Product Review: Cheesy Bacon Potato Soup

As the weather grows colder I find that I crave soup more and more, but oftentimes don't want to spend the time to actually make the soup from scratch. Sure, I could buy the canned soup but I don't like a lot of canned soup. However, PA Dutch General Store (or Food & Candy/ Tea & Spice if you're in downtown Fredricksburg, VA) has a variety of delicious soup mixes that give you that not-from-can taste without all the work. Recently we got their Cheesy Bacon Potato Soup mix. The directions to make this is very simple:

Mix 3/4 cup of soup mix with 2.5 cups of milk or water. Bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 10-15 minutes to let the vegetable chunks re-hydrate.

VERY simple! We've tried the soup mix with three different liquids so far: milk, chicken broth, and water. We found that the milk made the soup too thick and didn't hydrate the vegetables well at all. They were still tough and chewy. The milk made the soup more like a sauce you would put on something like broccoli- which I'm sure would be delicious. We've also used chicken broth to make the soup. I found this one to be really good. The thickness of the soup was perfect, it gave the soup extra flavor, and hydrated the vegetables perfectly. HOWEVER, if you want to do it this way I highly recommend trying to find some low-sodium chicken broth otherwise the soup is super salty. Water was also a good option, it didn't give the extra flavor the chicken broth did but it gave the soup the right thickness and the vegetables the right hydration without adding the salt.

I really enjoyed this soup and highly recommend it if you want freshly made soup but don't want to spend hours working on it!

Product Review: Carrot Cake Cupcake Herbal Tea

It never fails, whenever I go downtown to get more tea from the PA Dutch Tea and Spice Company whichever tea I get becomes a favorite of mine. This week, it is the Carrot Cake Cupcake Herbal Tea. IT IS DELICIOUS! Right now I am drinking it warm, with some french vanilla creamer in it, but I am going to try it cold sometime this week as well since I suspect it will be just as yummy that way also. Even cold I will put the creamer in the tea since it adds an "icing" like flavor to the tea that makes it taste like I'm drinking an actual Carrot Cake Cupcake. Currently,  you have to actually go to the store in downtown Fredericksburg, VA in order to get a bag of this delicious tea, but I'm sure they will have it up in their amazon store soon!

From the Hound's Kitchen: Pina Colada Oatmeal Bars

I absolutely LOVE pineapple and coconut so when we discovered Mrs. Miller's Homemade Pineapple Jam at PA Dutch Tea & Spice I knew I had to adjust one of my favorite recipes into a Pina Colada style bar. The original recipe is from The Pioneer Woman and is called "Strawberry Oatmeal Bars"(click on the name to get to the original recipe). AND THEY ARE DELICIOUS! Seriously, these things are addicting- they don't last more than 2 days in our house.

Anyway, after discovering the intriguing Pineapple Jam I set out to start adjusting the oatmeal bars recipe into a new recipe full of tropical goodness, and here it is :

Ingredients:
- 1-3/4 sticks cold butter, cut into pieces
- 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1-1/2 cup Oats (quick or regular)
- 1 cup shredded coconut
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
-1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 jar Mrs. Miller's Homemade Pineapple Jar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9 x 13 baking dish

 Mix together the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, salt and coconut. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter until it resembles coarse crumbs*. Sprinkle half the mixture into the pan and pat lightly to pack it a little tight.  Spoon preserves evenly over the surface, then use a dinner knife to carefully spread it around **. Sprinkle the other half of the oat mixture over the top and pat lightly again.

Bake until light golden brown on top, about 30-40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan.

When cool cut into squares and serve.

* Our pastry cutter broke a couple weeks ago and I have yet to replace it. So what I did was I used the biggest holes on my cheese grater and grated the butter. This worked well and if you are in a pinch I say go a head, but on a regular basis I would not recommend this as it was a pain in the butt of a process.

** Because of the consistency of the Pineapple Jam, it didn't really spread well so I used my fingers to press the jam around to spread it. If I tried spreading it, it would pull up the mixture underneath.

One of the things I think I will try next time is melting white chocolate chips and drizzling it over the top to make it more of a dessert bar. The bars are also delicious crumbled over ice cream.

The Pioneers Woman's recipe is also in the back of her new picture book Charlie Goes to School which is an adorable story about Charlie, her basset hound, starting a school for the animals on the ranch. I highly recommend the book as well.

From the Hound's Kitchen: Spicy Dill Pickles

One of the things about participating in a CSA (Community-Supported-Agriculture) share is that there are times you end up with SO MUCH of one thing that you think you could never think of enough different recipes to use it all up. This is made worse when there are some items that you don't like. That is currently happening with us. We have a WHOLE LOT of cucumbers. So with the first batch of the cucumbers we decided to make pickles. We found this recipe for Spicy Refrigerator Dill Pickles, and modified it so that we could can the pickles instead of having to eat them all in a month, also so that we can give them away as gifts (so we've gotten a head start on Christmas of this year! YAY!). So here is the modified recipe that we did, then after that there are notes about changes to make next time.

