Grilled Ratatouille Soup with Breaded Ravioli

I'm a little behind on blogging, so I'm going to try to play catch up the next few days. On Tuesday, the 20th of October, the kids and I flew to AZ to visit my brother and go to a friends wedding, Quinn came that Friday. We got back this last Monday, but I'mn still trying to get organized, and back into things.

Since we were going to be gone on our soup night, I made this soup a few days earlier so I would still have something to post, I just never got it posted. I saw this soup on Rachael Ray's show, and thought it looked yummy, mainly the ravioli. We have tried a few of her recipes, and I probably just pick bad one's, but we haven't really liked the ones we tried, so Quinn was skeptical.

I changed a few things with the recipe, mainly just made a smaller batch, and didn't put in the roasted red peppers. Overall, it was pretty good, not my favorite soup, but felt like it was a good way to eat eggplant, and I learned how to roast garlic.




Grilled Ratatouille Soup with Breaded Ravioli
Ingredients
1 head garlic
EVOO – Extra Virgin Olive Oil, for drizzling, plus 1/4 cup
1 stem fresh rosemary, finely chopped
Salt and pepper
1 medium zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch planks
1 medium red onion, cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
1 medium eggplant, cut into planks or rounds 1/2-inch thick
4 roasted red peppers, drained
1 28-ounce can diced or whole fire-roasted tomatoes
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
Olive oil or vegetable oil, for frying
1 pound fresh ravioli or defrosted frozen ravioli
2 large eggs
1 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, a couple handfuls
1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley, a handful, finely chopped
Yields: 4 servings
Preparation
Preheat oven to 425˚F.
Cut the head of garlic to expose all of the cloves. Drizzle the EVOO over the cut end to coat the cloves. Press the cut garlic into the rosemary, coating the ends of the cloves completely. Season with salt and pepper, and wrap garlic head in foil. Roast 45 minutes then let cool.
Mash cooled roasted garlic into a paste, combining it with the rosemary.
Heat a grill pan over medium-high to high heat. Pour about 1/4 cup EVOO into a dish. Using a pastry brush, brush vegetables with EVOO and season with salt and pepper. Grill in batches until zucchini, onion and eggplant are cooked and tender, 3-4 minutes on each side per batch. Coarsely chop grilled vegetables and roasted red peppers.
In a food processor in 2 batches, purée the roasted garlic, grilled vegetables, roasted red pepper and canned fire-roasted tomatoes and stock. Transfer puréed vegetables to a soup pot. Heat soup over medium heat, then reduce heat to simmer. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Heat about 3 cups of frying oil in a medium-size high-sided skillet over medium heat. Set up a cooling rack placed over paper towels or a kitchen towel near the stovetop.
Arrange 3 dishes: flour, eggs beaten with a splash of water and breadcrumbs mixed with cheese and parsley. Coat ravioli in flour, egg then breadcrumbs. Fry in batches, 2 minutes on each side until golden brown. Transfer to the rack as they finish cooking.
Serve soup in shallow bowls with a few fried ravioli on top.

Fancy Pancakes!

A couple of weeks ago, Quinn made special pancakes for breakfast on a Saturday morning. Needless to say, Clarissa absolutely loved them. Since then, she continually asks for shape pancakes. I've decided to leave the special pancakes up to Daddy to do, it's his and Clarissa's special thing to do together. She has fun telling him what to make, and he tries his best at his pancake artwork.

This last Saturday, we decided to have them again. We started at 8 am, and thought we had plenty of time to make them, and get Quinn to work by nine that morning. We made a buttermilk pancake recipe from scratch that we have made dozens of times. For some reason, they were not cooking correctly. No matter how long Quinn cooked them for, they were still gooey inside, and a weird texture. We tried to thin the batter, thicken it, cook them longer, etc. etc., but nothing worked. I was about ready to give up and pull out the milk and cereal, but Clarissa had her heart set on "daddy's shape pancakes," and Quinn didn't want to disappoint his little girl.

So I made a quick trip to the store, and came back with our new best friend! These were the easiest pancakes to make, and within 10 minutes of bringing it home, Clarissa was happily eating Goofy, Mickey Mouse, the letter C, the letter H, a star, and the number 3. Unfortunately, Quinn didn't make it into work until 10:30, but we still had some fun family time.

Pumpkin Contest Results!!

Now for the moment you've all been waiting for...

Here is a picture of my pumpkin....

This is where I planted the seeds...

Maybe I can get the prize for the most impressive transformation.

Colombian Soup

Last night we had Colombian soup. I don't normally take a picture of my ingredients, but thought this was fun since this soup mainly has vegetable in it.

Here are pictures of it in the pot, before and after. We had company over for dinner, and unfortunately, I got busy and forgot to take a picture of it when it was in the bowl with all of the toppings on it. I think this is a pretty healthy soup, at least until you add the sour cream in it. But it sure is a yummy soup, and we like to serve it with bread.

Colombian Chicken Soup

3 lb. Chicken thighs and legs or 4 chicken breasts
1 large white onion, peeled and cut into quarters
1 leek (white and light green parts only), cut into 1 inch rings
1 green pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 large handful green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 ribs celery, cut into 1 inch pieces
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
2 lbs. Potatoes (gold, red, or white) peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces. I don’t peel red potatoes.
6 cloves garlic, chopped
½ c. fresh cilantro leaves
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1 T kosher salt; more to taste
½ t. ground pepper
Put chicken in large stock pot and add 8 cups water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Add all the veggies, garlic, cilantro, and bouillon cubes, along with salt and pepper. Stir a few times to distribute veggies. Simmer about an hour. Pick chicken off bones. Serve soup with aji, sliced avocado, sour cream, and additional cilantro if desired.

