Recipe: Minestrone Vegetable Soup

It's Labor Day here and I have the urge to make some soup for fall. The boys start school this week and I'm trying to pack my freezer with easy meals to thaw/reheat.

This veggie soup is pretty hearty but I wouldn't call it a stew. My advice is to make it exactly as planned and then if you feel it needs more salt, heap on the parmesan cheese for the extra calories and sodium.

Minestrone Vegetable Soup

Note this recipe halves nicely but I make the full amount and freeze it for the fall.

Ingredients
8 cups chicken broth (2 quarts)
2 cans of cannellini beans (or kidney beans if you prefer)
3-4 carrots (1 cup chopped)
2 stalks celery (½ cup chopped)
1 white onion (1 cup minced)
2 large potatoes (3 cups cubed)
2 cans of petite diced tomatoes (we prefer the Italian spiced ones)
8 tbsp butter
1 cup frozen spinach
1 can tomato paste
4 cloves garlic (I used the pre-minced kind and measure it by the instructions on the jar)
4 tbsp dried parsley
1 tsp salt
1 tsp beef bouillon paste (for that beefy minestrone taste)
1 ½ cups ditalini pasta (can sub in elbow, shell or other small macaroni)
½ to 1 cup grated or shredded parmesan cheese for topping

Instructions
 In a large pot, saute butter, onion, celery, carrots. Then add all other ingredients except the pasta and cheese. Bring pot to boil and simmer for 1 hour. Then add the pasta and simmer for another 20 minutes. Serve with parmesan cheese on top.

Freezing tip: Coat the inside of the container with olive oil before adding the soup, it will prevent your freezer container from permanent stains.

Recipe: Scalloped Sweet Potatoes

I love sweet potatoes but wanted to stay away from the traditional sugared-up versions found on many recipe sites. So I was thrilled to find thisgreat option for scalloped sweet potatoes on the Tasty Kitchen Blog.

But…I’ll be honest; I struggled with the preparation part. It calls for sweet potatoes cut in ¼ inch slices. I’m terrified of knives so my slices ended up more like ½ inch thick with various levels of thickness in each slice. So it kind of turned out crappy. It’s really important to get the sweet potatoes as thin and consistent as possible for the best cooking results.

What is the secret to getting these so thin?

Ingredients

2 pounds sweet potatoes (I just used two large sweet potatoes)
5 strips bacon
½ white onion, chopped finely (add more if you like onion)
2-½ tablespoons white flour
½ teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoons black pepper
1 cup Half N Half
1 cup skim milk
1-¼ cup grated or shredded parmesan cheese

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Peel potatoes and cut into 1/4 inch slices or thinner. Place potatoes in a large pot of boiling water. Cook for 5-10 minutes or until just tender. Don’t overcook! Drain well and set aside.
2. Meanwhile, fry bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until crisp. Drain on a paper towel, crumble and set aside.
3. Add chopped onion to bacon drippings and cook until tender. Stir in flour over low heat and cook to a paste. Add salt and pepper. Add milk and cook until mixture thickens slightly.
4. Arrange half of the sweet potatoes in the bottom of an 11×7 inch baking dish. Sprinkle on half of the crumbled bacon. Pour on half of the milk mixture. Arrange remaining potatoes, sprinkle with remaining bacon and pour the rest of the milk mixture over the top. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake for 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender. If desired, brown cheese for 1-2 minutes under the broiler.

Notes:

I use thislittle chopper to mince up the onion – works great!

I had some leftover bacon from my Turkey Meatloaf recipe so I cooked it ahead of time and forgot to save the bacon fat. So I just used a bit of olive oil to fry the onion in.

I would not recommend leaving out the bacon or the onion – the parmesan cheese is a nice touch but the recipe still needs all the flavor it can get. I still think it needs a bit of savory zip in there somewhere so was going to experiment with some herbs next time around.

Potluck tip: if prepared in advance, bake as directed, cover and refrigerate for up to one day. Reheat at 325 degrees for 15 minutes covered, then remove cover and continue heating until warm.

Recipe: Oven Baked Parmesan Chicken

We have been stuck inside since Polar Vortex Part II arrived a few days ago and Big Guy has wasted no time cleaning out the pantry of all the food. Did I mention that my non-CFer has a BMI that plots above the pediatric growth charts? WTH.

Anyway, we were left with pretty much NO ingredients for anything substantial except for this little supper gem. Ironically Big Guy hated it and Lil Guy loved it so we'll make it again.