Spicy Dill pickles

Ingredients:
12 3-4 inch long pickling cucumbers (ok we used whatever cucumbers we had and just modified the brine amount as we went)
2 cups water
1 3/4 cups white vinegar
3/4 cup PA Dutch Dried Dill Weed
1/2 cup white sugar
8 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 tbsp coarse salt
1 tbsp PA Dutch Pickling Spice
1 1/2 tsp PA Dutch Dill Seed
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, or more if you like more spice
Ball Pickle Crisp Granules - follow directions for amount per jar


Directions:
1) Cut the ends off the cucumbers and cut them down to size if needed. If they are pickling cucumbers you can skip this part if you would like
2) In a large rubbermaid, combine the cucumbers, water, vinegar, dried dill weed, sugar, garlic, salt, pickling spice, dill seed, and red pepper flakes. Stir (or put the lid on tightly and shake), and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours, until salt and sugar dissolve.
3) Remove the cucumbers to 1 1/2 pint wide mouth jars (or whichever jars you have decided to use and cut the cucumbers to fit into). Ladle in the liquid from the bowl to cover the pickles, but don't fill all the way to the top. Add the correct amount of Ball Pickle Crisp Granules - in this case I put 1/8 tsp in each jar.
4) Use a damp paper towel to clean the rims of the jars, seal with canning lids. Bring water to boil in big pot (enough to cover the top of the jars with about 1 inch of water. Using canning tongs place jars into the water and boil for 20 minutes. Pull jars out, set on cloth towels on counter and allow to cool. Repeat with remaining jars.

We let the pickles sit for 10 days before we opened them to try them. They are definitely pickles. Ours have a strong vinegar bite to them, making Elfie pucker up every time! But that is ok.

Notes (aka things we learned to to next time/suggestions)

• This time we did not strain the herbs out of the brine before canning- next time we will since now we have to scrap off the excess dill weed and dill seed to get to the pickles. 
• The pickling crisp is wonderful! Our pickles are nice and crispy!
• Try boiling the brine & letting it cool before adding the cucumbers to sit for the 2 hours. This should help get the flavoring out of the various dill herbs so that the pickles are nice and dill-y even when we strain out the herbs. 
• Next time we will add more pepper flakes- this batch of pickles was not nearly as spicy as we would like- they are very vinegary though! 

From the Water Bowl: Pina Colada Pineapple Iced Herbal Tea

Elfie here! One of the drinks I have developed an addiction to is tea. ANY type of tea! I'm always willing to try it and during the summer, the fruitier, the better!  Over the weekend Dork_Syd and I made orange jello with canned pineapple chunks in it, but when we drained the pineapple I saved the juice. Ever since we decided to get our budget under control we try to save money by minimizing waste this worked out well for me because I to LOVE pineapple juice. However, I can't drink it straight anymore, it's just too hard on my teeth. Since people mix tea with lemonade or lemon juice all the time, I thought why not try it with pineapple juice? So when we headed to PA Dutch Tea & Spice over the weekend I looked for tea that I thought would combine well with pineapple juice. I picked out the PA Dutch Pina Colada Fruit and Herbal Tea.

When I make tea in large batches, which is what I do when making iced tea, I use our coffee pot. We bought the coffee pot during a period when we were trying to get into drinking coffee and it didn't last long. I have found that it is PERFECT for brewing large amounts of tea without me having to keep my eye on a timer to ensure that the tea doesn't steep too long and get bitter. Usually I make 2 full 12 cup pots of tea when making a jug of iced tea. However, this time I was basing the amount off of the leftover pineapple juice so I only made 6 cups of tea since I had just under 2 cups of pineapple juice. I use 1 tsp of tea per cup. When making a full batch of tea I reuse the tea leaves for the 2nd pot since loose leaf tea can be used multiple times before it loses flavor. This time I also tried something new to sweeten the tea, I put 3/4 cup of store brand sweetener directly into the coffee pot so it mixed together as the tea was brewing. Depending on how sweet you like your tea you might was to use more or less of the sweetener of your choice. The end result is DELICIOUS and I highly recommend it!


Pina Colada Pineapple Iced Herbal Tea

6 cups water
approximately 2 cups of pineapple juice
3/4 cup sweetener
6 tsp of PA Dutch Pina Colada Fruit and Herbal Tea.


