Tonight I pulled some Italian sausage out to defrost without really knowing what I planned to make. I just started cooking the first few steps below and then decided to go with the soup dish. My mom had actually just mentioned the Italian Wedding Soup from Olive Garden early today so I suppose that is kind of where the idea originated.

I first browned some diced bacon while I boiled some diced new potatoes. I then removed the bacon from the pan and added a little olive oil to the pan. I dropped in 1/3 of the boiled new potatoes and cooked them flipping occassionally until they were nice and crispy. I removed them from the pan to drain on paper towels and added the Italian sausage to the same pan to brown. In the meantime, I cooked some thinly sliced onions in a stock pot with some diced celery. I added some salt and pepper and cooked until the onions were nice and soft. I then added 3 cups of milk and two bay leaves to the onions and celery and brought it to a soft boil. I added the boiled new potatoes that were not fried to the soup and heated through. I then put two tablespoons of flour into a little bowl and added some of the hot milk from my pot to create a little slurry. I added the slurry to the soup pot and stirred to thicken. Once the liquid had thickened slighty, I added in the Italian sausage and bacon. I added some chopped fresh baby spinach. I also added some fresh thyme and parsley. When the spinach wilted a little, I tasted and seasoned the soup with a little more with salt and pepper. I had also chopped up some chicago style bread, tossed the diced pieces in some olive oil and added Italian seasoning. I threw them in a 350 degree oven for a few minutes to toast up while the soup was finishing. I served the soup in shallow bowls garnishing with the fried potatoes,toasted croutons, and a sprig of parsley.

My sister, Danielle made this up the other night and she said it was AWESOME! The idea is to use up any and all of the veggies in your fridge. Fresh, frozen, canned or even leftovers will work. There is no wrong way to make this! Just remember to add frozen veggies first and canned veggies last.

Serves 12-16

• 2 12-oz pkgs any flavor chicken sausage without casing or casings removed
• 1 cup any kind of onions chopped or 2 leeks cut lengthwise and then sliced on bias
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3-4 cups of any root or squash-like vegetables on hand: celery, carrots, potatoes, yams, green beans, squash, zucchini; slice or cube into small, equal sizes so that they cook in about the the same amount of time
• 2 cups leafy vegetable like kale, cabbage or spinach, chopped
• 1 can beans like red kidney, garbanzo, cannellini or northern beans
• 10 cups vegetable or chicken stock
• 2-4 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs of your choice such as rosemary, sage, thyme, parsley (If you have very flavorful sausage, you could even skip this ingredient)
• Salt and pepper

Break up chicken sausage with hands or back of spoon and add to large stock pot over medium heat. Cook for 2-3 minutes and then add garlic, onion and celery. Cook until vegetables are slightly tender. Add stock, root/squash vegetables and herbs to pot. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 15-20 minutes until potatoes and squash are almost done (should be able to easily pierce with a fork or knife). Then add leafy vegetables and canned beans. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste and serve.

One of the ladies in my office brought this Snack Mix thing in today that is AWESOME!  Thought I’d share the recipe.

Ingredients

• 4 sticks butter
• 2 cups light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white corn syrup
• 14 oz box of Crispix (or Chex, which I used because I couldn’t find Crispix)
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 cups peanuts
• 1 1/2 bags microwave popcorn

Directions: Melt butter, then add sugar and corn syrup. Bring to a boil and stir for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla and baking soda. Mix Crispix, popcorn and peanuts in two 9×13 pans (it will barely fit) and pour the liquid over. Stir to coat. Bake at 225 degrees for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. DO NOT FORGET to stir every 15 minutes.

My new venture is well under way and I have been a busy bee preparing for my upcoming Pampered Chef Cooking Shows.  I think I have most of my paperwork, cooking supplies, and other materials ready for this coming Wednesday. That’s right, my first actual Cooking Show is November 3rd for my dear friend Courtney.  I am excited, nervous, and anxious but all in a good way.

I will be making the Antipasti Pull-Apart Pizza from The Pampered Chef® Season’s Best™ Recipe Collection (Fall/Winter 2010).  The cookbook describes the recipe as “A fun twist on pizza, this appetizer features all the flavors of an antipasti platter over a crust of bite-size pieces of French bread.” I made it a few weeks ago for a baby shower at the office. I am sure it will be better this time because I’ll actually have an oven instead of the office toaster oven. If you would like to see the recipe made, you can watch the video here or better yet, see it LIVE! In Courtney’s Living Room.

For those of you who will be attending Courtney’s Cooking Show, you can visit my personalized Pampered Chef Web site now and take a look around at the products you will see displayed at the party.  Simply CLICK HERE and you can begin shopping the catalog.  Remember if you spend $60 or more at the show or online you get the Adjustable Measuring Spoons for FREE!  Also in November, our cooking show guests can SAVE 20% on our Cookie Press. See product information below.

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Dishwasher-safe.

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For those of you invited to the event, I really hope you can make it and enjoy the evening with friends and loved one’s while tasting some delicious food.  I hope to make the event an enjoyable and educational experience for everyone. I truly appreciate everyone’s support and encouragement and I hope I can make all of you proud.

