Aunt Olive's Soup

I brought this to Souper Saturday yesterday.  Aunt Olive was my Grandma's older sister.  So this recipe has made it through several generations of my family.  The way this recipe was handed down to me was that you make huge batches and bottle them.  A few years ago I experimented with it and made the recipe smaller so you could just make 1 dinner.  I will include both recipes.  It has basically the same ingredients as salsa...so you can grow the same items in your garden.  Sister Dabb has a really similar recipe (the larger canning version), but she does not put the noodles in before canning.  There are advantages to this...you could then use rice or noodles and the noodles don't take up space in your jars.  But the advantage to having the noodles already in the soup are that it makes it easier to open up and have a quick dinner.  I have listed spicy sausage to add...but you could alternately add ground beef or ground turkey or shredded or cubed chicken.  It is also good without meat.  We were brainstorming yesterday and saying it would be good with beans in it also...but I have never tried that.  Please note that the  bottling methods listed have not been approved by the Utah State Extension Office...they are just what my family has always done.

This is the bottling recipe...

1/2 bushel tomatoes

1/4 C. salt

1 C. sugar

1 tsp. pepper

9 C. macaroni (cooked and drained)

3 large bell peppers, diced

1 bunch celery, diced

5 medium onions, diced

1/2 lb. of real butter

Melt butter in large frying pan add vegetables.  Saute until light brown and fully cooked.

Peel tomatoes (can blanch if desired).  Cut into small pieces or blend in blender.

Fully cook macaroni (do not overcook).

Combine all ingredients except macaroni and boil hard for 15 minutes.  Add hot (and drained) macaroni).

Put in bottles.  Process in water bath.  Pints 20 minutes, Quarts 25 minutes.

Makes about 35 pints.

When serving, if desired, you can add any of the following: sausage, hamburger, chicken, cheese.  I also think it is too thick when I open a jar so I will blend a bottle of tomatoes and add that in.

Here is the 1 dinner recipe...

10 tomatoes peeled and blended in blender, OR 2 quarts of bottled tomatoes (with a possibility of 3 total).  If you do fresh tomatoes you may want to have 1 jar of bottled tomatoes on hand just in case it is too thick.

1 T. salt

3 T. sugar

quite a bit of pepper

2 1/2 C. macaroni (or other noodles), cooked and drained

1 bell pepper, any color

2 ribs celery, diced

1 medium yellow onion diced

2 T. oil or butter  (add more if vegetables start to stick while sauteing)

1 tube Jimmy Dean Hot Sausage (by the hot dogs)

1.  To peel the tomatoes you cna blanch them first to make it easier.

2.  Saute vegetables until lightly browned and cooked through.  

3.  Brown meat, drain if desired (I did not for Souper Saturday...but sometimes I do).

4.  Cook noodles through and drain

5.  Combine all ingredients

6.  Boil hard 15 minutes

7.  If not soupy enough when done, add blended up jar of bottled tomatoes.  And heat through.

Instead of the hot sausage you can do hamburger or chicken if desired.  And instead of noodles you can do cooked rice if desired.

If you double this recipe it will completely fill a large crockpot.

Ham Fried Rice

This is one of my family's all time favorites.  If I am ever making a weekly menu and ask "what should I make for dinner this week"...I get a unanimous resounding "Ham Fried Rice!!!"

I got the recipe from my Mom, who got it from the Pitkins who were our next door neighbors when I was growing up.

I always serve with sweet and sour sauce (which I will post separately).  Usually when I make ham fried rice  it is a meal in and of itself.

It is also delicious with Gauzas (Pot-stickers) which I did not make this night for dinner, but I will post the recipe separately.  Also great with fried chicken strips ( as in the previous post).

