Italian Sub Stoup with Garlic Toast Floaters

ITALIAN SUB STOUP with GARLIC TOAST FLOATERS

Stoup Ingredients:
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (twice around the pan)
3/4 pound (3 links) hot or sweet Italian sausage, split and meat removed from casing
1/4 pound pepperoni, diced
1 ham steak, diced (about 1/2 to 3/4 pound)
1 green bell pepper, seeded, quartered and sliced
1 medium yellow onion, peeled, quartered and sliced
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 cups chicken stock
2 cups gemelli pasta or other short-cut pasta

Crouton Ingredients:
1/4 cup for croutons
5 cups cubed crusty bread
3 large cloves garlic, cracked from skin
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, a couple of handfuls
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

2 bunches arugula, trimmed and coarsely chopped (about 4 cups)

Directions:
1.  Place a large soup pot or dutch oven on the stove top and preheat to medium high heat. Add olive oil, 2 turns of the pan and the sausage. Brown and crumble the sausage, drain off excess fat if necessary then add the ham and pepperoni. Cook meats together 2 minutes then add peppers and onions and cook 2 or 3 minutes more. Add diced tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Add chicken stock and bring stoup to a boil. Stir in pasta and cook for 8 minutes. Make croutons while pasta cooks.
2.  In a large skillet heat about 1/4 cup of olive oil, 4 turns of the pan over medium heat. Add garlic and cook 1 minute. Add bread to garlic oil, toss and toast the cubes 5 or 6 minutes. Season the toasty cubes with red pepper flakes, oregano and lots of grated cheese.
3.  Stir arugula into soup just before you serve it up. Ladle up the stoup and float several toasty garlic bread cubes in each bowl. 

NOTES:
We've made this meal dozens of times and love it each time. It is just the taste of fall for Ben and me. I measured out the stoup tonight and found that it yields nine 1.5 cup servings, approx 375 calories per serving before croutons.  I set aside two servings and froze the rest. 

The crouton recipe above is how we usually make them. Tonight I wanted to just make only enough croutons for this meal.  I got a mini boule of sourdough bread and cut enough to give us each a half serving. I lined a toaster oven pan with foil, sprayed it generously with olive oil cooking spray. After adding the cubed bread, I sprayed the bread with the oil and broiled until crispy, turning once. I tossed the crispy bread with 1/4 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes, 1/8 dried oregano, and 2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan. The calorie count was definitely lower since I didn't try to saute the croutons in oil. 

I'm sure that in the past we have each eaten a good two cups of stoup and at least a full serving of croutons each. At the end of the meal, Ben and I were feeling full and pleased to have a few more calories left in our day for wine.  

Katie has lived more than 4 years without trying soup. Just wasn't interested. Tonight I pulled out the good old Campbell's chicken noodle soup and she agreed to try. She probably ate one noodle an inch long and gagged. She psyched herself into thinking that it would be awful. I drained the broth for her, but she still wouldn't give it another try.  So, she went to bed without dinner tonight. She wasn't in trouble, but noodles and chicken were her only dinner option. Thankfully for Katie, we have PEPS tomorrow night so she doesn't have to try it again tomorrow. Kyle spit out a mouthful of noodles, but was willing to eat them one or two at a time. He pounded two squeeze pouches of veggies and fruit.

July 8, 2011- Sazerac

Kate and Spencer kindly offered to babysit Katie for us tonight. Date night...what a treat! After getting her settled in with them, I met Ben downtown for dinner and a movie.  We planned to keep our food costs down by sticking to happy hour menus.  We ended up at Sazerac since the happy hour menu was offered until 8pm, two hours longer than most restaurants. 

We started with Crispy "Truffles"-- a deep fried ball of yukon gold potatoes and truffle cheese, coated in bread crumbs, served with truffled aioli.  I really expected a fancy potato chip when I ordered them.  What a pleasant surprise.  Next, Ben had the pulled pork sliders with a mustard based bbq sauce, and I had the cheeseburger sliders with garlic aioli.  We wrapped up the meal by sharing the grilled housemade Andouille sausage.  It had a great texture and a unique flavor.  The food was wonderful, but so were our seats.  

