Double Take: Baked Potato Soup

Potatoes in milk. Blah.

This week we bid farewell to the all-new ultimate Southern Living Cookbook. Tabitha and I have both been having trouble finding tasters. Some of Tabitha’s tasters have flat-out said no more SLC. So, we have decided that it is time to shake things up a bit. It is quite possible that we will pull out this, er, not-so-trusty
book every once and a while, but for now we are going to move onto other sources for our recipes. The majority will come from the blogs we love, but we will also turn to cookbooks and TV shows for inspiration. If you have a recipe you’d love to see us feature, please let us know!

Double Take: Mississippi Mud Cake

A Sweet Ending to a Not-So-Sweet Week

Mississippi Mud Cake. 'Nuf said.

I did it again. I was away from my kitchen for a long time and the first opportunity I had to cook in it, we went out. You see, since the last post, our lives have been kinda crazy. Bender’s passport was stolen (Not intentionally, someone intentionally stole his bag, and his passport just happened to be in there.) so we had to make an emergency trip to the embassy to get a new one since we would be flying overseas in three days time. Amazingly, the embassy was incredibly nice to us even though we didn’t have a copy of his passport page, etc, etc, etc. Passports in hand, we boarded the plane Sunday, excited for our journey that we’d be looking forward to since we randomly planned it one night in September. We would be at our destination for five full days, and we had something planned to do all but one of those days. We’d use the fifth day to relax and revisit one of the four places. The first day, however, things did not go as planned. We woke up late so we decided to stay in town and go to a museum rather than venture out of town to see the popular landmark on the outskirts of town.

Double Take: Lemon Meringue Pie

What is it about the word meringue? For some reason, I just can’t spell it. Nicely my word processor has spell check so you don’t have to read three different versions of the word throughout the post, but that’s just one of the words with which I have major issues (Sandwich and lingerie also give me fits. Am I the only one who has trouble these words?).

Pretty on the outside! Tabitha and I had a long discussion about the beads on the meringue... some people like them, some people don't because they imply you rushed the cooling process. I say, do what makes you happy!

Double Take: Pork Scaloppine

We’ve been a bit sporadic lately, but I’m sure you understand. The Christmas season was busy and I was out of the kitchen for almost two whole weeks. I actually have had a hard time readjusting to cooking every day. Go figure. Maybe it’s the short days? Maybe December’s weather just really got me down? (Seriously folks,
we went ~30 days with temperatures never reaching freezing.) Maybe it was coming back to cold Germany after 10 days in warm, sunny Italy? (Okay, so Venice was more like Germany is currently: cold and rainy, but the weather in Rome was spectacular.)

Double Take: Beef Stroganoff

Are you ready for a bowl of comfort?

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, you know that my all-time comfort food is beef stroganoff. Full of mushrooms, onions, beef, and sour cream, how can you go wrong? When I first saw a recipe for beef
stroganoff in the all-new ultimate Southern Living Cookbook, I was excited. Until I actually read the recipe. It called for beef tips instead of ground beef. I don’t dislike beef tips, but I just prefer my comfort food to be the way I grew up eating it: with ground beef.

Double Take: Thai Noodles with Peanut Sauce

What is it about me and procrastination with these recipes? Once I get out of the habit of making things early, it is very difficult to get back on track. With a Christmas trip coming up, I’ve really got to get back in the swing of things! I’ll be missing two Thursdays, which means things must be made in advance! I had great plans to make today’s recipe and next week’s recipe on Tuesday, but I got lazy. So that put me back to scrambling to make today’s post last night. And next week’s will just have to wait. (Maybe Sunday lunch?)

I can’t put a point on when or how it started, but I love Asian food. Since I’ve moved to Germany I have come to realize that I love Americanized Asian food… not so much German Asian food. Believe me, there is a difference. Of course, I’d rather eat German Asian food than German cafeteria food, so I end up ordering German Asian food whenever I don’t have food for lunch at work (which is surprisingly not that often). Bender likes my other food more, so when I cook Asian food at home, it’s just for me. Hence why this recipe easily fell by the wayside Tuesday night when I decided to spend time with Bender rather than cook after dinner.

Double Take: Shredded Brussels Sprouts

This week's Double Take is a little different. We've both been sick this week and failed to make the challenge recipe scheduled ahead of time. Luckily, we both had a recipe stashed away for times like these so you still get a recipe!

