So, springtime and the first real weekend sunny weekend of the Spring and I decided to go for a picnic. But instead of making a sandwich, I decided to go with these hand pies and a bunch of salads. I really like hand pies, as they are an “enclosed” sandwich of sort. Or a mini-pot pie without a serving dish. Either way, delicious.
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veggies
You know, writing recipes for salads can be a little silly sometimes. I actually probably put more effort into writing this down than actually into making the salad. It should really read something like : slices some radishes, sprinkle with salt, pepper, chives and pour over a little bit of vinegar and oil. Voila!
So it’s soup. Just soup. Really not all that exciting.
But when something so simple turns out so amazing that you even surprise yourself, you know it’s good. It’s still chilly and damp here in Greater Boston these days (at least it’s not presently snowing!), so I decided to make some Veggie and Chicken Soup, and I threw in some Sacchetti pasta (which is tort of like tortellini, but prettier!). Even my dinner guest, who hasn’t had much of an appetite recently had seconds and even wanted to take some home to have for lunch the next day. I’d call that two thumbs up. Simple. Easy. Good. Soup.
So how many people hate making roux? I’m fine with making blonde roux, mostly used the thicken things, but when it comes to making penny-roux, the deep dark, meant-for-flavor type of roux used to make things like gumbo, I either lose patience (because it takes so long) or I mess it up by burning the whole thing. Either way, it isn’t my favorite thing to do, so when America’s Test Kitchen demonstrated a dry roux (by placing plain old flour in the oven for an hour), I was really happy. That photo isn’t of cinnamon, it’s flour! And it turns out to work well, at least in making this Chicken and Andoille Sausage Gumbo. At the end of the day, it takes about the same amount of time (2 hours), but you can also toast the flour weeks or even a month or two ahead of time. Game changer! (Oh, and in addition to the technique, the Gumbo is pretty dang tasty too!