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By Emily, January 11, 2010 5:25 am

So…work is still kicking my butt.  I started a new (full time, rest of the year!) teaching job last  Monday and I had this fantasy that I was going to have more time for me (aka this blog, the gym, cooking cool recipes, hanging out with Brian, etc) than I did with my last position.  Keyword being fantasy.  I’m still getting my bearings and getting settled in the new job, so, posting schedule still sucks :)

Nevertheless, I’m chipping away at my New Years Resolutions.  Here I am, posting (again!).  Tuesday and Saturday we went to the gym (must be the beginning of January–that place was busy!)  And last Sunday I made soup –and biscuits, which fall under the category of “learning to make things I normally buy”.

The soup was really satisfying.  It’s really thick and using fresh produce made it even better.  Minestrone is one of those soups that’s easy to alter and update based on what you’ve got in the fridge…this is what I had or remembered to buy and it turned out great.  You know you need another soup recipe :)

Sticking with the above and previously mentioned goal of learning to make things instead of buying pre-made processed foods, I made biscuits to go with the soup.  In short: easy, fast, and really, really delicious.  We may never eat sliced bread with soup again.

Dill, Red onion and Cheese Drop Biscuits
from Everybody Likes Sandwiches
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup red onions, finely diced
1 Tablespoon dried dill
a hearty grind of black pepper
a large handful of old cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk or milk with 1 Tablespoon vinegar or yogurt with a bit of milk mixed in

1. Preheat oven to 450F.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, red onions, dill, black pepper and cheese.
3. Stir in the milk and oil and mix lightly until combined.
4. Using a tablespoon, drop blobs of dough on a parchment covered or silpat lined cookie sheet. Bake for 12 – 14 minutes or until lightly golden. Makes about 6 – 9 (really delicious) biscuits.
5. Enjoy!

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By Emily, November 15, 2009 5:04 pm

Saturday night I tried not one, but two, new recipes.  Insanity.  Anyway, here’s the rundown:

Spiced Chickpea & Lemon Soup

(via Serious Eats)

Brian and I really, really like chickpeas (I think it’s in response to my bean-less childhood).  And soup, of course.  This soup was pretty easy to make, too.  We pureed the soup in the food processor and it came it kind of grainy and weird.  Not so great.  Today, before lunch, we ran the rest of the soup through the blender and it came out much smoother and tastier.  Brian really liked it, but I’m still unconvinced.  Would I make it again?  Maybe, but I suspect there are better chickpea soups out there.

No-Time Bread

(via The Kitchn)

When 30 Bucks a Week mentioned The Kitchn’s No-Time Bread, which can be made in about an hour, I got really excited.  Brian and I have been talking about and putting off making “real” bread for quite some time now, but I always want something other than sandwich bread when we’re having soup (which is at least once a week).  I expected that No-Time Bread wasn’t going to taste as good as bread I spent all day baking, but really, it did.

The actual creation of the bread was a little touch and go…the dough seemed way more goopy than I thought it was supposed to be.  I failed to shape it into any sort of ball and basically poured the dough into our casserole dish.   I guess it was supposed to look like that though, because it turned out great.  Now I really want to make bread!  Until then, I’m so glad I have this easy, fast, yummy recipe on hand.

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By Emily, October 27, 2009 3:08 pm

I’ve already made 2 pumpkin soups, but I couldn’t say no to the Pumpkin Turkey Chili recipe posted on Serious Eats a few weeks ago.  To me, it sounds like a bowl of fall.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve thought to myself “I should just do a blog about soup, I love it that much.”  But I won’t, because I love other things too.  Just not as much.

Anyway, this chili was exactly what I hoped it would be.  As the original recipe notes, it’s  ”healthy and delicious”: vegetables, beans, spices and lean ground turkey.  The pumpkin flavor doesn’t overwhelm, but provides a nice base for the dish.  I added some additional vegetables to the Serious Eats recipe and adjusted the seasonings to my taste.  This time around, I left the chili pretty mild.  Clearly, you should go for as much or as little spice as you want.