Cooked and cooled White rice (8 cups cooked for a huge batch)  (This is good reheated and one of the few things I will save for leftovers)
3 eggs
soy sauce (a lot)
White sugar (a lot)
1 bunch green onions
1/2 lb ham (from the refrigerated deli by the hot dogs and cheese---not from the deli itself)



You really just have to adjust the amounts of everything to your liking.  I do a really large batch because we love it.  I usually do 8 cups of cooked white rice (which is 4 cups of uncooked rice).  You can cook it in a pot, a rice cooker or a pressure cooker or however.  Make sure it is all the way cooked and not crunchy.  Then you need to let it cool the whole way.  This is the most important step.  You can spread on a jelly roll pan and put in the fridge to speed things up(if making the same day.  Or place cooked rice in a baggie or container if making with in a few days.

Scramble 3 eggs in a little oil in a frying pan.  Remove from pan and place on a small plate or in a small bowl and set aside

Use 1/2 pkg (which is 1/2 lb) of lunchmeat ham.  We have tried it with these options...chicken, cubed ham, sliced ham from the deli...and we don't like any of them as well as good old lunchmeat.  It does not have to be smoked (as pictured) and it does not have to be this brand.  Any brand will do except buddig.

Chop the ham.




Wash  one bunch of green onions.

Chop off the roots (hairy part) but leave some of the white part and chop off the tops (they tend to be dried out).  Throw roots and tops away and chop the rest.

Saute in a frying pan with a little oil (vegetable or canola are my preference).  The ham and green onions always look like they are about equal parts to me (they are not...but they kind of look like it).

Once ham shrivels a bit and the onions are cooked through remove from frying pan and place on a small plate or in a small bowl.

I have a wok, but you can use a large pan instead.  Wok's get seasoned the more you use them (like a dutch oven or cast iron).  So the more you use it the better your food will taste.

Use a little oil and a paper towel to rub off the old oil.  Whenever you get done using your wok you rub it down with oil to season and protect it.  Then before you use it you use a little oil to clean the old oil off and get it primed for using.

Place a small amount of oil (maybe 1 T) in pan.  Add fully cooled rice.  Remember the cooling is the most important part.  Reheat rice on Medium heat.  If it starts to stick turn down heat and add a little oil.

Stir occasionally.Once rice is heated through add ham and onion mixture (DO NOT ADD EGGS AT THIS TIME).

Add soy sauce and white sugar to taste.  This is the hard part to explain because it is to taste, not measured out.  This is the way I do soy sauce...I pour it on until the pan starts to sizzle (the soy sauce hitting the bottom  of the pan).  Sugar...I'm guessing start with 1/3 C. Stir those both in.  Almost every single time it needs more soy and more sugar (maybe even up to a total of 2/3 C. sugar---just guessing). The soy sauce will also turn the rice into a pretty brown color.

 It should taste really good before adding the eggs, then once you add the eggs it just puts it over the top.

This night I served it with fried chicken strips and sweet and sour sauce on top of chicken and rice.

Hawaiian Haystacks (Chinese Sundaes)

Well yesterday for our MEATLESS MONDAY we had hawaiian haystacks.

On your plate first you place chinese crunchy noodles.  Then cooked rice.  Then whatever toppings you want such as...olives, pineapple, green onions, celery, raisins, coconut, grated yellow or colby jack cheese, tomatoes, slivered or sliced almonds, etc...

I left the chicken out for my meatless monday.  But normally I add boiled chicken.  You can either cube it and have it in a little bowl for people to add on or you can mix the cooked cubes into the gravy.  You will use less chicken if you mix it into the gravy, otherwise people pile it on. But it depends...If you think you might have left over chicken then you might want to leave it on the side so you could add it in a casserole or something.  It's harder to reuse it once it's in the gravy and I have a harder time throwing out chicken than I do 33 Cent gravy.  It's up to you!!!

Top with gravy.  Either packaged chicken gravy (you know the ones that are 3 for $1) or cream of chicken soup mixed with 1 C. of milk.  For my family of 6 I need 3 of the packages for 1 meal or 2 cans of soup.

Don't worry about having all of the ingredients...just go with whatever you have.  My kids like to microwave theirs once it is on the plate to melt the cheese.  Of course then they have to put it in the freezer to cool it down...SILLY KIDS!!!

I always make double the rice so I can make ham fried rice later in the week....YUM!!!