Rosie

FRIDAY FISH: Shrimp-Tortellini Chowder with Black Pepper-Parmesan Corn Muffins

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First Congregational Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Each spring, my friend Chris Hall — who’s in charge of the Healthy Living cooking classes at our fine downtown church — emails me about choosing a date and topic for my yearly class. I like to teach individually or in small groups but make the exception for this fun and laughing, engaged group of loving cooks who can number anywhere from 20-40! Some years I even teach two times, depending on my schedule and Chris’ needs. Our 150-year old green church kitchen (no AC and difficult-to-reach windows) is hot anytime of year so I choose spring or fall and avoid summer like the plague it is. Chris usually wants to have a title for my class and having to settle on something so early leads me to choose a rather general topic that I can fudge as needed. This year, I was ready for her: It was going to be Whole Meal Soups with Dessert Pairings. While I haven’t gotten the corresponding dessert figured, the first soup will certainly be one of my new Friday Fish favorites, Shrimp-Tortellini Chowder, featured right here today.

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Eggcellent Veggie Burrito

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Going on vacation next week....details at the end of the post. 
See you in September!
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When I was a younger woman, I had no time for breakfast. Of course I choked down all the coffee I could manage and then, on high throttle, ran to catch the bus for work or jumped in the car to run kids to school. By lunch I was Starved with a capital “S” and surely ate more than I needed. I particularly remember drinking chocolate milk with my noon meal every day for one year of my short teaching career. (I also had to buy new and larger pants that year. It only takes one constant change, you see.) It wasn’t that I hadn’t been raised to eat a good morning meal; I had. Thanks, Dad. Somehow that daily oatmeal had gotten lost in the shuffle along the way, perhaps at college, much to my detriment. One fateful fall, however, weight having finally gotten the best of me, I joined Weight Watchers (WW). The doctor also called me on my caffeine habit; sigh. (I drink half-caff now so I can still have a humongous mugful.) If you know anything about WW and particularly old school WW –before points–you’ll know you must eat breakfast. You’ll fall flat on your face if you don’t. While I’m still a faithful member of the WW tribe (I’d be even larger if I weren’t), I also have become even more attached to the idea of a filling, substantial breakfast so I don’t lean into snacking or want two lunches. Plus I simply love breakfast!

Aside: Why have I done WW for so long? It keeps me honest. Can’t forget that ice cream bar if you’re tracking everything you eat.

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Plum Crostata with Walnut Streusel

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In September as the peaches wane and the apples are just ripening, here in Colorado we have trees and trees full of plums. These aren’t the big old black, handful plums we see a bit later on, but rather are the small dark purple, firm-when-ripe Italian prune plums. While excellent for snacking, perhaps they’re even better for baking since they tend to hold their shape and aren’t overly sweet. You might think of plums as the fall bag-lunch fruit —and I do, too— but for the past few years I find I adore a beautiful plum tart or, in this case, crostata.

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Vegetable Soup Two Ways

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There are simply days when it’s time to eat lightly or cut back a little. Even if you’re not on WW (Weight Watchers) or following some other sort of weight-loss program, a few bowls of colorful all-vegetable soup might be just what you need today or even exactly as the doctor ordered. (“Eat more fiber!”) Maybe you overdid it at the restaurant Saturday night or at the neighbor’s brunch on Sunday; you could have skipped your workouts last week. Whatever…I’m guessing this could be your soup this week–great for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow.

I have made this easy potful for years and it’s even been blogged before. Today it was time to rewrite the recipe and add its second-day version (baked in a bowl with an egg in the middle!) right here in the same post.

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A Tale of Three Turkey Soups

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For how long are those leftovers edible? 

It’s all over but shouting. Hopefully you gave thanks with the best of them and enjoyed a feast fit for you.  If  the shouting turns out to be what goes on a day or two after Thanksgiving when you get on the scale, no worries. You’ll not eat like that again for…oh, probably a month.  Meantime, you’re back to your regular life and my guess is those extra couple of ounces–ok, pounds–will jump right back off the scale in a few days. And if they don’t? Salad and soup for a week could fix it. So how about some soup?

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“Greek” Steak Salad with Quinoa

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If you’re lucky enough to have leftover steak, you’re lucky enough.  At our house, red meat is well-loved, but kept in its healthy place. So we invest in a good quality product  and eat it usually only once a week. If there’s a little left, and it’s steak, there’s usually a next day steak sandwich for my husband, Dave. Occasionally, though, there’s more than a little left  and I make a steak salad or tacos for us both. Maybe steak and eggs if we’ve been really good. A tiny bite for the pups could be forthcoming, too.

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Grilled Peach and Corn Salsa–Colorado Summer Bounty

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The Colorado growing season is short, but mighty.  We make up for the reduced length with the best and sweetest Olathe (pronounced: o-LAY-tha) sweet corn and toothsome, sticky-dripping Western Slope  Palisade peaches.  (Visit Colorado wine country, too, if you go to pick peaches.)  Somewhere in there the Rocky Ford cantaloupes also ripen, the Pueblo green chiles are roasted on street corners–going into myriad pots of pork green chile or into the freezer for scrambled eggs at Christmas and Super Bowl snacks. (We eat a lot of New Mexican Hatch chiles, too, which come in somewhat milder versions.) If you’re really lucky, you even know someone who fly fishes and will bring back trout we smoke to last all winter long. (More on those last three another post.)  

By the way, the Olathe Corn growers and the Palisade Peach producers each sponsor local festivals every summer and they’re coming right up:

OLATHE SWEET CORN FESTIVAL INFO AUGUST 5, 2017

PALISADE PEACH FESTIVAL INFO  AUGUST 17-19, 2017

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No-Cook Dinners

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Food-Antipasti platter

  Antipasti platter or, in Italian, un piatta di antipasti.  A bit dear, but consummately satisfying for a special occasion. 

Every year about this time, there’s a night when we have only wine, cheese, and fruit for dinner. We eat it in the cool basement on three trays–one for each and then the cheese platter between us on the third.  An old movie plays on the tv. There’s not a salad or even a cooked vegetable and definitely not any sort of cooked meat. The wine is icy white or rosé.  Sometimes even the grill feels too much to do or too hot to light.

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Smoky Green Chile-Shrimp Corn Chowder

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I worked on a fresh pea clam chowder while I lived in the great city of St. Paul, Minnesota.  There, on any given beautiful early spring Saturday, the St. Paul Farmer’s Market would proudly boast a gorgeous array of pea shoots and tendrils…and not long after that, the peas themselves. That soup ended up in my soup book, Soups & Sides for Every Season and is a favorite with or without the fresh peas! (Fresh peas are often available year round at Trader Joes, as well.)

Fresh pea shoots–leaves, shoots, and tendrils from pea plants.  Yummy greens.

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