Homemade Butter and Buttermilk

When we're in search of an easy meal to make, we often turn to biscuits and eggs. Melissa makes drool-worthy biscuits from scratch and then scrambles some eggs for some yummy breakfast sandwiches that are usually eaten for lunch or dinner.

And after reading the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story about a woman who makes her own butter, we were intrigued. So when we went to the Milwaukee County Winter Farmers' Market this weekend, we picked up some cream from Crystal Ball Farms (as well as our usual chocolate milk).

First Melissa made butter from the cream using the food processor method. We had wonderful butter when that was done!

And what luck! The buttermilk left over was just enough for some biscuits.

Combining that homemade butter, homemade buttermilk biscuits and Wisconsin blueberry cheddar cheese (courtesy of Brennan's Market), we had an awesome open-faced egg and biscuit breakfast.

It was so much better than our regular eggs and biscuits. The pat of butter melted slowly and enhanced the cheese flavor. And the biscuits seemed just a bit fluffier than normal. All in all, a great (nearly 100 percent) Wisconsin-made meal.

Homemade Ground Turkey and Zucchini Pasta

We found ourselves looking through our cupboards and freezer before Thanksgiving in search of a spark for an idea for a quick dinner. When we saw tons of boxes of pasta and some leftover turkey sausage, the idea quickly began to form.

We decided to make Homemade Ground Turkey and Zucchini Pasta. We started by browning some turkey sausage that had been removed from their casings in canola oil. Then we added the chopped onion and zucchini and let those cook for a bit. Also add the garlic and salt to taste.



Then we heated up the tomato sauce. (You could also add herbs and other aromatics at this step; we didn't because the sausage and tomato sauce we used already had enough herb-infused flavor.)

Then simply cook the penne for about 7 to 8 minutes and top with the zucchini and sausage mixture and the tomato sauce. Garnish and serve with some Parmesan.



Homemade Ground Turkey and Zucchini Pasta
canola oil
2 turkey sausages, removed from casings
1 large or 2 medium zucchini, diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic
salt to taste
32 ounces tomato sauce
14 ounces whole wheat penne
Parmesan to garnish

1. Brown turkey sausage in canola oil. Add the onion and zucchini saute for 3 to 5 minutes. And garlic, and add salt to taste.

2. Heat up tomato sauce and add any herbs or other aromatics.

3. Cook the penne.

4. Serve with sausage-zucchini mixture, tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese garnish.

Homemade Taco Meat Pizza

Tonight we got back to a recent trend: Eating homemade pizza on Friday night. Using the dough recipe we found, liked and adapted, we have made a few pizzas we have already blogged, and a few more that really weren't blog-worthy.

We knew we had pizza for tonight on our planned menu, but we weren't really sure what we were going to do. So we looked in our fridge and saw we had some yellow onion and green pepper. Melissa preferred some red onion, so we went with that, and I wanted a little bit more than just two toppings.

That's when things started to click.

We realized our green pepper wasn't fit to eat, but we still had an orange pepper, and that was good to go. Melissa opted for the black olives and we realized we had some leftover taco meat from earlier this week. Then we shredded some monterey jack cheese and sprinkled on some sharp cheddar, too. When the pizza came out, we topped with a bit of sour cream.

And that's how you get a thrown-together Homemade Taco Meat Pizza. Delicious.

Homemade Mini Pizzas

Let's face it, pizza is fun. And part of that fun is that it can be consumed in so many different forms.

So Melissa was sitting around one day and figured it would be fun to try them on a smaller scale. Specifically, she had some split buns that she occasionally used for sandwiches, so she decided to use those as the pizza crust.


After loading up the bun with pizza sauce, onions, green pepper, pepperoni, cheddar and mozzarella, we stuck them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 5 to 8 minutes.

Homemade Chili Frito Burritos

The first time we visited a Sonic Drive-In restaurant, we were in Vegas. (We don't indulge in fast food a lot, but there are a few that we frequent when we get the craving.) Well, after that visit in Vegas, Sonic become one of them.

Thankfully, in the past couple of years, a few Sonic restaurants have been announced for the Milwaukee area. And now that we've visited one near where we live, we seemed to have fallen into a pattern of ordering from the dollar menu.

On their dollar menu is a Jr. Frito Chili Cheese Wrap, which is, well, awesome. Both of us have had something similar when we were kids: Chili and cheese combined with Fritos in some manner.

And like we have done before with Homemade Crunch-Wrap Supreme, we decided to re-create our own version at home.

First, obviously, you have to make the chili. We made ours with ground sirloin, onions, celery, red kidney beans, black beans, tons of tomatoes and lots and lots of herbs and spices.

