Perfect Potato Soup

As soon as cool weather hits, I start thinking soup.  It’s easy, warm, and filling.  I didn’t actually make this batch for us, but for some neighbors who recently had a baby (welcome Carter!).  This makes a massive batch and is easily frozen, so it makes a GREAT food to take to others.

Ingredients:

• 5 pounds russet potatoes
• 2 sweet onions
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 2 cups water
• 1 can evaporated skim milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tsps parsley

Directions:

1. Peel and rough chop your potatoes.
2. Peel and rough chop your onions.
3. Add potatoes and onions to a large stock pot with the chicken stock and water.
4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cover, cooking on medium low for about half an hour or until potatoes start to break down.
5. Using a potato masher, break up the big chunks and cook for another 15 minutes.
6. Remove from heat.
7. Add the evaporated milk, parsley, salt, and pepper.
8. Using an immersion blender, CAREFULLY blend until smooth.
9. Serve with your choice of toppings (bacon, cheese, sour cream, chives).

Printable version.

Mix It Up Monday: Sausage, Pepper, and Cannellini Bean Stew

I decided to make an effort to start incorporating a few meals a week that are not carb heavy.  This is a challenge for my meat and potatoes self.  I have a hard time thinking of meals that don’t include pasta, rice, potatoes, or a bread, so I turned to Kalyn’s Kitchen, where I always found fabulous options for South Beach friendly meals back when I was trying that.  This stew was filling and totally delicious (although hubs said it would be better with a grilled cheese, as that is a legal requirement for soup).  I didn’t bother calculating the nutrition info, but it uses turkey sausage and a metric ton of veggies, so it can’t be bad.  Serves 4.

Gluten Free Friday: Balsamic Pork Chops with Burst Tomatoes

I usually try to feature gluten free recipes on Friday that are adaptations of stuff that’s usually not gluten free.  This dish is not one of those.  It’s a straight up normal kind of dish that happens to be gluten free.  It was DEAD EASY and FAST for a weeknight dinner–and as I have had an off week where my menu planning went out the window, it’s what we’ve got.  Serves 2.

Ingredients:

• 2 boneless pork chops, about 6 ounces each
• 2 tablespoons good balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2-3 cloves minced garlic
• salt
• pepper
• 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning (divided)
• 1 pint grape tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 teaspoons honey

Directions:

1. One to two hours before you’re ready to cook the pork chops, mix the balsamic, garlic, and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil together in a ziplock bag and pop those chops in to marinate.
2. When you’re ready to cook, pull them out and sprinkle both sides with salt, pepper, and 1 teaspoon of the Italian seasoning.
3. Meanwhile, crank your oven to 450.
4. Spray a glass baking dish with cooking spray.
5. Toss the tomatoes with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil, the honey, and the last teaspoon of Italian seasoning.
6. When the oven is preheated, pour the tomatoes into the baking dish and pop them in.  Set the timer for approximately 12 minutes.
7. Heat a skillet over medium to medium high heat.
8. Cook the chops, about 6 minutes a side or until no longer pink in the middle.  Be sure to watch them, as you don’t want them to burn!!!
9. The tomatoes are ready when they have just begun to burst and get wrinkly on the skin.
10. Plate the chops and cover with the tomatoes and the juices from the baking dish.
11. Voila!  Dinner on the table in 15 minutes of actual prep time!

Printable version.

Beef, Bean, and Mushroom Soup

The weather’s cooling off (well, dropping to cool evenings and low 80s during the day—we call that cool in Mississippi) and that means SOUP.  Crock pot soups make a marvelous means of cleaning out the pantry dish.  I had some beef stew in the freezer that needed using and…after that it was pulling stuff out of the back of the pantry and saying “this looks good” and tossing it in the pot.  The end result was a shockingly flavorful soup that was a big hit with hubs.  It’s high in fiber, high in protein, and low in fat.  A winner.  Makes 4 enormous servings at  430 calories and 7.6g of fat.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbs oil (olive, canola, or bacon grease)
• 1.5 lb beef stew meat
• 1/4 cup dried navy beans
• 1/4 cup dried northern beans
• 1/4 cup dried pinto beans
• 1/4 cup dried red beans
• 1 onion chopped
• 4 cups beef broth
• 4 ounces dry red wine
• 1/2 cup roasted red peppers, diced
• 1 tbs minced garlic
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 2 cans sliced mushrooms
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes

 

Directions:

1. The night before you plan to cook this, put your beans in a large bowl of water to soak (or follow the quick soak instructions on the bag).

