Cream of Mushroom Soup

A noble soup embiggens
the smallest man

So you managed to survive the many perils of Black Friday. The changing weather, the crazed drivers, the advertisers ripping families out of the back seats of cars and forcibly marching them into department stores. You've bested them all. All that's left is for you to enjoy the late Autumn weather, have some sort of festive holiday drink, and celebrate life. Unless you live in Chicago where, despite over a century of searching, nobody has been able to find the user manual and change the weather setting off of "random." We have snow on the ground, ice everywhere, and by the weekend it's supposed to be 50 and stormy. So going outside isn't the best idea right now. You're better off huddling for warmth in your home and waiting out the rest of the Holiday Season™ in the comfort of your home or survival bunker. In the even that you're forced to leave your home and venture out into the Elements® it's important to remember that you have delicious soup to warm you up at home. So either get to work on your vivid hallucinations, or make some soup.

Ingredients:

1 lb. Cremini Mushrooms
1 standard-issue Onion
5 cups Milk (Preferably milk from a cow of some kind)
2 cloves Garlic
1 TBSP Butter
1 TBSP Olive Oil
2 TSBP Flour
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1/4 tsp Rubbed Sage
1/4 tsp Ground Cumin
Salt

Cream of mushroom soup has the distinguished honor of being one of the most readily available things you can grab in a can at any supermarket's soup aisle. If you've ever eaten those soups, you know they taste like gelatinous salt. And I'm not knocking gelatinous salt. At the very least, it would be an excellent name for a debut album in the 90s. But we're striving for something better with this recipe, so the first thing you'll need to do is forget everything you know about cream of mushroom soup. Other than the name, and the fact that you're about to make some. Those are important tidbits to hold on to. But forget everything else. Once your amnesia is complete, dice your onion. Saute it in your butter and oil over medium heat along with a standard-sized human's pinch of salt. Let your onions cook down, stirring occasionally, for about 6 minutes, during which you'll be cleaning and slicing your mushrooms. It doesn't really matter how big or small you cut your mushrooms as long as you're consistent, so it's down to what your preference is. But keep in mind that this is a soup, so ideally everything should be able to fit easily into a spoon.

Welcome to flavor country. US passport line to the left.

Once your onions are soft and golden, toss your mushrooms into the party along with your black pepper, sage, cumin, and another standard-sized human's pinch of salt. Let that whole mushroom butter onion nonsense cook together for about 4 minutes, or when the mushrooms get soft and the whole room starts to smell like deliciousness. Mix in your flour and wait for everything to get kind of gross and sludgy. You know, like you after Thanksgiving dinner. Now it's time to slowly add in your milk, stirring all the while so that all of your flour mix incorporates, and you don't end up with any sad lumps left in there. Heat that whole thing up and keep it stirring to get it to thicken, but be careful not to boil it. Then salt it to your taste, and guzzle it down while  you watch other suckers dealing with the snow, wind, hail, rain, and then snow again.

Spicy Honeyed Sweet Potatoes

How does Thanksgiving sneak up on us? With clever disguises

It's Thanksgiving time again. And that means it's time to shove some delicious food into our mouths. As much as we can as fast as we can in the hopes that it appeases the angry ghosts of our ancestors who probably lived and died in some beet-heavy country like Serbia and never dreamed of being able to come to a land of limitless opportunity and eating a giant stupid chicken that drowns in the rain. But not everything is turkey and gravy. For every flower there are weeds, there only to sow dissent and destruction. On Thanksgiving, this is the sweet potatoes which, for reasons nobody can adequately explain and is probably some sort of ancient curse inflicted upon colonizing Europeans, tradition demands get covered with marshmallows and baked. Kids love this idea, because kids are stupid. They hear marshmallows, and they stop listening. You could offer kids marshmallows covered in chalk and they'd ask for more. But sweet potatoes have potential. They've got a good flavor that pairs well with a lot of things, and they can make a great addition to your meal. Assuming you don't cover them with marshmallows.