From there, it's all about assembly. Melissa declined to indulge in the burrito form of the dish, so instead she layers some chili, sharp cheddar cheese, fresh onions and Fritos.


But the purists can prepare by heating up a flour tortilla for about 10 seconds. Then spoon some sour cream on as well as the chili, sharp cheddar cheese, fresh onions and Fritos.


Deliciousness. This is one of those meals that you don't want to prepare too often, but is great when you do decide to feast upon it.

The chili had a great finish; there wasn't a bite at the beginning of the mouthful, but there was at the end. It's perfect that way. The Fritos provided that lovely crunch and the sour cream and cheese helped to hold down the heat.

Homemade Margherita Pizza

Well, it's been awhile. If you haven't been aware, we recently bought a house and have since moved into it. Because of that, we haven't had the necessary time to keep up our blog, A Duo of Chefs.

Have no fear, though. Even though we aren't fully unpacked, we are somewhat settled, and at least ready to resume writing about our culinary creations.

To that end, we've been making homemade pizzas a lot lately, usually every Friday. When we do indulge in processed foods, we enjoy our favorite frozen pizza, Palermo's Primo Thin Margherita Pizza.

Well, we wanted to make a margherita pizza, only made wholly at home. We started with fresh tomatoes, basil and mozzarella:


Assembly is pretty easy; simply put the tomatoes liberally, add some julienned basil and then sprinkle some mozzarella chunks.


After a trip to the 500 degree oven for about 10 minutes:


Melissa has tweaked the pizza dough recipe slightly, adding just a hint of honey for a more flavorful crust. The mozzarella and basil were the highlights and the tomato added a juiciness to the pizza.

Sweet Corn Soup with Chive Butter

We have been to Vegas many times, and one of our favorite restaurants in that burgeoning dining town is Rosemary's.

We dined there for lunch in May when we were in Vegas to get married. And we had a great dish we had there before: Corn Soup. (In fact, as of this writing, they still have it on their menu. We haven't eaten any of the recipes they offer, but they're still intriguing enough to try sometime.)

It's a really rich soup with a chive compote butter and it was an amazing beginning to our meal there. So in trying to replicate the Rosemary's recipe, we based ours off of one we found on MyRecipes.com from Coastal Living.

So I went about by taking about a dozen ears of corn (we tripled the recipe) and started to shuck the husks.




Now comes the hard part: You need to cut the corn off the cob. It's easiest to stand the cob up; be slow during this so as not to cut your hand or fingers.


Now it's time to start cooking. In a big stock pot, let the white onion cook in butter. After it gets tender, add the corn and some sugar and then cook for a while.


Then stir in the vegetable broth and let it simmer for about 30 minutes (it takes longer tripling the recipe). While that is simmer, it's a perfect time to make a great accompaniment to the soup: Chive Butter.



After the butter is done, simply wrap it in some plastic wrap and let it chill in the fridge for a few minutes while the rest of the dinner is prepared. It will look like this:


After the soup has simmered, add the half-and-half (we used it instead of heavy whipping cream to lighten the dish up a bit). Let it simmer.

Then transfer the soup to a blender, blend, and then put the soup through a strainer into another stock pot or similarly large pot. Discard the solids. Season with salt and white pepper (the pepper to ensure there are no specks to disrupt the consistency and appearance).

Then cut off a slice of the Chive Butter for each serving.


After about 30 seconds, it will look much better as the butter melts:


It's been a few months since we dined at Rosemary's, but it seemed like the flavors were really close and the richness of the soup and butter was extracted fully. The chives were a nice touch, and we made some biscuits to go with our servings, too. Using half-and-half instead of heavy whipping cream didn't really affect the dish since it seemed to be such a close replication of Rosemary's great soup.

Homemade Roasted Tomato Soup

I've been thinking lately more and more about recipes we can create at home. And it occurred to me that we could fairly easily make our own tomato soup. And with tomatoes ripening right around now, this is the perfect time to try it.

I searched for cooking methods to use to make the soup and ended up most impressed with Michael Chiarello's Homemade Tomato Soup. So hat tip to him for the idea for roasting the tomatoes.

Homemade Roasted Tomato Soup
8 Roma tomatoes, skin removed
6 medium carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 medium onion, diced
2 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon butter
2 cans diced tomatoes, divided by juice and tomatoes
1 1/2 cups milk
2 Bay leaves
1 tablespoon basil
salt
pepper
Parmesan to taste

First take the Roma tomatoes and cut an X, not too deep, on the bottom so that the skin will be easy to peel off. Then dip the tomatoes for about 1 minute into boiling water and remove and set into an ice bath. Leave for about 30 seconds, then take tomato out of ice bath and peel off skin.


