Hi, Friends!  When you read my previous blogs (I know you did!), you know I made ham and cheese sliders for our Super Bowl party.  I had some Provolone cheese leftover, so I looked for a recipe to use this up.  I've said this before, but a great way to get a new recipe is to just enter the ingredients you have on hand into your search engine and see what pops up!  I always have extra sharp cheddar on hand, so I bought some broccoli and made this delicious soup!

     It looks like I took a bite out of that baguette, but I promise that's just where I tore that piece of bread off!  I love whole wheat and whole grain baguettes, and you can now buy the already baked whole wheat ones at Walmart!  Baguettes can be sliced for crostinis, sliced for sandwiches, diced for croutons, or just break off a piece for your soups and stews!  

     I forgot to tell you, this is a slow cooker recipe, and it is so easy!!!  It's also a large recipe, probably about eight large bowls of soup, so you may want to half it.  Here's the recipe!  "First you make a roux....".  That's how many French cooks begin to share a recipe!  A roux is the foundation to numerous soups, sauces, gumbos, etc.!  A roux is simple, it's just equal parts fat and flour.  In this case it is butter.  I have sautéed sweet onions in this butter (onions are not always in a roux, but something else I always have on hand is sweet onions, and in the Summer it is only Vidalia onions!).  I will buy other onions as the recipes call for them.  See the roux in the picture above that has thickened up after adding flour?  Make sure you cook the roux enough to get the floury taste out.  In the next picture I have added warm evaporated milk.  In France and in culinary school, you have now made a Béchamel sauce, one of the five mother sauces in French classical cuisine.  That wasn't hard, was it? This is a base for many dishes.  Here's our soup recipe!

Cheese and Broccoli Recipe
This was made in a large slow cooker and made about 12 servings.
     Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup (5.3 oz.) butter, sliced
• 2 cups sweet onion, small dice
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2/3 cup flour
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, TT (to taste)
• 24 oz. evaporated milk
• 1 cup milk (I had 1 % on hand. Whole milk or heavy cream will give you a richer soup, but mine was delicious as it was)
• 5 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 5 cups broccoli (three bunches, cut into small diced florets makes about 5 cups) 
• 2/8 t dried thyme
• 1 cup milk or heavy cream
• 12 oz. Provolone (I cut this round of Provolone into small strips and then sliced them in the opposite direction-the Provolone doesn't work with a cheese grater!)
• 12 oz. extra sharp cheddar, shredded 

Directions:

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the onions (optional) and saute until soft.  Add the garlic and flour, and season lightly with salt and pepper (you will more salt and pepper later, to taste, if needed).  After this has cooked for 3-4 minutes and has become thick but no more than a light pale tan color, whisk the warm evaporated milk into the roux, whisking briskly to smooth the Bechamel.  Let it cook until you have a nice sauce and the taste of the flour has cooked out.  Know how to test if a sauce is done?  Dip a tablespoon into it, and when it coats the back of the spoon swipe your finger across the back of the spoon; if the swipe is clean, it's done! 

Pour the Bechamel sauce into your slow cooker along with the chicken broth, diced broccoli and thyme. Cover and cook on high heat for 2 1/2 - 3 hours or low heat for six hours.  When this time is up, turn the slow cooker to warm (or off) and stir in heavy cream, add shredded cheeses, and stir to blend.  Taste and season with salt and pepper.  Serve warm.

You can make this on the stove top, also.  Start with a stock pot on medium heat, make the Bechamel sauce, add broth, broccoli and thyme together and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes until the broccoli is tender.  Take the soup off the heat and add your cream, shredded cheeses and salt and pepper and blend well.

     (Bonus: When you finish the Bechamel sauce, take it off the stove, add shredded cheddar and hot, cooked macaroni noodles, and voila, mac and cheese!!)

     This soup is a wonderful cold weather recipe.  Unfortunately in Georgia right now you can't plan ahead with the weather, but it's good any other time, too!  Hope you enjoy it!

      Hi, Friends!  I ate at a favorite pizza place recently with friends and we all had wonderful Italian Sausage Calzones.  This was before the Super Bowl, so I'm still thinking about what I might do for the Super Bowl party.  I was thinking of hand-held, bite sized foods, so I thought, I can make baked empanadas with these same ingredients that we all love! So, I found already made empanada discs in the frozen seafood section at Publix, the only place in town I could find them (I didn't check the Mexican supermarkets, that was going to be my next stop). These can be fried, also, but I call myself health conscious by not frying much.  Every little bit helps, right?

     Then I bought hot Italian sausage.  Let me tell you something I learned about sausages.  Just because a lot of the sausages you like are in casings, that doesn't mean you have to use it as a link sausage!  Cut it out of the casings!  That may seem elementary to some of you folks, but if you haven't cooked much, that's a revelation!  We learned how to make our own sausages, patties and in casings, in culinary school and they were so fabulous!  I will buy a meat grinder one day!

     I also made a very, very simple pizza sauce, no cooking required!  The pizza sauce recipe calls for fresh herbs.  I had fresh rosemary but dried oregano and basil.  When using dry herbs and the recipe calls for fresh, use about 1/3 to 1/2 of what the recipe calls for, because dried herbs have a much stronger flavor than fresh herbs.  This is where tasting your food as it cooks is important.  Start out with the smaller amount and add as needed.  You know you can't take it out once it's in there.  That especially goes for salt!  Let me share these recipes with you!