1) Put the 6 cups of water into Coffee maker
2) Place the PA Dutch Pina Colada Fruit and Herbal Tea in the coffee pot inside a coffee filter
3) Add the sugar to the EMPTY coffee pot, place pot in coffee maker, brew tea.

4) Mix the brewed tea and pineapple juice in a jug.
5) Serve over ice, enjoy! (The tea ends up purple)

From the Water Bowl: Lavender lemonade

Elfie here! One of the trends I've noticed over the past couple summers is flavored lemonades. However, I'm  not talking cherry lemonade, or strawberry lemonade; I'm talking LAVENDER lemonade. I'll admit, when I first heard this, I crinkled my nose and thought it sounded... not so yummy. But recently I decided that I shouldn't knock it before I tried it. So I started looking around at recipes trying to get an idea of what would work best.  I found a couple I liked and I made them, but they weren't QUITE right for me, so I modified them until they were. So I hope you find Lavender Lemonade as enjoyable as I do!

Lavender Lemonade

7 cups water
3 tbsp PA Dutch Dried Lavender Ultra 
7 cups COLD water
3 cups lemon juice
2 1/4 cup sugar (if you want your lemonade to be sweeter- increase the sugar amount)




1) Bring the 7 cups of water  and sugar to a boil. Remove from the heat and add the lavender. Cover and steep for 1 hour. If you want a stronger lavender taste, steep longer. Strain the lavender flowers out. I did
this by using my spaghetti strainer over top of one of my pitchers.

2) Add the 7 cups of COLD water and 3 cups of lemon juice to the pitcher. Stir. Chill and Enjoy!

As a side note, my lavender water was green before I added the lemon juice. After I added the lemon juice it turned a pinkish yellow color - but when it is in the glass it just looks like regular lemonade. I have no idea why it does this- but it made me happy and I giggled.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do!

From the Hound's Kitchen: "Homemade" Tortilla Chips

Hey everyone, Dork_Syd again. It seems that I will be the one writing when food is involved.

Elfie and I LOOOOVE chips and salsa. So much so that we will often eat enough of them to constitute a full meal. This poses a couple of problems. One of them is nutrition. Store bought chips are fried in oil and covered in way to much salt, not to mention the processed ingredients. For the most part I don't really care about processed ingredients but we have found in many cases we can find cheaper and healthier alternatives if we take the time to look. By making our own chips, we can control what goes into them and how much , and what kind of, salt is used thereby getting better nutrition. The other issue with store bought chips is price. The average 10 oz bag of tortilla chips is about $3 and lasts the 2 of us maybe 4 sittings. We were fortunate to have one of our friends post a "recipe" to make your own tortilla chips. All you need is soft corn tortillas like these and some sea or kosher salt. The tortillas in link made enough chips to nearly fill a 40 cup, 16.5 in x 11.5 in x 5.5 food storage container like this. This poses more than a 50% cost savings over store bought chips.

Please know that this will be the most complicated recipe you will EVER see.

1. Acquire ingredients
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
3. Take a 2-3 inch stack of tortillas and place them on a cutting board.
4. Cut into sixths
5. Place cut pieces on UNGREASED cookie sheet
6. Sprinkle with sea or kosher salt until desired cover is reached*
7. Bake until crispy. I recommend starting at 10 minutes and increasing by 2-3 minutes until desired crispiness is reached.
8. Place on cooling rack
9. Store in airtight food storage container

*Also works with other spices. We recommend a cinnamon sugar mix, fiesta citrus spice blend, and any of the flavored popcorn salts.

These chips work well with any type of salsa. However, one of our favorites is Jake and Amos' Corn Salsa from Pa Dutch Food and Candy Company. Not very spicy but definitely full of flavor. The PA Dutch Food and Candy Company has a wide variety of salsas most of which we have tasted and highly recommend.


Unfortunately, We did not take any pictures with this process so please enjoy this gratuitous picture of our basset.

From the Hound's Kitchen: Easy Chicken and Rice Burritos

Hey everyone, Dork_Syd here again. The boss said she wanted burritos for dinner tonight. I could think of no reason to argue. I was, however, able to come up with 2 good reasons not to argue. 1. Despite not being pregnant, it is still a bad idea to get in Elfie's way when it comes to food. 2. That sounded like a good idea. I, once again ignoring doctors' orders, got to thinking. We still had plenty of taco season left over from PA Dutch Tea and Spice Company and we came up with the idea for Easy Chicken and Rice Burritos. The taco seasoning's product page says to add 1 teaspoon to 8 oz of tomato sauce.We used this method for our burritos. On a side note, the 8 oz bag costs $9.15. This may seem like a lot until you consider the quality of the product and the fact that the average packet from a grocery store costs $1+ and is only about 1/2 oz.