We were seated at the chef's counter, which meant we could watch the chef prepare food while we ate.  The thing we miss most about not having cable television anymore is The Food Network.  We love watching people prepare food.  Tonight it was just like we were part of a live studio audience for a Food Network show.  What fun!  The chef greeted us and said goodbye when we left, but was heads-down the entire we were eating.  I wonder if he likes being watched so closely while he works. 

The movie we saw was Horrible Bosses.  Oh man, that is a hilarious movie!  We were in a packed theater and the whole audience laughed and groaned and jumped as one.  If you liked The Hangover or Bridesmaids, I've got to think you will love this movie!  We will own it for sure.

June 25, 2011- Prost West Seattle

We took Katie to see Cars 2 late this morning.  It was her first movie in a theater.  She got up and down from her chair several times and asked to watch "Tangled" on my iPod once.  But, all in all, she did pretty well for being only 2 1/2-years-old.  It was actually not a very good movie to take her to.  It had a complex plot about espionage that she couldn't understand and a lot of guns.  I guess we need to do more research before assuming a kid's movie is okay for her. 

After the movie, we went to BJ's for pizza.  We ordered a small cheese pizza for Katie and a medium pepperoni and sausage pizza for ourselves.  The cheese pizza came out, shortly followed by an apologetic waitress.  She dropped our pizza on the way to the table.  Unfortunately, we had to be back home by 3pm to meet a paint contractor.  That didn't leave enough time to make us a replacement pizza.  We were told that the beverages we ordered and Katie's pizza would be free.  That was a fair compensation.  Ben and I each ate a quarter of Katie's pizza, and we went home.

We were determined to have pizza tonight, but it just didn't work out.  We drove to Zeek's pizza, but forgot that there was a community festival on the same block.  That meant, no parking and probably no space inside.  Ben suggested a couple restaurants we could go to, but we stopped at Prost West Seattle. Ben has wanted to eat at this German restaurant for several years and this was our first opportunity. Well, it was disappointing.  First, they were out of the beer he wanted to drink.  It was very sad.  Second, the only thing they had on the menu that we thought Katie would eat was a pretzel.  She took one nibble and said "I don't like that part."  That just meant she didn't like the pretzel.  My bratwurst sandwich was fine, but I'm not a fan of curry ketchup.  Ben's thought his curry wurst would be served on a rye bun.  Nope, it was served with two small wedges of rye bread on the side.  Ben and I both ate enough to be full, but were not satisfied.  Since Katie didn't eat anything other than goldfish crackers, we went through the McDonald's drive through to get her a burger.  

I guess it just wasn't our day to eat out. 

Wednesday, 4/20/2011

Tonight was my chicken sausage do-over dinner.  With the carbon scraped off of the grill cover and the gas still on when I put the sausages on, they came out great!  I put the sausages on the grill as far away from the main source of the gas as I could.  Ben mentioned that the grill is hotter on that side.  Sure enough, they didn't burn like they usually do.  Fantastic!  I also grilled asparagus for a side dish.  The sausages grill on indirect medium while the asparagus goes on direct medium.  They are perfect companions for maximizing the grill. 

When we shot Spencer and Kate's engagement photos at Pike Place Market, one of the produce vendors told us that asparagus is actually sweeter and less stringy when it is bigger.  He said that the outer, woody part is what develops first and just stretches out to cover the sweeter insides.  So, the thicker the stalk, the less woody the outside is and the sweeter the inside.  Finally, after two months, I listened.  He was right.  The thicker stalks were sweeter and easier to eat.  I have just purchased my last bunch of skinny asparagus.  Thanks produce guy!

Friday, 4/15/2011

My plan was to cook chicken Italian sausages on the grill and serve them with a side salad.  Well, when I went out to turn the grill down from high to medium, I must have turned off the gas too.  I don't remember doing it, but when I went out to turn the sausages, the flame was out.  Geez...talk about a dinner fail.  The other thing that was weird was that the sausages were sprinkled what I thought was paint flakes from the inside of the grill.  Not wanting to risk ingesting paint, I brought the sausages inside, took the casings off, and browned the ground sausage in a frying pan.  