For the empanadas:  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

• Goya Empanada Discs, a package has 10
• Hot Italian Sausage, 1/2 lb.
• A Small Onion, small diced (optional, but I love onions in everything!)
• Pizza Sauce (Click on the picture of the sauce for this recipe!)
• Shredded Mozzarella cheese
• One large egg, beaten, for egg wash
• You'll need a half sheet pan, layered with parchment paper

1. Make sure the empanada discs are thawed.  
2. Brown the Italian sausage with the onions.  
3. You're going to fold these discs in half, so layer the sausage and onions appropriately, add a teaspoon of the pizza sauce, then top with shredded mozzarella cheese. 
4. Brush egg white around the rim of the empanada and fold over the filling.  The egg wash will help the sides stick together. 
5. Next, so around the curved edges of the empanada with the tongs of a fork to seal the edges. 
6. Lastly, brush the tops with the egg wash, and in this step it helps to give the empanadas a beautiful golden brown color. 
7. Bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
8. Serve with the extra pizza sauce! 

     How easy is that, and they were delicious!  Because of time constraints I didn't have time to make these for the upcoming party, but they are on my list of things now that I can do easily and quickly, for a small or a large group!

     Another friend told me that Publix sells homemade pizza dough, ready to use, at their deli counter.  You can always make your own doughs, but it is nice to have options, especially if you're doing a lot of different dishes for a party!  So next time I will use pizza dough, and I will call them mini calzones!

     Hope you enjoy the recipe!

     Dished With Love, Denise!

     This post is not about the Super Bowl, but about the Super Bowl party that my friends and I have been having for the last several years!  It started with June Reyes, our "friend to all", who loved feeding people with his wife Gail's food, and obviously loved having happy people around him!  

     Gail puts out a real spread, from hot wings and barbecue to some of June's and our favorite Filipino dishes, panzit (noodles) and lumpia (spring rolls) to mention a couple, and opens her home to everyone and their friends.  I'm really not into professional football, so I won't mention who I wanted to win Super Bowl 50 (see image above).

     Here is my contribution.  I was out of town the whole week before the party, so I didn't do as much as I would have liked.  These ham and cheese sliders have been a big hit at the SBP (Super Bowl Party).  I made them a few years ago and they are now there every year by popular demand. 

     As you can tell, these are made from yummy King's Hawaiian Sweet Rolls, and I don't know anyone who doesn't love these all by themselves.  I bought deli honey ham and provolone cheese from Sam's and cut the meat slices in half and the cheese slices into quarters.  Janise helped me make 120 of these, and somehow there were five left at the end of the evening.  Click on the picture above for the recipe!

           Here are some of the goodies from other partiers!  This is just a little of the food we brought home.  There's Karen's Crack Dip (you can find the recipe for that by using the search feature), Gail's Spinach Dip (a Knoll's recipe), 15 bean soup, panzit, and hot wings.  The Filipino pork medallions were made by our new friend, Blessie!  There's a picture of cornbread I made to eat with the soup, with onions.  Delicious!  Here's the recipe for Friend Becca's Corn Salad!

Becca's Corn Salad

2-15 oz. cans whole kernel corn, drained
2 c grated cheddar cheese
1 c mayo
1 c green bell pepper, small dice
1/2 c red onions, small dice
1=10 oz. bag Fritos, crushed (or use as a dip with corn chips)

This salad was delicious!  I won't tell you how much I ate!

     The week before the Super Bowl I stayed with my friends Bo, Marley, Willie and my new friend, Cinder, the Yorkie, while my friends Jeff, Carrie, and Jeff, were on vacation.  These are the sweetest pets, and I really miss them when I leave.  This was my first time to stay with Cinder, and he is such a good dog.  Look at Willie, she looks like she's in charge, right?  Well, she was!

     As her father would say, here's the most beautiful girl in the world!  Here they are dressed for their first Father-Daughter Date!  She is a happy baby!  There's a lot of love there!  I get to spend a little time with her this week, and I can't wait!

     Here's what I did for Valentine's Day.  My sister works for Read, Martin and Slickman, CPA's, and everyone in the office is so nice and willing to be my guinea pigs.  These are some pretty sweet doughnuts and I love the easy recipe.  I think I will cut back on the toppings next time I make them.  I didn't buy doughnut pans, I made these in mini Bundt pans.  Click on the picture above for the recipe! 

     The batch of doughnuts in the smaller picture is what I made for my cousins, Jeff and Amy.  We celebrated Valentine's Day at The Steak House in Rockmart.  They have the BEST steaks and the service there is always great!  I forgot to take a picture of my prime rib, but that was Jeff's fault, because when he's here he's supposed to remind me! 

     Well, Friends, I've had a great couple of weeks, getting to do what I love to do best.  I got to spend time with my doggie and cat friends, spend a lot of time with and cook for friends that I don't get to see enough of, and watch some football, and tomorrow I get to keep Sawyer while her parents are working and at school!

     Until next time, Dished With Love, Denise!