Creamy Potato and Bacon soup

found this recipe, tweeked it a bit and it was tasty!

Thick and Creamy Potato Bacon Soup


Ingredients:

•1/2 lb (1/2 package) thick cut pepper bacon, cooked until crisp and chopped

•2 – 3 tbsp. Bacon drippings

•1 large onion, chopped

•4 cloves garlic, minced

•5 lbs. russet or red potatoes, peeled and cut in 1-inch cubes

•32 oz. chicken stock (approximate)

•1/2 pint heavy cream

•1/8 lb (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

•Salt and pepper to taste

Cook bacon using preferred method until crisp. (I bake thick cut bacon on a cooling rack over a sheet pan so that it remains flat). Allow to cool and chop or crumble into small pieces. Reserve several tablespoons of drippings. (add more bacon drippings if onions look dry. This will depend on the size of your pot and particular onion.)


Place a large soup pot or heavy casserole over medium heat. Add 2 tbsp. bacon drippings and cook onions, stirring frequently, until translucent. Add garlic and cook another 2 minutes, stirring often.

Add potatoes and cook, stirring occasionally for a few minutes. When everything is sizzling nicely, add enough stock to just cover potatoes. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for approximately 15 to 20 minutes or until potatoes are fork-tender.

Mash potatoes roughly with a potato masher. Scoop out about half of the remaining mixture and puree in a blender (in batches!) or food processor. (Or if you’ve got an immersion blender, go for it with that.) Make sure to leave a good bit of the potatoes chunky, for texture.

Add butter and heavy cream. Stir to combine well. Taste for seasoning and add more stock if soup is too thick for your liking. When the consistency is right for you, stir in bacon and bring to just a bare simmer, stirring often.

Serve hot. Garnish with additional crumbled bacon and some chives or green onions.

*things I did differently, I put half the bacon in as I pureed half the soup, and I used milk instead of cream. I also served with grated cheese. It was yummy!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

My friends and I got together tonight to decorate some Valentine cookies. We had lots of fun with lots of laughter. We did some cute little Valentine cookies for our kids then some ...more creative cookies for our husbands. It was great fun and I think they turned out pretty funny!

 The ones for the kids.....and now the ones for Darwin....

Too funny! We used royal icing to decorate the cookies and here is the recipe.....

For those of you who don't know Royal icing is great, it taste pretty much like sugar but you can add flavoring to it. It is very thin and easily piped, smooths easily and can be used for many things. Thicker royal icing can be used to make flowers and things for cakes as well. It dries hard and smooth.

You can make it with egg white but i found Meringue Powder is much easier

Royal Icing
1/4 cup Meringue Powder
1/2 cup cold water
2 1/2-4 cups sifted powdered sugar

In a mixer combine Meringue powder and water and mix till peaks form, add powdered sugar till you have your desired consitancy. Color, fill piping bags adn have fun!

The wedding cake..

Today was the day of the wedding...It did not start off well. But I will get into that in a minute... First I want to show some pictures of the wedding. This is the reception area.. The camo theme was definately there and clear.                                                                      

 The center pieves were antlers with balloons tied to them and battery operated candles covered in duct tape..oh and the table cloths, plates and napkins were all camo..

 Here is part of the cake the branch in the middle.

 The food line... yes the walls are covered in brown paper, then a deer head and a few bow and arrows make it complete.

 Now for the cake drama.. Orginally I was going to marble the fondant, I made all my fondant the day ahead and this morning when I woke up my fondant was not my friend. I don't know what happened, a combo of dry air and the coloring or something but it was just falling apart. After a few tears I devised a new plan.. I would cover the cakes in white fondant then airbrush it. It turned out pretty good. My dear friend Michelle was a life saver on this cake as she made ALL of my chocolate leaves! I'm gonna owe her a fabulous dinner and dessert for all her hard work. But I think she had fun on our 'adventure into the outdoors'

I'm glad it is done and over with and hopefully they are happy with it....if not oh well it is too late to change now!

Luau

We have had this Elder, Elder Tancayo in our ward for quite some time and he gets to go home to Hawaii tomorrow. As a send off/thank you and ward activity we had a Hawaiian Luau. His mom sent many items and he had the ward provide some as well and he did most the cooking himself. It was great, complete with whole pig roasted in a pit, poi, macaroni salad, and Salmon Lomi. I was asked to make the Salmon Lomi and the recipe has been requested quite a bit, so here goes. Also this recipe is for a mass amount adjust as needed :) His mother sent the salted Salmon so I'm not quite sure this is the same for the salmon but here goes...

Salmon Lomi
20 lbs tomatoes seeded and diced
2 1/2 bunches green onions diced
4 large white onions diced
5 cups salted salmon diced

Rinse salmon well and combine with the other ingredients. Mix well and allow to sit for 30 minutes prior to service.

Salted Salmon:
In a large baking dish spread a layer of Hawaiian Salt or Kosher salt. (Table salt will not work for this application, it needs to be a coarse salt) Rinse the salmon and pat dry. Apply another layer of Salt and be sure to have all sides covered with salt. Cover with plastic wrap and weigh down with another dish. Refrigerate for at least 24 hours and as long as 3 days. The longer the fish cures the more water is drawn out of the salmon resulting in a saltier and more heavier cured fish. Rinse well prior to use.

