Author: More Time at the Table

Green Chile Beef with Cheddar Mashed Potatoes

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Thanks for visiting the new More Time at the Table, now hosted by WordPress.  This blog has for nearly five years been hosted by Blogger (http://www.moretimeatthetable.blogspot.com.)  I will continue to post at that url as well as this one for a while, but not for long!  Change your bookmarks, favorites,  and links, and follow me here!  Many thanks to smart-kid daughter, Emily Morgan (follow her at fightthebees.com) for managing the transition and migration.

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Over the holidays, and since, we’ve been making big pots of soup when we weren’t finishing off the leftovers.  Colds, strep throat, and the need for lighter fare after all the heavy meals were the instigators, but the weather contributed…  Today, the sun came out to melt the snow–

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and it was time for something else:  real cooking in the oven maybe?  Two big pot roasts called my name at the store the other day, and one of them simply jumped into the Dutch oven cut up with a big bunch of cooked green chiles and onions.  Sounded incredibly homey–a beef and green chile braise kept coming to mind (rather than chili, per se)–but I also decided to whip up a pot of cheddar mashed potatoes to keep it company.  A side of barely tender green beans, stirred up with just the teensiest bit of butter rounded out the meal.

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Dave’s on the road (he’ll have his share Friday night), but Sean and I each had a lovely bowl of this goodness and, when we did, we happened to look out the big, low window in the sun room that’s becoming my dining room only to meet eyes with a  great big, muscular bobcat (lynx.)  Living in Colorado has its beautiful moments.  And other things.  The dogs said zip. Scaredy cats. Which was good; they were staying inside. Continue reading →

Chicken-Wild Rice Soup with Butternut Squash and Pecans

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Weren’t you just waiting for soup with alcohol? A bit of sherry stirred in at the end makes this soup even better.

Welcome to the new More Time at the Table on WordPress.com!  This blog has been hosted by Blogger for the past four-plus years and will be published at both urls until all the kinks are worked out of the transition process.  Do change your bookmarks or links, please, and follow me here on Word Press! Great thanks to my gorgeous daughter Emily who managed the migration.  So cool to have smart kids!

In January it’s so nice
While slippin’ on the slidin’ ice
To sip hot chicken soup with rice
Sippin’ once, sippin’ twice
Sippin’ chicken soup with rice..

Book-Nutshell Lib

Lyrics (original text) by Maurice Sendak.  Music by Carole King, Really Rosie. (Click here to listen.)  First published in the book Chicken Soup with Rice, part of the Nutshell Library.

As a student in library school, I once was in charge of a weekend seminar about famed children’s author, Maurice Sendak.  I had to plan the event from soup to nuts, including speeches, lunches, lodging, etc.  I also had to invite the man himself.  I was flabbergasted when he accepted.  I was near collapse when his assistant called a few days ahead, and citing illness, informed me the author would need to miss this particular conference.  Hundreds of people from miles around were nearly on their way.  Crushing…  But, still–the weekend went on as planned….though we certainly missed the main attraction.  No great matter in the long run, though, I never lost my deep and sincere admiration for this talented, innovative author, nor my love for his sweet lyrics about one of my favorite soups ever, Chicken Soup with Rice!  All of my children heard and read the Sendak books (Remember Where the Wild Things Are?) and we kept the REALLY ROSIE book around until…well, actually I still have it. Continue reading →

Ina Fridays – Soups, Salads, and Sides – Winter Minestrone and Garlic Bruschetta

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Welcome to the new More Time at the Table on WordPress.com!  This blog has been hosted by Blogger for the past four-plus years and will be published at both urls until all the kinks are worked out of the transition process.  Do change your bookmarks or links, please, and follow me here on Word Press! Great thanks to my gorgeous daughter Emily  (below in red sweater) who managed the migration.  So cool to have smart kids!

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Once a month, I blog an Ina Garten recipe with a great bunch of food blogger friends…
 

A fast, hearty, healthy, rich, and inexpensive main course is what this soup is all about. A little pancetta to set the stage for the quickly sautéed vegetables bolstered by a heart-happy hit of garlic.  A big blustery can of Italian tomatoes added to chicken stock to create instant broth.  Pasta and beans to fill your tummy.  A few fresh leaves of spinach and a splash each of white wine and pesto to top it all off and make it so.

