Tuscan White Bean Soup

Today at lunch I went for a hot bowl of Tuscan White Bean Soup from the cafeteria at work. Our cafeteria went through a remodel last year and actually serves some pretty decent food. The soups have always been great but this one was extremely underwhelming. Not necessarily bad but really not good in any way. I even had to go get a big side of onion rings to make up for it. 

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

I realize that this recipe is coming out a little too late if anyone was looking to make it for Mardi Gras this year, but it's worth having in your arsenal and it's something you could make any day of the year and be happy with.

When we lived in New Orleans we were introduced to many new foods. Many of them were traditional southern style dishes and I fell in love with the deep richness that so often accompanied the meals we tried. Gumbo was one of my favorites because the ingredients were fairly simple but there was so much depth to it.

Northwest Cherry Dutch Oven Stew

Each year our church does a Father and Sons camp out where we get to spend some time with just the boys. We typically cook our own dinner but it kind of ends up being a potluck where everyone shares whatever they brought. Of course there are the usual hotdogs and such but the last few years we've tried to do a few different things with our dutch oven. Last year my Father in Law was in town from Seattle and they suggested this Northwest Cherry Stew recipe that they had done a few times. We tried it out and and it was a huge hit with everyone.

Short Rib Osso Buco with Polenta Crust

I was going to Williams-Sonoma's website to check out some recipes that my Mom found and on the first page of recipes there was this amazing looking Short Rib recipe from Tuscany. I am a sucker for a good picture of food and this one caught me right away. I have to admit it wasn't just the food that looked good though. I saw that it was cooked in a ceramic dutch oven and I've just recently started cooking with them. I have just been cooking my no-knead in them and I really wanted to try some kind of stew in it as well. Since we were having some friends come over for Dinner Sunday night I thought that would be a good time to try it out. This recipe definitely takes some time to cook but there's really not a whole lot of time spent in preparation for the amazing results. After being cooked for over 4 hours the short ribs are completely tender and flavorful and the polenta crust is a perfect combination with the rest of the flavors.