Pumpkin Turkey Chili

adapted from Serious Eats, serves about 6

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 4oz can chopped green chilies
1 garlic clove, minced
1 pound ground turkey
1 14.5 oz can kidney beans (and liquid)
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1 14.5 oz can pumpkin puree
1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
1/2 tablespoon cumin

1.  Over medium-high heat, heat the oil in a large sauce pot.  Saute the onion, green pepper, celery, carrot, chilies and garlic for about 10 minutes, or until tender.

2.  Add the ground turkey and brown, about 10 minutes.

3.  Add the canned tomatoes, kidney beans (with the canning liquid) and pumpkin puree.  Add chili powder (and/or other seasonings, to taste).  Stir.

4.  Reduce the heat and simmer for at least 20 minutes.  Serve with cheddar cheese or sour cream and a side of corn bread.

5.  Enjoy!

Comments (2)

By Emily, October 25, 2009 10:39 am

When my brother-in-law saw my tweet that I’d bought 6 cans of pumpkin puree that I didn’t have a use for, he almost immediately emailed me a soup recipe.  As should be clear by now, I love making and eating soup.  Soup + pumpkin could very well be my perfect meal (at least this week).  So far I’ve made 2 vegetarian, pumpkin-y soups.

The recipe my brother-in-law sent me, which I’d had at my mother-in-law’s house, is a Bobby Flay recipe: Mesa Grill’s Pumpkin Soup with Mexican Cinnamon Creme Fraiche.

Spicy, vegetarian and satisfying, this soup is really good.  It’s thick and filling.  It tastes like fall (you know what I mean).

Despite the deliciousness of the soup, there are a couple things that annoy me about it.  First, you make stock using onion, garlic, carrots, celery and water (tip: reduce water to 3 cups!)  I know a lot of people make stock regularly and those ingredients aren’t that expensive, but it seems a waste to me to throw all the vegetables out.  This from the girl who likes her stock from a jar.  I just need to get used to it I guess. That said, it is easy to do.

The other thing that annoys me about this soup is that it requires 2 teaspoons of chipotle puree.  As a substitute, we (myself, Brian’s brother, and Brian’s mother) use 3/4 teaspoon of canned chipotles in adobo, pureed.  Unfortunately, this will leave you with almost an entire can of chiptoles leftover.  They’re in my freezer.  Someday I might use them up, but it’ll be a while-they’re spicy!

Despite those minor annoyances, this soup’s well worth trying out.

That was the first week.  Last week (I’m a little behind on posting), with our Apple Barn apples, I made Curried Pumpkin and Apple Soup from ZestyCook.  I know, it looks almost the same.  But it’s not!

Apples and pumpkin…can it get any better?  We really liked this soup, possibly better than Bobby Flay’s.  Unfortunately, it had too much cayenne for us (and we do like spicy food!).  Next time I’ll use less and individuals can season to taste because the spice overpowered the rest of the dish.  Thank goodness for sour cream, which dramatically reduced the spice and made the soup much more enjoyable.  The tartness of the apples mixed with the sweet, creamy pumpkin was really a genius idea.  The recipe is also one of those wonderful, rare occurrences when I had all of the ingredients on hand.

As I learned a few weeks ago with my Tomato and Fennel Soup, make sure you’re careful when pureeing the soup in the food processor or blender.  This time I left the processing to Brian and we did not find ourselves with burns or a kitchen covered in soup.  Success!

I’m still obsessed, so check back for pumpkin pasta, chili and more!

Enjoy!

Comments (2)

By Emily, September 30, 2009 8:35 am

Growing up story #1: My family never used a slow cooker.  Ever.  So when Brian and I were putting stuff on our registry, we added one.  Why?  Because all the registry check lists say to.  And we got one (two, actually, but now we’re down to one).  Initially it made me a little nervous–to leave something cooking for so long, especially when there’s no one in the house–but I’m quickly becoming a Crockpot convert.

Growing up story #2: As I’ve mentioned before, my  family (aka my dad) does not eat beans.  When I was a kid, our chili recipe had no beans in it.  Yes, I typed that correctly.  Not “it had meat and beans”, it was just ground beef and spices and such.  It’s the only chili my dad will eat.  Last week I decided I wanted to make vegetarian chili.  Clearly, I didn’t have a recipe, but I hunted one down (love the internet!), adapted it and was really, really pleased with the result.  It tasted exactly the way chili should.

