Chicken Corn Chowder

This is our favorite soup to eat when the temperature turns cool. I love having a pot of soup simmering on the stove all morning ready for lunch and leftovers for supper.
This soup goes great with homemade bread or crackers.

 er

Ingredients:

1small onion

1 stick margarine

1/3 cup flour

3 cans chicken broth/stock

1 can creamed corn

1/2 pint half and half

2-3 medium potatoes

3-4 cooked chicken breast

salt and pepper to taste

Finely  chop onion. In a stockpot add onion and margarine, let margarine melt and cook onion for a couple of minutes. Stir in flour using a whisk  to make a roux. When thick, still using whisk, add one can of chicken stock let thicken again, repeat with other 2 cans of stock. Let thicken and slowly add half and half, don't let your soup come to a boil once the half and half has been added. Add cream corn. I cook my chicken breast in the the microwave, chop and add to soup. Peel and chop the potatoes, put in saucepan of water, bring to a boil, cook until tender, drain off water and add to soup. Let soup simmer until you are ready to eat. Remember don't let it come to a boil.

This recipe will be shared on these blog parties:
Foodie Friday
Full Plate Thursday
These Chicks Cooked

Dutch Oven Stuffed Steak

Whenever we go camping I try to prepare a couple of meals with my cast iron Dutch oven. This was a new recipe and one I will make again. I assembled everything at home except for the soup, put it in a ziplock baggie and  kept it refrigerated until I was ready to cook it. For tips on cooking with your Dutch Oven read my post: Tips for your Dutch Oven .

Use round steak and pound it to tenderize it.

Stuffing:

1 carrot, grated

1 medium onion, diced

1/2 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp sage

1 tsp poultry seasoning

2 1/2 cup bread, cubed

1 tsp beef bouillon granules

1/2 cup water

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

1 tblsp oil

Combine carrots, onion, thyme, sage, poultry seasoning, and bread. Dissolve beef granules with the 1/2 cup water. Add to bread mixture. Mix well. Place on round steak, roll and tie with string. I found this to be very messy and glad that I assembled it at home. Put oil in 12 inch Dutch oven, place on 6 to 8 coals, let oven get hot. Place round steak in oven and lightly brown on all sides. Cover with undiluted soup. Place lid on oven and add 14 to 16 coals on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours or until steak is tender.

I plan to share this recipe on these blog parties:

Foodie Friday

Mouthwatering Mondays

What's on the Menu Wednesday 

Tuesdays at the Table 

Full Plate Thursday

Tempt my Tummy Tuesday

These Chicks Cooked

What's Cooking Wednesday

Tips for Cooking with a Dutch Oven

I haven't been cooking with my Dutch Oven long but I would like to share  some tips.

1. Dutch Ovens come in a variety of sizes, the bigger the heavier. Lift them at the store, buy one you can easily lift and remember it will be heavier with the ingredients inside. The most used size is 12 inches.
2. Buy a Dutch oven with a flat lid, it is more efficient to heat with the the charcoal briquet's.
3. Invest in really good oven mitts. You can buy ones that are designed for this type of cooking.
4.You also need a lifting tool for the lid. I have three that are different lengths and were hand made for me by a family friend. But you can buy one commercially.
5. If you are going to use your Dutch Oven while camping do as much of the prep ahead of time at home. It will save you time and it is easier to do clean up at home.
6.Buy or check out Dutch Oven cookbooks. I have three and they have been very helpful. They also have charts for how many briquet's you need to use on top and on bottom to get the temperature you need.
7. Think outside the box, you can cook almost anything in a Dutch Oven.
8.Buy a good quality charcoal briquets. Temperature control is very important and your briquets are the key.
9.Rotate your Dutch Oven a quarter turn every 10 minutes  for even cooking.

10. Be careful, you have to be mindful of the heat, smoke and the ashes.

 

Red Velvet Cheesecake Torte

For the last two months I have been having surgery on my hands, which makes it difficult to type and cook. My daughters, who both have blogs have generously offered to do a guest post. They both are wonderful, creative young women  and I know you will enjoy their recipes.

Hi everybody! I am so glad to be visiting from Faith And Daisies. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I enjoyed making - and eating - this cake!

You should probably know that I am not a fancy person. I like good, simple food. What I love about this recipe is that it looks fancy but it's really pretty simple to make.

I started out with a Duncan Hines red velvet cake mix but before pouring it into the pans, I added half a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

I mixed that up and poured it into 2 greased cake pans and baked as directed on the box. Then I let them cool. While all that was going on, I mixed up my cheesecake mixture. This is a variation on the Cheesecake Tartlets I make, I will add the adapted recipe at the end of this post.

Once my cakes are cooled, I split them in half like this:

Then I just layered the cake and cheesecake mixture until there were four layers of cake with the cake on top and three layers of cheesecake mixture. It really helps if you allow the cheesecake to sit in the fridge for a little while before layering, it's keeps quite so much of it from coming out the edges. But that is going to happen a little so just get the edges as even as possible before frosting. Don't worry too much about any gaps in the layers though, you can just fill those in with frosting later :)

Once it is layered, stick it back in the fridge if you have some time. If not, it will be ok but it does help to frost it if it's cold. I used Duncan Hines cream cheese frosting. I have just one little word to describe this frosting:
Amazing.This is how it looked frosted. Some of the cheesecake mixture and cake crumbs got mixed in with the frosting so I came up with a plan to cover that up.

I roughly chopped up some more chocolate chips and pressed them onto the edge of the cake and put a few on top.

Here it is on the inside:

See those chocolate chips in the cake? So yummy! Be sure to stop by Faith And Daisies and say hi!

The Recipe:

Cake:
Duncan Hines Red Velvet cake mix
1 Duncan Hines Cream Cheese Frosting
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cheesecake Mixture:
12 oz. cream cheese, softened
14 oz. sweetened condensed milk
1 small container whipped cream

Bake cake mix as directed (adding 1 cup of chocolate chips to the batter before baking) in 2 cake pans. Let cool, and slice through the middle to make 4 thin layers.

Mix together cheesecake mixture and set in fridge to cool.

Once it is all cool, layer the cake and cheesecake so that there are 4 layers of cake and 3 layers of cheesecake. Set in fridge to cool. Frost with yummy frosting. Press chocolate chips onto the sides of the cake and the top. Cut into it and prepare for compliments!
Blog Parties:
Sweets for a Saturday
Foodie Friday
Mouthwatering Mondays
What's on the Menu Wednesday
Tuesdays at the Table
Full Plate Thursday
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday