March 5, 2011: Chicken, Broccoli, and Black Bean Soup Recipe

Several years ago I visited a friend in San Diego with a group of women for a little weekend getaway. We were there to watch our friend, Connie, perform in a play, go shopping, eat great food, and have fun. It was a beautiful late February weekend and we spent Saturday in and around La Jolla.

At lunchtime, Connie suggested we sit on the ocean view terrace at George’s at the Cove restaurant and enjoy the sun and breeze. And so we did, drinking glasses of wine and dining on one of the restaurant’s signature dishes, Smoked Chicken, Broccoli and Black Bean Soup. We were dutifully impressed by this rich, flavorful soup and our waiter presented us each with a printed copy of the recipe (I visited their website and found that the restaurant is still in business and still providing this soup recipe to patrons).

I’ve held on to that recipe for years, never making it because I was daunted by the long list of ingredients.

I finally decided to roll up my sleeves and give this recipe a try recently and found it was not really as hard as I thought it would be to reproduce the wonderful flavors in this soup. It’s the perfect entrée for a blustery March night, served with hot, buttered biscuits or cheese wafers – and a great way to use an entire (small) head of broccoli. Here is the recipe at was written; my tips for substitutions are included afterward.

George’s at the Cove Smoked Chicken, Broccoli and Black Bean Soup

½ c. unsalted butter
½ c. diced carrots
½ c. diced onions
½ c. diced celery
1 c. broccoli stems, peeled and diced
2 t. dried thyme
2 t. dried oregano
1 t. dried sweet basil
¼ c. dry white wine
4 c. chicken stock, hot
1 T. Worcestershire sauce
½ t. Tabasco sauce
1 c. diced smoked chicken
1 c. cooked black beans
1 c. broccoli florets
2 c. heavy cream
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
2 T. cornstarch mixed with a small amount of warm water (optional)

In ¼ cup of the butter, sauté carrots, onion, celery, and broccoli stems for 5 minutes. Add the thyme, oregano and basil; sauté 5 minutes more. Add wine and deglaze pan. Add hot chicken stock and reduce by one-third (Note: this takes a good hour or so). Add Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, smoked chicken, beans and broccoli florets; simmer 5 minutes. Add cream, simmer 5 minutes more and season to taste. Thicken with cornstarch if desired. Drop in remaining butter, one tablespoon at a time, stirring until melted. Serve immediately.

Smoked Chicken:
On a covered charcoal grill or smoker, slightly smoke boneless chicken pieces, cooking to medium rare (about 30 minutes). Do not allow the grill to become too hot. Use wood chips to add flavor.

Tips and Changes: For one thing, my barbecue grill is still covered to protect it from snow so I wasn’t able to smoke my chicken. What I did was use an indoor, plug-in grill and plop two boneless, skinless thighs on it. They turned out really nice, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside – but didn’t have the signature smoky flavor this soup is supposed to have.


For the pan, I would suggest a heavy dutch oven. I used a regular stainless saucepan but it wasn’t good for deglazing.


Although the recipe calls for unsalted butter, there’s no reason you can’t use regular butter; just taste before seasoning so the soup isn’t too salty.


I’m not a big fan of thyme, so I used one teaspoon of thyme and doubled the amount of basil.


I omitted the white wine, because I didn’t have an open bottle. I just used the chicken stock.


I added the broccoli florets midway through the reduction process (keeping the broth at a low boil) so they would be softer, as my husband prefers. Black beans, drained and rinsed from a can, work perfectly fine if you don’t want to cook the dried beans ahead of time.


I did use cornstarch to thicken the soup. Even though it reduced, the broth was awfully thin. If you have the time, I would suggest reducing it further than a third – to at least by half.

March 2, 2011: Cauliflower with Linguine Recipe

Don’t you get tired of serving the same old side dishes over and over again?

I know I do. While making a special dinner for my husband recently, I combed through my recipe binder (five inches thick with pages covered on both sides with recipes!) and found a dish I’d meant to make in 1996. It came from the Butterball website and was meant to be an accompaniment to the traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner. Consequently, it serves a lot of people – but it’s easy to cut down to size. I used about a third of all the ingredients listed and it made a dish that was perfect for two diners, along with a steak and a salad. And the best thing? This side dish not only tastes good, it looks very elegant.

Cauliflower with Linguine

1 small head cauliflower, cut into florets
9 ounces fresh spinach linguine (I cheated and used dried pasta but the fresh variety would have been much better)
2 T. cooking oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 T. butter
3 T. flour
¼ t. white pepper (you can use black pepper, but the white looks nicer)
Dash nutmeg (I didn’t have any nutmeg –horrors! – so I used paprika, which worked very nicely)
2 c. light cream or half-and-half
¼ c. + 2 T. grated Parmesan cheese
¼ c. snipped fresh parsley
¼ c. cooked and crumbled bacon

Cook cauliflower in enough water to cover for 15 – 20 minutes or until just tender; drain (I used a steamer basket which allowed me to use the same pan to prepare the sauce, cutting down on the number of dishes to wash). Cook pasta according to directions, drain in a colander. Immediately toss with oil.

Meanwhile, in a 3-quart saucepan, cook the garlic in the butter for a couple minutes. Stir in the flour, salt, pepper, and nutmeg (or paprika). Add the cream all at once. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir one minute more. Stir in the cauliflower until well coated with sauce.

To assemble, toss together cooked pasta and ¼ cup of pasta (note: I had a hard time getting the cheese to stick to the noodles so I just scraped out what was left of it and sprinkled it on top of the prepared casserole). Slowly twirl a portion (or a piece if you are making a smaller quantity) of pasta onto a long-tined fork using hands as a guide to help form a nest. Push pasta off fork into a greased 2 ½ quart oval baking dish or shallow casserole. Repeat with remaining pasta, forming a circle of nests around outer rim of dish. Spoon cauliflower mixture into center of pasta ring. Sprinkle parsley, crumbled bacon, and remaining parmesan cheese on top of cauliflower mixture. Cover and bake in a 350 degree oven about 20 minutes or until heated through.

Makes 8 – 10 side dish servings.

Tip: Don’t have time to make pasta nests? Just layer the pasta into the bottom of your casserole dish and make a well in the center for the sauced cauliflower.

February 19, 2011: Red Chile Fettuccine Recipe

Being from New Mexico, I love adding chile (that's chile with an "e", as in chile peppers) to just about anything. I ran across this old recipe I clipped from The Albuquerque Journal the other day and remembered making it many years ago – and loving it! It’s more of a special occasion recipe than one you would make weekly - full of fat calories, - but well worth the extra effort and diet-busting for a once-in-a-while treat.

Tip: It’s recommended you use fresh pasta for this dish and if you are good at making your own pasta (or adventurous enough to try), go ahead and use your favorite recipe but add 2 T. red chile powder to the flour. You can also use packaged fresh fettuccine from the refrigerated case at your grocery store.

That's my cache of red chile powder in the photo there on the right. I got a bag of it last summer from the Deming, New Mexico farmer's market stand where my folks regularly shop. They were kind enough to buy extra dried red chile and share with me. I store it in a clean spice bottle so it's easy to shake or pour out.

Red Chile Fettuccine with Piñon Romano Sauce

Fresh fettuccine pasta
¼ lb. butter
¼ cup heavy (whipping) cream
½ cup freshly grated Romano cheese
½ cup shelled piñon nuts, toasted and chopped
1 T. red chile powder (not chili powder, this is powder made from dried red chiles and should be found in the Mexican food aisle of your grocery store)
1 clove garlic, minced

Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the cream slowly. Add Romano cheese, piñons, red chile powder, and garlic; beat until combined.

Add this sauce to the fettuccine immediately after cooking and draining the pasta. Toss gently until every strand is coated. Serve immediately.

Serves 4 to 6

This makes a great side dish to accompany grilled shrimp, chicken breasts or steaks and a crisp green salad – the spicy flavor shouldn’t compete with strong flavors in the other foods so keep the seasonings on the meat simple (lemon and garlic is good).