Tag: Cooking

So creamy, rich, hearty and comforting! The secret to this soup is roasting the mushrooms in garlic and fresh thyme first!

Greetings from Chicago!

It’s dipping below 30 degrees F here and aside from the deep dish pizza I crushed last night, I really really need a bowl of this mushroom soup!

It’s the creamiest of all cream soups with a secret ingredient: roasted mushrooms, of course!

Roasting the mushrooms beforehand makes all the difference in the world – creating the most earthy, hearty, perfectly seasoned mushrooms one can ask for.

And if you like your soup more pureed, you can also go the extra mile and use the immersion blender here, but I’m more of a chunky-soup-type gal.

Either way, please have all the crusty bread ready here to sop up all the mushroom goodness!

The post Creamy Roasted Mushroom Soup appeared first on Damn Delicious.

Once the big holiday feast is over, you deserve a break from heavy cooking. But you’ve already had a turkey sandwich or three—and there are still a ton of leftovers. Luckily, you can transform any roast meat and cooked veggies into a new, elegant dinner in a few simple moves.

Nothing in this recipe should be considered a hard-and-fast rule. It’s more of a blueprint for how to reconstruct your holiday meal into a whole new form, making use of any bits and pieces left from your family’s table.

I used polenta here because it’s something I make in big batches for dinner parties that often yields leftovers. But stuffing can also be pressed into patties and crisped up, and grilled cornbread would also be lovely.

Leftover polenta begs to be transformed; that just requires a tiny bit of forethought when you’re storing it. For the first meal, just use your favorite recipe for creamy polenta (I’m partial to Marcella Hazan’s “no-stir” recipe, with a generous scoop of ricotta mixed in) or follow the package instructions. Pour any extra polenta into a flat layer in a baking dish, cover, and refrigerate. As it cools, it will form into a thick, dense cake, which you can then easily slice into pieces. (Some grocery stores sell polenta prepackaged in this form.)

A saucy sauté makes a lovely textural contrast to the crispy polenta. Sweat some onions and mushrooms, then add in greens and any veggies you have left, along with shredded or diced pieces of a protein of your choosing. Here, I used the remainders from a grocery-store rotisserie chicken to mimic a holiday featuring roast turkey or another bird. (Need a roast chicken recipe? Try Josephine chef Andy Little’s classic bird or Boka chef Lee Wolen’s spin on it—not that we expect any leftovers here!—or any of the other options in our Recipe Search.)

I decided to look at one classic winter wine pairing and one alternative option. Chardonnay is a go-to for our holidays, as it’s a crowd-pleaser that tends to work well with roasted turkey or chicken and many fall vegetables. We opened a California Chardonnay on this occasion.

Rosé still tends to get overlooked once Labor Day passes us by, but its place between red and white wines gives it the ability to pair easily with a wide spectrum of dishes, as we tend to have on the holiday table. So for our second bottle, we popped open a rosé from Corbières in the south of France.

This Chardonnay was round and tangy with ripe citrus and tropical fruit notes, balanced by hints of spice and a touch of dried herbs. It worked really well with the creamy gravy, as I had expected, as well as with the cornmeal flavor of the polenta.

In contrast, the rosé had bright acidity and a stony backbone, with a combination of tart strawberries and herbal and floral notes. This wine spoke to the sauté of mushrooms, greens and shredded chicken, and it was particularly refreshing. I have to admit that I expected the Chardonnay to easily win this match, but the rosé took the win for favorite wine of the night by a small margin.

Crispy Polenta with Chicken (or Turkey) and Vegetable Sauté

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Pair with a French rosé such as Domaine de Fontsainte Corbières Gris de Gris 2017 (87 points, $16) or a California Chardonnay such as Husch Chardonnay Mendocino 2016 (87 points, $15).

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Prep time: 5 minutes
Approximate cooking time: 25 to 30 minutes
Total cooking time: 30 to 35 minutes
Approximate food costs: $21

• 4 squares of leftover polenta (or stuffing or cornbread), cut to roughly 4 inches by 4 inches and 3/4-inch to 1-inch thick
• 1/2 to 2/3 cups diced onions (about 1 small onion)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 16 ounces sliced mushrooms
• 1/4 cup gravy, plus an additional 1/2 cup (or as desired) for serving
• 1 to 2 cups previously cooked vegetables of your choosing (I used roasted turnips and sweet potatoes)
• 5-ounce bag of baby spinach or other greens
• 1 1/2 cups shredded roasted chicken, turkey or other protein
• Cooking oil (such as olive, canola or corn)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Parmesan, optional, for serving

1. Add a generous pour of oil to a pan and set on medium-high heat. Once the oil is hot and starting to shimmer, place the polenta squares in the pan. Cook for 4 to 8 minutes per side, depending on how browned and crispy you like it. Transfer to a platter and keep warm until ready to serve.

