Tomato and Bread Soup

I love soup very much.  Tomatoes are still filling the store shelves so I decided to try making tomato soup for the first time. I needed a recipe.  I don't have a blender (shame!) so anything that needed to be pureed was out.  I settled on something pretty simple.  The tomato and bread soup from Jack Bishop's The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook fit the parameters nicely.  It has eight ingredients and that is if you count salt and pepper.  I even had a container of vegetable stock in my freezer that I made a couple of months ago.

I have never tried to peel and seed a tomato before today.  It wasn't really an adventure.  I cut an "x" in the bottoms of the tomatoes and dropped into boiling water for a bit.  The skins came right off.  The tomatoes I got didn't have a lot of seeds either.

The last time I tried to cook tomatoes I nearly gagged on the result so I was a bit worried about how this would turn out.  The garlic and basil flavored the tomatoes nicely.   The hardest part of all this was getting the soup salted correctly.  Dried bread cubes are added to give this soup some substance.  I am not a food photographer so this is the best I could do.

I was happy with the result.

Since I didn't know how the soup would turn out I needed a backup plan.  While the soup was coming together I put some sausage and potatoes in the oven.  Mmm pork.

Turkey

No big kitchen projects this weekend. Round 1 of exams is coming so I have some extra work tasks to get done instead of playing in my kitchen.

Several years ago I picked up a copy of Giuliano Hazan's cookbook Every Night Italian and have enjoyed some of the recipes included. One of the first I made and have not made since was his Turkey with Lemon and Olives. For whatever reason this has been on my mind lately. I scored (okay paid for) some turkey yesterday when I went shopping. I can't share the recipe here but I have a photo of the finished product.

I just never would have thought that a sauce of lemon juice, anchovies, and olives would taste good on turkey. It works very well.

Mom's Fried Chicken

I would have to say that my mother's method for making fried chicken is not very traditional. I don't know who taught her this version of fried chicken. Guess I should ask!

For my first try at this I used about a pound of boneless chicken. One pound of chicken does not compute with my mother as she usually feeds an army on Sundays. Anyway, after the chicken is cleaned I cut it into smaller and/or thinner pieces to help with cooking time. Again my mother's method is sprinkle salt and garlic powder on each piece of chicken and place in a bowl. Be generous. I thought about measuring the amounts I used to help with making adjustments the next time I made this. Oh well. Hey, I thought about it! I added nearly two beaten eggs to the bowl with the chicken and a somewhat heaping quarter-cup of flour and mixed it all together to coat the chicken. I am pretty sure I got the batter about right. Maybe it should have been a little thicker.

To cook the chicken, melt Crisco in a large pan. Yup, that is Crisco shortening melting in the pan. No it is not on fire, that is just the light above my stove. My mother swears that this is the "secret ingredient" here.

Cook in the hot shortening until brown and crispy.

Cooked well your chicken will not be greasy. So there it is. I think I made it look pretty darn good. The chicken tasted okay. I definitely needed a little more salt and garlic powder. Not bad for a first attempt though. Of all my mother "recipes" that I have tried to duplicate this one came the closest to tasting like hers. Most of the time I can't even get into the same ballpark. Might be time to take another crack at meatballs. I know I have a cake frosting recipe somewhere too.

Here is my plate of chicken, buttered corn, and brown rice. Enjoy!