Cooking Show...Soup!!!

We filmed an episode of the cooking show last week.

Given that total snowfall this February has totaled 64 inches here in Boston, it was easy to come up with a theme.

Soup!

Is there anything better on a cold, snowy night?

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Rich, thick, creamy, cheesy.  Here's the printable recipe.

Italian Wedding Soup

The greens, the cheese, the little meatballs. Si sposano bene. They marry well!  Here's the printable recipe.

Southwestern Chicken Soup

This has become my go-to recipe for chicken soup.  Lime & cilantro add such bright flavor, and the topping combination of crunchy tortilla strips, melting Monterey Jack and smooth avocado is to die for.

This should be the next soup you make!  Here's the printable recipe.

Slow Cooker Baby Back Ribs

Finally.

I made a batch of baby back ribs in my crock pot that I think are blogworthy!!!

I won't go into how picky I am about slow cooker recipes.  About how I refuse to sacrifice taste for convenience;  to sacrifice texture for the supposed ease of throwing everything into one pot and hoping that it's edible.  

No, I won't go into how I have a love/hate relationship with my crock pot.

I'm just going to say that these ribs have earned a permanent spot in my dinner rotation.

Cooking With Kids!

We filmed another episode of the cooking show last week.  With February vacation on the horizon, the producer of the show suggested "Cooking With Kids" as a theme.

My friend, Amy, has four young children and I was happy that she loaned me her two oldest sons to cook with me (Joey, 8, and Danny, who turned 7 last week).  I hope that Joey & Danny had as much fun cooking as I did!

Taking into consideration that school vacations are supposed to be fun, I tried to prepare a few dishes with them that would be fun for them to make as well as fun to eat.   I hope I succeeded.

Amy told me that her boys like fun drinks.  Creamy Hot Chocolate topped with whipped cream and marshmallows fits that bill!

I don't have step-by-step photos for you but click this link for the printable recipe .

Next, we made a chocolate dip which only requires three ingredients--semi-sweet chocolate chips, peanut butter and vanilla yogurt.  They enjoyed this snack with fruit, graham crackers and pretzels for dipping. I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm going to guess that the banana slices were their favorite thing to dip in the chocolate, given that the bananas were gone by the time I took this picture!

Here's the link for the Printable Dip Recipe.

Next up was Kettle Corn.  This was totally devoured.  I secretly stashed this tiny little bag of it so that I would have something other than an empty bowl to take a picture of!

And then when I snapped the picture they divvied up the kettle corn pretty quickly.  As we were finishing the show, Danny declared that this was his favorite!  Here's the printable recipe .

Next, we prepared Strawberry/Spinach Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing .  

One of my favorite moments happened when we were making the dressing.  As we were measuring the apple cider vinegar, the pungent smell prompted Joey to cover his nose and proclaim, "That really stinks!!"

Here's the printable recipe for the salad and the dressing.

 And finally, Cashew Chicken.   One of the funniest moments during the taping was when I crushed the garlic into the sauce for this chicken.  Danny exclaimed, "Garlic!  You didn't tell me there was garlic in this!  I don't like garlic!"

Joey saved the day, however, when he decided that the cashew chicken was his favorite out of all the dishes that we prepared.  Here's the printable recipe!