Pappa Renny’s Thickening Roux and Broccoli Cheddar Soup

May 16, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Broccoli Cheddar Soup, papa Renny's Thickening RouxPappa Renny’s Thickening Roux is a new(ish) vendor at Atherton Market in Charlotte. I’d never seen a product like it before, so of course I had to purchase some and give it a try. It consists of solidified pieces of roux that look like beige colored dominoes. They are made from unsalted butter and organic all-purpose flour. There is also a gluten-free option that is made from brown rice flour. They need to be stored in either the refrigerator or the freezer.

Papa Renny's Thickening Roux Broccoli Cheddar SoupWith Pappa Renny’s Thickening Roux, making soup, sauce, or gravy becomes a snap. You’ll never have to worry about lumps again and having a premade roux can greatly reduce cooking time and clean up.

Pappa Renny's Thickening Roux

The uses for Pappa Renny’s Thickening Roux are virtually endless and Pappa Renny himself is a wonderful source of ideas. He normally provides a recipe each week and the week I went it was- you guessed it! Broccoli Cheddar Soup. Having the already formed roux blocks to just drop in the soup made cooking the soup so much easier. Plus it really did it’s job and the soup had a nice thick texture, but no flour taste.

Broccoli Cheddar SoupCurrently Pappa Renny’s Thickening Roux can only be purchased in the Charlotte Metro area. But who knows. Someday you may see it nationwide. Pappa Renny is at Atherton Market on Saturdays from 9am-2pm and the Thickening Roux can also be purchased at Reid’s Fine Foods on Selwyn Ave or Organic Marketplace in Gastonia, NC.

Atherton Market Pappa Renny's Thickening Roux

I altered the recipe just slightly, reducing the called for 1 tablespoon of dried thyme to 1 teaspoon. One tablespoon of thyme is a whole lot of thyme and I was worried that may have been a typo. I also reduced the red pepper flakes from 1 teaspoon to ½ teaspoon and it still had plenty of kick to it.

If you’d like to make this soup without thickening roux, I suggest adding 4 tablespoons of melted butter to the Dutch oven after adding the garlic. Once it is melted, add 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour and whisk for 1 minute. Gradually add in the chicken broth, whisking very well to avoid lumps and proceed with the rest of the recipe.

Those of you who live outside the Charlotte area, have you ever seen a product similar to Pappa Renny’s Thickening Roux?

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

  • 6 cubes Pappa Renny Thickening Roux
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • ½ cup onion, cut in a small dice
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
  • 1 (16-ounce) package frozen broccoli, thawed
  • 1 ½ cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided
  • ¼ cup light cream
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper
  1. Place a Dutch oven over medium heat and add olive oil. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes.
  2. Add garlic, thyme, and red pepper flakes and cook for 1 minute.
  3. Add chicken broth and broccoli and bring to a boil. Add thickening roux and whisk until dissolved.
  4. Adjust heat to keep a strong simmer and cook uncovered 25-30 minutes.
  5. Using either an immersion blender or regular blender, blend soup until smooth.
  6. Add cream and 1 cup of cheese and simmer an additional 5 minutes, stirring often
  7. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
  8. Serve with remaining 1/2 cup flour sprinkled on top.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Filed Under: Local Business, Recipes Tagged With: ,

Local Business: Monk’s Groovy Beans

December 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Monk's Groovy Beans Coffee

There will be no more buying coffee beans at the grocery store for me. I’ve discovered perhaps the best coffee ever and what’s even more exciting is it’s a Fort Mill based business and the beans are roasted in Charlotte. It’s called Monk’s Groovy Beans and groovy they are. Coming in a multitude of styles (light, medium, and dark roasts) there’s a brew to suit every taste.

Started by Bill Register and Clare Hawes, both Fort Mill residents and former music teachers at Nation Ford High School and Fort Mill High School, Monk’s Groovy Beans is a company still in its infancy but looks to have a great future. The business was originally started as a way to raise money for their schools’ music programs. Their desire to have a positive impact on the community and the world is pretty much the framework for the business and they are committed to supporting small farmers and taking care of Mother Earth by purchasing fair trade, organic coffee.

