This creation came about almost by accident. I didn't really want to make it. But it was supposed to be part of a stuffed bell pepper recipe I found, or so I thought. Instead I found myself with such a huge dish that I had no idea what to do with it. I wasn't the biggest fan of tomatoes or onions, which is the base for this. But it turned out to be the most incredible, not to mention amazingly versatile, dish I've ever made. This recipe makes a lot, and it can be used in everything. Seriously. I prefer keeping some in the fridge at all times now.
This soup happened completely by accident. I saw a recipe for mushroom soup on Pinterest, and I was intrigued, especially because one commentator said that her husband requested it twice in one week.
I've never been a fan of mushrooms. In fact, I only started eating them after I read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. He has a section on mushrooms and how they're so good for you. And when I say I started eating them, I mean I stopped picking them out of my food at restaurants. I've bought them a few times at the farmer's market, but they always go bad by the time I get around to making something with them. (Seriously! Why do mushrooms go bad so quickly?)
Which is exactly what happened with this soup. I looked over the recipe and bought the ingredients, i.e. the mushrooms, and then they went bad. Normally when vegetables start to go bad, I chop them up and eat them anyway, but I don't want to chance it with vegetables. So I just used what was left over in my pantry, and it turned out amazingly! Seriously, this soup is fantastic. Since then, I've made it with mushrooms, and I have to say, I almost prefer it without. So it's your call!
Ingredients
10 oz mushrooms, finely chopped and/or diced (optional, I used baby portabella mushrooms)
1 large onion, diced
2 red peppers, chopped
3 cloves of garlic
olive oil
1 tsp dried thyme
1 bay leaf
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
4 cups of water
1 tbsp cornstarch
salt
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
dash of nutmeg
black pepper
Preparation
Heat olive oil in a pan. Add onions, garlic, and peppers, and saute until golden brown on medium heat.
Add mushrooms, thyme, bay leaf, black pepper, and Worcestershire sauce. Cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes or until water from mushroom disappears.
Add water. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat. Simmer for half an hour.
Add cornstarch to thicken. Season with salt and nutmeg.
Add milk and heavy cream and turn the heat off. Do NOT let the soup boil once you add the milk and cream.
I've never been one to put crackers in my soup, even though apparently that's popular. When I first learned that it was common, I thought it was because people like the crunchiness of the crackers with the liquid soup, or maybe the extra salt was the reason? Then I tried it and quickly discovered crackers turn to mush when they've been in your soup for too long, leaving your soup kind of lumpy and gross.
Someone told me that people put crackers in their soup to cool it off, in case it's too warm. I can't really see that being the case though. Why wouldn't you just wait 5 minutes for your soup to cool off? Or blow air on your spoon (and soup) to cool off each bite if you can't wait? I'm genuinely perplexed by this.
In the same vein, I've always been confused by French Onion soup because there's a huge glob of cheese on top! And underneath the cheese is this salty, dark broth that has little bits on onion floating around that you occasionally get to taste. I mean, I like cheese, and I like onions, but how are you supposed to eat it? And is it supposed to taste good?
Maybe I've just had really bad French Onion soup in my time.
Anyway, the point of all this is that I've finally found the most amazing compromise. (Oddly enough, it was inspired by Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook.) So here's the thing: I like bread. I use bread to sop up the last bits of my soup. Sometimes I even put bread in my soup. I also like cheese. Cheese goes on almost every meal I make. So why not combine them to make a cheesy bread crust over the top of the soup?
Brilliant idea, right? I know. I do this for everything now. And it is SO GOOD.
Ingredients
3-4 slices of a baguette per bowl (or less, depending)
Shredded cheese of your choice
Soup in a bowl
Preparation
Preheat broiler.
Slice baguette.
Add small amounts of shredded cheese on top of baguette. (Reserve some cheese for later.)
Place baguette slices onto a baking sheet and place in broiler.
Leave in broiler until cheese is slightly melted and starting to brown.
Remove from broiler and place immediately into soup bowl.
Take the leftover cheese and sprinkle on top, make sure to get the spots the bread doesn't cover.
And voila! The bread and cheese creates a seal and you have you delicious soup waiting underneath!
When I was younger, my favorite kind of pasta was fettucine alfredo. Is it good for you? No. Healthy in any way? Of course not. Of course, this was before I kicked all processed foods out of my life and started eating healthy. Since then I went from eating canned tomato sauce to making my own sauces.
But then a glorious thing happened. I found this blog post that made something similar to a cream sauce, but it used avocados. Avocados! Perfect. This still has some cream in it, but for a dish to eat every once in a while, it's perfect. I'll even go so far as to say it's my new comfort food. Let me know what you think!