Anyway, that's enough math for one post. In our efforts to save money, Elfie and I have done everything we can to plan meals around items we have in the house and/or to plan the week's meals before shopping so we only purchase what we absolutely need. We had all but three ingredients in the house already, so this was pretty easy to plan. FYI: these taste awesome and are super filling.

Without further ado, here is our recipe for Easy Chicken and Rice Burritos

3 cups cooked rice
1 Chicken Breast, boiled and shredded*
2 green bell peppers, chopped
1 heaping tablespoon  of PA Dutch Taco Seasoning
1/2 large onion, chopped
Burrito tortillas
1 28 oz can of tomato sauce
1 tbsp butter
1 15 oz can of black beans (optional)


*One of the ways we have cut down costs is by eating less meat. You may want to use two or three breasts instead. Also, the recipe also would work with cubed or diced breast.

1) To cook the chicken, place in a saucepan and cover in water, heat on high. Cook for approximately 20 minutes. When chicken breast is fully cooked, use two forks to shred.

2) While the chicken is cooking, heat the butter in a large frying pan. Once melted, add the chopped bell peppers and onions. Cook for 5 minutes.

3) Add tomato sauce, Taco Seasoning, chicken and rice to the pepper and onion mixture. Add the beans to the mixture as well if you desire. Bring to a simmer, let mixture simmer for 10 minutes to cook off excess liquid.

4) Serve on tortillas & enjoy.

From the Hound's Kitchen: Southwestern Mac & Cheese

Whether through intent or serendipity, our blog's name adequately describes what we cover. Home: We're new home owners and will use this blog to chronicle our adventures in home ownership: repairs, remodels, and upgrades. Sweet: We love to cook. That's how Dork_Syd wooed Elfie. She did homework while he cooked the world's best* spaghetti as their first date. The rest, as they say, is history. Hound: We love our Basset Hound, usually. We don't have children yet so we dote on our 4-legged children.

*not verified by unbiased parties.

Dork_Syd grew up with a lot of GOOD Italian cooking and is a firm believer in choosing the right spices can really make a dish pop. He and Elfie were fortunate enough to stumble into PA Dutch Tea and Spice Company and PA Dutch Food and Candy Company. These have to be two of the best food related store that we have been in. The tea and spice store has hundreds of teas and spices as well as things like tea infusers, tea pots, honey, and cookies (biscuits if you prefer the authentic British tea experience.) You will be very hard pressed to find many of the items featured in either store in your average grocery store(not to mention the best taco seasoning, ever, in my opinion). The Food and Candy store really brings credence to the old adage "kid in the candy store" reaction. They have chocolate, gummies, European and Asian candies,  and nostalgic candies like wax bottles. Sounds amazing, but that is only half of the store. The other half has so much that it will be difficult to cover it all, but here I go anyway. They have cake and bread mixes (some of them gluten free), pickles (many types), salsas, sauces, dried fruit and vegetables, pasta, snacks like flavored chips and pretzels, and sodas. I may have missed some things. To see their entire product line up, check out their Amazon Store. There is also a link to their page in the upper left corner of this page. Anyway they're some great people with great products and a great small business.

Despite being ordered by doctors not to do so, Dork_Syd was thinking today... he and Elfie just got some taco seasoning and wanted to see what could be done with it besides tacos. Here is what Dork_Syd came up with. 

Southwestern Mac & Cheese Bake

2 cups Uncooked elbow macaroni 

4 tsp  PA Dutch Taco seasoning (secret ingredient: Do not use store brand)

3 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

1 1/2 cups milk

16 ounces Mexican blend cheese, shredded

2 Green bell peppers

2 cups diced tomatoes (we used quartered cherry tomatoes)
3/4 cup chopped onion (about a quarter of a large onion) 

1) Preheat Oven to  375 degrees.

2) Cook the Macaroni. Drain and set aside.

3) While pasta is cooking, melt 1 tbsp of butter and sweat onions and green bell peppers until fragrant. Add tomatoes cook for another 4 minutes. Drain excess liquid add to bowl with noodles. Avoid over cooking veggies otherwise they will turn to mush once baked.

 4) In 4 cup glass measuring cup melt remaining 2 tbsp of  butter on HI for 45 seconds. Stir in flour. Set aside.

5) Pour milk in 2 cup glass measuring cup and cook on HI for 1 minute or until warm.

6) Gradually stir milk into flour mixture. Cook on HI 3 minutes, stirring once during cooking. Stir, cook on HI 1 minute, or until smooth and thickening. 

7) Blend in cheese and taco seasoning. Stir until melted.

8)  In the bowl combine sauce, veggies and noodles. Stir. Once coated transfer to 9 x 13 casserole dish. 

9) Bake at 375 for 25 minutes, or until bubbling

10)Serve and enjoy!