Judging a cookbook...

... by what I can find in the Index.

This last summer I canned tomato sauce for the first time. I did not realize how good my sauce was until I had some store bought sauce and it was not very good.  So I have arranged with some friends to use part of their garden to grow tomatoes and will help them with the care of the garden. The recipe I used for the sauce is the recipe I always use and all I had to add was tablespoon of bottled lemon juice to each jar to make sure it was acidic enough to can. I am gathering all my supplies right now for tomato sauce, except for the tomatoes.  Last year the crop was not until July or August.  I don't think I can wait until that time to get my hand messy in canning.

Last December I was looking for a canning cookbook and wanted one that I could can dill carrots.  Honestly I judged all books by what was in the Index.  I was looking for a dill picked carrots recipe.  There were several books that I thought looked good, but had sugar in the recipe and I also didn't want sugar in it.  So the book I ended up getting was:

As I am writing this blog I looked more closely at the recipe and it has sugar in it... so SAD.  I think I will have to modify the recipe in the book.  Now that I know what I want to can I need to do some research about the topic of canning.  I took a tip to the library and found all the following books:

I have been looked through several of the books for a picked carrot recipe and have not found it.  I have found some great information about the basics of canning.  Over the next month I will be reading through these and I diffidently have to try my hand and picking some carrots and maybe some cucumbers.  

If anyone has a good recipe for pickling something please share with me.

Pumpkin Shrimp Soup

Monday I needed pumpkin for a recipe and had to open a 30 ounce can which was twice what I needed.  For two days there was the other half of the can staring at me.  I was thinking I would make some kind of pumpkin muffins, but didn't have any baking soda in my kitchen.  So I gave a few cookbooks to my roommate to look through and she found a recipe for a Spiced Pumpkin Shrimp Soup.  It sounded interesting so I thought I would give it a try.

Here is the recipe and what I did:

2 medium onions
1 cup chopped carrots, sliced
2 cloves garlic, I love garlic so I always add more 
2 t fresh ginger

2 T butter

This all cooked in a 3 quart pot on the stove for about 20 minutes so the onions would be fully sweated.  I only think onions are good in a soup once they are all sweated out.  I don't really know if this is a technical term or not...
 
1 T fresh cilantro was suppose to be added to the soup but didn't.  I went to the store and thought I had grabbed cilantro, but it turns out I grabbed parsley.  So I didn't add that to the soup.



1/2 t all spice
1 14 oz can chicken broth.  I don't keep chicken broth stocked in my kitchen so I used a chicken base.

This was added to the pot on the stove and then blended in the immersion blender until all smooth. 

14 oz can of pumpkin
1 cup milk 

This was then added to the pot on the stove and heated through.

 That is what my pot looked like.


8 oz of cooked shrimp.

I only had raw deveined frozen shrimp on hand so I thawed it out.  Once it was thawed I looked closely at it and noticed that only one of the veins on the shrimp had been removed.  A few months ago I had the pleasure of having shrimp that was not deveined and it was so nasty.  I now understood why judges on cooking shows get so upset when people do devein shrimp.  I deveined shrimp for the first time.  It was not to bad, but a little time consuming.

I cooked the shrimp and added it to my warm soup.

Serve with plain yogurt and some chopped chives.

This is my bowl of soup.  It hard to see but there is a piece of shrimp and some yogurt in the bowl.  

I will have to get better at taking final photos.

This made so much soup.  The recipe said it would be for 4 servings, but I would have said 6 to 8.  We eat all the shrimp out and froze over half of the soup.  Next time I want this soup, I can pull it out the freezer and cook up some more shrimp and have dinner read to go.

If you try it let me know what you think.

About my new blog...

This is a blog dedicated to the discovery of new recipes, canning and ways to create good meals.  I love to cook and try to be creative with how I make my meals.  My goal is to eat all my own prepared meals Monday through Friday and on the weekends splurge and eat out.  I will be honest and I buy drip coffee every morning when I get to work.  I have been working to taking my own, but I love sitting and drinking my coffee at work before the busy day starts.