A culinary match made in heaven: ribs, Brussels sprouts, and garlic smashed potatoes.

Double Take: Whole Cooked Artichokes

I’m not sure why, but I kept putting this recipe off. I love artichokes. I picked this recipe to help convince Tabitha she should try them. But week after week they made my list of things to make, but I never made them.

I was first introduced to artichokes when I was 16. One of my friends and I had a brilliant idea to have a medieval feast, and well, when my friend put her mind to something, things happened. We decorated her finished attic, made medieval dresses, and she and her mom prepared a feast for kings (or rather, princesses). One of our appetizers was artichokes. Until then, I had only ever had them marinated or thrown into a spinach dip… in other words, I’d never really tasted a pure artichoke. She served them simply, with salted clarified butter, very similarly to how one would serve lobster (mhmm, lobster). I thought I’d gone to heaven. One bite of that succulent, butter-dipped, silky plant-flesh had me converted to an artichoke fan. I haven’t liked canned artichokes since. The canning process completely robs the artichoke of its umph. The texture completely changes and you are left with a limp, woody mass that squeaks as you bite into it. Eww. Give me fresh artichokes or give me none! (I know, I know, that saying isn’t quite the same without ending in death, but I don’t think I would die without artichokes. I’m much more likely to put my life on the line for people or liberty than a particular type of food.)

Double Take: Roasted Vegetable Quesadillas (sort of)

Whilst everyone is gathered around the Thanksgiving table in the US today, I’m stuck at work. I’ve been reading facebook status updates all week: 3 days til vacation, 2 days, Today will feel like Monday and Thursday at the same time!, etc. Well, not me. I really can’t complain though, I had a wonderful week of vacation at the beginning of November, am taking a weekend trip to London soon, and will be spending Christmas with most of my immediate family (yay!). But on Thanksgiving Day, I went to work. And ya know what that means? It means I am incredibly lucky to have picked the field of environmental science when I got my bachelor’s degree. And even luckier that I decided I wasn’t ready for the real world so I went to graduate school for a master’s in biology. All of that led me to a point where, when Bender announced he got a job offer in Germany, I was able to get a job there too. I am thankful for the ability to work in a foreign country. This time last year, I knew I had a job lined up for me, but did not yet know when I would start. Tomorrow will be the one year anniversary of when I started my job. Today is a day of giving thanks, and I am thankful to be at this point in my life and to be able to call it good. And incredibly thankful that you are reading my blog so I’m not talking to myself over here!

Double Take: Tabbouleh

One of my favorite lunch places in Winston-Salem served a great Tabbouleh. It was always a little too heavy on the dried cranberries, but it was always enjoyable. So when I saw a different Tabbouleh in the all-new ultimate Southern Living Cookbook, I got excited. Bender and I also ate a lot of salad during the three weeks of summer (way too hot to turn on the oven when our apartment had zero circulation, zero fans, and zero air conditioning), so I was also on the lookout for more salad recipes. Thus, this Tabbouleh recipe made the list.
But I’m just now getting around to making it. Outside my window, I see fall in Germany in full swing: cold and rainy. My seven day forecast is calling for wintery mix soon. I’m not thrilled. I’m wanting those three ridiculously hot weeks of summer back!

Oh right, you’re here to hear/read about this Tabbouleh, not my dislike of the weather.  This recipe definitely brought a bit of summer into my mouth! The warmth didn’t exactly extend to my apartment, but that’s okay. I guess you can’t expect too much out of shredded lettuce, bulgur, parsley, tomatoes, mint, garlic, onion, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Unfortunately, this recipe is the first one in a while that is not linked online, and since I followed the recipe almost exactly (I did halve it), I can’t post it. But I’ll take you through the steps and give you some recommendations!

Double Take: Creamy Southwestern Pumpkin Soup

Tabitha started getting excited about fall soups long before fall actually arrived in North Carolina. So I started looking at our “To Make” list that takes us into January and realized our mistake: we didn’t have a single soup on the list! I had already gone through the list, so I asked Tabitha to do the same. Would you believe that I had rated 28 recipes, but her two top choices I hadn’t rated at all? I didn’t rate them for a simple reason: there was no way Bender would even try them. She’d picked out two pumpkin recipes and Bender just doesn’t eat pumpkin. And I can’t buy canned pumpkin here. I couldn’t imagine that prepping the pumpkin for soup would be difficult, but it just wasn’t something I was terribly interested in trying if I were the only one eating it. So I picked one of Tabitha’s two recipes to make for our Double Take series and gave her my blessing to make the other one without me.