Ingredients:

3 largish Sweet Potatoes
1/2 cup Walnuts
3 TBSP Honey
1.5 TBSP Olive Oil
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1/4 tsp Cumin
1 largish human's pinch of Salt

The first thing you're going to need to do is stop freaking out. People treat Thanksgiving like it's some crazy marathon of cooking that they need a full month to prepare for. It's one day with family and a large meal. This is a weekly occurrence for tons of Americans who descend from Italians, Greeks, Jews, and tons of others. Any culture with a food and family tradition. We all laugh at the rest of you every year, because it's really not that big of a deal. Just take a breath, make your food, set your table, and don't be afraid to remind any drunk or abrasive relatives that they're completely expendable. Once your tears have dried, start pre-heating your oven to 375 degrees. Spread your walnuts evenly on a baking sheet and put them in the oven for 5 minutes while it's heating. Keep an eye on them, because nut are jerks and they like going from "not cooked at all" to "charcoal" in about 3 seconds while your back is turned. Don't give them the satisfaction. Once your nuts are toasted it's time to peel your sweet potatoes. Technically you could leave the skin on them. They're not harmful to eat and they have fiber. Then again, the same thing could be said of cardboard, so use your own judgement.

I'm not saying these are delicious enough to make up for
centuries of oppression, but they definitely don't hurt.

Cut your sweet potatoes in half lengthwise, and then cut them in to "half moon" shaped chunks, each about 1/4 inch wide. The goal is to get them all the same size so that they cook at the same rate. Some pieces probably won't conform, but that's okay. It's not like your guests are going to be judging you silently while they eat and talking about all of your failures in the car on the ride home. Once you're done cutting, throw your sweet potatoes in a bowl along with your salt, black pepper, cayenne, cinnamon, cumin, oil, and 2 TBSP of your honey. Mix that nonsense together and then spread it flat on a baking sheet in one layer. If it doesn't find, use two baking sheets. If it still doesn't fit, you may need to re-evaluate what you've been calling a "baking sheet." In any case, throw toss your sheets of sweet potatoes into your oven and let them cook for about 20-25 minutes. Once they're soft enough to easily stick a fork through, take them out of the oven and throw them in a bowl along with your walnuts and your last TBSP of honey. Stir that together, and then serve it to your ungrateful friends and family. It's a little spicy, a little sweet, and a whole lot of delicious, and will totally distract from the fact that a bottle of wine disappeared and the kids' table is starting to look a little too festive. Happy Thanksgiving!

Chicken Dog Redemption

Prices subject to change

Some foods just suck. It's best that you learn this fact now and accept it, instead of living a lifetime of foolish optimism only to have your heart broken on the regular by white chocolate. And let's be honest: few things strike as much fear into the hearts of a family than the words "chicken dogs." There's something just kind of...off about them. They're doing their absolute best to convince you that they're totally hot dogs, but all it takes is one bite to remind you that they definitely aren't. Maybe it's something in the texture. They're also crazy cheap. I'm pretty sure that in some of the more sausage-heavy states in the union, it's illegal to charge somebody for chicken dogs. Ending up with chicken dogs is price enough. Which got me thinking that if there were some way to actually make these jellied chicken tubes tasty, it could be an absolute game changer. Fortunately for all of us, I apparently have the kind of free time necessary to make that absurd pipe-dream a reality.

Ingredients:

1 pkg Chicken Dogs
1 32 oz. can Crushed Tomatoes
1 standard issue Onion
1 Bell Pepper
2 cloves Garlic
3 cups Water
1.5 cups Green Lentils
1/2 tsp Cumin
1/2 tsp Oregano
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1/4 tsp Cardamom 
1 average-sized human's pinch of Saffron
Salt
Oil
Cilantro

This dish has layers, both literally and figuratively, but don't let that freak you out. There are pretty much three distinct parts: the lentils, the sauce, and the chicken dogs. It sounds overwhelming, but I cooked it in like 25 minutes, and I didn't even have this recipe to guide me. Also, I had to walk to the store to buy ingredients. In the cold. Uphill, both ways. So step one is to just slow your roll and calm yourself down using whatever combination of breathing, meditation, and opiates you like. Now It's time to make some lentils, and since lentils are pretty much just an uppity kind of split pea, that means we're gonna spend some time washing them. So rinse your lentils and pull out any weird things that may be in there like small stones or tiny tiny bears. Then throw them (the lentils) in a pot along with your water, saffron, and possibly a pinch of salt. Some people say that adding salt in to your lentils too early will make them mushy, and you should add salt in after they cook. I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that it's a very small amount of extra work that I have no interest in. Follow your heart. Bring your pot of possibly doomed lentils to a boil, then cover them and cook on low for about 15-20 minutes.

It's been pointed out that a red plate wasn't the best aesthetic
choice, but I'm not made of plates, dag nabbit.

