Sweet Potato and Leek Soup with Epic Bacon Sandwich

In spite of my recent slow cooker fails, I decided to give it another go today. Tyler was seriously considering banning me from the appliance. Much as I banned him from the power drill years ago- I'm the only one who gets to use sweet power tools in our house. I think I am redeemed with this recipe. In fact, we may have both redeemed ourselves today. I made a kick-ass soup, he fixed the microwave by flicking the breaker back on (baby steps people, baby steps).

One Year Ago: Chocolate Pudding 

Two Years Ago: French Chocolate Cake, Roasted Flour Shortbread

Three Years Ago: Potato Prosciutto Camembert Pizza and Farfalle with Tomato Mushroom Sauce, Chorizo Leek Squash Bread Pudding

Four Years Ago: Lemon Aioli, Chocolate Peppermint Cookies, Best Drop Biscuits

SWEET POTATO AND LEEK SOUP

Serves 6

Adapted from My Invisible Crown

• 5 small or 3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1 large leek, cleaned well and green end removed, chopped roughly
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1/2 tsp salt
• freshly ground pepper
• 1 tsp tumeric
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1 cup half and half

Mix all ingredients except half and half. Turn slow cooker to low for 4 to 6 hours. Puree using an immersion blender right in the crock pot or transfer (carefully!) to a blender. Mix in half and half. Serve with a little freshly ground pepper on top.

EPIC BACON SANDWICH

A friend introduced me to this sandwich on the weekend. If you can find cheese bagels it's extra epic, but still pretty good with regular bagels too. 

• bagel, halved and toasted
• herb and garlic cream cheese
• 3 slices cooked bacon

Spread cream cheese on both sides of bagel. Top with bacon and sandwich together. Easy peasy.

Top Posts

I thought I'd jump on the new year blogging trend of sharing the top posts from last year... only in Four Seasons Kitchen's case, it will be of all time since I've never done this type of round up before.

It's also interesting to see how, and from where, people get to my blog. Google Blogger provides these stats, and it looks like I'm kind of a big deal in Russia.

I can also see search keywords that have lead people to my blog. "Cheese whiz nacho dip", "cheese dip", "nachos dip cheese" and "cheez whiz nacho dip" are at the top of that list. I'm not sure if I should be disappointed or thankful that at least I'm getting the reader traffic.

1. Vanilla Iced Coffee

2. Spicy Cheese Dip

3. Caldo Verde- my very first post

4. Lentils with Choizo, Brussels Sprouts, and Balsamic Vinegar

5. Tex Mex Lasagna (even despite the awful photo)

On Kale and Man Food

A funny thing happened in our kitchen last weekend. Tyler was making pancakes for breakfast on Saturday morning*. I suggested that he make them with whole wheat flour at least to make them healthier. He refused, saying something to the effect of "don't mess with man food". I was in charge of making BLTs**. I made BKTs instead. Bacon. KALE. Tomato. Take that man food.

I think kale can stand in for lettuce almost all of the time. Tyler seems to agree, cause he assembled sandwiches for us the next meal using... you guessed it. Go on, healthy up your bacon man-wich with some kale.

*Since I have starting working at 8am on Sundays, Tyler has learned to make pancakes. He keeps telling me how much Parker loves pancakes, but I hadn't witnessed the pancake phenomenon until this weekend. Wow. The kid goes bananas for pancakes. He ate more than I did. Incidentally, he also goes bananas for bananas. I wonder what would happen if we gave him banana pancakes?

**Are BLTs global, or is this a Canadian acronym? Just in case, BLT stands for Bacon Lettuce Tomato sandwich.

Jalepeno Poppers or Death Boats to Hades

Ok I know this is a food blog, so I'll use a related expression. Couldn't you just eat him he's so cute? He helped hand out candy.

He's a frog, in case you didn't get it. AND I got all the materials for his costume at the dollar store. Again, in case you couldn't tell. I'm sure this is going to be a case of Parker wondering what the hell his parents were thinking ten years from now, but I'm pretty proud of myself.

I made BBQ Jalapeno Poppers (or, on October 31st "Death Boats to Hades") from The Pioneer Woman Cooks for a snack today. I forgot to put the BBQ sauce on them as directed in the recipe, but they were still delicious. Really delicious. I also sliced the bacon into smaller pieces and just laid it on top rather than wrapping it around the whole jalapeno as that seemed like a lot of bacon. I find that the easiest way to remove the seeds and white membranes is to use the tip of a potato peeler as it is just sharp enough (I use this to scrape out squash too). That being said, watch out for the bastard jalapeno. You know the one I mean- there's always a super hot one that slaps you in the face when you least expect it despite your best efforts to remove the all the really spicy bits.

I also carved a pumpkin for the first time in probably fifteen years. It didn't quite live up to the picture in my head. The mouth was supposed to be a spider. So I made the eyes lopsided too so that it looked intentional. I don't think it's bad for a first try, right? I think it's kind of scary. Or at least I freaked myself out a little when I took it into the bathroom with the lights off (cause there's no windows in the bathroom of course... does anybody else do that?). I have a new found love for Halloween. I even clapped my hands and hopped around a little when I was getting out all the Halloween stuff today. Too bad the book that I ordered from Chapters didn't come in time, but next year it is on like donkey kong.

