Tag Archives: Celery

Apr 23 2012

Turkey Meatballs in Tomato Sauce – Nigella

I won Nigella Kitchen when it first came out and I was really excited about this particular prize.  Nigella inspires me and this book inspires me even more.  She has many helpful hints throughout the book and I find myself learning new techniques and better methods.  The recipes appeal to me and I see how I go back to many of them, over and over again.

I have a list of recipes, from Nigella Kitchen that I want to make and hopefully, I will be sharing them with you.  Right now, I am going to share her meatball recipe which I made, recently.

Fortunately, I found the recipe online so I am including it here. 

Turkey Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

For the sauce:

  • 1 onion, peeled
  • 1 celery stalk
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 2 x 14 ounce cans diced tomatoes 
  • 3 1/3 cups (2 full cans) water
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt 
  • Pepper, to taste

For the meatballs:

Directions

Put the peeled onion and celery into a processor and blitz to a mush. Or you can chop as finely as humanly possible by hand. Reserve 2 tablespoons for the meatball mixture.  (I chopped but I had to leave Nigella’s wording here.  Who says “blitz to a mush”?  Is that an English expression?  I love it.”

Warm the

 oil in a heavy saucepan or Dutch oven, add the onion and celery mixture, along with the thyme, and cook at moderate to low heat, stirring every now and again, for about 10 minutes.

Add the cans of tomato, filling up each empty can with water to add to the pan. Season with the sugar, salt and pepper, stir and then leave to come to a bubble, and then turn down to let it simmer gently while you get on with the meatballs.

Put all the ingredients for the meatballs, including the reserved chopped onion and celery, and salt according to preference, into a large bowl and mix together, gently, with your hands, wearing disposable vinyl gloves if you feel so inclined. Don’t over-mix, as that will make the meatballs dense-textured and heavy.

When all the meatball ingredients are not too officiously amalgamated, start rolling. The easiest way really to do this is to pinch out an amount about the size of a generously heaped teaspoon and roll into a bowl between the palms of your hands. Put the meatballs on a baking tray, lined with baking parchment or greaseproof paper, as you go. You should get about 50 little meatballs.

Drop these gently into the simmering sauce; I try to let these fall in concentric circles working around the pan from the outside edge inwards, in only the vaguest of fashions.

Let the meatballs cook for 30 minutes, until cooked through. Serve with rice or pasta or however you so please.

The above is almost word to word from her recipe.  I made minor changes but I wanted the wording to stay intact.  She is delightful and I love reading her recipes and the way she words her sentences. 

This is linked to Cookbook Sundays

Apr 15 2012

Tons of Chicken Soup

Each year, when Passover arrives, I pull out my two biggest pots and make chicken soup, lots and lots of chicken soup.  I don’t use a recipe.  Rather, I look around and grab almost every vegetable in site.  I did that, this year, and once again, we had superb soup.  It always amazes me, how the same soup tastes better on Passover than the rest of the year.


I end up freezing containers of soup except for the soup, we use, in the immediate following two days.  I take these containers out of the freezer, as I need them and I always add fresh vegetable to the ready-made soup.  That gives the soup a wallop of flavor.  
Usually, I use nothing but fresh vegetables and chicken.  I experimented with each batch, this year and one of those I made a little bit Thai.  I added some soy sauce and cut up ginger and it took on a subtle flavor.  No rice on Passover, for us, so I made Pesach noodles out of egg, potato starch and water and we had mock noodles in our soup.

As you can see, I made this soup, plain, no vegetables, no chicken but yes kneidlach.


Chicken Soup with lots of Vegetables

I am going to give you the ingredients for only one pot.

Ingredients

  • 1 chicken for each pot (In this case, I bought packages of bottoms and used from 4-6 in each huge pot.
  • water 3/4 up the pots
  • 3 stalks celery, cut into chunks
  • 2 onions, cut into quarters (I used large onions)
  • 1 sweet potato, cut into chunks
  • 1 turnip, cut into chunks
  • 3 parsnips, each cut into 3 pieces
  • 5 carrots, cut into 3 pieces, each
  • 2 tablespoons fresh parsley
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
  • 2 turnips, cut into chunks

Directions

Place chicken in a large pot and cover with water.  Heat water and then lower to a simmer.  Cook 2 hours.

Put all the vegetables in the pot except the parsley.  Cook  for another 40 minutes, again simmering.

Add parsley and seasonings and cook for another 30 minutes.

Remove vegetables from pot.  If you want to serve with vegetables, put in new ones and cook until they are done, about 20  minutes.  Cut them into smaller pieces than the chunks.  You can chop them or make them slightly bigger.

Remove the chicken and break into small pieces and return to soup.

Put into bowls and enjoy this.
This is linked to Sunday Night-Soup Night
Oct 10 2011

Cheddar Potato Soup

Montgomery's Cheddar cheese

Image via Wikipedia

This started out to be a good potato soup but I love potato soup and one would have to do something terrible to it, for me, not to enjoy it.  This is just the opposite.  The cheddar cheese gave this a personality of its own.  The flavor of the cheese transformed it from a decent soup to a tasty soup, to love.

Other than the chopping, this soup is easy to make.   First the onions and celery.  Then, I decided to add some red pepper, forgetting this was going to be blended and the red would not be seen.  I used fingerling potatoes and left them with the skin on and these had to be chopped also.   Although, I did shred the cheese with a grater, work could have been saved by using a knife and cutting thin pieces.  It would melt just as well in the hot soup.     I would use white cheddar, next time, just to change the color of the soup, to something brighter and lighter.


Cheddar Potato Soup adapted from Taste of Home Annual 2003

Ingredients:

  • 1/3 cup chopped onion
  • 1/3 cup chopped celery
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 4 cups diced peeled potatoes
  • 3 cups vegetable broth
  • 2 cups (8 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
  • 2 cups milk
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • Dash paprika

Procedure

  • In a large saucepan, saute onion and celery in butter until tender. Add potatoes and broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
  • Puree in small batches in a blender until smooth; return to the pan. Stir in the cheese, milk, pepper and paprika. Cook and stir over low heat until the cheese is melted.
Related articles
Aug 14 2011

Original Potato Salad

In my effort to use the book Branded, I chose to make Hellman’s potato salad.  I admit, I was disappointed since it was a basic recipe but I wanted to stick to it, as much as possible.  It turned out to be good, not great, but it disappeared, by the end of the meal.
Hellman’s Original Potato Salad 
Ingredients
5 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
2/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons vinegar (I used rice vinegar with basil and oregano)
salt to taste
black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup thin sliced celery
1/2 cup chopped onions
1 hard-boiled egg, chopped into fine pieces
Procedure
Cook potatoes in water in 4 quart saucepan.   Bring to a boil over medium high heat.  Then reduce the heat and simmer ten minutes or until potatoes are tender.  Drain.
Combine mayonnaise, vinegar, salt, pepper and sugar.  Add potatoes, celery, onion and eggs.  Gently mix until potatoes are coated.
Refrigerate.  Serve cold or allow to warm up a little and serve at room temperature.  We like it cold.