I recently made another pot of this soup, and it has held up well to the test of time. The combination of simple ingredient list with a rich finish make this the perfect soup for chilly winter evenings.
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Seeing as how the east coast is shoveling out from another storm, we’re bringing you a delicious, nutritious, and simple sweet potato and mushroom soup.
As we mentioned above, sweet potatoes are not within the same taxonomic family as potatoes. Potatoes are in the nightshade family while sweet potatoes are in the morning glory family. If you’ve ever grown a decorative sweet potato vine that bloomed, you would immediately see the resemblance. But for our purposes, this season we’re grouping all of these tubers together.
When I think of comforting cinnamon desserts, rice pudding often comes to mind. Granted, cinnamon is not a key ingredient in the recipe, but we always top our rice pudding with a sprinkle of ground cinnamon.
I’m a huge fan of eating the pudding straight from the pot when it’s ready, having some from dessert, and then having it again for breakfast, but you do you.
Rice Pudding
This is the recipe that we grew up eating. It’s a boiled pudding, as opposed to the baked variety. And we like to keep it simple, no raisins please! And while this isn’t the fanciest of desserts, if serving it to guests, it’s always fun to elevate the experience with fancy dishes and spoons.
1/2 cup rice
3 cups water
2 cups milk, separated
1 can evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 Tbsp cornstarch
3/4 cup sugar
cinnamon
nutmeg
Bring the water to a boil. Add the rice and cook for 20 minutes or until the water is gone.
In a large pot combine the 1 cup of milk, evaporated milk, vanilla, and sugar. Beat the egg and cornstarch into the remaining cup of milk and add it to the pot. Add the cooked rice, warm over medium heat, stirring constantly until it boils. Boil for 3 minutes.
Cool and serve with a sprinkling of ground cinnamon and nutmeg.
Looking for a new stuffing recipe? Every year I pull out my well-loved copy of the 2015 Thanksgiving Special of Bon Appétit and use their handy stuffing customizer.
That article gives you the perfect overview of what makes a good stuffing. Of course there’s bread and butter, but what else should we think about in order to create the perfect combination of both flavors and textures? I love their scientific grouping of the ingredients into specific categories like aromatics, meats, binders, add-ins, etc. And they give you a concise explanation of why you’d want to add something from each category.
Sourdough, Sausage, Leek, and Chestnut Stuffing
What are you going to put in your stuffing? Read through the article and make choices based upon your family’s tastes. For me there were clear choices in each category. Luckily, I hit the nail on the head in 2015 and have been using that same combination of ingredients ever since.
That said, the beauty of the formula is that you can easily make minor (or major) substitutions and still produce a delicious dish. For example, we took this pics last Thanksgiving, and, in pandemic fashion, I wasn’t able to get the chestnuts, so we substituted pecans. Another year we had delicious maple breakfast sausage from our CSA, so I used that in place of the sweet Italian sausage.
binders: 1/2 cup butter, 2 large eggs, 2+ cups turkey or chicken stock
pantry staples: olive oil, more butter
How-To
The afternoon or evening before baking day, cut the bread into 1″ pieces and let dry on a baking sheet overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 9×13 baking dish AND one side of a sheet of foil large enough to cover your dish.
Place the dried bread and add-ins in a large (very large) mixing bowl.
Heat 3 Tbsp olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add your meat to the pan and cook thoroughly, breaking it up into small pieces as it cooks. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the cooked meat to the bowl of bread.
Using the same skillet, add the chopped aromatics. Cook, stirring often, until the onions have softened and are starting to brown around the edges. When ready, transfer the aromatics to the bowl of bread.
Place the skillet back on the burner over medium heat. Pour the deglazing liquid into the pan. While it’s simmering, scrape the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Once the liquid has almost evaporated, add the butter and cook until it has melted. Drizzle this liquid (and bits) over the bread mixture.
Whisk the two eggs into 2 cups of the stock. Pour this over the bread mixture.
Mix together everything together until well combined. If necessary, slowly add more stock to until the bread is moist.
Transfer the stuffing mixture to the baking dish, pressing down the mixture slightly if necessary. Dot the top of the mixture with 4 Tbsp butter, cut into small pieces. Cover with foil (buttered side down, obvs) and crimp it around the edges.
Bake for about 30-35 minutes. Remove the foil and bake until the top is starting to brown (another 20-25 minutes). *The original recipe asks you to turn the oven up to 450 for that last 20 minutes. I am never able to do it because we usually have a few dishes going at once. As such, your cooking times may vary depending upon what’s sharing the oven.
Remove from the oven and let sit for about 10 minutes before serving.
This stuffing is so good. It’s good enough that I’m already stocking up on chestnuts so that I can make a second batch, because I’m 99% sure that there aren’t going to be enough leftovers to meet my needs.
