 I was recently shopping @legrandsmarket and noticed a beautiful sausage stuffed with chicken, provolone, basil, and tomato. I was immediately struck with inspiration to use it in a pasta meal. Big Guy got the ball rolling by cooking the sausage in the oven. While it baked, he created a sauce of olive oil, garlic, and roasted red peppers. Once the sausage was fully cooked, Big Guy pulled it out of the oven and cut it into small pieces to be tossed in the pasta. We opted to use fettuccine, but I am sure your favorite pasta would be perfect! It was a filling meal which we served with our favorite focaccia from @keycakesandco. It warmed our hearts and bodies on a chilly evening.
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 I am spoiled rotten by Big Guy as he enjoys my purchasing fun tools as much as I do for use in @carondeletkitchen. God help the kids who inherit my collection!
I love the holiday season and look forward to the seasonal catalogs. I may not buy from every one of them, but @kingarthurbaking really hit my sweet spot this year. They had a snowflake brownie pan which I had to add to my other seasonal baking pans. It arrived and was a solid pan that I knew would make the perfect brownie. I surprised @abrandt1026 with this dessert as part of our weekly supper club and she was impressed by the details especially since I added a dusting of powdered sugar on top to bring out the snowflake design. I loved the response so much that I plan to make it again for Christmas. What a joy to find tools that add extra oomph to your baking!
The snow was falling, and I got the itch to make soup. Thank goodness Big Guy is crazy like me and volunteered to run to @legrandsmarket to pick up the ingredients for a beef barley soup.
The surprise was upon his return he also bought the ingredients to make his fabulous meatballs with the idea of doing a riff on an Italian wedding soup. Me being me, accepted the challenge to make two soups at the same time since both soups shared the same foundational ingredients of onions, celery, carrots, and peppers. Big Guy prepped the top sirloin and the meatballs while I chopped and sauteed the vegetables. Once our individual preps were complete, I added peas, pearled barley, top sirloin, and beef broth to one pot. The other pot had meatballs, flat noodles, and beef broth. Two soups for the price of one! Apron drop!  I love buying fun cocktail napkins throughout the year. I came across this one @tbahama and immediately put it in my shopping cart. Yes, it is beginning to look a lot like cocktails. I enjoy making annual drinks based on holiday movies. As we load up the Christmas movies, we create fun cocktails based on the classic movies, The Bishop’s Wife and Beyond Tomorrow. The Bishop’s Wife has the scene where Cary Grant’s character orders stingers for the church ladies. In Beyond Tomorrow, the gentlemen toast each other with a Tom and Jerry which is even more vintage when you serve it in the appropriate punch bowl with matching glasses. If we want to be crazy, we can have champagne with White Christmas and martinis with The Thin Man, or in honor of Martini’s bar in It’s a Wonderful Life. The list could go on and I bet you all have other matching drinks to go with Christmas movies. I would love to hear them…and drink them!   I have seen enough Julia Child specials, movies, and series to know her story of the perfect omelet. It seems many of her biographers believe it was the beginning of her television career.
I have attempted to make it over the years, and I admit I always end up scrambling the eggs. In his own quiet way, Big Guy has mastered the technique. He keeps telling me I am not patient enough, but I think I will give him the win on this one. One less meal for me to make in the @carondeletkitchen. HA!  I read recently we have entered the “eating our ice cream with a warm sweater” phase since it the author of the article stated it is no longer considered just a summer treat. As I started checking expiration dates, I realized my milk and heavy whipping cream were on the verge of “going south” so I decided to join the “sweater” team.
I am in love with my @cuisinart ice cream maker so the task to make the ice cream is simple. You only need sugar, milk, salt, heavy whipping cream, and vanilla to make the perfect foundation. I say foundation because, while delicious as a plain dessert, it is better to add ingredients to elevate your dessert. We did our annual trek to the Best of Missouri Market where we loaded up on our fill of Flaherty’s Irish Candy. I broke up pieces of my On the Way to Galway Bay Irish candy which created the perfect topping. It was the perfect mix of sweet and salty to compliment the sweetness of the ice cream. It was an excellent way to satisfy my sweet tooth!  I know an easy staple in our house is pigs in a blanket otherwise known as hot dogs wrapped in a crescent roll. The varieties have changed over the years depending on our needs. For example, mini sausage rolls are always welcome at a gathering. You can make enough to feed an army of hungry friends and not work too hard as the host. You can dress up your “piggie” as a skeleton for Halloween. You can even create a hot dog bar so your friends can add other ingredients such as pickles, jalapenos, or different cheeses our friends can encase in the roll. Our recent change up was to use @stoniessausage Smoked Apple Maple Sausage to create a breakfast sausage roll. We paired it with the perfect omelet and enjoyed breakfast for dinner. It was filling and satisfying on a cold evening.   I kept receiving subtle and overt hints that banana pudding should be one of my desserts this year for Thanksgiving. Fortunately, I could turn to @trishayearwood for the perfect recipe. I was the gal not raised in a home deep into cooking, so making my own pudding is magic. As I read the recipe the first time, I realized I finally had a reason to use a double boiler. Too bad, I gave it away due to lack of use. Regardless, I was able to create a double boiler from a pot and steel bowl which did the trick beautifully. The magic is how sugar, vanilla, flour, egg yolks and one whole egg with milk could become a delicious pudding. It took some work to keep stirring for ten minutes, but the outcome was worth the effort. The rest of the “construction,” was layering the pudding, then the vanilla wafers, followed by the bananas two times. To top it off, I make a meringue with the leftover egg whites. The dish looked stunning, but I could almost hear my mom’s voice say why don’t you use boxed instant pudding and cool whip as it will taste the same. My voice pushed back and said no way! |
AuthorJust a super cool old couple who love to cook and eat and drink in their Carondelet Kitchen in South Saint Louis, Missouri! Archives
May 2025
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