed and pinched the edges to seal them. It then baked for 90 minutes. You've probably already concluded (if you have read all of this) that this was a rather time and labor-intensive dish. But, when I removed the finished dish from the springform pan and cut into it, inhaling the savory aromas and feasting my eyes on the rich colors and textures, I knew even before I tasted it, all the time and effort had been worth it. Baked angel hair timbale...dazzling, dramatic, and DELICIOUS...