After the sausage was cooked, I added a couple eggs and cheddar cheese to make a large omelet.  Ben did some research after dinner and found out that the black flakes on the inside of the grill cover were carbon and not paint.  We've brushed the rest of the flakes off and will resume our normal grilling. 

Wednesday, 4/6/2011

Tomorrow we head off for our family vacation to Disneyland.  We will be there through Sunday, spending three days in the parks.  I can't wait!!!  We, along with Ben's brother, gave the trip to their mom, Jennifer, for her 60th birthday.  Spencer is spending the night at our house tonight so that we can leave for the airport together, bright and early tomorrow morning.  

I prepared another puff pastry pizza for our meal tonight.  I finished using the crumbled sweet Italian sausage I prepared for our last pizza and added turkey pepperoni.  My friend Hilary suggested the turkey pepperoni.  I didn't like it as much as regular pepperoni, but it wasn't half bad.  In fact, I guarantee that I will finish off the bag next week:)  

While I was trying to get the pizza prepped for the oven, our neighbor came over to get the scoop on taking care of our cats, Spencer arrived, Ben came home, and Katie needed to give me updates constantly on The Princess and The Frog, which she was watching in the front room.  Goodness, talk about a bit of chaos. With pizza consumed, it was time to start, and finish, packing for our trip. 

Friday, 4/1/2011

A friend of ours mentioned that her family was going to be "spring cleaning" their freezer.  That meant they were going to eat or toss everything in it this spring rather than continue to add to it.  Once it is cleared out, they will start adding things to it again.  It seemed like a really good idea.  I started to work on our freezer tonight and made a pizza.  

I started by defrosted one sheet of Pepperidge Farms puff pastry.  After about 40 minutes, I unfolded the pastry sheet on a lightly floured surface. I rolled the pastry into a 15 x 10-inch rectangle and place on a baking sheet. The directions said to prick the pastry thoroughly with a fork, which I did. The oven pre-heated to 400°, and then the pastry sheet baked for 10 minutes.  Even though I pricked it with a fork, it was quite puffy when I pulled it out of the oven.  I pushed it down a bit before adding zesty pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, shredded rotisserie chicken, crumbled sweet Italian sausage, and grated parmesan.  I put it all back in the oven to bake for another 10 minutes.  The result was a delicious pizza.  The good news is that we still have some pizza sauce and another pastry sheet to use some other day!

Thursday, 3/10/2011

Tonight was a repeat of Tuesday's pasta dish of Spicy Tomato and Basil pasta sauce, whole wheat penne noodles, and hot Italian sausage.  I am very pleased that Katie was willing to eat the noodles.  I know it seems strange to encourage my two-year-old to eat noodles, but sometimes it is the easiest thing to feed her and she doesn't have a history of eating them well.

Tuesday, 3/8/2011

Ben is a big fan of Fred Meyer's bulk hot Italian sausage.  I like it too, but it's Ben's favorite.  Tonight we cooked up a pound of it and used it in a pasta dish.  We like to put it in breakfast scrambles and omelets too.   We had cooked, whole wheat penne noodles left over from last Friday in the fridge.  I tossed the noodles with Classico's Spicy Tomato and Basil pasta sauce and heated it all up in a sauce pan.  Knowing that Katie wouldn't like the spicy sausage, I only added it to the bowls for myself and Ben.  Such a simple and satisfying dinner!

Friday, 3/4/2011

Our church's women's retreat began tonight with a potluck at one member's home.  I made a chicken and pasta casserole to take.  I started with sweet Italian chicken sausage, sliced thin and then pan fried it until a little brown around the edges.  The sausage was mixed into a store-bought, creamy, four-cheese alfredo sauce with rotisserie chicken.  Once it was all hot, I added some cooked penne pasta, and stirred it all together.  There was enough to make two small dishes (see photo) for Katie and Ben and one medium casserole dish for the potluck.  We topped each dish with shredded mozzarella cheese and put them in the oven to let the cheese melt.  

