Today is the last day of March Break. It's been a long week with some family members sick the majority of the time, but we've had fun, too! Yesterday we had our friends over for the afternoon and all the kids helped make supper for us. Stephen was peeling carrots, Caitlyn was peeling potatoes. Timothy and Braden were given the job of breaking up the cauliflower for our soup. Then we all made some delicious cheese crackers to go with our Creamy Cauliflower Soup. If you've got a bunch of preschoolers around that love to help in the kitchen, try these recipes! We'll be doing these again for sure! (If I can get some pictures posted later, you can see the kids in action!)
Connie's Creamy Cauliflower Soup
1 large head of cauliflower broken into small pieces
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
2 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 parsnip, peeled and chopped
chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste
sour cream (optional)
cayanne pepper (optional)
In large soup pot, saute' onion, carrots and parsnip for a few minutes in a bit of chicken broth. Add cauliflower and potatoes and enough chicken broth and water to meet your family's needs. Let the ingredients simmer until the vegetables are soft. Add salt and pepper to taste. Blend in mixer to create a creamy soup. You may need to add more liquid if the soup is too thick. Add sour cream and/or cayanne pepper for a bit of a zing.
NOTE: This recipe is versatile and can become any color you want it to be! If you have sweet potatoes on hand, throw those in! Want to add spinach? Throw that in for a green soup! If you're daring, try some beets. I haven't gotten up the nerve to do that, yet! Connie's been known to chop up brussle sprouts and dump those in her dishes, too, but just don't tell the kids that!
Easy, Cheesy Crackers
1 1/4 cups flour
1/8 tsp baking powder
1 cup (4oz) lightly packed grated Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into small chunks (I shredded mine)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon ice water
Heat oven to 400. Combine flour and baking powder. Add cheese and butter. Mix. (If you have a food processor, this would work well in there!) Add water and mix again until a firm dough forms.
Roll out dough to a 1/8in. thickness on a well-floured surface, then use your favorite cookie cutters to cut your crackers.
Bake the crackers on an ungreased baking sheet for 7 to 9 minutes, or until the bottoms are golden, then allow them to cool completely on the baking sheets or on wire cooling racks. Store leftovers (what leftovers?!) in an airtight container. Makes 5 dozen 1 1/2-inch crackers.
4 comments:
That soup sounds so good! I'll have to try it sometime. The crackers also sound quite easy. Isn't cooking with kids fun? Or is it the "cooking with Connie" that makes it more fun than work? Her recipes sound like some of mine. Use whatever you have on hand. Thanks for the recipes.
The soup IS good! Stephen even had three bowls last night! We've made this soup many times, but I don't have a written recipe for it. I hope I wrote everything that I usually do!! "Cooking with Connie" is always a lot of fun, but yesterday she wasn't here. It was just the kids and me!! Four kids between the ages of 3 and 6 and one 18mo whose job was to eat up the scraps that he could get his hands on!
I love to have kids help in the kitchen! Last week Hanna and Tabitha came to help me, so we made navy bean soup for Papa. Hannah cut the celery, Tabitha did the carrots, but they drew the line with the onion. Both declared they don't like the smell of onions so they'd rather not chop that up. So, Grandma did it. Soup was good, too. Then we did stuffed peppers and shortbread cookies (Watkins mix, of course) and they cut out horses, boys and girls and flowers. They were all good.
I'll have to try the soup. I did some Watkins cream of potato soup and added shredded carrots, chopped broccoli and cauliflower and grated a potato with it and some Hungarian Sausage slices. It was really good!
My Oma taught me how to make a gourmet meal out of water, salt and pepper AND to make new meals out of the leftovers for the next three dinners! I owe it all to her. I love cooking with you Martha!!
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