New Recipes...

It's starting to become fall. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE soups in the fall. I would eat them year-round if it weren't for my husband, who believes (as most people do, I think) that soup should only be consumed in cold weather.

Whatever.

First New Recipe: Egg Drop Soup
I love me a good bowl of egg drop soup and my favorite Chinese restaurant in town (which sadly closed its doors about a decade ago) had the most DELICIOUS soup. So one day I was messing around on Pinterest and thought I'd see what was out there in the way of EDS. I found this. I'm not going to do my usual step-by-step with pictures 1) because I didn't like this recipe that much and 2) because I kept forgetting to take pics.

I had all the ingredients except ginger root, which I had to ask Lindsey where to find and how to use. The soup was souper-easy (see what I did there? ha!) to make, but when it came to eating it, I was a little let down. There was WAY too much soy sauce taste for me, but Rick loved it. Next time I will tone that down a bit.

Sorry for the bad pic...the lighting in our kitchen is terrible.

I paired this with our favorite everyday home cook crab rangoon recipe, and my son was happy.

Second New Recipe: Homemade Beef Broth
We bought another quarter of a cow, and this time we split with my parents. They didn't want the beef soup bones, but since I make my own chicken broth, I thought I'd try my hand at beef broth.

I looked at recipes for a long time because, to be frank, I wanted the easiest one I could find. Apparently beef broth is a little more complicated than chicken broth. I finally settled on this recipe. I liked it because the lady said specifically in the post "You can save even more money by using the equivalent in vegetable scraps instead. Save the celery tops and carrot peelings to use in broth rather than a stalk of celery or a whole carrot. The broth will taste the same!" I am down with stuff like that. So this is what my crockpot looked like pre-bones:

The end of the celery stalk, the split top celerys, carrot tops and peelings, and the ends of my green onions. I did use an actual whole onion, but I really felt pretty good about the rest! I roasted the beef soup bones (which looked like this after they were done):

I filled the crockpot with water, turned it on, and walked away. When I came back, I discarded the vegetables, peeled the meat off the beef bones (which I wasn't expecting much of, but it was enough to make quesadillas for the whole family!), and divided the broth into containers for the fridge. I came back 48 hours later, scraped the fat off the top, and voila! Ready for the freezer and then my delicious fall soups!

It made way more than this...this is just what I'm taking to my parents.

Third New Recipe: Black Bean & Butternut Squash Enchiladas
OHMYGOODNESS! These were AMAZING.

I so wish I had taken pictures. But no matter - there will be a next time THIS WEEK, and I will be taking pictures and devoting an entire post to these. They were that good. But if you can't wait for the post, here is the recipe in the meantime. I deseeded and didn't use the entire jalapeno and omitted the cilantro, but otherwise this was how I did it. Post coming soon.

But...can we have a moment for butternut squash? I'm not sure where it's been all my life, but I am so glad to have discovered it. See this? This is steak Rick grilled from the cow (which was actually very good, despite my aversion to steak), half a baked potato (that, as you can see, is drizzled with butter and cheese), and roasted onion, zucchini, and butternut squash, seasoned with rosemary and some other spice I grabbed from the pantry that looked good. The whole meal was delish, but I ate everyone's share of the veggies.

MMMM MMMM GOOD!