This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support. One tradition that we have for Christmas Eve is to keep our meal simple. We generally have a couple of kinds of soup. I shared a post about this here. Soup is such a warm hug type of food, or comfort food in other words. Recently we had a women's Christmas Dinner and Program at our church. I am on the planning committee for these activities and our committee decided to have a buffet of soups for the dinner. If you haven't ever been to a soup buffet, I also wrote a post about that on this post. We had about 9 different kinds of delicious soup and the night was wonderful! My contribution to the buffer that night was two kinds of soup. One was the ever popular Taco Soup, with toppings of tortilla chips, sour cream and cheese. The other was this Salmon Shrimp Bisque that I came up with as an alternative to the much more expensive Lobster Bisque. Whenever I come up with a new recipe and try it on people, I am always a nervous wreck. What a relief when I discovered that this soup was practically all gone by the end of the night! Whew! I actually made this soup in my Instant Pot. I was able to sauté the veggies in it and then after everything was mixed together, I used the Instant Pot as a Crock Pot to simmer the soup in until it was time to serve it! One pot equals less mess and I love that. Not only that, with the lid on the Instant Pot, transporting the soup was an easy task. No spills! If you don't have an Instant Pot, you can always use your Crock Pot and simply start the vegetables in a skillet on the stove. I haven't decided if I'm going to make the switch from clam chowder this year and go with this bisque or stick with tradition. My son is also doing a duck for Christmas Eve this year, so things are going to be a bit different than the norm. That's okay though, as long as we keep the reason for the season in mind and spend it with as many loved ones as we can, I know that it will be a great Christmas. So, if you want to try this Salmon Shrimp Bisque for the holidays, or anytime, here is the recipe! Click on it for the PDF.
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When I started canning my pears last week, my son mentioned that a pear sauce, like apple sauce, might be a good idea. He also recalled this recipe when I canned apple slices with Red Hots. I started thinking about that and decided it might be delicious to make a combination of those two ideas with my pears!
I have made apple butter and pear butter in my crockpot, and I thought that might be a great idea for this Pear Sauce. I also decided that adding some dried cranberries (Craisins) to the mix might be a great little burst of flavor. I was right! I first rehydrated my cranberries with water and reserved a little of the water to add juice to the sauce. I later thought that I could have used apple juice to rehydrate them and that would have been a good idea as well. (If you try it, let me know how it goes.)
This recipe doesn't take a lot of sugar. My pears were nice and ripe and sweet. Plus, the Red Hots add sugar as well as the cinnamon flavor. The pumpkin pie spice also adds cinnamon and other spices contained therein, such as ginger, nutmeg and cloves. The aroma in the house while the sauce was cooking was heavenly.
I canned mine into 4 12 oz and 1 pint jar, which left enough for my husband and I to enjoy some while it was still warm! It was a rainy day, so the mixture of watching the rain and enjoying this warm, Spicy Craisin Pear Sauce really made it feel like Fall for a moment. (The next day our temperatures were back over 100 degrees!)
I've been trying out a steam canner that my friends Anita and Rhonda have been using and it was fantastic to use. It uses a lot less water, heats up to temperature sooner and is so easy to use. This sauce in these smaller jars stayed in for 20 minutes. Everything sealed and I am so pleased with the results. I hope that you enjoy this recipe as well!
More Pear Recipes:
**This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. But, all opinions expressed are my own. Fall is right around the corner and I couldn't be happier! We don't get a lot of the crisp Fall weather in Phoenix, but I am ready for cooler temperatures and the chance to wear sweaters! I'm also in love with the comfort food that comes with Fall days that make you just want to cozy up and savor a meal at home!
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support. When I was growing up, sometimes on cold evenings, my mom would turn on the oven and make this incredible, tasty dish called "Surprise Fudge Pudding". I loved it because it had this wonderful fudgy sauce with a super moist cake and it was a surprise! I love surprises! It is a surprise because when you put the cake together, the cake batter goes on the bottom and the fudge ingredients go on the top in a powdered form. You add boiling hot water and stick the whole thing in the over and when it is finished, the fudge sauce is on the bottom and the cake is on the top! Magic! Well, I was thinking about this dish the other night because it has been a little cooler in the evenings. (Just under 80 degrees, that is cool for Phoenix). In the daytime, it is still hitting 100. But the idea of this recipe caught hold of me and I wondered if I could do it in the Crock-pot? Guess what! I could and I did! Here is how I did it. First, I sprayed my Crock-pot for easy clean-up! I preheated the pot to the low setting. Then I mixed up the batter (I will post the recipe below). Click on the pictures here to see what I am doing. I let it cook for 1 and 1./2 hours. In the regular oven, it cooks for 40 min. The top will still be moist, but the mixture will be set. Things in the Crock-pot won't really brown remember. I got so excited about the pictures, I almost forgot to give you the recipe! Here it is, I will give you both oven and Crock-pot versions. Surprise Fudge Pudding Spray the inside of the crock and preheat to the low setting while you mix the batter. Cream 1/4 c. butter and 3/4 c. sugar in a mixing bowl. In a different bowl, sift together 1 and 1/2 c. flour, 2 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt. Add this to the butter mixture a little at a time alternately with 3/4 c. milk. Add 1 tsp. vanilla. You may also add 3/4 c. chopped nuts to the batter, but I never do that. I don't remember my mom doing that either. Spread this batter, which will be quite thick, into the bottom of your Crock-Pot. Blend together 1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder, 1/4 tsp. salt and 1 and 1/2 c. packed brown sugar. Sprinkle over the top of the batter. Pour 1 c. boiling water over all of this. Put on the lid of the Crock-Pot and let bake for approx. 1 and 1/2 hours. (I checked it after 40 min., then after 30 more and then gave it about 20 to 30 more min. and decided it seemed done, and it was perfect. Depending on the size of your pot, times may vary.) If baking in the oven, put into a 13 x 9 baking dish and bake for 40 min. at 375 degrees F. Serve topped with ice cream while warm! Serves 6 There is a little bit of this left in the fridge from last night. It is starting to look like breakfast this morning! :) |
Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
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Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
March 2024
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