Photo courtesy of AllRecipes.com

Ingredients
6 to 8 chicken breasts, pounded thin (or just buy them thin and trimmed like we did, it saves time)
1 clove garlic (I used 1/2 tsp minced garlic already in the jar)
1/2 cup melted butter
1/3 cup grated Parmesan
1 cup regular bread crumbs (you can substitute Italian seasoned bread crumbs and skip the next three spices)
1/2 tsp each of dried basil, oregano and Italian seasoning
2 tsp dried parsley (or 2 tbsp. fresh if you want to get fancy)
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray a shallow glass dish with cooking spray.
2. Combine the garlic and melted butter in one bowl.
3. Combine the bread crumbs, cheese, spices, salt and pepper in another bowl.
4. Dip the chicken pieces in the garlic butter and then into the crumb mixture to coat.
5. Place the coated chicken pieces into the baking dish and drizzle with remaining garlic butter and bake uncovered for 35-40 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the juices run clear. 

Notes
I made the recipe with four chicken breasts and had lots of garlic butter and breadcrumb coating left over. So I think it would work well with eight small chicken breasts or six medium size ones.
For CFers: I drizzled extra garlic butter on Lil Guy's chicken piece and was surprised to find that it didn't seem soggier than the other pieces. A great way to get in some extra fat calories.
For non CFers: If you are trying to keep calories low, try skipping the butter wash and just top those chicken pieces with the breadcrumb mixture.



This recipe was adapted from AllRecipes.com.  

Recipe: Zucchini Bread

Here's another gem from AllRecipes.com (with alterations). It's a great way to get veggies into kids (even Big Guy will eat it, though he's suspicious of the green flecks in it, and rightfully so).

When the summertime approaches, I get even lazier about cooking. But this recipe easily makes two loaves so usually we'll freeze one and use the other right away. It's also an easy recipe to split up the ingredients and make one full fat loaf for your CFer and another lighter version for everyone else (see notes at end of recipe). 

I've tried making this in a brownie pan too but it really works best in a glass or metal loaf pan to retain the moisture.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup white flour
1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp each of salt, baking soda, and baking powder
3 tsp of cinnamon (if you aren't a cinnamon fan, you might want to cut this down to 2 tsp)
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups zucchini - this comes out to about 2 large or 4 small zucchini

Instructions:
1. Lightly grease and flour two 8x4 loaf pans and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Sift the flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon together in a bowl
3. Beat the eggs, oil, vanilla and sugar together in a large bowl. Then add the wet mixture to the sifted mixture.
4. Using the large holes of a hand grater, grate the zucchini with skin on until you have two full packed cups. Do not dry or squeeze the zucchini. Then add the zucchini to the bread batter.
5. Bake at 325 degrees for about 50-60 minutes or until tester inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes, remove the bread from the pan and completely cool.

Notes:
The original recipe called for 1 cup walnuts - nuts are a great way to add a bit of fat for the CFer. Also warm it up in the microwave for a few seconds and serve with butter.
To lighten it up for other family members, try replacing the vegetable oil with applesauce but make sure its unsweetened applesauce because there is enough sugar and cinnamon in the recipe already.

Recipe: Oven Roasted Teriyaki Chicken Legs

I'm not sure this chicken recipe qualifies as "high fat" but it was so darn good and pretty easy that I had to share it.

Photo courtesy of AllRecipes.com

Photo and recipe borrowed and modified from AllRecipes.com. It's rare that my cooking actually comes out looking like the photo - this one did!

Another bonus was this recipe calls for oven baking, a sad necessity for us since our grill has been broken for two years (hint hint hubbie!).

Ingredients

5-6 chicken legs, skin left on

1 ½ teaspoons of cornstarch

1 ½ teaspoons of cold water

¼ cup brown sugar (or sub in Splenda)

¼ cup soy sauce – we used La Choy Lite Low Sodium soy sauce – still 23% of DRV of sodium!

1/8 cup cider vinegar

½ clove garlic

1/8 tsp of black pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Place chicken legs in a lightly greased 9x13 baking dish.

2. In a small saucepan over low heat, combine all ingredients except the chicken legs. Simmer, stirring frequently, until sauce thickens and bubbles. This didn’t take too long – only a few minutes. Be sure to watch carefully so it doesn’t start to stick to the pot and burn.

3. Let the sauce cool for a few moments, then brush the chicken on both sides.

4. Bake for an hour uncovered, turning the pieces over and re-basting every 10-20 minutes.

Tips:
The initial recipe called for double the ingredients so would work well for 12 chicken legs.
I always forget to take the chicken legs out of the freezer in the morning. So I put them in a bowl of very hot water for about 15 minutes and that did the trick - they tasted great!