Participate in their monthly coffee subscription program and Monk’s will give back 30% to the nonprofit of your choosing (from a list of nonprofits that Monk’s works with). You also have the opportunity to choose the Nation Ford High School, Fort Mill High School, or Banks Trail Middle School Band as the recipient of the money.

But the real question of course is how does the coffee taste? We’ve tried two of the medium roast and two dark roast and they are all delicious. For the coffee lover, micro-roasted coffee is really the way to go. The taste of micro-roasted coffee is infinitely superior to mass-produced coffee. Monk’s Groovy beans roasts no more than 12 pounds at a time. Roasting in small batches creates a bold, heavy flavor, but with no discernible bitterness or burnt taste that is so prevalent in mass-marketed coffees.

You can tell just from the smell of the beans how much fresher and more palatable they are than beans that have been sitting on a grocery store shelf for God only knows how long.

Monk’s Groovy Beans can be purchased online at www.monksgroovybeans.com or at The Atherton Mill Market Tuesday-Saturday. Atherton Mill and Market is located in the Southend Neighborhood of Charlotte, just a short drive from Fort Mill.

And just in case you are curious, Monk is an 8 year old Boxer that Bill Register received from his students.

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Things To Do: South End Churn Off

July 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Everyone likes a bowl of ice cream. Especially on a scorching hot summer day. A spoonful of sweet, creamy ice cream is at once refreshing and comforting. It’s a food that can make you feel like a kid again.

If you have a knock your socks off recipe for homemade ice cream, you might want to think about entering the first ever South End Churn Off to take place at Atherton Market August 4, 2012. The competition is free and open to anyone, but entries must be received by email by Wednesday August 1. Recipe must be included on entry form.

Contestants must provide ingredients, utensils, ice cream makers (manual or electric) and drop cords. Ice, rock salt, tables, bowls, and spoons for tasting will be provided. Ice cream ingredients must be displayed to visitors.

Judging begins at 12pm. $150 in monetary prizes awarded to winners. Ice Cream will be judged on taste, texture, local ingredients, and uniqueness.

An application form can be found at Southendclt.com.

Atherton Market is located on South Blvd in the South End Neighborhood in Charlotte, right next to the Light Rail Tracks. The building used to be a trolley barn and has been turned into a wonderful farmers market that is open on Saturdays as well as Tuesdays from 3pm-7pm.

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Cooking Fresh Pumpkin Pasta

October 19, 2011 By 1 Comment

Last Saturday I picked up some gorgeous fresh pumpkin pasta at the Atherton Market in Charlotte. If you’ve never been to Atherton Market before, it’s a must see. It’s located in the old trolley storage building on South Blvd in the heart of the Southend. It’s a year round farmers market type place open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays – but Saturday is really the day to go. You will find the most vendors on Saturday and the people watching is pretty good too. There aren’t a huge number of vendors, but the ones who are here have really awesome products.

Atherton Market

Atherton MarketAtherton market is very dog friendly

One of the vendors, Rio Bertolini’s, sells a vast array of fresh pasta. They are located in Charleston, SC and their core business is producing fresh pasta for local restaurants, but they also sell at a few farmers markets. I had a hard time choosing a flavor, they were all so beautiful. Flavors included saffron, squid ink, roasted red pepper, beet, and chestnut.

They were doing a special- 1 lb of pasta and a container of sauce for $10. There were only 2 types of sauces, both red. I didn’t think a red sauce was the way to go with pumpkin, so I cooked up some boxed linguine for the tomato sauce. It was more kid friendly that way too. For the pumpkin pasta, I made a browned butter sauce to which I added another fantastic find at the Atherton Market, locally grown shiitake mushrooms. The pasta didn’t have as much flavor as I had hoped, but it was good. I probably should have kicked up the flavor of the sauce a little by adding a shallot – I love shallots and mushrooms together. I had wanted to add some fresh sage to the browned butter, but I couldn’t find any at the grocery store, so I had to use parsley instead – bummer! Am I the only one who experiences not finding something at the grocery store practically every time I go? Yet when the cashier does her mandatory, “DId you find everything you were looking for?”, I always paste a fake smile on my face and say “yes”.