In a pan, cook the mirepoix -- carrots, celery, onions and garlic in some butter. While that is cooking, roughly chop up the tomatoes and put them on a roasting pan.


Then roast the tomatoes under a broiler until the ends of most of the tomatoes start to blacken.


Take about 3/4 of the tomatoes and chop up into smaller pieces and add them to the mirepoix. Then take the tomatoes and mirepoix and put in a blender. Add some of the milk. Blend until the mixture has a slightly chunky texture. Continue to blend the rest of the tomato-mirepoix mixture.

Put the blended mixture back into the pan and add the seasonings, including Bay leaves, basil, salt and pepper. (At this point, we felt our soup was a bit too orange from the carrots, so we took out 2 cans of salt-free diced tomatoes and put the tomatoes in the blender, too, to include in the dish. We saved the juice and ended up blending that in with the mixture.)


Let that simmer for about 3 to 5 minutes, then take the Bay leaves out. Then serve with grilled cheese sandwich.


The soup turned out great. There were some minor bumps along the way, but with some quick thinking, it was a great combination of flavors.

The tomato flavor especially was rich and thick. The consistency provided three layers of contrast: the thin layer of liquid, the heavy later of blended soup and then the small amount of tomato chunks added at the end.

The basil and Bay leaf really came out, too, and the mirepoix of vegetables provided a lingering affect at the end of each bite.

The one thing we changed when we had leftovers was to buy a loaf of crusty bread and use that for the grilled cheese; our normal bread just wilted on our new Calphalon pans because the pans conduct heat much better than our previous ones.

Crumb-Coated Baked Chicken Wrap with Citrus Mayonnaise

We purposely made extra Crumb-Coated Baked Chicken so we would have something for lunch today. But what to do with it, we wondered?

So I suggested making wraps. But you can't just throw the chicken and some lettuce in and expect it to be good. That's when we thought about making our own mayonnaise to accompany the wrap.

And since the recipe for the chicken had some heat in it -- chili powder, cayenne and hot sauce -- we decided our mayonnaise would need some citrus for balance. So we took some mayo and added a fair amount of lemon juice, chives, dill, pepper and a pinch of cumin.


I spread the mayo right on top of the chicken. In the background on our plate was the potato salad we made earlier this week.


Melissa found the mayo had just a tad too much lemon, but I thought it was fine. The heat in the chicken coating was a bit subdued from last night, but there was still enough in the pieces I had to balance out the lemon in the mayo. And we added some romaine and small slices of Parmesan to the wrap, too.

Quick-and-Easy Pizza Crust

We had a recipe in mind earlier this week. But first we needed one thing for that recipe: Dough. And we found a quick and simple recipe for that at Cooking Light.

It hardly took any effort to combine the ingredients and knead for a few minutes. Then you coat a bowl with cooking spray and set the dough in to rise. Cover and let it do so for about 10 minutes.


Check in tomorrow for the second part of our recent dinner.

Homemade Crunch-Wrap Supreme

Let's face it: Even though we eat out for only one meal per week, we often get cravings for fast food or for eating out. But that can get costly, both monetarily and nutritionally.

But when you can re-create those meals at home, well, let's face it, that's when goodness can happen.

And that happened in our home tonight after Melissa, who is thoroughly in love with Taco Bell's crunch-wrap supremes, decided to make such a meal for our dinner.

Homemade Crunch-Wrap Supreme
1 pound ground sirloin
4 reduced-fat tortillas
low-fat sour cream
reduced-fat sharp cheddar cheese
baked tortilla chips
1 diced Roma tomato
romaine lettuce leaves

To start, brown the ground sirloin; drain. Add taco seasonings. Then it's on to assembly.

Take a tortilla and spread some sour cream on. Add about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of beef and top with cheese and crushed tortilla chips.


Then add tomatoes and romaine. Fold over one edge of tortilla and continue in clockwise or counter-clockwise movement until all of tortilla is folded over. Place fold side down on medium-low pan. After the bottom side is brown, flip and brown. It should take a couple of minutes per side.


It is best to put sour cream on first before the beef. Otherwise, the sour cream could ooze out. The chips provide the crunchiness, but you could use other ingredients, obviously. We had baked tortilla chips, so we decided to use that. We ate only about half of the beef, so this could be a two-night dinner.

Homemade Salad Croutons

We've had a loaf of bread in our refrigerator for about a week now that we haven't touched. In part because I didn't want it to go bad, we decided today to make some homemade salad croutons.

We simply the last few pieces of bread on each end of the loaf into little cubes, laid them out on a baking tray and then sprinkled them with seasonings. We used parsley flakes, onion powder, garlic salt and oregano. We also had some small grated parmigiano reggiano on top. We baked them in the oven at 275 degrees.