Christmas Vacation Experiments

Leon & I both love to try new recipes and some turn out great and others we never look at again.  I love anything that involves tomatos so I decided to try a tomato bisque soup recipe.  It turned out really good, but I worry about it next time I make it.   I used tomato juice that Leon had cannned this summer and it has a different taste from tomato juice you buy in the store.  I will try the recipe again with store bought juice but I am still searching through the canning to see if I have any canned tomato juice left :)  Here is the recipe


TOMATO BISQUE SOUP

1 lg. onions, chopped very well
5 lg. cloves garlic, minced
4 tbsp. butter
1 (28 oz.) can tomatoes, pureed in food processor or blender or an equal amount (about 2 lb.) very ripe fresh tomatoes
3 bay leaves ( did not use as I did not have any)
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. parsley
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, cut into bits
1 pt. half & half
1 (46 oz.) can tomato juice

In a large soup kettle, melt the butter over low heat and in it saute the onions and garlic until golden. Add the herbs, the tomatoes and the tomato juice. Simmer the mixture for 20-30 minutes. Add the cream cheese and light cream, salt and pepper to taste and lemon juice if desired. Cook gently another 15 minutes. Garnish with croutons.

I love the Thousand Island dressing you find at resturants who make thier own ( Granary in Norfolk as an example).  I looked for recipes and finally found one that I like.  It does have hard boiled eggs in it and I made it last week and decided after making it that I will reserve a few of the eggs back and chop them up and add to the finished dressing.  My parents gave Leon and I a new blender/food processor combination for Christmas and it worked well for this recipe.

Thousand Island Dressing

1 Quart Mayonaise
6 hard boiled eggs, chopped
7 ounces chili sauce
4 ounces pickle relish
1 ounce minced onion (I used 1 tsp)

Blend well and refrigerate overnight (you may add a little milk if you want yours thinner).

My Classmate Linda Mullen, from High School, also has a blog  at http://lindamullen.blogspot.com/ and she was looking for a Bing Bar Recipe.   When looking for a recipe to help her out, I could not believe how many people wrote in that they had no idea what a Bing Bar or Twin Bing was.  In my blog for school I had said that  Twin Bings were one of my favorite candy bars and several student I blog with from the South and East Coast had no idea what they were either.  I found a great recipe which reminds me of the Twin Bing.  My son Matt helped last night by being my sou chef to make these wonderful treats.

Bing Bars

• Time 60 minutes
• Serves 16

Ingredients

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• 12 ounces chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup chunky peanut butter ( I had creamy so I added more peanuts)
• 12 ounces fine ground dry roasted peanuts
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 12 large marshmallows
• 1/2 cup real butter
• 10 ounces cherry chips ( I like Gurley brand)

• How to make it

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  • Melt together chocolate and peanut butter; stir in peanuts and spread half of mixture into a 9x13 inch pan reserving the rest for later.
  • In very heavy saucepan combine condensed milk, marshmallows and butter. Bring to a boil carefully (scorches easily), and boil for 5 minutes, watching closely.
  • Add  cherry chips; stir to melt the chips .  Spread over chocolate in pan, then top with remaining mixture.
  • Chill to set but remove from fridge before serving.
  • Hope you had a wonderful Holiday and here's to more recipes made with Love from the Gentrups in 2011