Today (April 15th) brings a return to winter- this is the view from my kitchen window.
As fate would have it, I got an email from a friend wanting me to participate in a receipe exchange-so I decided to post about tonights dinner.
Today is also "Tax Day". This year, there has been a movement afoot for a national Tea Party in
commemoration and duplication of the day the colonist went on a british ship and threw the ship's load of tea in Boston harbor as protest of the British taxation. With the huge government bailout, a reinactment is to take place tonight across the county. Anyway, my thinking goes like this: Tonights super is a humble, in expensive dinner, in reflexion of the "poor" feeling of the populists but also filling and nutritous and well suited to the weather. And as fate would have it, the mormon missionaries called about 3:30 and their dinner appointment canceled and asked if we could feed them- piece of cake with this meal.
Ham and bean soup-
made from the bone from Easter dinner. I boiled the bone and soaked the beans last night so today it would be easy to put together. Onions, carrots, red and green peppers were sauted in a fry pan with olive oil (I like the soup better if the veggies aren't just boiled, and as the broth had been refrigerated overnight, the fat rose to the top of the stock and was easy to spoon out). I decided to shake in a dash of liquid smoke, squirt of katsup, and diced up a little more leftover ham. I usually made ham soup with split peas, but since I had some white beans in easy reach, made them do. Very nutritous and full of calcuim, low in fat and warm for a wintery day.
I threw in a batch of whole wheat bread to the bread maker, the made some bread pudding with some getting-stale-but-still-good bread.
Bread Pudding:
4 cups bread torn or cubed in fairly large chunks
2 c. milk
1/4 c. butter
3 eggs
1/2-2/3 c. sugar- white/brown or mixture
2 tea. cinnamon
1/4 tea. nutmeg
1 tea. vanilla
1/2 c. raisins
Grease casserole dish and loosely toss in cubed bread. Sprinkle with
raisins if desired.
Microwave milk and butter until butter is melted and let cool.
Whisk eggs, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla. Slowly
mix in cooled milk/butter mixture and
Pour egg/milk mixure over raisins and bread.
Bake 350 for 40-50 mins.
Can serve for dessert or is great for breakfast, too!
I like to make a lemon sauce if I have a lemon.
All that's left when I get home is to open a bag of salad and set the table.
And soon, the snow will be gone, the sun will shine and we will recall again the blessings of living in a free land~ ENJOY!