I was running a bit late, so I didn't do any more with my dish other than cover it and transport it to the potluck.  Ben had more time; so, he turned on the broiler and got the cheese a little crispy and golden brown on top.  I wish I had had more alfredo sauce for the dishes.  Although very tasty, they were not as moist as I hoped they would be. 

Monday, 2/7/2011

I was very indecisive at the grocery store this morning. I basically bought stuff for breakfast, lunch, and only veggies for dinners this week.  I figured I had enough protein in the freezer, that I could improvise.  And, improvise is exactly what I did for dinner tonight.  When Ben called to say he was on his way home, I still didn't have a clue what I was fixing for dinner.  I asked him what kind of food he was in the mood for.  When he said "spicy," I had to come up with something quick.

We had some zesty pizza sauce, hot Italian sausage, and shredded mozzarella in the fridge, but no pizza dough.  I went online to the Bisquick website hoping to find a quick pizza dough recipe.  I was surprised to only find recipes that required yeast and far more time than I had available.  What I did find was a recipe for Reuben Fold-Overs, which looked like calzones or empanadas.  I took a chance and it worked pretty well.

For the dough, I took two cups of Bisquick and added 1/2 cup of boiling water.  I mixed until the dough formed, split the dough into four balls, pressed them out into 5 inch rounds, and placed them on a cookie sheet.  I topped each round with the sauce, cheese and sausage and baked for about 15 minutes.  They tasted pretty good, but were really just flat biscuits with pizza toppings:)  The pizza sauce really saved it.  Yes, it is that good;)  All in all, it was a successful improvisation. 

Friday, 1/28/2011

Tonight, Ben and I had a fantastic date night.  A year ago my name was selected in a drawing for a free night's stay at the Hotel Monaco, Downtown Seattle.  That is the same hotel we stayed at on our wedding night and our first anniversary.  How very cool!  Anyway, we had to use the gift certificate by the end of this month.  It's January 28th.  Yes, it was time to use it or lose it.  Thankfully Ben's brother, Spencer, was willing and available to stay with Katie while we took a night off.

After getting Katie and Spencer settled, I took the bus into Seattle to meet Ben.  We checked into the hotel and went out in search of food.  We ended up being able to get a table quite quickly at the Purple Cafe and Wine Bar.  What a great meal!  Here's what we ate:

Appetizers

I had the pork and chicken sausage with cranberry-apricot chutney and pecorino sardo gran cru cheese.  Ben had lamb chili with polenta croutons and rogue smokey blue cheese.  The cheeses were served with a fig jam which was delicious.

Drinks

We each enjoyed a flight of wine--four wines to sample.  I had the red wine flight from Italy with these wines:

• cabanon ‘augurio’ . provincia di pavia . 09
• fattoria pogni . chianti . 08
• il trullo . primitivo del salento . 08
• vinosia aglianico . irpinia aglianico . 08

Ben had the red wine flight from Washington with these wines:

• substance merlot . washington . 08
• l’ecole syrah . columbia valley . 07
• gamache ‘boulder red’ . columbia valley . 07
• brand cabernet sauvignon . columbia valley . 08 

The Substance merlot in Ben's flight was fantastic.  We each had a glass of that with our entree.  It was divine.  

Entree

We shared the artisan cured meat pizza with soppresata, coppa, spanish chorizo, mozzarella, fresh oregano and tomato sauce.  The flavor of the meats took us back to our vacation in Italy.  On that trip, we purchased a variety of cured meats in Greve and ate them with cheese, bread, and wine for a meal at our bed and breakfast.  Who would have thought this meal would take us back to that wonderful vacation.  Here's a photo of that picnic meal for fun:) 

Dessert

The desserts were perfectly sized--small:)  I had the ruby port chocolate torte with cocoa nib whipped cream and port fudge sauce.  Ben chose the bittersweet espresso truffles.  He said the truffles were good, but mine was definitely the better of the two desserts.  Yum!!!  

After dinner we saw Black Swan.  I'm so glad we saw it in the theater.  There were parts of the movie that just needed to be presented in a bigger scale than our TV would have.  While it was definitely a disturbing movie, it was beautifully acted and had amazing cinematography.  