One Year Ago: Creepy Halloween food

Breakfast Club Sandwiches

I'm back on the bacon train! I've been off bacon since I first became pregnant because it made me feel sick, even just the thought of it. Slowly but surely over the last month, however, I've been becoming friends with bacon again. As a result of my temporary bacon aversion, I haven't made weekend breakfasts for a while. I saw Ricardo Larrivee make these sandwiches on his show this past week (side note: does he play for the other team or is he just French? Talk amongst yourselves) and I've been thinking about it ever since, so made this on this holiday morning and it was fantastic. Tyler high-fived me, so I take it the breakfast club sandwich gets the husband stamp of approval as well.

BREAKFAST CLUB SANDWICH

Adapted from Ricardo and Friends on The Food Network

Serves 2 (recipe is very easily multiplied to serve more)

• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 4 slices bacon
• 6 slices sandwich bread
• Mayonnaise (or Miracle Whip if you live in my house)
• 1 tomato, sliced
• 2 leaves Romaine lettuce

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Lightly beat eggs, milk, salt, pepper in a small baking dish. Put bacon on a baking sheet or broiler pan. Bake eggs and bacon in oven until bacon is crisp and golden and eggs are set- about 10 minutes for the bacon and about 5 minutes more for the eggs. Remove bacon to drain on paper towels. Cut eggs in half and fold each half over itself (like you would an omelet).

While bacon and eggs are cooking, toast bread. Spread one side of 4 of the slices with mayo, spread both sides of the remaining bread with mayo (this is your middle piece of the club sandwich).

To assemble each sandwich, place egg on the mayo side of a slice of toast, top with double-mayo toast, top that with 2 slices of bacon, tomato, lettuce. Top sandwich with another slice of toast. Slice in half or quarters diagonally to serve. 

Man sized salad

I love Cobb Salad. I order it at restaurants all the time which costs about 12 bucks. For a salad. I got to thinking that I don't ever make it at home, and I should. It'd be cheaper, that's for sure. Cause I cry a little inside every time I shell out $12.95 for a salad at a chain restaurant.

The first photo at the top of the post is the prettily arranged salad on a plate. The salad ended up being so big that I had to dump our plates into big wooden salad bowls in order to mix it all up to eat, which is the photo below because it was funny.


I don't have a recipe per se, but below is what I put in the Cobb salad and how I prepared each item.

• Romaine lettuce, cut to bite size pieces
• Cherry tomatoes, halved
• Cucumber, quartered lengthwise and sliced
• Red pepper, thinly sliced
• Hard boiled eggs, diced
• Bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and fried in a pan
• Cheese, cut into small cubes. I happened to have mozzarella and herbed harvarti in the fridge
• Croutons- whole wheat sandwich bread cut into cubes, tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, and baked at 350 degrees F until golden brown (10 minutes or so)
• Ranch dressing (low fat), doctored with some lemon juice and low fat sour cream
  

Some grilled chicken wouldn't go amiss here either, I just didn't have any chicken.

Sorry, the photos lately are so yellow- even if it didn't get dark here at 5:00 pm, we usually don't eat until after 8:00 so it's dark anyways, and the photos actually look better without using the flash on the camera...

Home made gifts

As promised, here are the food gifts I made to give to my family along with their "real" gift. These are pretty easy to make, and giving anything you have made yourself definitely makes a big impact.

The labels for the gifts I made using Microsoft Word and Clipart, then I cut them to size and affixed them to the jars or gift bags using packing tape- I taped over the whole piece of paper with some over hang all around so that it would stick. This worked really well as it's really thin so you can hardly tell it's there.


Hot Chocolate Sticks from Givers Log

If you make these, note that once you add the cocoa and sugar the mixture is VERY stiff and may look lumpy, but when you put it in the molds (I used ice cube trays as suggested), pat it down and it will be smooth once it firms up. I stuck some marshmallows on the top of them as well.


Burning Ass Hot Sauce- the name is my doing (get it? the donkey is on fire! I'm too funny for my own good), the recipe is from Mark Bitten in The New York Times. I used a combination of jalapenos, habenaros, and two cloves of garlic.

Egyptian Dukkah Spice Mix from The Kitchn. I don't have a photo of this, it didn't look all that exciting to be honest, but on the label I included the nuts and spices I put in it (hazelnuts, sesame seeds, cumin, coriander, mint, salt, pepper if I remember correctly) and some recipe suggestions.

I also wanted to make some flavored vodka but I didn't get around to it, and I couldn't eat enough bacon to save enough bacon fat for the Baconnaise (that's right- bacon flavored mayonnaise) that I was going to make for my cousin. Maybe next year I'll combine the two ideas to make the most disturbing recipe I have come across in a while, Bacon Flavored Vodka.

Why the internet is awesome

I know. We all know the internet is awesome. But here are two reasons why I had that thought right now and had to post about it:

1. We finally got a laptop and I have been sitting on my couch following link after link for 4 hours and I still haven't found the end of the internet.

2. I found my way to Artie McPhee's which sells, among other things, bacon-flavored dental floss and when you Google "Artie McPhee" the description is "Archie McPhee has the best toys, gift and novelties on the internet. We love the same things you do: unicorns, bacon, ninjas and pirates." Seriously, revel in the awesomeness.