Chop your onion into chunks and, using a deep pan, saute those chunks in oil and a pinch of salt over medium heat. Let them cook down for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, before adding in your chopped bell pepper along with your cumin, black pepper, cayenne, cardamom, oregano, and another pinch of salt. Stir that nonsense together and cook it down for another couple minutes before adding in your garlic, which you've totally minced by now. You can tell you're on the right track if your entire kitchen smells amazing at this point. Let your garlic join in the fun and mingle for about a minute before dousing everything with your crushed tomatoes. Now that your vegetable party has become a pool party, stir it together to get everyone mingling, and keep it on medium heat for about 5 minutes. During this time, take some oil and get it nice and hot in a pan. Then, carefully because the gods of grease fires and third degree burns owe you a smiting, add in your chicken dogs. Let them crisp up for about a minute and a half on each side. They'll bubble up a little bit. This is normal. Well, it's not normal, but it's normal for weird chicken pseudo-sausages. Now it's time to just stack everything together. Lay some lentils down on a plate, slather them with some of your sauce, and then top the whole thing with your crispy chicken dogs. Chop up a little cilantro, throw it on top, and call it a day. Or night, or whatever. I'm not judging.

Slow Cooker Pumpkin Beef Stew

Part headless horseman, part robot apocalypse. Somehow cute

So, Halloween has finally come and gone, which means that it's time for the time honored tradition of buying the discounted garbage pumpkins that grocery stores weren't able to sell to jack-o-lantern obsessed college students and soccer moms. It also means coming to the grim realization that you are the current owner of an estimated 53.7 pounds of pumpkins, and you need to figure out something to do with both of them. Fortunately, pumpkin is kind of super versatile. In this crazy world of pumpkin spiced everything that we live in, we usually only focus on the sweet uses for pumpkin. But pumpkin can go savory, and even spicy. The only limit is your imagination, and the very real possibility of losing all of your friends when you give them a "pumpkin spice latte'" with jalapenos in it.

Ingredients:

1 Pie Pumpkin (the type of pumpkin you use isn't actually of much concern to me. But average pumpkins are about twice the size of pie pumpkins, which are essentially Pomeranian pumpkins, so keep that in mind when deciding how much of your stolen jack-o-lantern you're using)

1 lb. Beef Shank

3 cups Chicken Stock

1 standard-issue Onion

3 ribs Celery

1 Parsnip

1 Chipotle Pepper

2 cloves Garlic

2 Bay Leaves

1/4 tsp Black Pepper

1/4 tsp Cinnamon

Salt

The first thing you're going to have to do is to have survived Halloween. Which, if sensationalist fear-mongering news stories are any indication, is no easy feat. You've got satanic cults, razor blades in your candy, neighborhood teens attacking your home and family to try and pry Smarties from your cold dead hands. It's a mess. Fortunately, like everything else you see on TV or read on the internet, that's pretty much a pile of lies (And yes, I'm aware that you read this on the internet. You sniffed out the hidden paradox. Congratulations! Have a pumpkin. They're lying around pretty much everywhere these days). Now that we've established that you're either still alive or too stubborn to let a pesky thing like dying keep you from making this stew, choppity chop up your chipotle pepper, onion and garlic. Rinse off your celery and chop it into chunks before adding it into the party. Then, using whatever vegetable torture device you have handy, remove the skin from your parsnip and pumpkin. Not so smiley now, are they? The parsnip holds its shape pretty well, so you can cut it as big or small as you want to really. The pumpkin, however, doesn't have that kind of structural integrity, so to make sure there's any visible pumpkin left in your stew when it's cooked, cut that thing into large chunks.

Bowl number 1 of the 3 eaten that night. By me.

Now it's time for the "just dump everything together in a slow cooker and walk the crap away from it" portion of the evening. So do that. Toss all of your chopped everything into your slow cooker along with your beef shank, chicken stock, bay leaves, pepper, cinnamon, and a healthy pinch of salt. If you're one of those ghosts we mentioned earlier, use 1.75 unhealthy pinches of salt. Set that sucker to low and find something to do for the next 10 hours or so, because that's how long we're going to let it cook. I recommend sleeping, or taking advantage of the fact that other people are sleeping to go into their homes and move everything two inches to the left. Whatever it is that you people do. Your patience will be rewarded with a delicious, hearty, slightly spicy stew with beef that's fall-apart tender. You can totally top it off with the roasted pumpkin seeds we made last week to double down on your pumpkin deliciousness if you choose. Regardless, this stew is the perfect thing to warm you up to brave the chilly rainy weather and go look at all of the Christmas ads outside.