What dinner really looks like

The next installment of what dinner really looks like!

Tonight we had bruschetta, thick hearty soup, and beer.

The soup is one of my favorites. Nothing exact. 3 cups mushrooms chopped, 1 large onion chopped. Saute in a pot with some olive oil. Add in 2 cups chopped parsley (with stems). Salt, pepper, paprika to taste. Add 2 cups of chicken stock... simmer away. In another pot cook whole wheat pastina, reserve half the water to add to the soup along with the noodles. Done and done!

Perfect for eating after a long afternoon playing around with the puppy down the street! How cute are they together!!! Whaten's sure do love the snow!

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Amazeballs sweet potato soup

Amazeballs is totally a word right? Sorry people using google translate that probably makes zero sense. Basically I took amazing and balls and made it a word, hopefully that makes more sense, no? Sorry! :) Anyway John for years has told me he doesn't like soup... then in the past month he's eaten soup at 1) thanksgiving 2) multiple restaurants, and 3) LOVED IT. So he has been asking for soup lately, most recently he asked for some yellow sweet potato soup. Yup there are yellow sweet potatoes, they sell them near the orange ones. I'm sure you could sub in the orange ones but I highly recommend trying this with the yellow ones! According to Wegmans they come from NJ! Yeah Jersey! So they must be good right? ( I grew up there, hence the fanfare).

It may not look the most appetizing but man is it flavorful. I need to make more. Seriously, I'm in love, John is too. Feel free to add more chicken stock (or veggie stock to make this vegan) if you want a thinner soup. I tend to like them thick and hearty! Perfect after you come in for a nice long snowshoe and look like this:

Yellow sweet potato soup
recipe by steph chows
olive oil (enough to lightly cover bottom of pot- less than 1 Tbs)
3-4 medium yellow sweet potatoes (2lbs -ish)
1 large sweet onion (about 1/2 lb)
5-6 garlic cloves
1 tsp jojo potato seasoning (ingredient list: garlic, paprika, salt, rosemary, black pepper, basil, parsley, oregano)
1/2 tsp Hot chili powder (more or less to your spice level)
4 cups low sodium chicken stock (or veggie stock to make this vegan)
sea salt and pepper to taste

I used a food processor with a grater attachment to make quick work of this. Heat large soup pot, drizzle in olive oil. Grate garlic and onion and simmer in pot until lightly brown. Grate sweet potatoes whole (leave skin on). Add grated potatoes and spices to onion mixture and stir. Add stock and cover, let simmer for 20 minutes. Using an immersion blender (or a regular blender in small batches) blend until smooth. Serve warm with crusty bread.




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Adults only

Grilled cheese and tomato soup. A childhood staple... unless you are me, I thought the combo was gross growing up. Tomato soup? Isn't that like eating watered down spaghetti sauce? No thanks. Well my tastes have changes since being a small child so when Panera asked if I'd like to give their new soups a try I heartily said I'd love to. This big kid wanted to see what she had been missing out on.

Grown up grilled cheese means it comes with bacon. MMMM bacon. Fabulous idea in theory but whoever made my sammie didn't agree, with only 1/3 of a slice to be found, my taste buds were asking for more bacon to go with my perfectly melty grilled cheese. Lack of bacon aside, dipping it into my steaming bowl of creamy tomato soup made my belly warm and snuggly.

Did you know the secret ingredient to the creamy tomato soup is pear tomatoes? They have less seeds and a more intense flavor, and because they are smaller the seeds aren't bitter. Who knew?? I sure didn't, I may need to pick some up next time I make soup or sauce. Learn more here and listen to the soup stories!




As part of the DailyBuzz Food Tastemaker program, I received a gift card and stipend to try Panera Bread soups. All opinions are my own.



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Light me on fire soup

OK, I might have gone a little overboard with the hot curry... sure the recipe probably didn't call for hot curry, it just said said curry... note to self, and warning to all of you. DONT use hot curry unless you have a loaf of bread and an ice cold beer on hand to help with the slow burn that will be your mouth.

Other than the whole setting myself on fire part, this soup was delicious and amazingly flavorful. It pairs perfectly with a crusty loaf of homemade bread and is a hearty VEGAN meal. Yup you read that right. Not that you should be surprised the soup is vegan, lots of soups are vegan, and darn tasty too!

