Grilled Cheese Croutons | Best Food Photography in Columbus

This is a fun, quick spin on a typical lunch. Grilled cheese and tomato soup is boring, you say? Not anymore. You'd think it'd taste exactly the same, but it doesn't. I've never really liked dipping my sandwich into soup, but this I LOVED. It helps that the soup was homemade, too.

Over the last few years of honing my cooking skills, I've noticed how even the smallest of changes can make a big difference. This includes how things are cut. When you make a potato salad and dice the celery and onions really small, it tastes different than when they're rough chopped. We make fun of kids for having their sandwiches cut diagonally instead of straight in half, yet it does change the experience they have eating it. The same principle applies here.

Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons
Serves 4 Adults

Ingredients
1 (28-ounce) can chopped tomatoes (with green chiles)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 stalk celery, diced
1 small carrot, diced
1 yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup vegetable broth
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons butter
1 tblsp dried basil
dash of ground cayenne pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream, optional
12 slices of sharp cheddar
12 slices of white bread
spreadable butter for grilling

Directions
         Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
         Strain the chopped canned tomatoes, reserving the juices, and spread onto a baking sheet, season with salt and pepper, to taste, drizzle with 1/4 cup of the olive oil and roast until caramelized, about 15 minutes.
         Meanwhile, in a saucepan, heat remaining olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the celery, carrot, onion and garlic, cook until softened, about 10 minutes. Add the roasted chopped canned tomatoes, reserved tomato juices, vegetable broth, bay leaf, basil, cayenne and butter. Simmer until vegetables are very tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Add cream, if using. Puree with a hand held immersion blender until smooth.
        The simple explanation for the croutons is this:
Make a double-decker grilled cheese. Cut the crusts off then cut into 4x4's. Place in the soup and eat!
        The long explanation goes like this:
Before eating (or reheating) soup, begin making the grilled cheese croutons.
For each serving, you'll use 3 pieces of bread and 3 pieces of cheese. Butter one side of 3 pieces of bread. Place first slice butter-side down in a large skillet over medium heat on the stove, then lay two pieces of cheese over it then place the other piece of bread butter-side up. When first side is browned and the cheese is starting to melt, flip the sandwich over with a spatula. Then add another piece of cheese on the top and the last slice of bread butter-side up. Once the other side is browned, flip again. When the grilled cheese is done, cut off the crusts, then cut into 4 sections each way, so it creates little cubes. Place onto the hot soup and eat!

Some tasty variations:
Havarti and Thyme on Multigrain with Creamy Potato Soup
Goat Cheese on Sourdough with Creamy Fennel Soup

Egg Nog Snickerdoodles | Commercial Food Photographer

Two perfect reasons to make these cookies:
1. You love Egg Nog.
2. You hate Egg Nog but someone left it at your house.

Either way, you'll like these cookies! If you don't, take them to work and make your coworkers eat them. They're really light and the flavors are subtle, a nice contrast to the majority of holiday treats.

Love this photo? Buy a copy from Photo Kitchen. 

The paper trees in the background have been my favorite part of this holiday season. I've really enjoyed making them, thanks to fellow photographer and blogger Davina Fear, who happily shared the idea. Those of you who are parents, Davina has some of the cutest crafts and activities I have EVER seen.

Eggnog Snickerdoodle Cookies
www.whatkatiesbaking.com

1 ½ c flour
½ stick butter
½ cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup egg nog (I used soy Silk Egg Nog, and it worked perfectly.)
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 cup sugar + 1 tbsp cinnamon for rolling

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Sift together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine butter and 1/2 cup sugar. (I used the paddle attachment like it says, but I used a regular beater for my next cookie recipe (also to combine butter and sugar) and it worked just fine.
4. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl.
5. Add egg and eggnog, and beat to combine.
6. Add dry ingredients, and beat to combine. Don't overmix.
7. You can chill the dough for an hour or more to make the dough easier to scoop, or go ahead and scoop them a little messier.
8. In a small bowl, combine 1/8 cup sugar and 1 tbsp ground cinnamon.
9. Use a small ice-cream scoop or a tablespoon to form balls of the dough, and roll in cinnamon sugar.
10. Place about two inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.
11. Bake until the cookies are set in center and begin to crack, about 10 minutes, rotating the baking sheets after five minutes. The cookies will feel a little doughy when you touch them, but trust me, they're finished.
12. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack as soon as they are cool enough to not fall apart. Yields 18-20 cookies.

Emeril Lagasse's Cookbook Sneak Peak: Gigante Bean Soup with Arugula Pesto

For all you Emeril fans out there, he's got a new cookbook coming out on September 27th, 2011! It's called Sizzling Skillets and Other One-Pot Wonders. You can pre-order it now on Amazon.com.

In the past, the Emeril recipes I've tried have come from foodnetwork.com searches, one of which is a now a favorite of mine: Gingerbread with Spiced Creme Anglaise. So it was exciting to have a real cookbook in my hands again! After thoroughly perusing the cookbook, I would categorize it as advanced for 3 reasons.
1. Most of the recipes call for many steps, like soaking, refrigerating overnight, and baking one part while whisking another.
2. The recipes are ingredient-heavy. Things like white peppercorns and grapeseed oil aren't items I have in my house regularly and some of the ingredients would need to be found at a specialty store.
3. Many of the recipes call for cookware I don't own. I have a small kitchen, so I don't buy a lot of cooking accessories. (Not that I don't pine for ALL of them!) In the recipes I read through, there were mentions of Tagines, Woks, and Springform Pans.