2. While the polenta is crisping, add a little oil to another pan on medium heat. Sweat the diced onions in the pan until they begin to soften, about 5 to 8 minutes. Stir in the minced garlic, followed by the mushrooms, and season with salt and pepper. Continue cooking over medium-high until the mushrooms have started to soften as well, another 5 to 8 minutes.

3. Once mushrooms are nearly cooked through, add in the 1/4 cup gravy, chicken and any previously cooked vegetables. Stir to combine. Add the baby spinach in a layer on top, cover the pan and continue to cook for another couple of minutes, until the chicken and vegetables are completely heated through and the spinach has begun to wilt. Lower the temperature if needed.

4. Reheat the 1/2 cup of gravy in the microwave or on the stovetop. Place a square of polenta on each of four plates. Spoon a couple of tablespoons of gravy on top of each polenta square, followed by a scoop of the chicken and vegetable mixture. Garnish with Parmesan cheese if desired and serve any additional gravy on the side. Serves 4.

Try your hand at making some presents this year, from mini panettone to festive cookies and jam, say happy christmas the homemade way!

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The most EPIC appetizer board ever! With an assortment of cheeses, figs, nuts, and pomegranate, this is the must-have holiday recipe!

Guys, this is THE holiday appetizer you all need.

I’m serious.

It’s beautiful, it’s festive, and it has four of my favorite cheeses – brie, manchego, provolone and Pepper Jack.

Not to mention, this will be the easiest appetizer you will have to assemble during the holidays. Because guess what? There is absolutely no cooking involved here.

Simply slice your cheeses, spread your crackers, crack open your pomegranate, and garnish with fresh rosemary sprigs for that holiday touch.

To finish it off, pour the wine.

Done.

The post Holiday Cheese Board appeared first on Damn Delicious.

Can a glass of wine a day really keep the doctor away? A new study published this month in the scientific journal Addiction says it might. Researchers from Harvard University, Italy’s Mediterranean Neurological Institute and the University of Molise investigated the relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of hospitalization, and found that those who consumed roughly one drink per day endured fewer hospital visits compared with those who drank more and those who did not drink at all.

Using data from the Moli-sani cohort study, researchers gathered information on the drinking habits of 20,682 men and women 35 years old or older living in the Molise region of Italy, and tracked their hospital admissions records for a period of about six years. Subjects were categorized by their status as drinkers —lifetime abstainer, former drinker, occasional drinker (someone who drinks less than 2.5 drinks per month) or current drinker (someone who drinks more frequently). They were also categorized by the grams of alcohol they consumed per day during the year before enrolling in the study—1 to 12 grams per day, 12.1 to 24 grams, 24.1 to 48 grams and more than 48 grams. (U.S. health authorities state that a typical glass of wine contains roughly 14 grams of alcohol).

Over the course of the study, nearly 13,000 hospitalizations were recorded. Those who drank 1 to 12 grams of alcohol per day had the lowest rate of hospital visits. And compared with lifetime abstainers and former drinkers, those in this roughly-one-drink-per-day category not only had a lower rate of hospitalization for all causes, but also for cardiovascular disease specifically.

The population studied adds an intriguing twist to the research. “We investigated the relationship between alcohol consumption and the risk of hospitalization in a large prospective population-based cohort of adults, living in a central-southern region of Italy, with Mediterranean dietary traditions,” Dr. Simona Costanzo, the study’s corresponding author, told Wine Spectator. A Mediterranean diet includes moderate wine consumption (among other healthy foods) and has been shown to have many health benefits. Before this study, there has been very little research looking specifically at alcohol consumption among those who follow the Mediterranean diet.

Of course, the study is not without its caveats: “Although low-moderate, non-binging alcohol consumption reduces the chance to be hospitalized, we do not recommend that adult lifetime abstainers begin drinking for health reasons only,” said Costanzo. She also warned that those in the heavy drinking category (more than about four drinks per day) were shown to have a significantly higher risk of going to the hospital, especially for alcohol-related diseases and cancer. (The risk was even greater if the heavy drinker was also a smoker.)

“However, this research reaffirms that there is no scientific evidence for demonizing alcohol,” Costanzo said. “As a component of the Mediterranean diet, including a friendly social lifestyle, alcohol in moderation does not turn out to be a negative factor.”

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