Guinness & Onion Soup with Irish Cheddar Crouton

As we get back into testing new recipes at MIHM, we thought it would be fun to find a guiding theme. We decided it would be fun to try making internationally inspired foods. So first, stop - Ireland! I found this recipe for Guinness and Onion Soup on the Food Network website. I thought the Guinness part sounded interesting, and the cheddar crouton couldn't be bad, so my mom gathered all of the ingredients and we got started.

Ingredients, including SO many onions.

 

Yeah, you read the recipe correctly - 8 cups of sliced onions. As a courtesy to our readers, we're giving this recipe a health and safety warning for this onion job. We are both pretty sensitive to onions and had to take multiple breaks out of the kitchen to give our crying eyes a break. The sacrifices we make for this blog, I swear...

 

I minced the garlic as my mom battled the onions.

Garlic, onions and olive oil heating up. (It's a miracle this photo turned out so well since I was blinded by the onions while photographing!)

 

Next up, I added one bottle of Guinness to the garlic and onions and let it reduce down to half. Immediately the entire kitchen switched from the aroma of onions, to a strong smell of beer. :)

Beef broth added, then the soup simmered for 10 minutes.

 

While the soup was cooking, my mom preheated the broiler, which isn't something we cook with a lot. I don't even think I have a broiler at my apartment? No clue. I toasted the French bread for the cheddar crouton. I tried a few times because I didn't want the bread to be too toasted, as it would get cooked more in the broiler.

 

My mom sliced the Irish Cheddar. By the way, if you've never tried Irish Cheddar you need to stop reading this blog and go buy some right now. It is SO GOOD. Soft, with a little tang. Delicious, delicious! My new favorite cheese.

 

Once the broiler was ready and the soup had simmered for 10 minutes, we ladled it into oven proof bowls. We weren't totally sure at the time that these were oven proof; thankfully they are. :)

 

Bread added to the soup...

 

Cheese layered on the bread...

 

Cooking for about 10 minutes, until the cheese melted completely.

 

The final product!

 

My mom, brother and I ate the soup right out of the broiler, as the recipe said you must eat it piping hot. And although we all enjoyed the soup, we agreed that we didn't need to make it again. The recipe was easy to follow, and there wasn't anything out of the ordinary about the ingredients. But that was just it. Once you ate the cheesy bread crouton, it tasted like your standard French Onion Soup, with a slight hint of beer in it. Not bad, just not exactly original either. Which makes sense, this is basically the Irish version of French Onion Soup. So it made for a good cooking blog night, and was overall pretty tasty, but it's not going to become a staple around our house.  

 

See you guys next week when we will be reporting on a MIHM field trip!

Wedding Card Organization: A Simple DIY Project

I know we said we were officially done with wedding crafts over here at MIHM, but there was just one final craft we had to sneak in. And it was for a good cause: organization. Over the last year we received so many cards for our engagement, showers and parties, and of course, the wedding. I wanted to find a way to keep them organized and together since they are special, and I could see myself losing or misplacing them over the years to come. Naturally, I scoured Pinterest and found a clever and easy way to organize our cards.

I had been keeping all of the cards we received in this Ikea box.

But as you can see, it was a disorganized mess.

So, I copied a Pinterest project that would bind all of the cards together in an organized manner. Only tools required: a hole punch, twine and scissors.

I started by organizing our cards by topic - engagement, bridal shower & bachelorette party, wedding, and Crate & Barrel cards (as these are an odd size of 2x2). Then I started hole punching.

I hole punched one hole in the top corner of each card.

Once each card had a hole, I strung them onto a piece of twine.

I tried to sort by size too, with the largest card in the back, but then I selected some meaningful cards to be placed in the front.

After all of the cards were on the twine, I tied a simple double knot. Between the cardstock paper and the tough twine, I'm not at all worried about cards breaking off or slipping out.

I repeated this process for each stack of cards, which took about an hour...Hole punching was the most time consuming part of this project, but I also stopped to read through cards which sidetracked me a bit. And hey, this wasn't a race!