 I've been learning a lot about pumpkins since I moved to Germany. For instance, the rest of the world calls all winter squash “pumpkins.” I only thought something could be called a pumpkin if I could turn it into a jack-o-lantern. Boy was I wrong. And then I learned that Libby’s agrees with the rest of the world and that their canned pumpkin is generally butternut squash. Huh. I’ve never enjoyed pumpkin pie and my mom certainly did not cook with pumpkin, so it was never something I really thought about. So readers, what is your definition of a pumpkin?

Roasted pumpkin sure is pretty. 

Double Take: Smothered Enchiladas

I love fake enchiladas. And when I say fake, I mean I use flour tortillas instead of corn tortillas. I don’t know what it is, but I just don’t like corn tortillas. I’ve even had homemade tortillas made by someone who learned how to make them by watching his mother in Mexico. But I just don’t like them. So I always cheat and use flour tortillas. I assumed I’d have to do that with these enchiladas as well, but for some reason the recipe writers at Southern Living agree with me and both of their enchilada recipes call for flour tortillas. Yay!

Enchilada deliciousness! 

Double Take: Tuscan Pork Chops

I’m always on the lookout for a new pork chop recipe because, well, pork chops, when cooked properly, can be very tasty. It’s easy enough to sprinkle them with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and grill or sauté them, but occasionally I like to change things up a bit.

When Tabitha suggested this recipe for Tuscan Pork Chops (p. 314), I had my doubts. I had put it on the list of “I will eat it, but Bender* will not.” But it was time to make something from that list since we hadn’t yet. The reasons Bender would eat it: balsamic vinegar and capers. If there is one thing that Bender doesn’t like, it’s vinegar… which means he also doesn’t like anything that has been pickled… like, say, capers. I checked to see if the recipe was online, and nicely, it was AND it had several reviews. I checked out what others had said and came to one conclusion: I could not use 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar and expect Bender to like it. But I did notice that several people had suggested subbing your favorite wine. I agreed to make the recipe provided I could make such a substitution. Of course, Tabitha’s always happy to allow substitutions, so we decided to make this recipe.

Double Take: Golden Macaroni and Cheese

Macaroni and cheese is a staple in our house (er, tiny apartment). I’ve tried over a dozen recipes and generally come back to two: my grandmother’s recipe and a cheese sauce based recipe. The recipe for Golden Macaroni and Cheese from the all-new ultimate Southern Living Cookbook looked most similar to my grandmother’s as it does not require a roux. But like my grandmother’s, it looked unassuming and boring. But I was also interested in finding a non-roux recipe that did not call for eggs (I made the mistake of serving that recipe to someone who was allergic to eggs once… eek!), so I thought we should give this one a day.

The original recipe made 8 servings, so I decided to halve the recipe since it was just the two of us. At the last minute I discovered that I did not have quite enough Cheddar, so I supplemented with Parmesan rather than going to the store. The second time I made this recipe, I forgot to use Parmesan and discovered the Parmesan gives it that lift that brings this recipe over the top to fabulous. The recipe listed here is what I used the first time I made it.

Double Take: Herbed Tomato Tart

I knew this recipe would be a winner the moment I looked at it. I liked all the ingredients, woot! I begged Tabitha to let me make, despite her dislike of puff pastry. She agreed and we set a date. Originally, I had this one listed for making in November, but I realized how incredibly stupid that was. Tomatoes are already out of season here and it’s the beginning of October, so I knew I would only be able to find mealy, yucky tomatoes in November, so I moved this one towards the top of the list.

Then I had to find the perfect time to make it. It’s not exactly main-meal material, or at least I was nervous enough about whether or not Hubby would like it that I didn’t want to serve it as the entrée. Luckily, the perfect opportunity presented itself last weekend. We went hiking with some friends, and Hubby decided to reward us all afterwards with his famous lasagna. Well, we didn’t get back from hiking until 6:30 and lasagna takes 3 hours to make, so I decided to make the Herbed Tomato Tart (p. 475) as an appetizer for us. I knew one of our guests isn’t a fan of tomatoes, so I just left them off his part of the tart.

I made a couple substitutions/changes, but not many. Instead of using preshredded mozzarella, I used two balls of fresh mozzarella, sliced about ¼ inch thick. For my herb mix, I used fresh basil, chives, and parsley. Instead of wasting a second puff pastry sheet, I simply cut the edges from the sheet I was already using (I also didn’t bother to roll out the dough).

