Vegetable Soup

Thanks to Pinterest, my family is eating very well (not that we weren't before) thanks to all the amazing recipes to try! So many recipes, and so little time...

I know that my picture taking skills make you want to run out and try this recipe asap, but let me tell you, although it might not look that good, this is the BEST veggie soup I have tried! I found it on the blog Butterfly Food, her recipes are delicious, and although her pics don't quite compare to mine, she *is* is a pretty good photographer. (insert giggle here)

I did add a few things here, I added homemade chicken stock along with the water (I just eye balled it), quinoa (because it's so healthy for you, and it doesn't have much of a taste for the kids to whine about), and sweet potatoes. I left out the pasta, as we have some gluten-ey type of

intolerances in this house (along with breads, pastas, raw fruits/veggies, dairy...*sigh*...). Brad and the girls really loved, so it will be a keeper for us!

Creamy Broccoli Chowder and Panini's

So if you haven't found Pinterest yet, you must click now, and see what you are missing! You will find everything from recipes to crafts to fashion to books. Literally anything you would be interested in, you will find here. Ok, so you might blindly lose a few hours of your day surfing Pinterest, but hey, you're learning something, right??!!

So, part of my New Years goal is to try new recipes most nights of the week. I have always loved trying new recipes, but the last few months I started getting into a rut, which meant a bit more eating out. So far (alright so it's only January 10th) I have done quite well and found some amazing blogs and recipes!

Last night I made Linda's recipe for Creamy Broccoli Chowder and what a hit it was! Very simple to whip up, and an all around yummy comfort soup for winter.

Creamy Broccoli Chowder

3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 sweet onion, diced
2 carrots, shredded
4 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
3 cups milk ( I used skim)
One 15-ounce can chicken broth
5-6 cups chopped broccoli
1 1/2 cups reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese (optional)

In a large pot heat oil and butter over medium-low. Add onion and carrots and let simmer 15 minutes. Add flour, nutmeg, salt, and black pepper. Stir in milk, chicken broth, and broccoli. Simmer over low heat for about 1-1/1/2 hours, stirring frequently. Add cheese just before serving, if using. Makes approx 10 1-cup servings.

Next up was making panini's. We love panini's here, and I'm always on the look out for yummy mayo recipes to slather the inside of the panini, and I found one on This Week for Dinner for Garlic Basil Mayo. It was UH-MAZING. I just used regular bread (next time I will make a loaf, the regular sandwich bread was very thin), deli turkey, spinach, tomatoes and cheese. We make our panini's on a George Foreman Grill which works perfect!

Garlic Basil Mayo

Mayo

Garlic clove

Basil -fresh is best, but all I had was dried

salt and pepper

Just eyeball the amount you need, let it sit in the fridge for a couple hours to blend ingredients.

Nothing better than a hot bowl of creamy soup and a grilled sandwich on a cold winter's night. Or an almost 40 degree Minnesota night. Crazy, right? Minnesota. 40 degrees. January

Cauliflower Potato Cheese Soup

This is a FABULOUS comforting fall soup. I made it last week, and literally ate it every day for lunch. The kids didn't believe there wasn't squash in it (they have discovered my sneaky ways of adding squash to things...), and actually liked it!

Cauliflower Potato Cheese Soup

2-4 Tbl oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
1 large can or carton chicken stock
1 pkg frozen or one small head chopped cauliflower
2 ounces peeled garlic (I used 2 cloves of garlic)
6 small potatoes, chopped I used leftover mashed potatoes from the night before)
1 cup milk
1 cup shredded cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese
salt and pepper

Heat oil and saute onion, celery, and carrots until softened.
Add chicken stock, cauliflower, garlic and cook until soft.
Liquefy in blender or food processor and return to pan.
Add potatoes
When potatoes are cooked, add milk, cheese and salt/pepper to taste.
Heat thoroughly but do NOT boil.

Homemade Chicken Stock

Saturday Evening the girls and I were alone for the night as hubby was out with guys seeing Larry The Cable Guy live (unfortunately not a fun even t for him, he fell asleep, lol!). As we had to make a trip to the grocery store, I figured we I would pick up a rotisserie chicken from the deli, those are always sooooo yummy! So, for supper we had smoothies, chicken and jello (my what a combination!). I was just about ready to throw the carcass away when my bloggy brain screamed STOP!!! Umm, hello?? Make stock with this, silly woman. So I did. First time I have ever made my own stock.

It was crazy easy to do. I filled up my stock pot half full of water, then added the carcass, chopped up carrots, celery, onions, fresh parsley, salt, pepper, minced garlic and two bay leaves. I brought all this to boiling, and then let it simmer for about 4-5 hours.

I ended up getting 8 bags with two cups of stock in each to freeze. I was really amazed at the difference in flavor from good ole Swanson's Chicken Broth! Next recipe to come is Chicken Pot Pie with our homemade stock, delish!!!

Blessings,

Beef Stew

I have tried many, many different recipes for beef stew and I FINALLY found one that is what I have been looking for. Stew needs to be thick, and saucy, and full of yummy flavorful goodness. I made this tonight with a loaf of crusty homemade bread.