That said, if you love to cook, and you love to take the time to cook some amazing food, this is the book for you.

The first recipe I made was Gigante Bean Soup with Arugula Pesto. Read more (including recipes) after viewing some pretty photos of this yummy soup in the making.

Emeril says you can use any number of large beans in this recipe, which is good, since I have no idea what a Gigante Bean is. My favorite large beans are Fava Beans. They have a thick skin and a creamy inside. I let them soak for something like 14 hours, because I hate having hard beans. It worked fine. You can also use large Lima Beans.

Most of the ingredients for this were accessible, except for the white peppercorns which I skipped and just used ground pepper. No harm done. I even got to use some ingredients from my CSA and from my own garden, which is always exciting! I skipped the pancetta, since I don't eat meat. If I did add it, I'd probably have cut down on the salt in the recipe, since that would add more salt.

I've made a lot of soups in my time, but it's mostly the kind where I have a bunch of stuff that's about to go bad so I put it in a pot and boil for 10 minutes and voila! Soup. This time, I followed the recipe closely and didn't take the shortcuts I normally would, and I'm happy that the extra work paid off! This is filling and wonderfully substantial, even when made vegetarian, and would be great for all seasons. The fresh vegetables meld well together and the herbs shine through. I didn't think I'd care for the peppers, but they really did add flavor and color.

I garnished with a little extra Parmesan cheese and ate it as soon as I was done shooting. Even lukewarm it was still super tasty!

I think my favorite part of the recipe was the "garnish". Emeril added an Arugula Pesto recipe that is fantastic! I would never have thought of adding pesto as a garnish to a soup, but it was perfect. I will now make it all the time, as I love arugula. I'd put it on a sandwich (ooh, a breakfast sandwich!) or crackers and cheese, or as a veggie dip....It's nice because it doesn't have any garlic in it, so there isn't the huge bite pesto usually has. It does have lemon juice which adds it's own zing without overpowering everything else. Yum. Take a look at the photos below!



While they aren't the easiest recipes in the world, they are wonderfully complex in flavor and you'll be glad you took the time to put such a great meal together. Better yet, freeze a bunch of it and have them for multiple meals! Both of these recipes probably had closer to 7-8 servings vs. the normal 4-6.

Stay tuned for more recipes from Emeril's new book coming this week!

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Gigante Bean Soup with Arugula Pesto

Gigante beans are very large white beans with a creamy, almost buttery texture. They are also known as hija or gigande beans and are a staple in Spanish and Greek cuisine. Feel free to substitute large lima beans (or in my case, Fava Beans.)

2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 sprigs fresh parsley
1 bay leaf
5 white peppercorns
4 oz. pancetta, diced small (here, optional)
2 tblsp olive oil
2 medium carrots, diced small
2 celery stalks, diced small
1 onion, diced small
1 small fennel bulb, diced small
1 lb dried gigante beans, picked over, rinsed, soaked overnight and drained
3 c. chicken stock or canned low-sodium chicken broth
2 1/2 tsp salt
1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and diced small
1 orange bell pepper, seeded and diced small
1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced small
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/4 c. Arugula Pesto (recipe follows) for garnish

1. In the center of a piece of cheesecloth, combine the thyme, parsley, bay leaf, and peppercorns. Gather the ends together and tie securely with a piece of kitchen twine to form a sachet. Set aside.

2. In a large soup pot over medium heat, cook the pancetta in the olive oil until it is brown and crispy and has rendered most of its fat, 3-5 minutes. Remove the pancetta from the pot using a slotted spoon and transfer to a paper towel-lined plate to drain.

3. Add the carrots, celery, onion and fennel to the pot and saute until the vegetables begin to wilt and caramelize lightly, about 10 minutes. Add the beans, herb sachet, chicken stock, and enough water to cover the beans by one inch (about 4 cups). Season the beans with 1 1/2 tsp salt. Bring the beans to a boil, reduce the heat so that the broth just simmers, and cook uncovered until the beans are almost tender, about 1 hour. Add the bell peppers and pancetta and cook until the beans are tender, about 20 minutes longer. Remove the sachet from the pot and discard.

4. Season the soup with the pepper and the remaining tsp of salt.

5. Serve the soup in large bowls, garnished with a generous spoonful of the pesto, to taste. Serve with a loaf of warm, crusty bread.
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Arugula Pesto

4 oz baby arugula, washed and spun dry
1 oz fresh mint leaves (about 1 packed cup)
1/2 c grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1/2 c toasted pine nuts
1 tsp grated lemon zest
2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 c extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp salt

1. Combine the arugular, mint, parmesan, pine nuts lemon zest, and lemon juice in a food processor. Puree until smooth, then add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Process just until the olive oil is incorporated. Add the salt and pulse just to blend.

2. Transfer the pesto to an airtight container until ready to use. The pesto can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks and in the freezer for up to 6 months. Makes 1 cup.