Pumpkin Pasta with Browned Butter, Walnuts, and Shiitake Mushrooms

Atherton MarketI love it when farmers create a posterboard showcasing their business and products.

I have never seen mushrooms this beautiful. They were huge! These mushrooms were grown by Sharonview Farm in Monroe, NC.  The vendor (or vendress I should say) told me they had just harvested 200 pounds. They are sold for $10 a pound but BEWARE- you will never be satisfied with grocery store shiitakes again.

In North Carolina, shiitake mushrooms grow well on red and white oak logs, as well as sweet gum logs. Apparently they grow fairly easily and are a pretty hands-off crop to grow. It is vital however to keep log moisture content above 35% which I guess can be difficult to do in a drought.

Innoculation is done in the early spring during which holes are drilled in the logs and filled with shiitake spawn which can be ordered from several sources. The holes are then sealed with wax to prevent drying. Then it’s just a waiting game during which attempts should be made to make the environment as hospitable as possible to shiitake and as inhospitable as possible to other types of fungi.

I think I may have found a project for next year.

Do you have any experience growing mushrooms?

Filed Under: Local Farms Tagged With: , , ,

Impromtu visit to Atherton Market

September 1, 2011 By 1 Comment

I had an orthodontist appointment in Charlotte yesterday to reattach a permanent retainer I have behind my lower teeth to keep a disobedient tooth in line. Apparently I was a little too aggressive with my flossing Monday night and the glue that holds it in place was no match.

Whenever I have to go to Charlotte for something, I always try to think of something else to do while I’m there. Not that Charlotte is far. I think it’s just a habit I developed during the 7 1/2 years I lived in York. York IS far from Charlotte and every time I made a trip to Charlotte from York, I felt like the Ingall family planning a trip to Mankato.  It felt necessary to gather as many goods as possible to take back home cuz who knew when the next trip to the city would be.

So while in Charlotte, I decided to stop by this really cool place called Atherton Market that I’d heard about. It’s right on South Blvd, just a short walk from where our first house was. It’s in the building that was the Charlotte Trolley Barn. The market is open Tuesday 3pm-7pm, Wednesday 11am-7pm, and Saturday 9am-2pm. A lot of the vendors I think are only there on Saturday – but I found plenty of things to try.

I ended up buying some Bosky Acres goat cheese, some wheat berry salad from Beverly’s Gourmet Foods, and some absolutely divine desserts from Cardais Gourmet. Bosky Acres is a family owned business out of Waxhaw and I’m very interested to learn more about them. Their goat cheese is by far the best I’ve ever had – far superior to anything at the grocery store. It’s much creamier with a greater depth of flavor and well worth the $5 price for 4 ounces.

For dinner, I used the goat cheese along with some Gala Apples from Windy Hill Orchard in a chicken dish – Chicken with Apple-Goat Cheese Slaw. The hot chicken right off the grill warms the goat cheese to a tangy, creamy mass that clings to the chicken. The fresh, sweet crunch of the apple is a nice contrast to the goat cheese.

The pecan cheesecake bar from Cardais Gourmet was heavenly. It consisted of a moist Blondie layer topped with a cheesecake layer that tasted like a cross between cheesecake and frosting, very sweet. Toasted pecans topped it off.

Chicken with Apple-Goat Cheese Slaw

  • 1 apple, cut into thin strips
  • 1/2 small sweet onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tsp. minced jalapeno
  • 3 oz. goat cheese
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1/8 tsp. ground red pepper
  • 1/4 tsp. cumin
  • 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

How to Do it

  1. Preheat grill to medium-high.
  2. Mix apple, onion, oil, vinegar, and jalapeno in a bowl. Crumble goat cheese on top. Stir and place in fridge.
  3. Mix salt, black pepper, red pepper, and cumin in small bowl. Sprinkle on both sides of chicken. Grill 6-7 minutes each side, until cooked through.
  4. While still warm, top each chicken breast with apple-cheese mixture.

Yield: 4 servings

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