Double Take: Skillet Creamed Corn

Corn, glorious corn!

The picture in the book for this recipe looked divine. Despite my dislike of creamed corn as a child, I decided I was going to try this one anyway (I only liked corn on the cob. I could watch my grandmother cut it off the cob and still wouldn’t eat it because it was no longer on the cob… what can I say? I’ve always been particular.) So I was taking a big leap when I picked this recipe. Hubby and I both adore fresh corn, so I was quite appalled when all I found last fall was corn in a package. That’s right, no silk, no husk, and it had been preserved and vacuum packed. Bleck. (Or so I assume… I’ve never tried it.) Around the end of June, when my cousin was talking about his 140 ears that he just picked from his garden, I was green with envy. I started looking everywhere for fresh corn and much to my dismay, found nothing. Finally, during a World Cup game, I pleaded my case to a local and discovered that I would not be able to find fresh corn. Hubby and I were both devastated.

Double Take: Loaded Garlic Smashed Potatoes

This recipe has been on the back burner for quite some time. Tabitha wanted to make it back in the day, but that was before red potatoes were in season and I was unwilling to make changes to the recipe. Well, I’ve loosened up a bit and red potatoes came into season, and we decided it was time to make this recipe. And boy, am I glad I did.

I have always been a huge mashed potato fan. I can now make them in a way that hubby will eat them, but he never goes back for seconds. Me on the other hand, I generally go back for thirds, which probably isn’t the healthiest thing in the world for me. I even tried preparing Momma’s Holiday Mashed Potato Casserole for Hubby, but he still didn’t go back for seconds. I didn’t see how this recipe would be any different, but decided to make it anyway since we both love garlic and bacon. I failed to mention to Hubby that this recipe contained sour cream, and just served it up as potatoes. He went back for seconds. Twice.

Double Take: Ham-and-Cheese Omelets

I picked out this recipe for one simple reason: I wanted something other than bacon and eggs for breakfast on Saturday mornings. Apparently, I was more than willing to replace bacon and eggs with ham and eggs.

I went to gather the ingredients. After looking through the list, I knew locating havarti cheese might be problematic. That is one is difficult to find around here, and I’ve never seen it in block form. However, we do have butter cheese here and the cookbook described havarti as buttery, so I decided that would be a simple sub. But when I got to the store, I actually found havarti. I was so excited to find it that I didn’t look at the package closely or check the expiration date. Oops.

I set out my ingredients the next morning. Our plans for canoeing that day had been cancelled because the river was so high, so we opted to go visit the castles we would have looked at from the river instead. It was raining when we got moving that morning, so it looked like we wouldn’t even get to go hiking either. I gathered my ingredients that morning and decided first things first: grate the cheese. The swiss grated, I turned to the havarti. I opened the package and was hit with a foul smell. I closely inspected the cheese: it was slimy. Into the trash went the havarti. Swiss only it was.

Double Take: Bistro Grilled Chicken Pizza (sort of)

Don't have access to hot Italian sausage? Make your own! Instead of grinding it myself, I buy it pre-ground and just add my seasonings. 

I miss Americanized pizza. Hubby misses Americanized pizza. Delivery pizza is just not the same here. The crust is blah. It make the normal delivery pizza companies in the US taste outstanding. There are a few Italian pizza places in town, and they have great pizza, but it's not Americanized... it's Italian. Which is all well and good, but I've grown accustomed to lots of topping, a choice between thick, thin, and pan crust, and lots of cheese, and that's not traditional Italian. So when I order from a delivery pizza place in town, I generally order Indian food (yes, you read that correctly, most of the delivery joints deliver pizza and Indian food... and beer and wine). And Hubby has given up on ordering from the delivery places.

So when I noticed this week's challenge, I was a little nervous. I've only made pizza once before, and Hubby wasn't around for that. On top of that, he eats at the local Italian place quite frequently since it's so close to his work and has free wi-fi, which means he can work and eat lunch at the same time (such discipline, I would spend the whole time surfing the net instead of working). So, I was nervous about making pizza for him. So much so that I didn't tell him that I was making it until about an hour before I got home from work. I mentioned that the recipe called for chicken, but he asked for bell peppers and Italian sausage instead. I obliged.