Ingredients
Pasta noodles, cooked
2 avocados
5 tablespoons of light cream
1 teaspoon of salt
2-3 tablespoons of lime juice
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
3 pieces of bacon
1 small onion
3 cloves of garlic
Handful of Monterrey Jack cheese
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and lay the strips of bacon on a baking sheet. Cook for 20 minutes.
While the bacon is cooking, begin to cook the pasta noodles.
Heat olive oil over medium heat in a sauce pan.
Chop the onion and garlic and add to the pan. Saute until golden brown.
Put the avocados, light, salt, lime juice, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and cream in a blender. Once cooked, add the onion and garlic and ONE strip of bacon. Blend well. If you desire thinner sauce, add more cream.
Looks gross, but it's amazingly delicious.
Once the pasta is done cooking, drain and return to pan. Add the avocado mixture and cook on low heat for a few minutes. (The heat makes the avocado extra creamy!)
When ready, crumble the additional 2 pieces of bacon and cheese over each bowl. Enjoy!
I've really been into dessert lately. Like, a lot. My boyfriend doesn't really like sweets and he especially doesn't like chocolate, so I've been a little stuck on what to do lately. I experimented with making cakes in a cup and microwaving it, which, somehow, is all the rage of Pinterest, but trust me when I say it's not good. At all. None of the recipes I tried. They're all only to be used if you're desperate. Luckily, I found this recipe over at Tao of Dana, and we both loved it! Also, for those that are interested, it's grain and gluten free.
I LOVE blood oranges, so I was excited to make this. It's a little unconventional for me since I would never think to use beans as a base in a cake, but isn't that what makes cooking fun?
Ingredients
8-10 blood oranges (optional, to be served with the cake)
3 cups white beans, cooked, unseasoned, and cooled (or rinsed, if using canned beans)
9 tablespoons of coconut oil
1 cup, plus 2 tablespoons of honey
6 eggs
2 tablespoons of vanilla
3/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking soda
Preparation
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Put everything EXCEPT the oranges into a blender. Once blended, add grated blood orange peel to mix and stir.
Pour mixture into cake pan and bake for about one and a half hours, or until the middle is not longer jiggly. This is important to note because it browns rather quickly, and I thought for sure it was going to burn. Not so.
I like grilled cheeses. A lot. Who doesn't? But lately I've been getting bored with just the standard cheddar cheese, and I've been mixing it up a lot, using a mixture of muenster, pepper jack, and cheddar.
You know what else I like? Avocados. I found this brilliant idea on Pinterest, incorporating avocados into grilled cheeses - with pepperoni, no less(which I totally switched out with bacon, yum)! I knew I had to do it one night when I was too lazy to cook something and there were no healthier, leftover alternatives in the fridge. Luckily for me, that evening was last night!
Honestly, the worst part of the whole experience was waiting for the sandwich to finish cooking! It looked and smelled amazing, which was just torture!
YOU GUYS. If you're like me, and still kind of new to the whole "healthy eating" lifestyle (by which I mean I've only been doing this for about 2 years), then you'll love this list I found today from Community Markets.
I've always been confused about how to store food. Because, really, don't you just throw it all in the fridge? Doesn't the fridge keep everything fresh? These were my thoughts. Sometimes I would read cookbooks about how some things should not be kept in the fridge, like peaches. They should be left on the counter, and then they'll ripen and the whole house will smell like peaches. Or something like that. Very strange, but okay. Peaches: no fridge.
But that always left me confused about everything else. I've been trying to follow the grocery store guidelines, i.e. whatever is refrigerated or on ice goes in the fridge and whatever's in the regular bins goes in the pantry or on the counter. But I'm certainly not one to trust the grocery store to know what's best for me to eat.
Then recently I found this website called, Save Food From the Fridge, which I thought would be awesome and full tips, but it's actually just a few photos of a couple of (admittedly, very cool) modern designs for the kitchen, though it does have a few tips.
Interesting: Store apples with potatoes, so potatoes don't sprout. Also interesting: Apples don't go in the fridge.
Interesting: Eggs have lots of pores and need to breathe. I wonder if non-organic eggs can be left out of the fridge?
Interesting: They need water! Also interesting: These also don't go in the fridge. Hm.
This one makes sense! Though, there's still a funnel to water them.
So what's the problem with these highly designed food trays? They seem a little over the top and somewhat elitist, but mostly the problem is that I can't figure out where to buy them.
So luckily for me, I came across the list I mentioned earlier, that tells you exactly how to store fruits and vegetables. If you're very gung-ho about this, like me, you can print out a list to hang up. Otherwise, feel free to peruse here:
Chop up the onions and tomatoes and mix together in an oven safe dish.