Curried Butternut Squash Soup
recipe from The Food you Crave

1 Tbsp canola oil
1 large onion, chopped (about 2 cuts)
2 cloves garlic, minced (about 2 teaspoons)
One 2 ½ lb. butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes
6 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
1 Tbsp plus 2 tsp curry powder
½ tsp salt, plus more to taste
2 Tbsp honey (sub agave for 100% vegan meal)

Heat the oil over medium heat in a large soup pot.  Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes.  Add the squash, broth, curry powder, and salt and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the squash is tender, about 15 minutes.  Remove the soup from the heat, stir in the honey, and puree until smooth in the pot using an immersion blender or in two batches in a regular blender.  Taste and season with salt, if necessary.

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Soup's on!

Less than a week till Christmas... I'm sure you are all too busy to actually be reading this... so I'll keep it short and sweet (kinda like me)

Yes I'm doing shots of soup... don't you do that?


So are you done shopping? Waving a white flag and saying good enough? I still need to get to the post office to ship off my gifts to the family in NJ... hmmm they may not get there on time at this point... uhoh.

Butternut Squash Soup
by steph chows

1 medium butternut squash skin and seeds removed, cubed
1 medium white onion
5 garlic cloves chopped
1 tsp hot yellow curry powder (more or less to taste)
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups light coconut milk
water or stock to thin to desired consistency

Saute onion and garlic until fragrant and slightly browned, add spices and squash and continue to saute until squash is slightly tender. Add coconut milk and water and simmer until squash is wicked tender. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup to get rid of all the chunks.

Serve with toasted fresh whole wheat rolls.

YUM

Cashew Chili

Since the weather has turned a bit chilly... it's about time to make some chili! HA... yes I know, horrible joke... This recipe can very easily be made vegetarian or vegan (just leave out the chicken... done and done). I must admit John made most of this so I'm not sure on exactly what went into it, but I can give you the bones of it. I was having a bad day... no real reason, just felt BLEH, and kept having random things go wrong. Like dropping a container of corn meal ALL over the floor *sigh*. In case you are wondering, it's amazing how far cornmeal can travel in one foul swoop. John's a sweetie and told me he'd clean up the mess and for me to go take a nap and then he'd get the chili started. So off I went and when my nap was all done, dinner was on the table and ready to go! Now that's what I call living!

John's Cashew Chili
Saute in the bottom of a big pot with a little olive oil
1 large onion diced
4 cloves garlic smashed and diced
1 red bell pepper diced
salt and pepper to taste

Then dump in
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can red kidney beans (rinsed)
1 can white beans (rinsed)
1/4 cup white wine
few glugs of red hot
1 cup cashews (unsalted)
seasonings... not sure what kind he used... cayenne pepper...
possibly some other random things tossed in...

Let is simmer for awhile and taste... add more seasoning if it needs it

We made ours chicken chili, so we cubed up two chicken breast and cooked it in a pan with a little olive oil, once cooked through we added it to the chili. Not at all necessary, but John wanted more protein.

Yup that's it! And the best part is it all tastes even better the next day once it's marinated overnight... mmmmm this stuff was SO GOOD!! Can't wait to have leftovers for dinner tonight!

Two sided vegan bean soup

I read about this soup on Natalie's Killer Cuisine last week and knew I had to make it! Two kinds of soup, and it takes less than twenty minutes!! You pour it into the bowl at the same time, and then swirl for a very fun effect.


The soup is super filling (come on it's made with beans) and super flavorful. She isn't kidding when she says the balsamic gives it a beautiful flavor kick!

I topped mine with some Dr. Krakers that I got for winning the amazing race bar challenge at Special K's blog.


Head over to Natalie's for the recipe and pictures way better than I took on a late dark night (darn you bad overhead kitchen lighting!)

A little soup to go with your bread?

Soup... that's the stuff you dip your bread in right?


I love pea soup and recently saw a recipe at cuisinivity for pea soup involving sweet potatoes and coconut milk... sounded good to me so I gave it a go!

