This is an easy Tomato Basil soup recipe that I've been using for years. Not only is it easy, but it's cheap and delicious...I'll be making this more often from here on out. The recipe doesn't call for cream so it's a little less fattening than other Tomasil soup recipes.
You'll need:
1/4 cup butter
2 medium onions
6 fresh tomatoes or 28 oz of canned (diced or crushed)
6 oz tomato paste
1 tablespoon fresh basil of a teaspoon dried
2 teaspoons fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried
4 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
Take the 1/4 cup of butter and get it melting over medium heat. Chop two medium onions and add to the butter. Stir occasionally until onions are opaque…do not let them brown.
Add 4 cups of canned chicken broth, the tomato paste, and 28 ounces of tomatoes to a large soup pot. You can used fresh tomatoes, a can of crushed or diced tomatoes or any combination of the above. I also add carrots to give the soup a little more texture and extra vitamins.
(Stuff this up your nose and walk around all day. You're welcome)
I recommend using fresh basil leaves. The soup will taste much better and will fill your kitchen with the smell of awesome during cooking. Be sure and give it a good chopping first. I also recommend boiling chicken/chicken parts to make your own broth. It will make for a much richer stock and you will really be able to taste the difference.
Add the basil, thyme, salt and pepper. Pour the onions in, bring the soup to a boil then reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 45 minutes.
Taste occasionally and feel free to add more basil, thyme, salt or pepper to taste.
(Carrot danglin' is one of my favorite photo ops!)
After 45 minutes, pour the soup into a blender in batches until it is all liquified. Add it back to the original pot and stir well. It is ready to serve!
(Who puts wine in a rock glass? This guy.)
I used the leftover meat mixture from the Hot Pockets (previous post) to create lettuce wraps that I served with the soup. Avoid the bread and this soup is a guaranteed weight dropper!
These are fun to make because you can put whatever flippin ingredients you want in them. Lord knows Nestle has and I don't think anyone's complaining to them.
This is most everything I used...but you'll definitely need a couple of key ingredients and then you can do whatever you like.
Unless you plan on making your own home made crust, go buy a refrigerated loaf of french bread. You'll also need some flour for light dusting purposes.
I chopped up a small onion, half of each a red and green bell pepper, and some minced garlic. I threw that into a pan with a tablespoon of vegetable oil over high heat, stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes. The chopped tomato and green onion are for later.
I went with hamburger as the meat for my filling because it's easy and not too risky for a first run at these guys.
Use whatever herbs and spices you want to season your meat with. I kept it simple. Seasoned salt, garlic salt and pepper.
After browning the meat I added a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, some diced tomato and chopped green onion. I turned off the heat…the mixture needs to cool before you spoon it onto the dough and form the pockets.
After you've let the meat mixture sit for awhile, take out your loaf and pinch off a couple of inches.
Lightly dust a surface with flour, and then dust a rolling pin or a wine bottle too, Roll the piece of dough until it is thin and flat.
One of the reasons the refrigerated french bread works so well is because it is spongy and stretchy. You can spoon quite a bit of your meat mixture onto the pockets and the dough will stretch around it.
I also added cheese and pepperoni for a little extra grease. Roll up the mixture into a pocket.
Then whisk an egg and a little milk in a bowl, and baste that over the pockets.
Grease a baking sheet with some some cooking spray, put the pockets in the pan, and the pan in the oven at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes or until the tops are nice and golden brown.
And boom goes the dynamite. Home made hot pocket. Eat up. Life tastes better when enclosed in a pocket made of bread.
My inbox is flooded with recipes. The daily cooking emails have finally surpassed the ones about increasing the size of my manhood. I think that's a good thing.
Yesterday I received a copycat recipe for the great Colonel Sander's famous Kentucky Fried Chicken. I thought why not. If that ODB could spend years frying up his chicken with a secret 11 herb and spice recipe then I could spend one night giving it my best shot to copy the $#it out of it.
Normally I try to blog about easy recipes with minimal ingredients which require only the basic kitchen utensils to prepare. I hope this encourages the cooking-impaired to roll up your sleeves, put on that apron thats been hanging up in the pantry since your easy bake oven days, and give cooking a try.
( The exact mixture of spices it takes to make a piece of chicken taste like Funions )
But this one is a little different. I used 13 herbs and spices for this recipe. If you had to buy all of these it would set you back about $40 - $50. Plus you'd still need the chicken, vegetable oil, milk and flour. In that case you should probably just give up and drive through any one of the Colonel's fine eating establishments conveniently located all across this great land of ours.