Roasted Garlic & Romano Butter

Oh my goodness, there is NOTHING better than a warm roll with this butter smeared all over it. It is the best! It has the yummy roasted garlic flavor with the salty Romano cheese with a bit of black pepper for bite and oh so good! I could eat this and only this for a week...

1 Stick of butter, softened
2 heads garlic
1 tsp black pepper
3 T grated Romano cheese
1 T olive oil

Cut off the tops of the heads of garlic, place in an oven safe pan, drizzle with olive oil and roast at 350` for about 30-40 minutes until the garlic is soft. Allow to cool till able to handle. Squeeze the roasted garlic out onto a cutting board. Using your knife smear, cut and smash the garlic until it is a mash. Mix with the softened butter add the cheese and the pepper. Smear onto toasted bread and warm rolls.

The redneck cake...

So today I spent the morning doing a test run of what I'm refering to...imagine the Jaws music in your head...the redneck cake. I decide that I didn't need to do a full feldge test run and that one small teir would work, so it began. I made Darwin's favorite cherry chip gag, (sorry folks I'm not an artifical cherry kind of gal) covered it with Buttercream then made my marshmellow fondant. I thought I would share this recipe here as well as the modeling chocolate recipe... recipes to follow shortly. I started by making 3 shades of army green, a chocolate brown and white fondant. I then took each color and formed it into a snake squished the snakes together and twirled and folded a few times then rolled out. It looked really good just like Camo. I covered the cake then drew the bark pattern by free hand on the fondant. I then took the modeling chocolate and formed branches. Then made the chocolate leaves. I bought candy melts in different "leaf" colors and coated fake fall leaves with the different shades, then peel off the fake leaf leaving the chocolate leaf intack. It turned out pretty good. The couple came over to look at it and drop off the topper adn pillars... did I mention the pillars? they want it seperated by pillars that they have covered in camo duct tape. The cake stand orginally was going to be a round of wood cut and sealed but they told me they couldn't find a round big enough so would like to me to cover a board in...you guessed it camo duct tape... I told the couple if you don't like the way it looks or want my to do something different let me know and I'd be happy to change it... but no it is just perfect and what they wanted. oh goodness....
  anyhow, it will be interesting. Here are the recipes:

Marshmellow fondant:
1 pkg marshmellows
2-5 T water
2 lbs sifted powdered sugar
1/2 shortening

Place marshmellow and 2 T of water in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave in 30 second intervals stirring inbetween until completely melted (about 3 minutes) fold in 3/4 of the powdered sugar. Grease hands adn table GENEROUSLY with the shortening, pour fondant out of bowl and knead incorporating the remaining sugar. If it tears easily it is too dry and add more water. Knead till it forms a ball that will not tear when stretched about 8 minutes. Store over night by coating with a thin layer of shortening and covering in plastic wrap and then in an air tight container. Roll out to 1/8-1/4 inch thick and cover cakes. Can be colored and flavored if you want. To make chocolate fondant sub 1 cup cocoa powder in for the powdered sugar.

Modeling chocolate: if you don't know what this is it is AMAZING!! it is so simple to make and great fun to play with. You can make it different colors by using white chocolate and food coloring *Just be sure to use powdered or Gel food coloring NOT liquid, the luquid contains water which will cause the chocolate to seize and have to be thrown out* This wonderful stuff, taste like a richer tootsie roll and can be shaped into any shape, it is so easy to work with.

1 bag chocolate chips
1/3 cup corn syrup

melt the chips in the microwave and fold in the syrup. Stir till thick then turn onto plastic wrap. Spread out and allow to sit out to set, about 2 hours if on the counter 30 minutes in the fridge. Tear off a  piece and start shaping, store in an air tight container.

Shrimp Hash with a Bacon onion Balsamic vinaigrette

So we had this big get together dinner on Sunday with friends and it was great fun. It was a pot luck, I was to bring a side and dessert... So I brought Darwin's favorite goodies of his grandmothers...recipe will probably make its apperance here at some point, and I had 2 lbs of shrimp...so my mind was thinking what to do with this shrimp....I kid you not I went to sleep and dreamt about this wonderful yummy shrimp dish and woke up and decided it actually sounded quite tasty... so I made it and well lets just say my dear friend Michelle requested a tray full of it for her Birthday...which is in September.

Shrimp hash with a Bacon onion and Balsamic vinaigrette

3 large russet potatoes grated
1 T olive oil
1 meduim onion small diced
1/4 lb bacon diced
3 cloves garlic minced
2 lb shrimp
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 T olive oil
salt and pepper
4 T reserve bacon fat...I know not the most healthy thing but Mmmmmmm
4-5 T balsamic vinegar
1/3 tsp white pepper

Start by marinating the shrimp in the paprika, cayenne salt and pepper and oil. Set aside. Fry the bacon and when about half way done add the onion and bacon, drain reserving the grease and allow to cool. On a griddle spread the olive oil out and press out the grated potatoes, basically you are making hashbrowns. Season to taste and cook till golden brown adn crisp then flip and cook through completely. In the pan that cooked the bacon and onions add the shrimp and cook completely. In a bowl add the bacon grease white pepper and whisk in the balsamic vinegar.
Cut your hashbrowns into squares, then top each one with 4-5 shrimp, top each square with about 1 tsp of the bacon mixture then drizzle with the vinaigrette, serve warm.... yummy!