I wasn't 100% sure if I would like the coconut milk addition or not... and good news, you add it at the end. So I made up the soup one night, put it in the fridge and the following night took out one serving and added the coconut milk to that and warmed it up... that way I still had the rest of the soup saved if I didn't like the coconut :) And it's not that I didn't like it... I just couldn't taste it? Anyone else have this problem?? It was just adding calories and fat... and no taste?? Totally disappointing. The soup on its own though was wicked tasty. So I'd make it again... just leave out the coconut milk :)


Split Peas, Sweet Potato and Coconut Milk Soup
recipe from cuisinivity

1 cup split peas
2 medium sweet potatoes ..... pealed and diced
1 medium onion ..... chopped
2 cloves garlic ..... minced
1 teaspoon ginger ..... minced
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 can coconut milk
5 cups stock (chicken or veggies)

1. In a large soup pot, put 1 tablespoon olive oil and saute garlic, ginger and onion in medium heat until onion is translucent.

2. Add split peas and sweet potatoes and sauteed another minute.

3. Add cumin, bay leaf, salt and pepper then add stock. Bring to boil and turn heat down to low and simmer until sweet potatoes and split peas are tender for 40 minutes. Add some more water if needed while cooking potatoes and peas.

4. Take out bay leave from the pan. Use a blender to puree the peas and potato mixture and then put puree back to a pan.

5. Add coconut milk and mix well. Simmer until it whams up. Adjust with salt and pepper if you like.

Soup to warm you up

I don't know about you but it's been COLD here. And the other day we got all types of snow and the plows didn't seem to be out at all. What's up with that? It took one friend an hour and a half to make it into work! That's just wrong.

For days like this everyone should just stay home and make up a nice pot of soup. This is super easy, fast, no fuss soup. No boiling for hours, just toss it all in the pot to heat up, and you're good to go. I added turkey kielbasa and shrimp to mine, but you could easily leave them out and have a nice vegetarian soup.

I'd like to thank Donna and Frank for the awesome new bowls!!
I love these things.

Beantastic Soup
spray or drizzle of olive oil
4 scallions green and white parts chopped
1/2 cup salsa (i used medium heat)
3 cloves garlic chopped
1 can low sodium black eye peas (not rinsed or drained)
1 can low sodium red beans (not rinsed or drained)
2-4 glugs Franks Red Hot (more or less to taste)
2 cups low sodium vegetable stock (I LOVE wegmans low sodium vegetable and chicken stocks, you can find them in the organic aisle, they are flavorful and only have 4% sodium per serving!)
1/2 a package turkey kielbasa sliced
1/2 lb frozen cooked shrimp thawed and tails removed
chopped scallions for garnish
thickly grated sharp cheddar cheese for garnish

Saute kielbasa in a soup pot until nicely browned, add garlic, ginger and scallions until aromatic (1-2 minutes)
Dump in half the beans and mash with a potato masher, then dump in the rest of the beans in un-mashed.
Add vegetable stock and red hot and stir to incorporate. Simmer until heated through (about 5 minutes). A few minutes before serving add the shrimp (you want them to heat up but not over cook since they are already cooked).
Serve topped with scallions and grated sharp cheddar.

This soup is done in under 30 minutes start to finish.

If you can't find low sodium beans, it's ok, just drain and rinse one can and not the other. That will still give you a little of the thickness with some less salt. If you used both full on sodium without rinsing, it may be a bit overpoweringly salty.

Chow!

Ellie's Tuscan Vegetable Soup

So in case anyone was wondering... Friday... the day John took over my blog... yeahhhh my number of hits that day was like 10 times the normal... I got over 1000???? WHAT???? Maybe this is telling me I should just hand the blog over to him and give up or something??? HAHAHA


Or maybe I should get him to do the writing since he's definitely more comedic than I am :) Oh well, hopefully you are all still reading since it's just little old me here today...

So while in the Poconos I received an awesome book from my sister and brother-in-law! It's called the Food You Crave, by Ellie Krieger and it's amazing! Ellie even has a little cult following in the blog world where they all make a recipe once a week from her book. You can check it out over at the awesome CB's blog. Clara has been trying to get me to join... but the whole HAVING to cook a specific thing on a specific night... yeahhh I can't plan out my week of eating... I've tried... but I have to go by how I feel that day... you know fly by the seat of my pants! hahaha


This soup though... it's amazing. And I will totally be making it again! Or I should say I will be making this for the first time since my Dad made this up while the rest of us where off skiing. See yet again DAD ROCKS! Mom rocks too but she was busy keeping Walton happy while dad made the soup :)

You can find the recipe on page 85, no pictures there though! I think cookbooks should be required to have pictures of ALL recipies not just some or most... ALL!

