Nothing makes for a better Sunday dinner than a delicious, slow simmered pot roast. What makes it even better is knowing that pot roast is going to be the base for a quick weeknight meal as well. Planning for leftovers, either for lunches or as additional meals, is a great way to stretch your budget and your time. The next time you are buying a chuck roast, get one just slightly larger. Once prepared, reserve the extra portion before serving so no one is tempted into seconds or thirds. Cube the leftover beef and store it in the fridge or freezer until you are ready to use it as a base for this delicious soup.

This recipe is adapted from a recipe my mother-in-law created to use up her leftover roast beef. This is a great soup for winter: warming and hearty. If you don’t have any leftover roast on hand you can also make it with precooked roast beef from the grocery store.

Beef and Mushroom Soup

• 4 tbsp butter
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 40 oz. beef broth
• 2 cups cooked roast beef, cubed
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp flour
• baguette, sliced thin
• shredded mozzarella cheese

1. Melt butter in soup pot. Add onions, garlic, and mushrooms.
2. Saute over medium high until mushrooms and onions are browned, immediately deglaze the pan with wine.
3. Scrap the bottom of the pot and add beef broth. Bring to a boil.
4. Stir in cooked roast beef and simmer.
5. In a small sauce pan melt 2 tbsp butter. Sprinkle with flour and cook, stirring frequently until flour is golden and lightly browned.
6. Stir small amounts of cooked flour into boiling soup until desired thickness.
7. Cook a few additional minutes, season with salt and pepper.
8. While soup is cooking, preheat oven to 400°F. Melt some butter in a shallow dish or plate.
9. Dip one side of each baguette slice in melted butter then place butter side up on a baking sheet.
10. Place baking sheet in oven until bread slices are golden, approximately 10 minutes.
11. Flip the slices and sprinkle with shredded mozzarella, salt and pepper.
12. Return to the oven until cheese is melted.
13. Serve soup topped with additional shredded cheese and a couple of toasts.

You can also prepare this soup and store it in individual servings in the freezer. Heated in the microwave, it makes for a great quick lunch.

I know I just told you that I like making small batches of cookies.  In fact I specifically belabored the point, stressing how boringit is to baby sit sheet after sheet of cookies. So maybe you’ll understand why I have always sucked big time at sugar cookies. I roll them too thin, the dough instantly becomes a sticky mess, and whatever shapes the kids make with their cookie cutters just smoosh together into sticky misshapen scraps of dough. Plus there’s the chilling, baking, cutting, chilling, cooling, over and over and over. 

And yet, what is more fun than decorating sugar cookies? So I endeavor onward into new cookie territory year after year. This year I am excited to report I found a great recipe that worked just right. Actually, while the recipe is very good, it really is the technique that makes all the difference. So even if your sugar cookie dough comes in a blue tube in the refrigerated aisle you can still use this technique for easy cookie cutting.

This sugar cookie recipe, from The Perfect Pantry, was great: buttery and sweet, yet sturdy enough for cutting and decorating. The technique of rolling out the dough between sheets of wax paper and then chilling them made the process so easy I didn’t even mind the waiting as tray after tray of cookies went into the oven (although, I won’t lie: there’s at least a sheet’s worth of dough wrapped in plastic in the fridge because-after four sheets-I just couldn’t do it anymore). I used my usual sugar cookie icing which is sweet and dries shiny and hard.

Sugar Cookies

• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp milk
• 2 tsp vanilla

1. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar.
3. Add the egg, milk and vanilla.
4. Mix in the dry ingredients slowly until will combined.
5. Place half the dough on a sheet of wax or parchment paper and cover with an additional sheet.
6. Rolling on top of the paper, roll out the dough until it is a uniform thickness about a 1/4 inch.
7. Transfer sheet of dough to the fridge to chill and repeat with the rest of the dough.
8. Pre-heat oven to 375°F. Once dough has chilled 30 min, take out one sheet and lay out on a counter.
9. Peel off one sheet of paper then replace it and flip the dough. Remove the top piece of paper and reserve.
10. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters or a knife. For hand print turkeys trace around a little hand with a dull knife.
11. Peel up dough scrapes then transfer shapes to baking sheet. The paper really comes in handy here because you can lift the dough by the paper and peel it off so you aren’t smooshing your shape.
12. Bake cookies for about 8 min or until edges are barely brown. Allow to cool on sheet for a min then transfer to a wire rack. Chill baking sheet.
13. Place your dough scraps back between the paper and roll out again and place back into the fridge.
14. Repeat with second chilled sheet of dough and so on and so on on until you use it all, or you get bored. Usually the latter.
15. Cool cookies completely before decorating.

To decorate you can dip the cookies, or spread the icing on with a spoon or spatula. I like to let the kids paint it on with paint brushes I use just for cookies.

Basic Glossy Sugar Cookie Icing

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp milk
• 1 tbsp light corn syrup
• 1 tsp flavor extract if desired

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl with a spoon, drizzling with corn syrup as needed to thin.
2. Separate into smaller bowls or frosting bags and add food coloring as desired.
3. Icing dries quickly and is shiny and hard.

The cookies can be frozen fully decorated and simply thawed at room temperature in a few minutes. Make it easy on yourself and make some now for holiday parties or gift giving!

In our continued quest to drink only great beer, I bring you Breckenridge Brewery’s Vanilla Porter. This beer is delicious and though it is available year round it is especially nice in the Fall: while it’s still warm enough to enjoy a cold beer yet the crispness in the air makes welcome this beer’s creaminess and notes of chocolate and vanilla. If poured, it is a beautiful dark chocolate color and smells of vanilla and roasted nuts. I don’t consider this beer especially sweet, it is still beer after all, however it does have a smoothness that I don’t taste in many porters. There is hardly a trace of bitterness; just easy drinking, deeply flavored beer with a creamy, rich mouthfeel.

What’s for dinner this week?

I love to have fresh baked cookies as an easy dessert or a special lunch box snack. Frankly, I totally heart refrigerated Pillsbury cookie dough not only for its classic chocolate chip cookie taste but for its ease and portion control. The one thing that keeps me from baking cookies all of the time is a recipe that make dozens and dozens of cookies. While they are great for the holidays or bake sales, I can’t stand baking multiple sheets of cookies. Maybe it’s adult onset ADD but after the first tray goes in the oven I lose all interest in the project. Plus having dozens and dozens of cookies around usually results in having a cookie for dessert, a cookie for a snack, a cookie for breakfast or three…

I like this basic cookie recipe. It makes “just enough,” one dozen or one baking sheet’s worth of cookies. They cookies are sweet, salty and chewy and are best when slightly under-baked (aren’t all cookies?).

Just Enough Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp large flake salt, kosher or sea salt
• 1 cup chocolate chips, whatever you like

1. Cream butter and sugar, thoroughly mix in egg and vanilla.
2. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt.
3. Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Chill dough.
5. Heat oven to 350°F.
6. Scoop dough and place walnut sized balls evenly on a baking sheet.
7. Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned and slightly under baked.
8. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet 1-2 minutes then remove to a rack.