If you'll notice, the subtitle of this blog is Bistro Grilled Chicken Pizza (sort of), but I didn't use my grill or chicken. The broiler function here is called the grill function instead, so I took that as license to use my broiler instead of making Hubby get out and light up our tiny charcoal grill that the pizza dough probably wouldn't fit on. Since Hubby doesn't like chicken on pizza (and frankly there is only one chicken pizza I really like and it's only available at the Domino's in the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center), I begged Tabs to let me change up the recipe a bit. Considering I've always been the stickler for sticking to the recipe, I knew it'd be fine. And that's how my Bistro Grilled Chicken Pizza turned into Semi-Homemade* Broiled Italian Sausage Pizza (2 ways).

Hubby's pizza ready to go back in the oven for the final broil.

Semi-Homemade Broiled Italian Sausage Pizza (2 ways)
(heavily adapted from the all-new ultimate Southern Living Cookbook, original recipe here)

2 containers refrigerated pizza crust
2 tsp olive oil
2 (14 ounce) cans hot pizza sauce, gently warmed on the stove
10 ounces hot Italian sausage, castings removed, browned and drained (see photo note above)
1/2 green bell pepper, thin sliced
4 ounces mushrooms, sliced
1/2 small onion, sliced into half rings, submerged in water and chilled at least 30 minutes
1 pound shredded mozzarella
12 fresh basil leaves
yield: 2 pizzas

Method:
Preheat oven on high heat (as high as it will go), positioning rack in the middle of the oven.

Unroll one crust and brush evenly with 1 tsp olive oil. Invert dough directly onto cooking rack, peel off the baking paper it came on, and broil using top heating element only 3 to 4 minutes or until the top of the dough is browned. Turn dough over (I used two sets of tongs for this step) and broil 2-3 minutes or until top is set. Carefully remove crust from rack to an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet.

Spread half of the sauce evenly over crust; sprinkle evenly with 8 ounces of mozzarella. Sprinkle with 7 ounces crumbled Italian sausage and the bell pepper. Return to hot oven and broil 10-12 minutes or until cheese is melted and slightly brown on top.

While the first pizza is on it's final broil, unroll the next crust and brush with remaining olive oil. When the first pizza is done, remove from oven to large cutting board and serve immediately. Repeat initial broiling process with the second crust.

Once the second crust is set and out of the oven, spread the rest of the sauce evenly over the dough. Sprinkle evenly with remaining cheese. Top with 3 ounces crumbled Italian sausage, the sliced onion (drained), sliced mushrooms, and fresh basil. Return to oven and broil 10-12 minutes or until cheese is melted ans slightly brown on top. Serve immediately.

You might notice that the upper right corner of the pizza is... weird. I might have had trouble flipping it the first time because one of my sets of tongs focuses all the pressure on one point instead of spreading it out. Nicely, I had this issued worked out by the second pizza.

THOUGHTS:
Hubby's pizza was gone before I pulled mine out of the oven. However, in the future, I'll use my own pizza crust and sauce because the crust available in the refrigerated section was absolutely tasteless. It made me yearn for Mellow Mushroom's springwater crust. So now I have to learn how to make pizza crust. Wish me luck! As far as the original recipe goes, I like the method and it translated easily to the oven. I've been waiting to get a pizza stone before I made pizza in the oven, but this method allows me to get a nice crispy crust without burning the cheese and other toppings. If you don't have a pizza stone, I highly recommend this method of mostly prebaking the crust directly on the cooking rack before adding the toppings.

VERDICT:
Please-make-me-Americanized-pizza-again-but-with-better-crust-and-sauce: 1 vote
Yay-I-actually-got-to-eat-a-mushroom-and-onion-pizza: 1 vote

 For Tab's take on Bistro Grilled Chicken Pizza (sort of), head on over to Double the Garlic!

* Is it bistro because it uses store bought crust and sauce?

My favorite pizza: heavy on the mushrooms and onions, light on the Italian sausage

Do you have a great crust recipe? Please share! And what is your favorite pizza? Restaurant pizza? (Mine's the Magical Mystery Tour from Mellow Mushrooms with added onions)

Double Take: Margarita Pork Tenderloin

Margarita Pork Tenderloin (p 254) was one of the first recipes Hubby noticed in the all-new ultimate Southern Living Cookbook, but we've only just now gotten around to making it. Sorry, Hubby!

Notice I mention my jalapeño was still good, I didn't say it was still green!