Beef Stew

3lbs. stew meat (I used round steak)
1/4 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
3 Tbl olive oil
3 Tbl Worcestershire sauce
1 lb carrots peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces
4 large potatoes cubed
1 Tbl dried parsley
1 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
2 C boiling water
2 envelopes onion soup mix
3 Tbl butter
3 lg onions quartered
2 Tbl minced garlic
1/2 C Marsala wine (or beef broth)
2 pkgs button mushrooms sliced
1/4 C warm water
3 Tbl cornstarch

Toss the beef, flour, salt and garlic powder in a sealable bag until beef is coated. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Combine beef and Worcestershire in the skillet; cook until beef is browned on all sides; transfer to a slow cooker but do not clean the skillet. Add potatoes, carrots, parsley and pepper to the slow cooker.

Combine the boiling water and onion soup mix, add to the slow cooker. Melt butter in skillet, and cook onions and garlic until soft, add to slow cooker; Add wine and mushrooms to the skillet, cook until mushrooms absorb the wine, pour into slow cooker.

Cook on low 6-8 hours. Combine 1/4 C warm water and cornstarch, whisk together and add to slow cooker to thicken mixture up.

This is a little more work that other recipes I've tried, but believe me, it's worth it!!

Linking up to:

Tasty Tuesdays

Tempt My Tummy Tuesday

Crockpot Wednesdays

Tuesdays at the Table

Chicken and Squash Soup

This fabulous soup is from my Taste of Home magazine (shocker!). Brad wasn't too sure about it, as he isn't much for veggies, lol. He ended up loving it, and the girls liked it a lot too. I made it last night for supper, along with the Dilly Chicken sandwiches. Although, I had no dill for the sandwiches, so I used Thyme instead, I think I liked it better!!!

Chicken and Squash Soup

1 broiler/fryer chicken (4 pounds) cut up

13 cups water

5 pounds butternut squash, peeled and cubed (about 10 cups)

1 1/4 pounds fresh kale, chopped

6 medium carrots

2 large onions, chopped

3 tsp salt

Place chicken and water in soup kettle. bring to a boil. reduce heat; cover and simmer 1 hour or until chicken is tender.

Remove chicken from broth. Strain broth and skim fat. Return broth to pan; add the squash, kale, carrots and onions. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 25-30 minutes or until veggies are tender.

When chicken is cool enough to handle, remove meat from bones and cut into bite-size pieces. Discard bones and skin. Add chicken and salt to soup; heat through.

14 servings

Linking up to Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays
Crockpot Wednesdays
Tasty Tuedays

Rainy Tuesday!

Hah! I get kind of tired having to come up with a title for every post, lol! But it really is a rainy day. It started late last night and has been raining off and on since. A nice day for candles:)

Last night I made a big crockpot of chili for the Vikings game and a loaf of bread. The girls wanted grilled cheese, so we had that too. The chili recipe is sooooo yummy, given to me by my SIL, here it is:

1 lb ground beef browned with onions and green peppers
1 large can Bush's Baked Beans
1 can kidney beans
1 jar salsa (I happened to have a jar of homemade salsa from a co worker of Brad's)
1 can diced tomatoes (I used a jar of the diced tomatoes I canned on Sunday)
6 cooked bacon strips- chopped
1 packet McCormick Mild Chili Seasoning

That's it, put it all in the crockpot and let it simmer all day. It's the best chili!

For lunch on Monday I made a corn and ham bake for lunch, and it turned out quite good! I just used the Bisquick recipe for their Chicken Pot Pie, but instead of the chicken and bag of frozen veggies, I substituted corn and ham. The kids ate every bite, and so did Brad, who hates anything with Bisquick! Today for lunch I made Beef Stroganoff which is just browned hamburger, 1 can Cream of Mushroom soup, some sour cream, and cooked egg noodles. Another popular lunch! I think tomorrow is going to be sandwiches and baked potato wedges. I add the potato wedges to a ziploc bag with parmesan cheese, a bit of garlic powder and some pepper and bake until crispy.

Emma and I also made chocolate chip cookies today. I've only had *ahem* 6. Ugh, I have no will power for them. None. It's terrible. I will suffer for a couple days, but they are sooo worth it! One of my next cooking goals is to make homemade yogurt. I have some recipes tagged that I would like to try, I'm just not sure when I will do it. I think it would be so yummy to at least try it, although it might really suck, I don't know.

And as if I don't have enough going on in my life, I am again going to try NaNoWriMo. For those of you that don't know, November is National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel within the month of November. You don't win anything monetary, it's basically just an accomplishment for yourself. After never having written a thing in my life, I decided to do this last year, and finished in 20 days!! I love the novel I wrote, and I think I'm going to expand on that one this year. I started plotting and planning today, to gear up for Nov. So, I might not be so posty in November!! Plus, I was promoted to a Moderator on MotheringDotCommune which is an online community based on the Mothering magazine, which is a natural family living magazine. This is quite an honor for me, being that we have over 100,000 members from all over the world! The training right now is pretty intense, but I will soon get the hang of that too.

Alright, I am off to enjoy a lovely glass of Rosemount Shiraz and watch the debates, argh....