After Dinner Thoughts

My, my, my - oatmeal soup is Very Good! I combined two recipes - the one I shared and another one I found online.




Here are the ingredients I ended up with:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
10 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 medium onion, diced
garlic cloves, minced (I used 6 medium sized cloves)
Can diced tomatoes
Can tomato sauce
Old fashioned rolled oats (1 cup toasted, about 1/2 cup straight from the container)
64 ounces vegetable broth
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 fresh lime, juiced
salt and pepper
Parsley for garnish
And then I followed the directions from the recipe I linked from the St Louis Post Dispatch newspaper.

We LOVED it! All of us - Mom, Dad, Michael, and me. In fact, Michael and I had it for dinner tonight too. There is only a little bit left, so I will take it to work for lunch tomorrow. Very low calorie, nice amount of fiber, and low fat. Don't skip the lime juice - it really makes this soup have a nice zing.

We also had a loaf of sourdough bread, warmed, and Mom made chocolate cupcakes. All in all a very tasty dinner. We will definitely have this soup again. The oatmeal ends up making the soup taste similar to a barley soup - and it kind of ends up having the same kind of consistency.

Annette asked for the recipe my Mom used to make her upside down apple pie last week. It is from the Better Homes and Gardens Encyclopedia of Cooking, Volume 1 (1973), page 87. In the version Mom made last weekend, she used two cans of caramel apple pie filling in place of everything except the pie crust ingredients (she used the butter, the pecans, the brown sugar, and the crusts).

The recipe is called "Topsy-Turvy Apple Pie." Here it is:
1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup pecan halves
1/2 cup brown sugar
2-crust 9-inch pie pastry
5 large tart apples, peeled, cored, and sliced (about 6 cups)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Dash of salt

Spread butter evenly on bottom and sides of 9-inch pie plate. Press nuts, rounded side down, into butter on bottom of pie plate. Pat brown sugar evenly over nuts. Place 1 pie crust pastry over sugar.

Sprinkle apples with lemon juice. Combine flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and dash of salt; toss with apples. Turn into pie plate; spread evenly to keep top level. Top with remaining pie crust. Pinch to seal. Prick top of pie with fork. Bake at 400 degrees for 50 minutes.

Remove from oven; cool 5 minutes. Place serving plate on top of pie, invert. Carefully remove pie plate. Serve warm or cool.

Tip: put a cooking sheet on bottom oven rack to catch any juices (and keep clean up easy).