Halfway through my first bowl, I realized something.  I turned to Brian and asked, “Do you even miss the meat in here?”.  Nope, he didn’t.  Neither did I (sometimes I’m acutely aware of the fact that I’ve chosen a non-meat based diet).  Which just goes to prove, again, that vegetarian food can be as good as non-vegetarian food, if not better.

“Who Needs Meat?” Crockpot Chili

Adapted from Allrecipes.com, Serves about 6

1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes
1 (15 oz) can garbanzo beans, drained
1 (15 oz) can kidney beans, drained
1 zucchini, thinly sliced
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup frozen corn
1 cup vegetable broth
2-3 Tbsp chili powder
1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chile peppers
1 jalapeño pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt

1.  Combine all the ingredients in a slow cooker.

2.  Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours OR on high for 3 to 4 hours.

3.  Enjoy!

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By Emily, September 14, 2009 9:28 am

My mother-in-law is a really good cook.  I’m not just saying that because I know she’s reading this, it’s true.  She’s also extremely willing to pass along recipes, which is great for my Rachael Ray filled recipe binder.  Plus, it always works in my favor to cook something from Brian’s days at home once in a while, especially since we know it’s been well tested.  One of the recipes she’s given me that I’ve made several times is a soup of tortellini, tomato and spinach.

Fortunately, to make this  soup, you don’t really have to be a good cook.  You also don’t have to have a lot of time, or a lot of ingredients.  It’s that easy.  Who could ask for more?

Tortellini, Tomato and Spinach Soup

adapted from my mother-in-law, serves about 4.

You’ll need:
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
3.5 cups vegetable broth
8 oz fresh or frozen cheese tortellini
10 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed
14.5 oz can stewed tomatoes, undrained and cut up
grated Parmesan cheese

1. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan. Add 2 cloves crushed (or poorly chopped, in my case) garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes.

2. Add vegetable broth and tortellini.

Heat until boiling. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.

3. Add spinach and tomatoes.

Simmer for 5 more minutes.

4. Serve topped with grated Parmesan cheese.

Could it be any easier than that?
One of the best things about this recipe is that all the ingredients can be kept on hand to use for those times when you don’t know what to make for dinner.
Enjoy!

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By Emily, September 1, 2009 12:15 pm

Question: What’s vegetarian, easy and fast to make, apparently better than my gazpacho, only takes 2 steps and only needs 10 basic ingredients?

Answer: Food & Wine’s “Chilled Tomato Soup with Tarragon Crème Fraîche”.

I’m really ready for fall, and thankfully it’s starting to feel like it around here.  Nevertheless, it still seems a little early to be making soup (Brian and I have grand plans to spend the entire winter making and eating soups).  Luckily, my free September 2009 issue of Food & Wine contained the perfect solution:  “Chilled Tomato Soup with Tarragon Crème Fraîche”.  The ingredient list is really simple: tomatoes, tomato paste, red wine vinegar, vegetable broth, olive oil, sugar, salt, pepper, crème fraîche and tarragon. Chances are, you already have almost all of those ingredients.

Ultimately, I halved the recipe (which then ended up only getting us through last night because Brian and I both had two servings), omitted the salt and pepper (I like to leave out salt whenever possible, especially since my broth wasn’t low sodium) and substituted sour cream for crème fraîche, because my supermarkets don’t appear to carry it.  And what was I going to do with leftover crème fraîche?

Brian and I both loved the soup, possibly even more than the gazpacho I made a few months ago.  The flavor is really fresh and I’ll eat anything with tarragon in it.  It’s a summer soup and not particularly hearty so I would recommend serving it as a side or getting a good loaf of bread to go with it.

My soup craving is satisfied for the moment…but I’m still looking forward to making “real soup” in the near future.

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By Emily, July 21, 2009 11:46 am

When I was in high school, every time my Spanish class was having a fiesta, I volunteered to make gazpacho.  Looking back, I’m not really sure why that was the case, except that I thought it was “real food” (as in, required more effort than buying chips and salsa) and my Spanish teacher always seemed to get excited when I offered to bring it.  Perhaps I was a bit of a suck up.

