Friday, July 11, 2008

Broccoli soup

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chop up a nice head of broccoli in a pot of water with a chopped onion, cook until tender, mash with a potato masher

add a chicken bouillon cube, salt, pepper, California style garlic salt, butter, and cubed velveeta to taste
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if you'd like it a bit thicker you can melt some butter in a smaller pan - add flour, cook that up a bit, mix a little water with that and add it to your soup pot as a thickener, & you could always add a dash of milk if desired

I use to throw this in a blender or use one of those all purpose mixers to pretty much puree it, but that's a step I usually omit these days to save myself some dishes, some water, and some precious time lol
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Purple Artichokes with garlic mayo

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Boil artichokes in large pot of water with some butter (I used smart choice blend) some California style garlic salt and a squeeze of lemon juice if you have it, until tender, it can take up to an hour for several large artichokes, remove from pot with large tongs and drain upside down on paper towels.

Chop fresh garlic into some mayo (I used smart choice mayo too), stir that up and put back in the fridge until you are ready for it.

Remove the paper towels, turn the artichokes over and mash down on them to make them 'bloom'

Enjoy your snack :)
If you've never eaten an artichoke, what you do is pull off a leaf, dip the bottom of the leaf into your dip and scrape the soft inner part of the leaf off with your bottom teeth and toss the rest of the leaf...
when you get down to the heart - remember to remove the fluffy choke part - it usually pulls off quite nicely - then slice up the heart and fight over it lol.
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Stuffed summer squash

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Start with a cooked pot of rice, some cooked sausage, and whatever else you think would be good in a pot of dirty rice.  Crumble some sausage into the rice, add some chopped onion, chopped green pepper is good, shredded cheese of your choice, spices to taste, salt, pepper, California blend garlic salt, steakhouse grind, Mrs. dash etc - Not necessarily all of those but whatever turns you on at the time.  Mix the rice thoroughly.

(oh god don't look at the side of my stove - yes I am ashamed, but I use the time I could be cleaning the side of the stove to read to my son, or take walks with him... really!  Of course now I'll have to clean it lol)

Take your pick of zucchini or yellow summer squash - big enough specimens to stuff of course... slice lengthwise and scoop out the seeds (feed those to the chickens if you have some lol) stuff the squash with your dirty rice mixture
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and top with slices of bacon

Bake at 350 degrees until bacon is crisp and squash is tender.  Cut larger squash such as these in sections to serve.

Enjoy!


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