Recipes

I love to cook. Cooking is my creative art. It is where I am completely unencumbered, (excepting the occasional look from Levin.) I cook all different types of Ethnic cuisines and am always up for a challenge. I enjoy recipes, but I do not follow them. Ever. So my recipes, if you venture to try any will never, with the exception of a baked good recipe, have exact measuring amounts because I don’t use them. If I say “cup” that is a general statement and not to be taken too literally. Please feel free to change, add to, or subtract from any of the things which I post here.

In all fairness I suppose it should also be added that this is mostly the way that I knit as well, as a dear friend of mine calls it, “knitting on the fly.”

This is just another example of how the fall has affected me and my “Eve”. I, the ” rebel of recipes!”

Man’s Man Soup

This soup is great for that guy who will not tolerate those “wimpy” girlie soups. This is hearty and rich. I would not substitute the sweet potato is this recipe it IS the soup.

Ingredients

Fair amount of beef (steak or roast) cubed and salted

A couple of chopped onions

A few diced celery stalks

Half a clove of finely diced garlic

A couple of medium potatoes skinned and cubed (don’t do this until you are ready to use)

2 medium sweet potatoes or one very large one skinned and cubed

Bouillon, salt and pepper (I grind my own pepper with an old fashioned stone, yum) to taste

A few tablespoons of flour (for thickness)

Sharp cheddar shredded (a couple of handfuls)

Heavy cream, one half pint container

Chopped green onion

Brown the meat in a little Olive oil in a very hot skillet until browned (I do the meat very quickly in small batches.) Remove meat from pan, but leave the browned oil in the pan and sauté the onions and celery until somewhat softened, somewhere around 5 minutes depending on the pan. Add garlic sauté for 47 seconds and return beef to pan. Immediately add several cups of water, (enough to thoroughly cover everything), bouillon (don’t over do it) and regular potatoes. Cook 20 minutes. Add sweet potatoes and cook 10 more minutes. At this point all veggies should be tender, but not completely mushy. Add a few tablespoons of flour and water mixed together to the stock to add density (don’t overdo this). Let is cook for a few minutes and then add your cream. I stir in the cream nicely and enjoy the aroma and get ready to add the cheese. When you add the cheese stir continually so that it can melt “evenly” in the pan.

After this you are ready to eat. For safety purposes please so not let your man’s man eat from the pot, as it will be extremely hot! Serve up this soup with crusty bread for dipping (so that he won’t lick the bowl) and garnish with green onions. Try it out and let me know if you can follow my crazy directions.

Kitty