What are my needs? A 9×13 pan of stuffing.
We hope your scheming, dreaming, and prepping for a delicious day with your favorite people. xo
This year we’ve been doing a series called Waste Less Wednesday focused on little and big ways that we can reduce our consumption. And if you’d like more hair-related posts, here’s our recipe for dry shampoo and here’s my DIY dandruff shampoo that worked like a charm!
This might not seem like the most technical of posts. And we’re suggesting you buy something, so even the “waste less” principle sounds questionable at first, BUT by adopting soap and shampoo bars, you’re getting the suds but skipping the plastic bottles, and that’s a win in our books!
I picked up a pristine copy of this book at our favorite local coffee shop, Bamse, in our hometown of Shamokin. They are located in an old church, are dog friendly, sell used books, and have the motto “do only good”. Could there be anything better?
No, nothing could be better. Now do some good by baking these cookies for your neighbor.
Many Wednesdays this year we’re checking in to share how we’re reducing our environmental impact. Some of these ideas are big and require a bit of effort. Others are super small and simple, like this one. But we believe that they all make a difference.
Happy Halloweenie! Halloween is a favorite holiday of mine. I start to get excited each time I see the costume stores taking over once empty storefronts. Unfortunately, Halloween generates lots of waste, but luckily, it doesn’t have to! Waste Less this year and instead of buying a readymade costume, dive deep into that closet of yours and find a unique piece, a comfy outfit, or something outrageous that you absolutely love and don’t get to wear enough. It’s a simple concept, but an impactful one. Imagine the waste that could be reduced if even half of our outfit-purchasing party guests shopped from their own closet?
In the past, this idea has served me pretty well. I’ve reused an old prom gown and went as Cleopatra and once as Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. A few years ago, a comfy dress that I love sparked the idea of a porcelain doll, and to add a little creep factor, I went as a broken one. You could go a few different ways with this costume, cute, sexy, or creepy. I choose creepy 🙂 Forgive the photos, I never have my sh!t together I’m usually too tipsy to take high-quality photos in good light on Halloween.
Porcelain Doll Essentials :
Porcelain doll inspired dress – look here for inspiration and then search your (or your sister’s and friend’s) closet or go thrifting.
Long locks or a wig & wig cap – I highly recommend going to a beauty supply store and trying on wigs instead of buying one online. I spent about $25 on mine. I take care to store it properly and I’ve had it for more than five years!
Thin satin hair ribbons and matching choker – I simply tied a length of ribbon around my neck and it stayed put all night
Makeup – admittedly the hardest part for me! I enlisted the help of my makeup savvy girlfriend shown below.
That’s that! What are you dressing up as this year? Were you able to source items from your closet and home costume bin? Do you have a favorite costume from years previous that used clothes from your closet? Let us know, we need ideas for this weekend!
Cinnamon is our ingredient of the season. You can see our full archive of cinnamon recipes here and some more apple recipes here. This year we’ve been running a Waste Less Wednesday highlight. This week I’m here to remind you to not waste a good (or bad!) apple when you find one. The apples used for this crisp were buggy, but the bug-free bits were so amazingly delicious. It was definitely worth the time to trip them up and turn them into a delicious dessert.
Forget pumpkin spice season, in our house fall is apple crisp season!
With the long weekend coming up, this simple cake makes a delicious breakfast that’s perfect for sharing (and snacking!). Yes, the cake’s combination of basic ingredients + easy prep makes this the perfect cinnamon snacking cake.
Cinnamon Tea Cake
With a list of pantry staples for its ingredients, it’s likely that you’ll have everything that you need to bake this on a whim. It’s definitely the sort of simplicity that I really appreciate when want to bake something first thing in the morning… and then snacking on it all weekend.
This recipe comes from the Sweetest Menu site. I often find myself making minor adjustments to recipes. Reducing sugar content is my m.o., but in this case I didn’t have to make a single change. The recipe was perfect as is! So perfect
1 stick butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup whole milk
1 Tbsp melted butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp sugar
Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease and flour an 8-inch round cake pan Instead of flouring, you could grease and line with parchment paper.
Cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla until well blended and light (about 1-2 minutes). Add the eggs one at a time, beating well and scraping down the sides between each addition.
Sift the flour, baking powder, and cinnamon. Add half of the flour mixture and half of the milk to the batter, mixing in on a low speed. Add the remaining flour and milk and mix until the batter is smooth, but being careful not to unnecessarily over-mix.
Bake for about 30-35 minutes. Until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. While baking, mix together the remaining 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1 Tbsp sugar.
When the cake comes out of the over, brush with the melted butter and then sprinkle with the cinnamon-sugar mixture.
As I mentioned in this post, during our Moab visit the swimming pool at our campground was closed. It was a disappointment, BUT our day turned out even better than expected when we were tipped off about this magical swimming hole.
