Crockpot Tomato Vegetable Soup with Tortellini

We love soup... its perfect for a quick dinner on a chilly night.
Tonight we have Cub Scouts and then basketball practice, so I wanted something hearty and filling... and also with a decent amount of protein.

This is my version of a recipe I found online

1 28oz can of whole plum tomatoes in tomato sauce
1 14oz can of tomato sauce
1 32 oz box of chicken or vegetable stock
1 small onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 heaping tbsp Italian seasoning
pinch of kosher salt
pinch of pepper
1 1/2 cups mixed vegetables (frozen carrots, green beans and corn mix)
2 big handfuls of baby spinach
1 bag of Trader Joe's Party Sized Meatballs
Parmesan cheese rind
1 package of fresh cheese toretllini

Combine all ingredients except tortellini in Crockpot.  Cook on low for 6 hours.  30 minutes before serving, add toretllini, stir and cook.  Serve.

Thai Green Curry Chicken Thighs

Again, in the pressure cooker, a quick and delicious meal!

6-8 chicken thighs (I used boneless, skinless)
1 jar Trader Joe's Thai Green Curry Simmer Sauce

Place chicken thighs in the bottom of the pressure cooker pot, pour the jar of sauce over chicken.
Set pressure cooker to 10 minutes.  Start.
When cooking is done, release pressure, open pot, serve.
We served with steamed broccoli and Trader Joe's Brown Rice (from the freezer section), the rice is precooked and heats in 3 minutes.

Really delicious!  Kids gobbled it up!

Pressure Cooker Stock!

We have been making homemade turkey and chicken stock with the new appliance.  It is so easy and delicious!
I bought a rotisserie chicken at Costco, pulled the meat off and threw the skin and bones into the pressure cooker pot with some other veggies and voila, delicious stock for soup!
The turkey carcass and bones were too much, so I split it into two batches.  Here's how it's done:

1 chicken or 1/2 turkey carcass and bones (skin too, for flavor)
3 bay leaves
1 onion, cut in quarters (no need to peel)
3 carrots, cut into 3 inch chunks
3 celery stalks, with leaves for more flavor
6 peppercorns
1 tbsp cider vinegar
12 cups water

Add all ingredients listed above to the pot, making sure to not fill the unit past the line for pressure cooking (ours allowed 12 cups of water to be added).
Set the unit to 55 minutes.  Start.

Let the unit release the pressure/steam naturally and then strain the veg and bones out of the stock.
I put the bowl of strained stock out on my screen porch to let the fat harden on the top, to skim it off easily.

Store in canning jars or double ziploc bags in the freezer.

Bahamian Grilled Red Snapper

CONSTITUENTS

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 1⁄2 tablespoons lime juice

1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced

1 scotch bonnet pepper, seeded and thinly sliced

4 fish fillets, 6-8 ounces each

salt

black pepper

DIRECTIONS

Combine oil, garlic, lime juice, ginger, and scotch bonnet in a non-reactive bowl. Add fish and turn to coat well. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour.

Light grill.

Remove fish from marinade and scrape off most of the garlic and ginger pieces. Season with salt and pepper and grill about 3 minutes on each side, or until fish is nicely browned and just cooked through.

Creamy Turkey Wild Rice Soup - Pressure Cooker Style!

I bought an electric pressure cooker for Dan and I on Cyber Monday.  It is a Secura 6 qt. Multi Cooker.  I've used it twice and so far, we love it!  On Friday night, it cooked frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts in 12 minutes.  All I added was a cup of broth and some herbs.  They were delicious.  
Let's get to the point of this, I didn't have the device to make my post Thanksgiving turkey stock, so I cooked that on the stove for 36 hours and got 7 quarts of rich and delicious stock.  The intent was to make turkey wild rice soup.  After searching the internet for what seemed like forever and not finding a recipe that used harvested wild rice (they all use Uncle Ben's Wild Rice and Long Grain Rice - ish!),  I consulted a fellow Real Housewife of Saint Paul (a local Facebook group of women) who I knew loved her pressure cooker on the method to make this concoction.  
Here is what I came up with:  

2-3 tbsp butter or olive oil
5 carrots, peeled and diced
5 stalks celery, diced
1 large onion, diced 
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup sliced almonds (I don't use these, almond allergy at our house, but are delicious)
1 1/2 cups wild rice (the dark almost black stuff, NOT Uncle Ben's), rinsed
4 sprigs fresh thyme 
8-9 cups homemade turkey stock (or chicken stock)
3 cups cut up cooked turkey (or chicken)
2 cups heavy cream
2 heaping tbsp corn starch 
salt and pepper to taste 
a couple splashes of dry sherry wine

Set pressure to saute setting, add butter or olive oil.  Once hot, add the carrots, celery, onion and garlic.  Saute for 4 minutes, stirring frequently to coat with butter and until begins to soften.  Add wild rice and almonds (if using), stir to coat with butter. 
Add the stock, bay leaf, thyme, salt and pepper. (my stock was not salted, so I added a tbsp of kosher salt and several grinds of pepper from the mill).  Be sure that your pressure cooker is not filled past the level that instructions say for safety.  For ours, it was filled to the 4/5 line.  Close the lid to the locked position and set your release valve to "pressure."  
Set the pressure cooker to 32 minutes and start.
The unit will heat up to the correct temperature, once at the correct temp and pressure level (about 5-8 minutes), the timer on the pressure cooker takes over.
The machine will beep when done.  Once cooking cycle complete, loosely cover the release valve with a kitchen towel, being sure to not have your hands in the way of the steam, and shift knob to "release."  I use a towel so that broth and condensation doesn't sputter all over the cabinets and counters.
When all the pressure is released, open the lid and set aside.   Remove thyme stems and bay leaf.  Switch the unit back to saute.  Combine 2 tbsp of corn starch with 2 cups of cream in bowl and then slowly add to the soup while stirring.  Stir constantly while the soup thickens slightly.   Turn off unit, season to taste with sherry wine, salt and pepper.
Serve hot with crusty bread or in bread bowls.  

DDQ Sauce (Deedee's BBQ Sauce)

2 C Brooks catsup
1/2 C brown sugar
Dash Allspice
Dash garlic powder
2 T vinegar

Simmer all ingredients together for 10 minutes.

Stacy's Mom's recipe.  She never bought BBQ sauce in a bottle. 

Creamy Tomato and Tortellini Soup

1/2 pound italian sausage
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
3-4 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups chicken stock
2 28oz cans plum tomatoes in juice
1 9 oz package fresh tortellini
1/2 cup heavy cream
Chopped basil
Parmesan cheese

In a soup pot, brown sausage.   Remove from pot and drain on paper towel.    To the same pot, add olive oil, onion and carrots, cook until soft.   Add garlic and stir until fragrant, stir in cup stock to deglaze pan, scraping up browned bits.   Reduce stock by half and add tomatoes.   Stir, cover and simmer until vegetables are soft, about 20 minutes.    Add remaining 1cup stock and tortellini, cooking for about 5 minutes more.  When tortellini looks done, stir in cream and chopped basil.
Serve hot with Parmesan cheese garnish.

**note: for basil, I chop basil in blender with a tbsp of olive oil when I clean out the garden at the end of the growing season.   Freeze it in an ice cube tray and pop into ziplock bag when frozen.   Fresh tasting basil all winter!