Monday, 12/20/2010

We are leaving for our holiday vacation tomorrow.  I didn't want to dirty any more dishes or add more left overs to the fridge.  Instead, we worked on getting rid of the left overs we already had.  We finished off the pizza we made last week as well as the two extra chicken sausages we cooked up for the pizza toppings. 

Thursday, 12/16/2010

Happy 2nd Birthday Katie!!!

My company's annual meeting took place today.  Since both Ben and I had to work, my Aunt Margie came over to be with Katie for the day.  Thanks Margie!  We wanted to give Katie one birthday present before we left for work.  We woke her up shortly after 7am, got her dressed for the day, and brought her downstairs to see her new drawing easel.  Margie tells me that they spent the majority of the day drawing on the easel.  What a hit!

For dinner, I put together a pizza using a Pillsbury pizza dough, homemade sauce, mozzerella cheese, shredded rotisserie chicken, and thinly sliced Italian chicken sausage.  We were thrilled when Katie decided she would eat the pizza too.  She wasn't interested in the sausage or shredded chicken, but ate the crust, sauce, and cheese willingly. 

Wednesday, 12/8/2010

Ben and I enjoyed left over jambalaya tonight.  Katie still wouldn't touch it.  Tonight she finished off the chicken nuggets she had last night.  Nothing else to report tonight:)

Tuesday, 12/7/2010

Yesterday afternoon I made up a batch of jambalaya, just in case our babysitters needed something for dinner.  They must have brought their own food, because none of the jambalaya was touched.  So, Ben and I had left overs tonight.  For the jambalaya, I used a package of Zatarain's New Orleans style jambalaya mix and added a pound of sliced, fully cooked Cajun Andouille sausages.  It is super easy to make and was quite delicious.  It only took 25 minutes to cook once the water for the rice boiled. 

Katie usually likes rice, but wasn't interested tonight.  She ate chicken nuggets and dipped them in ketchup instead. 

Tuesday, 11/23/2010

With Thanksgiving just a few days away, I didn't want to make anything for dinner which would create more left overs.  We will be creating plenty of those on Thursday:)  So, we made breakfast sandwiches.

I used some Jimmy Dean sage sausage, which was already open in the fridge, to make sausage patties. I fried them in a skillet on the stove top while I prepped toasted buns, sliced cheddar cheese, and fried eggs. Tonight, I used an egg ring to keep a round egg shape for our sandwiches. For breakfast sandwiches, Ben likes the yolk in eggs to be slightly runny. That is definitely not my preference. I always break the yolk when frying my eggs. One solid egg please:)

Katie wanted her own little sandwich. She nibbled on the bread and eventually just ate the egg and sausage.

Friday, 10/29/2010

I perform in a quarterly concert series, called Sweet, Sweet, Music, with my friends from church.  Tonight, our theme was "Stage and Screen".  Ben and I needed to get to the church around 6pm; so, we ordered pizza for ourselves and Katie's babysitter.  We got a large pepperoni and sausage pizza from Garlic Jim's.  We all sat at the table and ate together while we gave our sitter the scoop on Katie for the night. 

We had a great crowd at the concert.  There were close to 150 people in the audience.  My CD release was very successful.  I sold more CDs than I expected to.   After the show, the performers and their families went over to Endolyne Joe's for some food and drinks.  Ben and I shared a plate of Mob Boss Mama's Mozzarella and a plate of Marco's Torta della Salsiccia. The fresh mozzarella was pan fried with herb breading and marinara sauce. The torta was a pastry stuffed with house made Italian sausage and ricotta salata with an herb cheese sauce. Both were outstanding dishes. 

Katie, bless her soul, was busy and excited "talking" to her sitter during dinner.  She didn't eat much, which resulted in her being wide awake and hungry at 3:00am.  We had a house full of guests, so she was sleeping in our room.  There was no avoiding her:)  She washed down a half a banana and crackers with milk for her midnight snack.  Thankfully, she was willing to go back to sleep after her snack.  Ben and I didn't go to sleep until almost 1am; so, Katie's 3am wake up was quite rude.  We were disoriented, cranky, and almost sick from it. 