The soup includes things like cannellini beans, onion, carrot, celery, zucchini, garlic, thyme, sage, baby spinach... lots of good soupy stuff :) So simple and tasty! She uses chicken stock, which we used, but I bet you could use vegetable stock and keep this bad boy vegetarian!


Oh and in case you can't tell... the soup pairs amazingly with Yuengling Black and Tan. YUM.
CHOW!

Pea Soup

Awhile back I had asked my mom for her/dad's/nana's pea soup recipe. We always ate home-made pea soup growing up, especially after ham holidays... a ham bone makes the soup so good! I think the best part of this recipe is when mom says "It's not rocket science, just get it to taste good. :) " awesome. Hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as I do! I don't thicken it like Nana used to, but it is super tasty if you do :)

Pea Soup

1 pound of dried split green peas

1 medium onion chopped

1 carrot peeled & chopped

1 potato peeled & chopped

2 quarts water

bullion cubes (optional)

salt & pepper

2-3 tablespoons butter (optional)

2-3 tablespoons flour (optional)

Pick over and rinse peas. Place in large stock pot. Add water and heat to a low boil. Skim off any stuff that comes to the top. (Do not soak peas overnight.)

Add veggies and season with salt & pepper. You can add a few bullion cubes to give it more flavor if you want to. Return to boil, lower heat and cover. Simmer for at least an hour to 90 minutes. If you put the cover on tightly, this has a tendency to boil over. Leave it partly uncovered, or use a larger pot.

You can taste and adjust the seasonings. At that point, you can do a few different things. You can just eat it that way, a bit chunky. If you have a hand held emersion blender, you can blend it right in the pot. If not you can pour it through a sieve, and then smash and push the veggies through the sieve. This is easier to do if you cook it a bit longer to get them softer. That's the way that Nana always did it.

Now here comes the less healthy addition. Nana always thickened it. After putting it through the sieve, she would return it to the pot. In a small frying pan, she would melt the butter and brown it lightly. Then add the flour, stirring it constantly until it had a nice color. She's add some soup to this butter mixture and keep stirring until it was smooth. Then add it all to the soup. It gives it a nice flavor. I haven't done this in years.

A ham bone will give it a lot of flavor. You can use it one of two ways. You can just put the bone in when you add the veggies and let it cook with the soup. At the end, you remove the bone before you blend the soup. You probably have to scrape a lot of the veggies off of the bone. You can chop up whatever meat may come off the bone and add it back into the soup. Or you can simmer the bone in just the water for a couple of hours. Then either make the soup at that point (you don't need the bullion cubes, and probably very little salt). Or you can refrigerate or freeze the water to use when you do make the soup.

NOTE: This is all approximate. If it seems too thick, you can just add more water. You can add more or less of the veggies depending on what you have on hand. Some people put a little garlic in it. You can use chicken stock instead of water. It's not rocket science, just get it to taste good. :)

Butter Soup...

yeah you heard me right BUTTER SOUP...
but wait... steph chows is about eating healthy... and you don't use butter in your baking... what's going on!?!?!?

Don't worry dear reader I'm still all about cooking healthy... just keep reading...

If you've ever looked at the right hand column of the page you'll see a quote from my Nana, "everything in moderation" and I truly believe it. This recipe came with her mother all the way from Hungary. I have many fond memories of Nana and my Mom making this soup. It really should be called parsley root soup... but the first thing that goes in the large stock pot is butter... so hence the name.

The soup is hearty but not as fattening or thick as the name may lead you to believe. The home-made spatzle noodles blend perfectly with the woody/smokey flavors of the root and paprika. i LOVE this soup.

The hardest part of this soup is finding the parsley root. Wegmans is a great store, seriously whenever I travel somewhere I can't believe how much I miss Wegmans. They however don't carry parsley root all year long. It's more of a fall type of product, so last weekend when I was in the Wegmans by John's house, I looked over from one side of the produce department... and there is was!!! In all it ugly big fat root glory with wonderful greens spurting out of the tops!! I couldn't make it over to it fast enough, plucked the biggest bunch I could find and off I went. Did I mention that i LOVE this soup??