Growing up in Panama City, we used to eat at a restaurant called The Cheese Barn and they served one of my favorite dishes, their French Onion Soup.  I had a bit of nostalgia a few weekends ago, so I started hunting for a recipe to satisfy my craving.  If you have time one weekend, I recommend you try out Betty Crocker’s Golden Onion Soup.  It takes a little over 3 hours but the majority of that time is spent cooking the onions in the oven so you won’t be in the kitchen all day.

I made a few subtle changes to the dish merely because I didn’t have all the ingredients I needed.  Instead of making the Parmesan Croutons, I cubed up some Asiago Cheese Bread from Panera Bread.  You could also use Parmesan croutons, like those you put on a salad.  I only had one can of condensed beef broth so I improvised; using water and beef bullion cubes.  Once the soup was complete, I poured portions for Adam and me into two ovenproof bowls.  I added the cubed bread and sprinkled 1/4 cup of mozzarella cheese on top.  I then broiled the bowls of soups in the oven for about 2 minutes until the cheese was melted and golden brown. Be sure to put the bowls on a sheet pan as it is easier to get them in and out of the oven and the pan will catch anything you spill.

  16 oz packages cream cheese softened 
  8 oz stick butter softened
  1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
  3 tablespoons brown sugar
  3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
  1 1/2 cups finely chopped pecans
  1 cup miniature semisweet chips

Beat softened cream cheese and butter until well blended.  Add brown sugar and confectioners’ sugar and blend until light and fluffy. Blend in vanilla extract. Fold in miniature chocolate chips and 1 cup of the chopped pecans.

Place plastic wrap into a small bowl as a liner and add the cream cheese mixture. Refrigerate in bowl for at least 3 hours. Flip out the cheese ball onto a plate and press the other 1/2 cup of chopped pecans into the sides of the cheese ball. Serve with animal crackers.

Alternate preparations include pouring caramel sauce over the top or replacing 1/2 the chocolate chips with butterscotch chips . Also goes well with sliced apples, graham crackers or vanilla wafers.

Saturday, November 14th we celebrated the upcoming birth of Katy & Michael Woodruff’s baby boy.  I offered to host the festivities along with my mother-in-law, Janie Pate.  We were able to rent the lovely and convenient club house in Katy’s neighborhood in Calera.

I learned a lot from this shower because though I have had a few showers and been to a few of my friends, I have never hosted a baby shower.  I made the invitations and was able to get those out a month in advance. I purchased scrapbooking supplies and was able to make 52 invitations for about $1 a piece.  Not too bad.  

Katy and I went shopping for linens and chose the colors mint green and chocolate brown.  They looked really great together. While we were at Party City, Katy picked out some cute party favors that I thought would work well for the event.  Making the labels was the easier part; the hard part was finding the candy to fill them.  I wanted to find colored M&M’s but I couldn’t find them anywhere locally and online they were really expensive.  I ran by Target as a last ditch effort and found their Jelly Belly section.  They had the Mint Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip^®Cold Stone Jelly Belly and Chocolate Devotion^™ Cold Stone Jelly Belly in the perfect colors for our event. A little ribbon to accent and we have a cute party favor for the guests to take home.

The meal plan was to have finger food appetizers since we didn’t have very much seating for the event.  We had invited over 100 guests so we were unsure if people would be standing to eat.  It turned out that Michael’s family had a bunch of folding chairs the could lend us. Our final guest count was around 40 so we ended up having plenty of seating.  I went a little overboard on the menu (typical Brandy) but it was for one of my very favorite couples and a life long family friend. Luckily, I had the help of two wonderful friends, Carol Long and Beth Tillman to help me put everything together. (Two of the photos below were taken before I put out the the meat and cheese trays but you get the idea.)

Our menu included (from left to right):

• Mixed Nuts
• Crab Stuffed Mushrooms
• Spicy & Sweet Meatballs
• Turtle Cheesecake Cheese Ball with Animal Crackers
• Sliced Cheese Tray: Sharp Cheddar, Monterey Jack & Pepper Jack
• Sliced Lunch Meat Tray: Hard Salami, Roast Beef & Honey Ham
• Poppy Seed Rolls for sandwiches
• Cold Spinach Dip in a Italian Loaf & Sourdough Loaf served with a variety of crackers
• Sundried Tomato & Olive Bruschetta with Italian Toast Points
• Mini Quiche: Double-Cheese and Spinach
• Vegetable Tray
• Veggie Patch Pizza
• Fresh Fruit Tray with Strawberry Cream
• Mini Cupcakes: Chocolate Caramel, Strawberry Vanilla & Lemon Poppy Seed
• Publix Marble Cake with Butter Cream Frosting
• Treats for the kids: Fruit Snacks, Granola Bars and Scooby Snacks.
• Assorted Beverages: Sodas, Water, Sweet Tea, Wine, Beer & Lemonade

LOOK FOR THESE RECIPES SOON!