Now, what seems like lifetimes (but is more like 8 years) later, I love gazpacho (that’s cold tomato soup, for the uninitated) because it’s fresh, its simple, its refreshing (summer has finally come to the Berkshires!) and it’s vegetarian!  What more could I ask for, really?

If you were to google gazpacho, you end up with a million results and recipes.  But I like to stick with what I know and have been doing for years, as follows:

Gazpacho

(serves about 6)

6 tomatoes
1.5 cups tomato juice (aka a 12 oz. can of tomato juice or V8…perfect if you don’t use tomato juice for anything else)
1 cucumber, peeled and chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp vinegar
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
Tabasco to taste

1. Remove the skin from the tomatoes by putting them in boiling water for 30 seconds, then moving them to cold water.

2.  Chop the tomatoes.

3.  Mix all the ingredients.

4. Chill the soup until ready to eat.  Serve with tortilla chips.

It’s that simple!  4 steps and you’ve got dinner…or, in our case, 3 nights of dinner!

Variation (recommended by my Man):  Puree chopped tomatoes in the food processor before adding the rest of the ingredients.  Plus there’s a world of vegetables that could be added.

In other news, I’m feeling better about all my complaints in Updates and Confessions.  I’ve at least partially met all my goals.  Writing the post made me much more aware of what I was putting into my body, and I’m doing better as a result.  It’s still really difficult to eat what I want to eat and meet the budget I’m trying to, but we haven’t even been married a month yet, so there’s time to work that out.  There’s several blogs I follow that feature inexpensive dinners, but frequently they contain ingredients I don’t, or shouldn’t, eat anymore.  Oh well, one step at a time.  My Man and I also joined our local gym, and I actually made my way there this morning.  It’s good to get back into the workout routine again after abandoning it following graduation.

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By Emily, March 9, 2009 7:38 pm

With apologies to Anthony Bourdain, Mark Bittman and all those other “real” chefs out there who might like to string me up for what I am about to say (I’m sure there are a lot them out there).

I made rediculously good soup yesterday.  With Better Than Boullion Organic Vegetable Base instead of homemade vegetable stock.  Now, my perspective is a little skewed because I’ve never made vegetable stock, so maybe I don’t know what I’m missing, but it was darn good soup.  And it was vegan.  And my parents liked it (I’m sure the lack of beans helped). Thanks Better Than Boullion!

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By Emily, March 6, 2009 1:33 pm

Overall, I’m doing really well with my decision to not eat meat once a day, a decision which essentially cuts my meat consumption in half.  It’s been a good choice I think: forces me to think about what I’m eating, requires that I shop and make myself lunch to bring to school.  I’ve become acutely aware of which restaurants have decent vegetarian offerings on their menus.  Its a good thing.

I’ve settled into a nice routine where I food shop and cook my lunch for the week on Sundays.  Last Sunday I made Mushroom and Barley Soup from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.  Even though it was for lunches, I made my parents try it.  My mom said she liked it better than the Tarascan soup I made (how is that possible? That soup’s great!).  Dad was pretty grossed out; he doesn’t like mushrooms.  Points to both of them for trying; I will spread the gospel of homemade food and vegetarian meals! The soup wasn’t the best thing I’d ever eaten, but it was pretty good and I was proud of myself for eating vegetarian (vegan, even), cooking my own food and sucessfully dealing with dried porcini mushrooms and barley, neither of which I’d done before.

That was Sunday.  Today is Friday.  And despite the fact that I still have a serving left (Side note: how is it possible that no matter how closely I follow a recipe, even if I halve the recipe, I still end up with more servings than the recipe says I will?), I could not bear mushroom and barley soup for the fifth day in a row.  Not when there was a serving of left over ravioli sitting in the fridge.  Chicken ravoli.

So, I broke my own rule.  Maybe I won’t eat meat for dinner (unlikely, if one of my parents cooks). I feel a little bad about it, but not much.  The ravioli was darn good.  I’m pretty sure ravioli, tomato sauce and 2 tangerines for dessert still doesn’t qualify as a “bad” meal.  Sometimes, you just have to set your principles aside.

I’m making vegetable and barley soup for lunch for next week (I’m a soup addict).  I think I’ll be more excited to eat it than I was the mushroom.  At least, I hope.