Aji:
4 scallions
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 small white onion, peeled and chopped
1 or2 jalapeno peppers (remove seeds, stem, and membranes), chopped
3 T fresh cilantro leaves
3 T white vinegar
¼ t. kosher salt.
Chop fine like salsa. Serve with soup.

Monday Night Halloween Treats Week 2

Tonight for family home evening treats, we made witch's hats and brooms.


Quinn helping Clarissa put together her witch's hat.



Clarissa making her broom.



Clarissa putting her broom on her witch's hat, "so that it could fly around."



Quinn volunteered his plate of treats to have the individual picture taken of, since it turned out the best, at least according to him! I agree that it did look the best, it was just funny how he implied that his was the best and that I should take the close up picture of his. Actions do speak a lot louder than words.

In case you are wondering, the witch's hats are made out of the fudge striped cookies, a Hershey Kiss, and frosting. Just a side note, caramel apple Hershey Kisses don't mix very well with frosting and fudge striped cookies.

The broomsticks are pretzels and a fruit roll up that we cut little strips in, leaving the top part connected, and then rolling it around the pretzel.

Clarissa enjoying her treats. She loved making them, but of course, really enjoyed eating the finished projects.

Clayton enjoying his treat, Chex cereal, after he tried grabbing a witch's hat.

Soon enough buddy, your birthday is in 3 weeks, then you'll get to enjoy all this delicious sugar with us.

I've been trying really hard to not feed Clayton sweets, so that his birthday cake will be his first real treat. At least I feel like I'm giving him one really good year of pretty healthy eating, then it'll just go down hill after that. I know I can't keep all the really yummy food away from him forever!

Soup Night is Back

Today started the tradition of our Tuesday soup nights. We do it from the beginning of October until the end of March. I'm hoping to do a different soup each Tuesday night for the next 6 months, I didn't do very good last year. I'm also hoping that the majority of them will be new soups that I have never tried making before. However, there are a few favorites that I know I will have to make. Maybe I'll just do those on a different day of the week.

Tonight I made O'Charley's Loaded Potato Soup. Even though I've made it before, I decided to start out with an easy one, and one I knew we liked. Since I posted a picture of it last year, I decided to post a picture of my new (at least to me) soup tureen. I have been wanting one especially since we do soup at least once a week, and I found this one for 3 bucks at a garage sale. I was pretty excited to use it for the first time tonight.

If you decide to try this soup, I would suggest halfing the recipe, unless you are feeding a ton of people. I forgot that it made a lot, and just made the full recipe tonight. It filled my soup tureen, and we barely made a dent in it. I guess we will be eating it all week long.

Halloween Treats

For family home evening tonight we made Halloween treats. I decided that for the month of October, we will make a new Halloween treat each Monday night for our activity and treat. Clarissa was SOOOOO excited to make her spider, she had been talking about it all day long.

Clarissa's Oreo spider

All 3 of our spiders.

Edible graveyard.

Usually this type of dessert uses pudding, but instead we used chocolate ice cream. The orange frosting Oreos probably weren't the best choice, but it still tasted yummy. The gravestone would have looked better had I written RIP on it, but I didn't have frosting.

If anyone has a good idea for other fun, easy, edible Halloween treats, let me know.

Halloween Decorations

I can't believe it's October already, September just flew by. Today I decided to pull out the Halloween box that has our costumes and decorations in it.


As Clarissa and I were emptying it, looking at all the decorations, toys, and costumes, Clayton was having his own fun. He climbed right in and Clarissa exclaimed "Look Mommy, Clayton's pretending to be Halloween Decorations."

So of course, Clarissa decided she needed to do the same.

In the box I found this pumpkin t-shirt that I got on clearance last year after Halloween. This isn't a great picture, but it'll still serve it's purpose. The tag says it's an 18 month size. I don't know who sized this, but it clearly fits Clarissa and she usually wears a 3T/4T. Whoever made this, must have a gigantic 18 month old.

A quick story that I thought was funny, I found this picture as I was posting this blog, and was reminded of it. Last time we had brownies, Quinn scraped all the crumbs into a pile, and Clarissa looked at it and said, "hey daddy, it's brownie dirt." Good thing the brownies didn't really taste like dirt.

Clarissa's New Kicks

We just recently got Clarissa some new shoes. She didn't have anything other than summer shoes, so with the cooler weather, she needed some better shoes. We also wanted something that she could not take off easily since she's going to preschool. The second she thinks about her shoes, she's always trying to take them off.



Last week we went to the store and picked these out. She was very excited to where them to preschool, and to show Daddy.

When daddy got home, she showed them to him and Daddy responded by saying "cool new kicks!"

Clarissa will rarely refer to them as her shoes. I'll ask her to go get her shoes on and she kindly reminds me "they're not shoes, they're kicks." She'll tell that to just about anyone that notices her shoes.

A couple of days ago we went for a walk and ran into some other kids outside. The little girl noticed Clarissa's shoes and commented on them since she has the same shoes. Clarissa even told them that they were "kicks", although I don't think they heard her, or maybe they just didn't know what she was talking about.