Tuesday, 10/26/2010

I was going to grill pork chops tonight, but the pork did not defrost fast enough.  Rather than risk partially cooking the chops by using the microwave defrost feature, we pulled out plan b.   We grilled roasted pepper and asiago cheese chicken sausages and made up macaroni and cheese with peas for a side dish.  The sausages were really good.  Ben dipped his in cajun catsup, and Katie and I dipped in BBQ sauce.  Katie cleared her tray of the sausage we gave her very quickly.  She wanted "MORE."  I cut up some left over chicken from last night and she finished it off too.  I like meat-eating Katie:)

This was my first time purchasing a box of Kraft deluxe macaroni and cheese.  It was definitely better than the original, powdered cheese mix variety I am used to.  The noodle quality seemed to be a little better and the sauce was pre-mixed and in a packet.  All I had to do was squeeze it out of the packet and stir it into the hot pasta.  It worked like a charm and was a nice compliment to the sausages.  Katie ate a good helping of the mac and cheese and peas too.  It was a good meal.

The best part of the evening, so far, is that when we took her upstairs for her post-dinner diaper change, she was ready to go to sleep.  She hit the sack without a peep a good 30-45 minutes early tonight.  Wow!  Thanks Katie:)

 In other news, my CDs should be ready to ship out tomorrow!!!

Tuesday, 10/12/2010

This morning I took Katie to Alki Beach to play in the sand.  What a beautiful morning for that outing!  She had lots of fun digging in the sand and looking at the boats and birds.  I only had to remove sand from her mouth once;)  Here are a few of my favorite photos from the morning.

And for dinner tonight, I decided to make pizzas, including dough from scratch.  Katie has been "helping" me rearrange the lower shelf of our pantry cupboard lately.  While putting everything back away, I was reminded that I had a jar of pizza sauce from Trader Joe's.  With pepperoni and Italian sausage left over from stoup last week, all I had to purchase at the store was mozzarella cheese.  I found a Bobby Flay recipe for pizza dough on www.foodnetwork.com.  It turned out ok.  It was probably the best pizza dough I have made myself, but was still a far cry from the greatness of Trader Joe's dough.  Here's the recipe I used:

Ingredients:

2/3 cup lukewarm water (105 degrees F to 115 degrees F)
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus additional for oiling bowl
1 3/4 to 2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
1/4 cup finely ground yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons coarse salt

Directions:
In a large bowl stir together 1/3 cup water, yeast, and sugar and let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. Stir in remaining 1/3 cup water, 2 tablespoons oil, 1 3/4 cups flour, cornmeal, and salt and blend until the mixture forms a dough. Knead dough on a floured surface, incorporating as much of remaining 1/4 cup flour, as necessary, to prevent dough from sticking, until smooth about 5 to 10 minutes. Form the dough into a ball.

Lightly oil the sides and bottom of a large bowl with oil, add the dough, turn to coat in the oil, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour. Gently punch the dough down and divide into 4 equal pieces. Roll each piece on a lightly floured surface into a 10-inch circle that is 1/8-inch thick. Brush off excess flour and transfer the dough to a baking sheet, cover each circle of dough with plastic wrap and continue stacking rolled out pieces on top of each other. Wrap well with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to grill.

Notes:

1.  I used blue cornmeal instead of yellow.  I don't think it made a difference other than giving the dough a different color.  

2.  My dough did not double in size.  It made four, 6-inch pizzas, instead of 10-inch pizzas the recipe said to expect.  Ben and I each ate one and a half for dinner and saved one for tomorrow. Katie had some cheese and ketchup with chicken nuggets dipped in it for her dinner.  I'm pretty sure she ate more ketchup than chicken tonight.

3.  When I picked it, I didn't realize that this recipe was to be used for grilled pizzas.  Instead of grilling, we baked our pizzas on a pre-heated pizza stone for 10 minutes in a 450 degree oven.  It was a good guess:)
4.  I don't think this was "the" pizza dough recipe for me.  I'll keep trying to find one that works for me.