Tada! My final four card bundles.

Obviously, this project was super easy. So while it wasn't exactly a crafting challenge, it was definitely a useful craft project, which I'm all about. For now, I've placed the card bundles back into the little blue Ikea box, but now I can rest assured that all of the cards will stick together. No loose cards to go missing or haphazardly stored ones to rip or bend. The other perk of this binding project is that it's still super easy to open up each card and read what's inside.

I love sending cards, and receiving cards in general, and with this project I was happy to give our cards the respect they deserve from what was one of the happiest, most memorable times in our lives.

Ok, now for real this time, NO more wedding stuff on MIHM. We swear!

Chorizo Chili with Polenta

It doesn't really feel like fall with these 75-80 degree temps, but that doesn't mean we can't start cooking like the season is here! To welcome in the cooler weather and darker evenings, the Girls Team wanted to try a different version of a classic fall favorite - chili. We found this recipe from Rachael Ray for Chorizo & Vegetable Chili in Cheesy Polenta Bowls. Having never cooked with polenta before, this was definitely going to be a cooking challenge!

 

Ingredients ready to go.

Chopped zucchini.

Red bell pepper.

Cooking the polenta. Behind the scenes confession: I didn't read the directions (this is actually a life problem I seem to be having lately...) and so I poured in all of the polenta in the box when the recipe only called for half. I diluted it with a few cups of water, but we had twice as much polenta as chili. Whoops.

 

While I was busy messing up the polenta, my mom was making the chili.

 

Gobs of polenta. Easy to cook though!

Chili boiling.

When the chili and polenta are ready to serve, we made the polenta into a bowl shape, leaving room for the chili.

Plated and ready to eat!

 

If you read and follow directions without the recent focus issues I seem to be having, this recipe is very simple to follow. Even though it takes some prep time, and the polenta was an unfamiliar ingredient, we managed to cook this in about 30 minutes. True to Rachael Ray's promise! The chili was good, but nothing too different or unique from other chili recipes. The chorizo did give it a nice kick, but nothing that was too much for our taste buds to handle. The polenta was the real star of this show. It was delicious and balanced the spice of the chili perfectly. In our non-scientific explanation, imagine a tamale, but instead of the filling being in the middle of the tamale, it's poured over the outside. GOOD right?! Exactly.

 

We will definitely be making this recipe again. Not only was it delicious, but it was a relatively quick post-work day meal. And the warm polenta and hot chili warmed us up...even though it was 75 degrees and sunny outside.

 

So much for this polar vortex! :)

Salted Caramel Apple Tart

When you live in the foothills, no Fall season is complete without a trip to Apple Hill. My Girls Team partner went last week and came back with tons of apples, so naturally, we let them inspire this week's MIHM project. We tried out a recipe for an "Easy Salted Caramel Apple Tart" that my mom found online from Just A Taste.

Apples from Apple Hill, and fillo dough.

 

Melted butter for the fillo dough.

 

If you've never worked with fillo dough before, be warned. It's high maintenance. You have to keep a damp towel over the sheets as you use them to keep them drying out. They are also super, super thing and can easily tear.

 

Slowwwwly peeling the layers of dough.

In between each layer of fillo dough, brush a small amount of melted butter on the dough. This helps keep it workable and flavorful.

 

While I worked with the fillo dough, my mom sliced and seasoned the apples.

 

Once the apples and dough were prepped, we layered the slices on the dough.

Ready to bake!

Out of the oven after 15 minutes.

Drizzled with caramel...

 

After removing the tart from the oven, we drizzled caramel over it and then served immediately. I forgot to take a picture but we cut it in 3x3 squares to serve. My mom, brother and I were all able to enjoy the tart while it was hot out of the oven! It was really crisp and sweet. The brown sugar added a nice flavor to the already sweet apples. The dough was flakey, but not too dry. If we made it again, we'd try it with puff pastry, just to see how that changes the tart. Overall we all liked it a lot. It was a sweet dessert that wasn't too heavy, and the perfect fall treat.