Fall Favorites

I am a sucker for the right food at the right time. There are certain foods which would just be out of place in another month or another season. In the fall, I think harvest time..apples, pumpkins, corn on the cob, etc. Yesterday I was in luck. Since Heather is making Madelyn baby food, we had some left over Gala apples from the bag she bought. They were starting to go bad and needed eaten, so I whipped up some apple dumplings for the family. After an hour of baking, these delicious treats, which to me epitomize Fall Foods, were great. As is done in my family, we poured milk over the dumplings and devoured them. :-) If you would like, I can share the fairly easy recipe with you all.



Other fall favorites in our household include pumpkin roll and sweet potato casserole. I think that really fall is the yummiest time of year. :-)

Delicious tortilla soup..

I love Max and Erma's tortilla soup. Unfortunately, there is no Max and Erma's around this area in North Carolina. So, I searched on the web and eventually found this recipe that is supposed to mimic its recipe. I copied it without saving the reference to see who made the recipe....but it was delicious and so I thought I would share. For us, it was a bit salty and fattening. So, next we will try to use some of the more healthy request soups, lower in fat and sodium.

Here is the recipe. All said and done, it cost about $25 to make and we had over 10 bowls.

2 cans Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup
2 cans Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup
2 cans Campbell's Cream of Celery soup
2 cans Campbell's Cheddar Cheese soup
2 (15 ounce) cans chicken broth
1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 cup Pace medium picante salsa
1 (4.5 ounce) can Ortega green chiles
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 teaspoon red chile powder, more or less to your taste
Salt and pepper to your taste
1/4 cup fresh, chopped cilantro
4 cooked chicken breasts, cut into
small chunks
1 package flour tortillas
1/2 pound longhorn style Colby cheese

In a large stockpot combine and whisk together until smooth all eight cans of soup. Add chicken broth. Add tomatoes, salsa, green chiles, onion, garlic, chili powder, salt and pepper.

Bring all ingredients to a full boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 1 hour.

Add cilantro and chicken breast chunks. Simmer another hour.

While soup is simmering, make your soup toppings: Cut flour tortillas into small thin strips and deep fry in hot oil until lightly browned.

Shred cheese.

To serve: Ladle soup into bowls, top with shredded cheese and fried tortilla strips. I double this recipe and use a 12-quart stockpot. Enjoy!

The big three lunch spots

Its no secret that Heather and I love the neighborhood we live in. Heather has written about it many times. I love it. We don't think we will want to move away from this area. In our neighborhood, Heather and I have 3 lunch spots that we love and often visit. Here is a google map of the area..


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First there is Bella Italia. Great pizza, calzones and strombolis...and great homemade style italian for dinner.

Next there is Taza Grill which is a great Mediterranean food. The one downfall here is they don't have a great kid's menu.

Finally, there is Andy's which has great burgers and cheesesteaks.

All of these are within one mile and walkable from our home..we love it!

In the past couple months, a sushi restaurant and NY deli have opened up in Falls River Town Center where all the other restaurants are. We need to get around to trying them too :-) But, if you are in this area, we highly recommend all of these places.

Gaucho Restaurants in London

This past week I took a 5 day vacation with my brother-in-law Kevin to London during his Spring Break. We had a great time. The most significant and amazing thing to me was this meal I had at Gaucho Restaurants. Gaucho is an Argentinian Restaurant. We went to the one around the corner from our hotel, Le Meridien Piccadilly to the Gaucho Piccadilly. We found this restaurant thanks to the Frommer's London Day by Day guide who listed this as the best beef and was a very close restaurant to our hotel.

Unfortunately, we didn't have reservations but thanks to the fact we came on a Monday night and early for those in the UK (7 PM), we were welcomed in to sit right next to the main cook and watch him behind the glass. It may sound like an ideal seat until you realize how hot it was. The cuts of beef were fabulous and watching this guy cook 20-30 steaks/filets at a time with fish, chicken, and lamb was amazing. I ordered the Bife de Lomo, which was their tender filet. I ordered a 400g medium, my standard when not knowing what to expect and since I was having trouble figuring out the sizes combined with a hunger from walking nearly 10 miles in 2 days plus only eating a ham and cheese sandwich since breakfast. Needless to say now that I can do the conversion, it was the biggest filet I ever had. I watched the chef cook my steak, very slowly as all of their steaks are cooked. It was amazing to watch him manage so many steaks and doing them to order purely by feel, no temperature taking here.

When I got the steak, I cut into it and saw that it was very red. By looks alone, it was definitely a medium rare if not rare. But, I then noticed there was no blood coming out...my plate was clean. I tried a bite and the steak melted in my mouth, no chewiness for it being so red, and it was warm throughout. The steak was marvelous, I enjoyed bite by bite but unfortunately could not finish it all as it was enormous. Both Kevin and I were amazed at the steaks, the flavor and perfection, and were both sure that this was the best steak either of us have ever had.

The one thing that lacked was the service...the people never really came by often. We think it was the worst service we had in our 5 days in London. Typically, we Americans are treated well since we tip well. But our waiter came over maybe twice our whole meal. As a matter of fact, they left us sitting there so long that we ended up getting hungry enough for dessert. I had the Banana Tres Leches and Kevin had the Chocolate Truffle Cake. Both were delicious although the Chocolate Truffle Cake came with a "créme fraiche" which Kevin and I thought was whipped cream on the plate...but turned out to be sour cream.