Recipe #72: 10-Minute Potato Leek Soup

I was kind of skeptical about how this recipe would turn out, wondering if it would be too bland, but I was way off- it's GREAT! For 10 minutes of work, you wouldn't expect something to come together so well! It's super thick and creamy, and I had to keep myself from going for thirds. This is from Rachael Ray's cookbook "Veggie Meals."

Note: It's not a very photogenic soup, but don't be fooled...

Also, if this is your first time using leeks, they look like big green onions, but use the WHITE end, not green. You'll be slicing little circles of leek for this recipe.

Leeks have a little bit of grit in them sometimes when you cut them apart, which is why they require a good rinsing in a colander before use.

INGREDIENTS:

1 leek, halved and very thinly sliced (I used 2 smaller leeks and just cut rings)
3 cups reduced-fat or non-fat milk
2 cups water (I exchanged one for chicken broth)
1 brick (8oz) cream cheese, softened
4oz pouch mashed potato flakes (I used Hungry Jack buttery potatoes flavor)
Few grinds of fresh black pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS:

Rinse trimmed, thinly sliced leeks under cold water in a colander and drain very well. Bring milk, water, and leeks to a boil in a medium deep pot. Reduce heat to low and simmer, 5 minutes. Whisk/stir in softened cream cheese until combined. Stir in potato flakes until soup becomes thick and smooth. Remove from heat, stir in pepper and serve.

Just complaining...

Well, for some reason Google, in all of its infinite wisdom, won't let me switch my email for Blogger (which is a Google service) from my old, non-gmail account to my new gmail account, which makes me have to sign out of my gmail and then into my non-gmail account to be able to post. This non-gmail account is tied to another Google account that will not consolidate with my NEW Google account.

Is your head spinning yet?

So I found a work-around for Blogger... I invited MYSELF to be a co-author on this blog, emailing my gmail an invitation from my non-gmail account so I can log in and post through my gmail. *big breath* And so here I am, co-authoring with myself.

...I won't even begin to think of the mess involving Google Analytics (tracking information for this blog that's tied to my non-gmail account).... I'll just leave it alone. I also have a Google Latitude account (tracks me via GPS when I turn it on on my phone- good for Nick if I'm out of town or traveling by myself...)- but I can probably change that over easily since it doesn't really store data.

My YouTube account (also a Google service) has this problem too. Maybe I'll just close it and open a new one under my new account, but then I'd lose all my favorites and uploads. *sigh*...

I saw someone posted something back in 2006 complaining about this, and apparently Google's solution was a "multiple account login" that I've tried. Total failure- it logs me out of the other account anyways.

I'm so irritated that something so simple has to be such a stupid mess.

UPDATE! I went back into my non-gmail Blogger account and granted my gmail account administrator privileges... and then I deleted my non-gmail account (basically deleting the privileges to post). HAHA! VICTORY! Epic work-around!!

Recipe #71: Creamy Chicken Enchiladas

My sister told me about this recipe, and it was a hit the first time I made it.  Nick particularly likes this one, and it's one he usually requests.  I'm copying the recipe as-is, but I'll make notes where I've changed things...

Ingredients

• 1 (10.75 ounce) can Campbell's® Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup or Campbell's® Condensed 98% Fat Free Cream of Chicken Soup
• 1 (8 ounce) container sour cream
• 1 cup Pace® Picante Sauce
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 2 cups chopped cooked chicken
• 1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese  (I use cheddar usually)
• 10 Mission® Fajita Size Flour Tortillas, warmed  (I use an 8-pack of whatever flour tortillas)
• 1 medium tomato, chopped
• 1 green onion, sliced

Directions

1. Mix soup, sour cream, picante sauce and chili powder.
2. Mix 1 cup picante sauce mixture, chicken and cheese. (I don't add the chicken yet)...
3. Spread about 1/4 cup chicken mixture down center of each tortilla. (I instead spread the mixture on first, THEN add chicken, saving the mess of step 2).  Roll up and place seam-side down in 3-quart shallow baking dish. Pour remaining picante sauce mixture over enchiladas. Cover.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes or until hot. Top with tomato and onion. 

Makes GREAT leftovers!

 

Recipe #71: Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup

Oh man... I could rave about this one for quite awhile, but I'll restrain myself.  This is even better than I was hoping for, and the home-made tortilla chips are a perfect garnish!  You can use store-bought ones, but these are so much better, thicker, and more flavorful!  Copied from allrecipes.com, here's a new winter favorite:

Without toppings...

Ingredients

• 1 pound shredded, cooked chicken  (I hand-shredded a store-bought rotisserie chicken)
• 1 (15 ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, mashed
• 1 (10 ounce) can enchilada sauce
• 1 medium onion, chopped (I used more)
• 1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chile peppers
• 2 cloves garlic, minced  (I used more)
• 2 cups water  (I replaced one cup with chicken broth)
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen corn  (I used more)
• 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro  (I skipped this)
• 7 corn tortillas
• vegetable oil 

I also added a can of black beans...