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Winter Minestrone & Garlic Bruschetta (click link for recipe) comes out of Ina Garten’s most recent and seventh book,  BAREFOOT CONTESSA : Foolproof — Recipes You Can Trust, published in 2012 by Clarkson Potter.  Quentin Bacon did the stellar photographs.  That’s right; this is a coffee table book even if you plan to cook from it.  You can dream with this gorgeous tome while you sip a cup of tea early in the morning.  Put it on the bedside table and then discuss menus with your partner over a glass of white wine at 11 p.m. Or drag it along to the JW Marriott in Denver’s Cherry Creek (my local escape) like I did.  One of my favorite things about this book is the way the paper feels and the quintessential new-book aroma wafting upwards each time it’s opened.  I am a book, a real book, fanatic.  (I did make my living as a librarian, as well as a choral director.  I even taught English a few years.)  It’s not that I don’t read on the iPad — or even on Dave’s Kindle — I do.  But I’m enamored of the senses provoked by books I can see, smell, hold, feel, touch, and even shelve.  There. Continue reading →

Kalamata Eggs with Vegetables

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Welcome to the new More Time at the Table on wordpress.com!  This blog has been hosted on blogger for the past four-plus years and will published at both urls until all the kinks are worked out of the transition process.  Do change your bookmarks or links, please. Great thanks to my gorgeous daughter Emily (see below–in red sweater) who managed the migration.  So cool to have smart kids!

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There comes a moment between Christmas and New Year’s when you simply look around the kitchen and say, “I’ve had enough meat, cheese, and bread.” Parties, quick meals, egg casseroles, roast beast dinners, COO-KEES… Continue reading →

Stained Glass Shortbread Hearts

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I used INDIA TREE Sparkling Sugar–Confetti “color.”

I have a group of favorite Christmas cookies and I make most of them every year.  Not all.  Some years there’s just no time for the cranberry bars and the candy canes do only make it into the round up every so often.  I’m not sure what gives one cookie a spot at the top of the favorites’ team or what makes another a relief pitcher, but I’m thinking it’s which little crispy piece of sweetness draws the most desirable oooos and ahhs from family and friends versus those that are still in the freezer at Easter. Continue reading →

Slow Cooker Bean Soup at Altitude–Ski Day Special!

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When I first moved to altitude, everyone seemed to talk about the changes needed to cook here.  There were lots of suggestions about baking particularly (use less yeast and sugar–more salt for bread), but also about cooking anything at all (cook longer and with more liquid) and I paid attention.  To be sure, some baking required a bit of adjustment — a few things never did come around — but the biggest hurdle was lack of humidity.  Leave a piece of bread on the counter for a few minutes  (say the phone rang when you were about to make a sandwich) and you’d return to dry bread–as if you left it out all night in Chicago or were drying bread for stuffing in Miami.  Bake cookies, leave them to cool on the rack a couple of hours instead of a couple of minutes, and you’d have rocks. All Colorado cookies are biscotti is how I look at it.  Cookies must be eaten, stored in very tightly-sealed containers,  and/or frozen as soon as they’re cool. More than one Colorado baker has just thrown in the towel at Christmas.  You simply can’t eat them before they’re stale. My method is to freeze every batch, taking out just the number of cookies you’ll eat — or give away– at one sitting. It works, but you need a big freezer –or a freezing garage– if you’re a happy baker in December.
Aside:  There are those that will tell you it’s more attitude than altitude.  I might agree, though I beat an extra egg into my corn and tea breads and I always bake with extra-large eggs no matter what.  I also cut the amount of sugar in many baked goods–even things like a mashed sweet potato casserole.  Continue reading →

Last Gasp Broccoli Soup

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I hope your Thanksgiving was all you needed it to be.  Dave and I, having moved back into our Colorado Springs house just last month, were blessed to eat dinner at friends’.  Sean smoked a turkey; I made rolls and pies, as well as a pot of curried Butternut Squash Soup. Jami and Dave made a 4-quart Cauliflower Grantinee.  We ferried it all over to the north side of town, where a gorgeous table and a big group of friends waited.  All we had to do was sit down and enjoy it all.  Thanks, God.  I did bring home some leftovers…and hence this soup.  Enjoy this first week of Advent or the rest of Hanukkah…and make some broccoli soup.

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Thanksgiving Music–Wednesday through Sunday

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Philip Stopford directing my favorite Thanksgiving anthem.

It is of course possible to dance a prayer. 
                                                                         ~Terri Guillemets
Over the River & Through the Woods

CDs or MP3:   VocalEssence, Garrison Keillor, and the Hopeful Gospel Quartet

                        Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action.  
                                                    ~W.J. Cameron

Continue reading →