If you want to give it a shot anyway then congratulations because it's easy and delicious.
( Why isn't the phrase "chicken pile" a thing? What the hell did dogs ever do? )
I used 4 chicken breasts and 12 drumsticks. I trimmed most of the skin off the chicken and left the breasts on the bone.
In a large tupperware container I mixed 3 cups of flour with all of the measurements below plus 2 tsp each of paprika and chili powder.
1/2 cupsalt
1/4 cupblack pepper
1/4 teaspoongarlic salt
1/4 teaspoontumeric
1/4 teaspoonground sage
3/4 teaspooncurry powder
3/4 teaspoononion salt
3/4 teaspoondry mustard
1/4 teaspoonmixed spice(ground)
1/4 teaspoonground cloves
In a smaller container, I whisked two eggs with a couple of cups of 2% milk.
Then I poured most of a 32 oz container of vegetable oil into a large pot on high heat.
I washed the chicken off, dredged each piece in the flour mixture, then submerged it in the egg/milk mixture, then back into the flour.
Then into the oil until golden brown.
For crispier chicken you could put it in the oven at 400 degrees for 15-30 minutes, but you'd need to put it on a rack in a roasting pan so the juices/excess oil can drip below. If you use baking pans like I did the juices will run out of the chicken and do the opposite. Luckily I figured that out in time and averted a soggy chicken disaster the likes of which this world has never seen.
And thats it. Let it cool for a few minutes or you'll be sorry you ever heated that grease to boiling temperatures.
( Chicken and beer...a Boston Red Sox recipe for success! )
I made some mashed potatoes and biscuits to go with…but I'll soon be blogging about why you shouldn't eat those carbs…just stick with the chicken to get skinnier…believe it or not!
Enjoy....but with a WARNING. This chicken is stupid delicious. Don't pound your intestines into submission with copious amounts of yardbird. Have a little self control.
Frying fish is easy and delicious. Enough said. So turn your kitchen into a good ol' fashion fish fry…I'll show you how.
If you don't have uncles who consider February through November to be fishing season then you're probably going to need to pick up some white fish at the local grocery. I'd suggest catfish or tilapia. Or go to Wal Mart and grab a pole and a license and hit your local swimming hole.
I like to prep a bit of white (sweet) onion and lemon before I do anything else. Cut the onion into wheels, and the lemon into wedges. Put that in a bowl with some ice water and stick it in the fridge. The cool bold flavors are going to complement the shit out of the salty greasy fish and fries.
Peal some potatoes and then slice them into wedges. As always, I recommend using Yukon Gold potatoes.
Pour vegetable oil into a pot a couple of inches deep. I used a smaller pot with less oil which meant I had to do multiple batches of fries. When the oil has been heating on high for several minutes, get the potatoes in there.
Then put a few tablespoons of vegetable oil in a pan on medium high for the fish.
Pour cornmeal into a container and sprinkle in some salt and pepper. Wash the fish off and roll it around in the cornmeal. When the oil in the pan is hot, get the fish in there. Let it cook on each side for about 6 to 8 minutes. You want the breading golden…not brown.
Stir your potatoes every few minutes, and then take them up at the desired done-ness. Some people like their fries yellow and a little soft…some brown and crispy.
Take the fish and fries up onto two separate plates with paper towels on them, then cover with another paper towel on top.This will absorb excess grease.
Sprinkle some salt over the fries and if you want to be like McDonald's…a little sugar too. It's stupid good. Put the plates in the oven at 200 to keep warm until serving.
Once all your fish and fries are ready, pull your bowl of iced onion and lemon out of the fridge along with some ketchup. Other acceptable condiments are tartar, cocktail, or hot sauce, malt vinegar, and chocolate syrup.
Squeeze some lemon over the fish, take a bite of straight onion, pound your chest and dive into the fried goodness before you. Life doesn't get much better.
Side note: After tasting how good these fries are you might just want to deep fry some more later. Buy a cast iron pot and you can store and reuse the oil a few times before disposing it. If you do reuse oil, make sure you are cooking he same thing in it every time, otherwise the flavor of the oil will change and soak into your food. You don't want french fries that taste like fish or chicken!
So Darvish made his spring debut yesterday. He gave up a double that went past Moreland and also a deep ball to center that could have been a homer in a few parks around the league. But he also struck out three, and threw more than 5 different types of pitches. Video below:
All in all, expect BIG things out of Darvish. This debut though short is convincing. Real Deal. Look for us in the Series again!