Directions

1. Place chicken, tomatoes, enchilada sauce, onion, green chiles, and garlic into a slow cooker. Pour in water and chicken broth, and season with cumin, chili powder, salt, pepper, and bay leaf. Stir in corn and cilantro. Cover, and cook on Low setting for 6 to 8 hours or on High setting for 3 to 4 hours.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
3. Lightly brush both sides of tortillas with oil. Cut tortillas into strips, then spread on a baking sheet.  (Instead, I cut them first, placed them on the sheet, and sprayed them with olive oil spray.  Then I lightly salted them with kosher salt.)
4. Bake in preheated oven until crisp, about 10 to 15 minutes. To serve, sprinkle tortilla strips over soup. (I also added cheese and sour cream!)

Recipe #70: Black Bean Pumpkin Soup

Nick loves this one!  This is a Rachel Ray recipe that doesn't disappoint- it's quick, easy, cheap, a little spicy, and REALLY good.  I've seen two variations of this, but I'm posting the one I found online.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped  (I coarsely chopped mine)
• 3 cups canned or packaged vegetable stock, found on soup aisle
• 1 can (14 1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes in juice
• 1 can (15 ounces) black beans, drained
• 2 cans (15 ounces) pumpkin puree (found often on the baking aisle)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon curry powder, 1 palm full
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin, 1/2 palm full
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, eyeball it in the palm of your hand
• Coarse salt
• 20 blades fresh chives, chopped or snipped, for garnish
  (I used dried while cooking, and also to top it)

Directions

Heat a soup pot over medium heat. Add oil. When oil is hot, add onion. Saute onions 5 minutes. Add broth, tomatoes, black beans and pumpkin puree. Stir to combine ingredients and bring soup to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and stir in cream, curry, cumin, cayenne and salt, to taste. Simmer 5 minutes, adjust seasonings and serve garnished with chopped chives.

Recipe #69: Super Easy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I tend to bake sweets when I'm bored and feeling domestic... like today, during the football game.  I wanted an easy cookie recipe that would use stuff I already had in the kitchen, and this one was perfect- no flour mess!  These cookies turn out super heavy, so just one big one is more than enough for me.  I halved this recipe and it made 9 giant cookies.  I also baked them a bit longer than the recipe calls for (17-18 minutes instead of 10-12).  These could be easily changed, too, depending on what you want to put in them besides walnuts or chocolate chips.  Here's the recipe copied directly from where I found it on allrecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Peanut-Butter-Choco-Chip-Cookies/Detail.aspx):

Ingredients

• 2 cups peanut butter
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, combine peanut butter, sugar and eggs. Mix well with wooden spoon till smooth and well-blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.
3. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheets two inches apart. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or till lightly browned. Cool on cookie sheets for a few minutes than transfer to wire rack. Cool completely. Store in airtight containers up to a week

Recipe #68: Western Skillet Eggs

This recipe caught my eye in my October issue of Food Network Magazine, and I'm glad I made it- the sour dough bread made this a really interesting take on western style eggs.  We enjoyed it for dinner, then had the leftovers for breakfast the next day!

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup half-and-half or whole milk
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 shallots, sliced
2 large green bell peppers, seed and cut into 1/2 inch strips
1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 pound thinly sliced ham, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 slices sourdough bread, torn into pieces (about 2 cups)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley, plus more for topping (I omitted this)
8 large eggs

DIRECTIONS:

Position a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat to 350.  Whisk the half-and-half, cayenne, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and black pepper to taste in a small bowl.

Heat the olive oil in a large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the shallots and cook until just softened, 1-2 minutes.  Add the bell peppers; cook until the peppers are soft and the shallots are golden, 5-6 minutes more.  Add the tomatoes, ham, bread, parsley, and 1/4 cup water and cook until most of the liquid is absorbed, about 3 minutes.  Season with salt and black pepper.  Remove from heat.

Make 8 evenly spaced indentations in the bread mixture with the bottom of a ladle or small measuring cup.  Crck an egg into each indentation.  Slowly pour the half-and-half mixture over the eggs.  Bake, rotating the skillet a few times, until the whites are set, about 15 minutes.  Top with parsley.  (I baked it for a little longer because my whites weren't setting well, which cooked the yolks more, but it turned out fine regardless.)

Tastefully Simple

Anybody who's had Tastefully Simple products will probably immediately talk about their beer bread (for good reason!), but there's so much more!  As it states on their website, "The Food You Love, The Time You Deserve: From main dishes to desserts, we offer a wide variety of easy-to-prepare foods and gifts for every day and every occasion. Best of all, our products can be enjoyed right out of the package or prepared within minutes!"

