I'm going to need your help in the coming year

[wryter2000]

I'm part of a group of writers who publish a monthly blog. I got the assignment for doing the recipe section for next year. (Okay, I volunteered. :))

As a writer, I'm pretty sensitive to copyright issues and don't want to lift other people's recipes without their permission. I'm going to be using some of my own, but if you guys have your own, copyright-free recipes, I'd like to pick your brain.

I'm thinking I'll do soups for January. I have my own recipes for clam chowdah and lentil. I think I'll work up a cream of cauliflower and cream of mushroom soup, too. If you have ideas, I'd love to hear them. I'll be testing the recipes in December.

TIA! :yourock:

[Richard Steele]

1. A lot of stuff I make is my own recipe, and I don't care to keep much of it a secret.

Feel free to use anything I've already posted here,
for whatever it's worth.

And I'll run through my feeble memory for a day or two,
and see if there are any good soups in there.
(I make great chicken soup, but that's not so much a regular
recipe as it is a standard process)

[wryter2000]

2. Thanks

I'll probably ask for recipes every month, particularly for desserts. They'll probably be popular, and I don't make a lot of desserts.

This will probably be a cook-with-a-can-of-soup crowd, but I want to give them good, simple things whenever possible.

[Richard Steele]

3. "Cook-with-a-can-of-soup", you say? I may be able to contribute more than I imagined.

I'm currently in the midst of one of those "reversals of fortune"
that we all experience from time to time.

You know the type of thing I mean: Your beloved sweetie of 9 years
joins a cult, invites 5 carloads of Cops over to help kick you out
onto the street with nothing but 3 cigarettes and a thick set
of bruises to your name, and you end up hiding out 3 states away
in the basement of some old school chums whom you hope
you NEVER mentioned to her, because she's got 30 fanatical loons
scouring the planet looking for more ways to cause TROUBLE for you?

Yeah, we've all been there. And "there" involves a lot of food that
comes out of CANS...so I'm working alot of my magick with simple,
easy-to-make ideas right now.

Synchronicity rules.

[wryter2000]

4. Wow

I hope things get better for you.

[Richard Steele]

6. Are writers as poor as artiststs? I'm an artist, and I came up with this recipe long ago:

(Things ALWAYS get better for me, BTW. Always.
Whatever doesn't kill me... makes me get off my lazy butt
and be a GENIUS again for a month or six.
Tedious and repetitive, it is!)

Anyway, here's one of my old 'quick favorites' that I used to make when:
1: someone was coming by for supper,
2: I didn't want them to realize that I normally subsisted
on cold canned goods and warm beer,
and
3:I only had $3 for fresh ingredients (I suppose it might cost $10 for
fresh mushrooms and a pint of cream these days, after 8 years of GWB)

Anyway: It ain't a soup, but it's tasty and looks impressive
if you arrange it nicely:
Dick's Flat-noodle Mushroom Parmesan.

1/2 lb fresh mushrooms (sliced)
1/2 pint cream
1/2 package of those big wide cheapass egg-noodles
1 can "Cream of Mushroom" soup (Cambell's makes a "CoM with Roasted Garlic"
these days- It's the best for this!)
Water
Butter
spices
2 pots, 1 lid
Cheapass plastic can of grated parmesan cheese.


Put 2 cups of hot water in 1 pot and turn heat to HIGH, add
a level spoonful of salt.

Melt 1/3rd a stick or so of butter in the pot that your lid best fits,
toss in the fresh mushrooms and a dash or two of your spices.
(If you know how to use spices, you need no advice frome me here.
If you know nothing about spices, toss in two big pinches of salt,
and a smaller pinch of any spice you have that is green/dark green
and flakey, not powdery)
Cover that pot, turn heat to LOW....

When water in the first pot boils, add cream and wait...when it boils again,
add noodles & Condensed soup; reduce heat to "medium", and simmer it for 10-15 minutes or until noodles are tender, shaking parmesan cheese into the mess
if it still looks watery after 8 minutes or so......

Scoop out a plateful of the noodle/cream sauce mixture, then cover it with
a layer of the seasoned mushrooms which have been steam-cooked in
their own juices while you were stirring that noodle/sauce mix.

[hippywife]

5. Feel free to use anything I've posted, too.

But quite frankly, the more I look at recipes (and I look at them alot!) I find very little that is copyrightable. They are all variations on the same theme. In the many food blogs, the folks there also use recipes from well-known chefs and bakers but they also give credit and, I'm not sure about this part, but I think if they post it on the internet free I'm guessing you can use it and link to original site. Many food blogs are made up of someone relating their experience at making the recipes, so there is that.

[BamaGirl]

7. I looked at your profile

and I'm betting we run in the same blog crowd lol. (I'm with different publishers but the same kind of stuff lol.) We love chili and I always do a big pot of spaghetti sauce. Also red beans and rice and a thing where the girls and I just kind of throw everything in a pot that looks interesting lol. I couldn't recreate any of those, but most have been good lol. Maybe something with turkey given the time of the year? Really, anything hot with cornbread can't be beat lol. :)

[Richard Steele]

8. Hey, I just remembered one of my "quick, easy, & foolproof" recipes that makes a classy-looking dish

Dick's patented "Potato Gnocchi in Sherried Cream Broth"

This recipe looks & tastes great, and the description sounds
really swanky...but it's as easy as nuking a TV Dinner.

(This serves two as a 'light supper' or four as a small appetizer.
It looks best in wide, shallow bowls where the gnocchi are taller
than the broth level, and a sprinkle of freshedly-chopped green stuff
like parsley, cilantro, or chives never hurts, in my experience)


1 package of vacuum-packed/frozen gnocchi
2 14oz cans of sodium-free vegetable broth or chicken stock.
2/3rds cup heavy cream (or light cream, or half&half, or even 1 cup whole milk)
Dash of salt & pepper
Sherry (real sherry is best, but that crappy supermarket 'cooking sherry' will do)

If using the frozen gnocchi, thaw them & get them to room temp ahead of time.

Put the veggie broth/chicken stock in a medium-sized saucepan, on
Medium-High heat. (It will take a few minutes to warm up- I often
use that time to get medium-high, but that's not necessary to the recipe)

Add a few pinches of salt & pepper- add a pinch,
stir & taste, add another pinch, stir & taste...
until the broth tastes like "soup" to you.

When the broth BOILS, add the gnocchi, and start lining bowls up
because they cook in about 3 minutes.

When all the gnocchi float, they're done.
Turn off the heat, stir in the cream, and dish
it into the bowls.


You want to get it to the table as HOT as you can,
and stir in a splash of sherry right underneath the
guest's nose.
Sherry doesn't just add to the FLAVOR of the dish-
alcohol evaporates faster than water, so that splash
of sherry in the hot broth creates a mouth-watering
burst of AROMA that will make mouths water.