I made a diaper cake a few days before the event as a centerpiece for the food table and as a gift to Michael & Katy.  It was pretty easy to make once I found a good set of instructions online. Visit www.plantheperfectbabyshower.com to see how I did it. The hardest part was finding the darn ribbon. I couldn’t find a chocolate and mint green thick roll of ribbon to save my life. After four or five stores, I went with two different ribbons to make it work.

A baby shower isn’t just about the food, gifts and cake. People like to have a good time and if you have kids attending, like we did, games and prizes are a great crowd pleaser.  I wanted to have a few homemade games for the event but, unfortunately, I was running low on time and so I had to use online games.

The first game was one Katy and Hillary Wilson did at our baby shower. You get five paper bags and we put a different baby related item in each one such as baby lotion, baby powder, Vaseline, diaper cream, baby oil etc. You number the bags and seal them with stables or tape. At the party you have the guests feel the bags and write down their guess for each bag.

The day of the event, I asked my husband to print out some games from www.WelcomeBaby.com. He chose three great games: Baby Word Scramble Game, Nursery Rhyme Rhetoric Game and Baby Animal Match Game. It ended up that mostly the children played and the adults either played as couples or in a group. The only issue I had was that I had four games and I only made three prizes. Be sure when you have your party that you bring lots of paper and pens to play the games.

The prizes were pretty simple too.  I purchases three sets of paper products from Party City,  matching notepad, gift cards, shopping list and mini journal with pen. I then found matching candles from Walmart.  Finally, when I was looking for the colored M&M’s I stopped by a Crave Chocolatier in Patton Creek. They had chocolate diaper pins and chocolate covered Oreos decorated with baby booties. I made card board bottoms and added all the matching items and wrapped them with cellophane and topped them off with matching ribbon.

So that was about everything.  I did have a CD player with soft baby music but I didn’t remember to put that on.  While the presents were being opened, Beth suggested we keep all of the bows to make a wreath for the hospital door when Baby Woodruff is born. Hillary Mathaney helped organize the present opening and made sure all the bows were collected.

As I mentioned, my wonderful friend Beth was able to come help with the event and she did a fantastic job which just means I will ask her to help every time I do an event. I also brought my husbands Nikon camera and Beth sat in front of Katy & Michael to take all of the pictures of the event. Then I posted them up on different sites, so she could share them with Katy’s family & friends. If you are a member of Shutterfly and would like to view the photos please CLICK HERE.

Well I hope this article helps you with your upcoming event. If you have any suggestions or comments about our shower or have trouble viewing the photos, feel free to comment or email me at brandy@cookingwithbrandy.com. Don’t forget to come back to get the recipes to the menu above.

I am putting together a menu for Katy and Michael’s baby shower on November 14th.  I will be purchasing and creating a variety of appetizers for 75 guests. It is a couples shower with children as well.  I have some basic appetizers chosen such as a fruit tray with dip, mini quiche, cheese & meat tray with  crackers, turtle cheesecake cheese ball and mixed nuts.  I am now looking for the recipes to make the hot dishes.  I keep reverting back to the same dishes I always create that I know are crowd pleasers. I am torn because I want to make something unique, elegant but simply made for this party but I know I will have to test the recipe prior to the event.  I would like to have two meat and two vegetarian dishes.  I was thinking of a tomato, mozzarella and basil bruchette as well as crab stuffed mushrooms and maybe spinach artichoke dip.  I should probably have a red meat dish or chicken dish to close out the menu.  Janie, Adam’s mom is making the desserts for the event and luckily Katy has chosen Janie’s famous cheesecake. The guests will be walking and mingling so I want to have food that they can pick up and eat off the plate.  I do not want to require cutting or two hands for eating any of these dishes.  If you have any ideas, let me know. I’m excited about the event, I can’t wait to do something special for our best friends.  I look forward to your ideas!

My sister, Danielle, created this simple but elegant mushroom dish.  She loved it so much that she immediately picked up the phone to share it with me and the readers of Cooking with Brandy. The recipe serves 2-3 people.

• 12 large white button mushrooms (stems removed and dirt wiped off)
• 12 slices of brie cheese from a 1 ½ inch round log (1/4” slices)
• 12 small basil leaves
• 3 tbsp of melted butter
• 1 tsp garlic powder

Preheat oven to 400°. Take two large pieces of aluminum foil and turn up the edges to form two shallow bowl. Place mushrooms in foil bowls with tops down. Top with brie slice and basil leaf. Drizzle butter over mushrooms and sprinkle with garlic powder. Bake in over for 5-10 minutes until brie starts to melt and mushrooms firm, dark and juicy.

Dani

www.danielledesigns.com

My sister, Danielle, recently posted this beautiful recipe/scrapbooking page on her popular website www.scrapoutsidethebox.com.

Danielle writes: Here is an old family recipe from Spain. This is a great recipe when you need something fast and easy. It take less than 15 minutes to make if you include cutting the mushrooms and peeling the shrimp. It will be in your favorites I promise. If your kids don’t like the spice just leave out the red pepper flakes for them.