My best friend is a Tastefully Simple consultant, so naturally my kitchen is full of this stuff because I can't help buying the products after trying samples.  Everything is so easy to make, usually only needing an ingredient or two added to the product to complete it, resulting in a dip, or a loaf of bread, a dessert, a drink, and so on.

So here's dinner that I made for tonight- pulled pork (made with the Tangy Tennessee Slow Cooker Sauce, http://www.tastefullysimple.com/shopourproducts/allproducts/tangytennesseeslowcookersauce740900.aspx) topped with cole slaw (made with something I always have in my fridge- Vidalia Onion Dressing, http://www.tastefullysimple.com/shopourproducts/allproducts/vidaliaoniondressing129108.aspx). 

For the pork, I simply followed the instructions on the bottle... simply putting a 3lb pork roast in my crock pot with half the bottle for 6.5 hours, then shredding the roast, putting it back in the crock pot, and mixing in the rest of the bottle of sauce.  I served it about an hour later.

For the cole slaw, I simply chopped up as much cabbage as I wanted, added the Vidalia Onion Dressing to taste, and threw in some sliced almonds.  Easy!

This is only one quick example of ways to use TS products.  I made a whole bunch of dips for a game night we had at our place recently, and then I used one of them (bacon ranch!) as a spread for my sandwiches.

If you have any interest in these time-saving products that also happen to be really delicious, get in touch with Carlie Moore at tastefullycarlie@yahoo.com or browse through her Tastefully Simple site for products and ideas:  www.tastefullysimple.com/web/cmoore5.

Recipe #67: Slow Cooker Chicken and Ham Stew

This weekend we went away with friends and decided to take turns making crock pot meals for dinner.  This was my contribution, and it was so good!  I varied the times from the recipe to get it done a little sooner, and it still turned out great!  Fall is here- time to give the crock pot a good workout!

 

INGREDIENTS:

1 3-lb chicken, cut into 8 pieces
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cups cubed ham (I bought these already cubed)
2 potatoes, peeled and chopped
8 cups water
2 cups canned chopped tomatoes
3 cups canned cannellini (white kidney beans), rinsed and drained
3 cups frozen or fresh corn kernels
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon dried oregano

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat a 6-quart slow cooker to high.

Combine the chicken, onion, ham, and potatoes in the slow cooker.  Pour in the water.  Cover and cook on the lowest setting for 4-5 hours, or until the chicken is tender.

Remove the chicken from the pot and strip the meat from the bones.  Return the meat to the pot.  Discard the skin and bones.

Add the tomatoes, beans, corn, salt, sugar, pepper, and oregano.  Cover and cook on the highest setting for 1 hour.

Serve hot.

Recipe #66: Mexican Pizza

This was so fun to make!  Nick made it with me, which is good because it's kind of involved (but not difficult!)  This is an adaptation of a recipe I found in the September issue of Food Network Magazine.  This was worth all the prep!

INGREDIENTS:

For the taco seasoning:
-2 tablespoons onion powder
-2 tablespoons garlic powder
-1 tablespoon chili powder
-1 tablespoon dried oregano
-1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
-1 teaspoon ground cumin
-Kosher salt and ground black pepper

For the pizzas:
-1/4 cup canola oil, plus more for brushing
-1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts
-1 16-oz tube pizza dough
-all-purpose flour for dusting
-1 cup shredded mozzarella
-1 cup shredded sharp cheddar
-1 avocado
-juice of 1 lime
-1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
-1/2 teaspoon chili powder
-1 tablespoon diced red onion (we used more)
-Kosher salt and ground black pepper
1 cup fresh salsa (or more)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (I skipped this)

 A piece of mexican pizza!

DIRECTIONS:

Make the taco seasoning by mixing all the dry ingredients under "taco seasoning" in a bowl.

Roll out pizza dough on an oiled cookie sheet or similar.  Brush with oil.  Season the top with the taco seasoning and cook according to package directions.  (Mine were 400 degrees for 10 minutes.)

While crust bakes, mix 2 tablespoons taco seasoning and the canola oil in a bowl.  Pound the chicken between two pieces of plastic wrap to 1/4 inch thick (or buy already thin-sliced breasts).  Add the chicken to the bowl, coating, and cook chicken in a pan until done, a couple minutes per side.  Cut into small cubes.

When crust is done, sprinkle with both cheeses, then top with the chicken.  Put back in the oven for 5 minutes to melt the cheese.

Meanwhile, mix the avocado, lime juice, cumin, chili powder, red onion, salt and pepper in a bowl.  When pizza is done after the five minutes, remove from the oven and top with the avocado mixture, salsa, sour cream, and cilantro.