*
In light of pitchers and catchers reporting to camp soon I'm jotting down my thoughts and predictions for our beloved Texas Rangers.
First and foremost, I'd like to say that our team looks great and as a homer I think we have a great chance to make it back to the World Series. However history has shown that across all sports it is difficult to achieve that kind of consecutive success. But here's to hoping.
(Show my glove some love Elvis!)
(Up top, short stop!)
Recent contract renewals for Cruz, Andrus and Napoli is huge. Getting offensive production out of your SS and C positions is very difficult. Napoli probably won't start at C often but because of his high winning percentage behind the plate last year maybe we'll see him catch more in 2012. All of these guys are great defensively and Cruz and Andrus will both steal a good number of bases.
(Bro...treat my hand like you did that girl's backside at the bar!)
Unfortunately we'll probably see some fall off from Hamilton and Kinsler. Kins because of his injury history and general lack of improvement thus far. The guy just can't get his average up. Hamilton, I've just got a bad feeling. We will surely see some fall off with Young and Napoli too…mainly because their production last year was nothing short of spectacular. We need to get similar or better production out of everyone else…especially Beltre. I'd like to see a big step forward from Mitch Moreland as well although I'm not predicting that. Here's the lineup:
We've got great depth in the outfield with David Murphy, Craig Gentry, Endy Chavez and Leonys Martin ready off the bench. And our infield is incredibly versatile with Young and Napoli rotating in and out of the DH spot and offering relief for other position players. Our depth is arguably the best in baseball but at worst top 3.
As much as I love our offense, I'm more in love with our pitching.
Projected Rotation (and guys on DL who will start at some point)
The above rotation is exciting to say the least. If these guys pitch to their potential then the rest of Baseball is in trouble. But we can always bring Ogando or Feldman out of the pen if necessary. Both have shown that they can pitch quality starts in the Bigs. Feliz is probably the most likely to disappoint…in which case just throw him back in the bullpen where he is comfortable and effective. Booya.
(The Japanese C.J. ? Let's hope not...)
Signing Joe Nathan and Yu Darvish adds even more depth to what is already one of the deeper pitching cores in the MLB. Yu's numbers from Japan are fantastic ( 1.72 ERA, 0.89 WHIP, 9.5 K/9 and 1.9 BB/9 ). I think it's worth the risk to pay big for what should be our Ace of the future and potentially one of the best pitchers in the entire league. It's better than paying C.J. when we've already seen his ceiling. And I'm betting that his production falls off now that he's got the big deal he's been dreaming of. Have fun writing screenplays, chasing swimsuit models, and just being awesome out there in LA.
(Try my famous hot dogs...they make me smile!)
As for Nathan, he has been a dominant closer in recent history. He struggled some last year coming back from Tommy John's surgery but he was getting it back towards the end of the season. I hope for nothing but dominance out of our new closer.
Relievers (may include/exclude guys not on 25-man roster)
The rest of the bullpen looks great with the likes of Alexi Ogando, Mike Adams and a solid cast of supporters. Washington will no longer have the temptation to bring in the old guys; Darren Oliver and Arthur Rhodes aren't here anymore. They're removing the handicapped ramps from the bullpen before the start of the season.
(Please don't go out of the park, pretty please)
One move we still need to make...we do need to rid ourselves of the useless Uehara who couldn't throw anything but home run balls once we traded for him. Sayonara Suckah!
(The new dreaded and feared...)
The AL West with the exception of the Angels should be a cakewalk. The Halos have improved with the addition of Wilson and Pujols. Their rotation is now Phillies-esque with Jared Weaver, Dan Haren, C.J. Wilson and Ervin Santana. But their bullpen and offense lack the talent and depth to match up against us. Still it should be a race to the end with these guys and I will be glued to all 18 games this season. Oakland and Seattle you can sleep on…neither team should sniff .500 .
(I can feel him kicking around in there!)
As for the rest of the AL...there will be some stiff competition. The Bo Sox will be back with a vengeance this year. Those games against Boston towards the end of last season were wildly unpredictable. We stomped them, then they stomped us. The Tigers will be better after adding Prince Fielder. The Yankees are always dangerous. But you can expect a drop off from the Rays. We need to dominate the stronger teams in the AL this year to help get us over the hump.
So there you have it. I predict 100 wins, the division title and a great shot at getting back to the World Series. GO RANGERS!