2. On cooking day, season up your meat generously with salt and pepper, and sear off in the oil over medium high heat.  You can use any oil, but I totally had leftover bacon grease and I swear it added an extra layer of flavor.

3. Add the beef, beans, beef stock, tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, red pepper flakes, and wine.

4. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

5. In the last hour or so of cooking, add the mushrooms.

6. Serve up with your favorite crusty bread or a grilled cheese.

Printable version.

Mix It Up Monday: Gluten Free Sandwich Bread

When you go gluten free, of course the biggest thing you crave are all the things you aren’t supposed to have.  That includes good sandwich bread.  We’ve tried a handful of recipes with varying degrees of success.  Most were okay for regular sandwiches, but were epic epic fail for grilled cheeses (which, IMO, constitute their own food group as a go to meal).  So I’ve been on a bit of a crusade.  And this weekend, at long long last, after an endless and arduous (okay, not really) two year search, I had the good sense to try the sandwich bread from The Art of Gluten Free Baking.  Jeanne is fabulous and so is this bread.  See this?  THIS is a perfect, roasty toasty, ooey gooey grilled cheese.  Yes, I know, it looks like a waffle.  Because I make my grilled cheeses on the waffle iron (it’s how my granddaddy did it for me as a kid).  You should try it some time.  Faster and no flipping required.

ALL HAIL JEANNE!

NOM!

 

The only change that I made was to use water for the milk and add the requisite amount of powdered milk to the recipe.  Oh, and I added an extra 5 minutes bake time because the first time I made this, the middle was still a little doughy.  That’s it.  FABULOUS.  Highly recommended.

Creamy, Meaty Baked Ziti

We had people over for supper this past weekend, and I’d planned to make my Extra Meaty Baked Ziti.  Well, this is what I get for not checking my ingredients before I went to the grocery.  I didn’t have the cottage cheese or fresh mozzarella.  Rather than change the menu entirely, I just opted to make some variations and see what I could do to marry the meaty ziti my husband loves with the uber decadent baked ziti that is my favorite.    The end result was a marvelous mix of the two that everyone agreed was a keeper.  Serves 8 at 575 calories and 33 grams of fat.  I recommend pairing with a nice side salad and a dry red wine.  Unfortunately we were so focused on the actual eating, I forgot to snap a pic.  But trust me, it’s tasty.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground beef, cooked and drained
• 1 pound turkey breakfast sausage cooked
• 8 ounces mushrooms sliced
• 4 ounces sliced black olives, drained
• 24 ounces arrabiata sauce
• 14.5 ounces diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup roasted red peppers,diced
• 8 ounces gluten free pasta
• 3/4 cup light sour Cream
• 3/4 cup Greek yogurt, non-fat
• 3 tbs tomato paste
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 8 ounces shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cook pasta according to package directions, less 2-3 minutes.  It’s going to cook more in the casserole itself.

3. Brown the ground beef.

4. Drain and rinse.

5. Brown the sausage.

6. As the sausage is cooking, add the chopped mushrooms and cook until softened.

7. Add the ground beef back in.

8. Turn off the heat.

9. Add the olives, the can of tomatoes (undrained), the arrabiata sauce, the roasted red peppers, tomato paste, oregano, salt, red pepper flakes and mix thoroughly.

10. Add the pasta and mix until well incorporated.

11. Spray a 9×13 baking dish with cooking spray.

12. Pour half the pasta mixture into the dish.

13. Mix the yogurt and sour cream until well combined and spread half of it over the layer in the baking dish.

14. Add half the mozzarella.

15. Pour remaining pasta into baking dish and repeat sour cream and cheese layer.

16. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.

17. Remove the foil and bake for another 15 minutes, until cheese is melty.

Printable version.

Mix It Up Monday: Chicken Caccitore

Chicken caccitore is one of those dishes that most people have heard of and don’t actually know what it is.  I’ve never actually had it, but had it pop into my head when I was doing my menu planning for the week, so I started prowling around on Food Blog Search to see what other food bloggers had done.   Chicken caccitore is an Italian dish that basically translates into Hunter’s Chicken.  Why it’s called that, I have no idea since you wouldn’t hunt a chicken.  I postulate that the original dish was made probably with something like rabbit or pheasant or something you’d actually hunt, then was adapted for use with more readily available chicken when people stopped acquiring their meats by hunting.  In any event, it’s a very simple braised chicken with tomatoes and herbs.  Some versions have capers, but I am NOT a fan, so I opted to try one that didn’t utilize them.  This version by The Shiksa In The Kitchen was super easy and already had notations for conversion if you’re gluten free.  The only real change I made was to use boneless, skinless chicken breasts, as that’s what I had on hand.  Delicious.