Adventures in Cooking: Sunday Edition

Baros and I had a slow morning and then a busy day.  We woke up late and then the errands began.

Our adventures started with walking over to breakfast and then heading over to do our weekly grocery shopping in the rain.  By the time we got home, we were tired again thanks to the new chilly air and rainy day vibes (mind you, I love chilly air!  I'm always excited for fall.  But chilly air and rain make errands far less pleasant).  Once we got home, we put away all of our purchases, rested for a half hour (I was also having some major lower back pain and laying down was the only relief) and then Baros helped me dye my hair... ok, in reality, he dyed my hair for me. BEST HUSBAND EVER!  While my hair was processing, I vacummed and tidied and Baros started prepping dinner.

In the meantime, I showered and started prepping our slow cooker for our weekly meal, Creamy tomato soup.

After that, we braved the weather for one more run to the store since we'd forgotten to get some important cleaning supplies.

When we got home, we threw the fish in the oven and feasted!

Yummy salmon with lemon, dill and hot peppers

It's our favorite easy way to prep salmon.  We bake it with lemon and dill.  Usually, we add asparagus but we kept it even more simple this time.  It was perfect.

Now, I'll go back to our slow cooker prep.  I'm in love with our slow cooker because it makes life so much easier.  Last week we made turkey chilli that lasted from Monday until Saturday.  It fed Baros and I for the full week.  We threw in a couple of other things for variety.  But the slow cooker saved us from having to cook everyday.

So this week, especially with the cooler weather rolling in and the rain staying for a visit, we decided to make Creamy Tomato Soup.  I've never made it before so I decided to follow/manipulate a recipe from SlowCooker Revolution Our Test Kitchen: 30 Slow Cookers. 200 Amazing Recipes.
I really enjoy the recipes from the book so far.  Most are pretty simple to follow and when they're not they still give great ideas for flavor profiles. Some of the recipes call for a lot of ingredients that we aren't super accessible in our local grocery store so we have to take a trip to the HMart soon.  I think we've tried 3 or 4 of the recipes so far but with the fall coming, we'll be trying more.

It's a great beginner's cookbook and takes you step by step through the recipes.
It also gives some great tips for general cooking. 

Creamy Tomato Soup (my adaptation of the books recipe... partially because I read it wrong 😜)
2 tbs unsalted butter
3 (14.5 oz) cans diced tomatoes
5 small Serrano peppers, diced (we love spicy, it was necessary)
1 onion, minced
2 tbs brown sugar

Serrano peppers 

1 small can tomato paste
Salt and pepper
2 tbs all purpose flour
5 cups chicken broth
5 bay leaves
1 cup heavy cream
Rosemary to taste

I always have fun adapting recipes.  In this case, I wanted to add some spice with the Serrano peppers. I decided to add a little more cream and some extra tomato paste to make it extra rich. And I used more chicken broth to make it last a little longer. In retrospect, I could have also added another can of diced tomatoes.

Browning the onions with brown sugar

The other changes I made had a lot to do with a simple reading error.  I was supposed to drain the diced tomatoes but I missed that step.












So when I sautéed the onions in the butter with the brown sugar, I added the cans of tomatoes sans draining.  I was trying to cook off the liquid but since I didn't drain them, there was more liquid than necessary. The drained tomato liquid was supposed to go straight into the slow cooker... Instead, I wound up cooking off more tomato than necessary.  I also wasn't able to brown the tomato the way the recipe wanted.

That being said, I managed to work it out and infuse some flavor by cooking down the tomatoes.

I put 3/4 of the mixture straight into the crock pot.  The other 1/4 I turned into a rue after browning it lightly and then adding the flour.  Once it cooked for about a minute or so I added in about 2 cups of the chicken broth and let that simmer until it thickened.
I then added everything to the crock pot, the remaining tomato mixture,  the bay leaves and the rest of the chicken stock and let it cook for 4 1/2 hours.
Then we pureed the mixture and added in the heavy cream, pepper, rosemary, and a little more salt.

NOTE: Don't forget to take out your bay leaves!! We kind of forgot about them and had to blend extra.

Hubby blending for me :) 

I topped it with shredded cheese for a melty twist

Then portions for the week.   And voila all done!!