This soup really is a humble meal, inexpensive, filling, and delicious. It takes an hour to simmer and another 20 minutes for the noodles to cook but it's well worth it. I'm normally a quick recipe kind of girl... but for this soup... it's a pleasure!

Butter Soup
1 or 2 bunches of parsley root with leaves attached
4 Tbs butter
4 tablespoons flour
3 quarts boiling water
salt (approx. 1 teaspoons)
pepper (approx. 1/2 teaspoon)
Hungarian sweet paprika (approx. 2 teaspoons)

Cut tops off the parsley roots. Peel the roots and slice in thin slices. If roots are large, halve them lengthwise first. They do darken when exposed to the air, so don’t do this too far ahead of time.
Wash the leaves. They usually have a lot of sand clinging to them. Fold them in half and tie into a bunch with kitchen twine. Depending on how much you have, make one or two bunches.
Melt & lightly brown butter in large soup pot. Sprinkle in 4 tablespoons of flour, stirring constantly. (a flat whisk works well)
Gradually add the hot water, stirring and breaking up any clumps.
Add salt, pepper and paprika. Mix well so it doesn’t clump.
Add roots and bunches of leaves.
Bring to boil, turn down heat, cover, and simmer for about an hour. If pot is not large enough, it can boil over. In that case, don’t cover tightly.
Remove the bunches of leaves. Cut the leaves off the stems, they can be very tough. Chop the leaves and return to the soup.
Make noodles and add to soup. Simmer uncovered for about twenty minutes.

Noodles
4 eggs, beaten
all-purpose flour (approx. 1 1/4 cup)
salt (approx. 1/2 to 1 teaspoon)
pepper (approx. 1/8 teaspoon)

Beat eggs in a large flat soup plate. (again the flat whisk works well)
Gradually add the flour three or four tablespoons at a time. Beat in with whisk until smooth. Add the salt & pepper. (You may not need all the flour or you may need a bit more. It just depends on the size of the eggs, the humidity, who knows what else.)
You should get a soft, reasonably stiff dough.
Drop small spoonfuls into the soup. Nana always kind of flicked it off the plate into the soup.


I really hope you enjoy this as much as I do, there is so much nostalgia in this soup. LOVE IT!

chow!

PS. all those stems you cut the leaves off of... don't throw them out. Cut them up put them on a plate add a little pepper and eat them! It's always my appetizer while the noodles cook :) Also the original recipe calls for 1/4 lb of butter... you really don't need that much 4 Tbs works just fine :)

UPDATE: (here is a little more about what parsley root is!)

Root parsley

Another type of parsley is grown as a root vegetable, as with hamburg root parsley. This type of parsley produces much thicker roots than types cultivated for their leaves. Although little known in Britain and the United States, root parsley is very common in Central and Eastern European cuisine, used in soups and stews.

Though it looks similar to parsnip it tastes quite different. Parsnips are among the closest relatives of parsley in the umbellifer family of herbs, although the similarity of the names is a coincidence, parsnip meaning "forked turnip". It is not related to real turnips.

Butternut Corn Cashew Soup - Vegan

I've been hounding my coworker for this recipe ever since we had grub club corn. This was one of my favorite things that night and it's vegan to boot! The soup is super creamy and tastes like it's full of fattening cream... but it's not. No animals were harmed in the making of this soup! This soup satisfies the hard core vegan as well as a total carnivore. Now that autumn is here, sit back with a nice batch of this soup and make your belly very happy :D


Butternut Corn Cashew Soup

1 large butternut squash

1 C. raw or dry roasted, unsalted cashews

3 ears of sweet corn cooked and taken off cob

1/3 C. water
2 medium onions, chopped fine
2 stalks of celery, chopped fine
2 carrots, peeled & chopped fine
2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1/4 t. ground nutmeg
1t. salt
1/4 - 1/2 t fresh cilantro
freshly ground black pepper to taste
crushed red pepper to taste

Slice squash in half, clean and place "face down" on baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees until soft to the touch.

Place cashews in a food processor and grind until they are a fine meal. Set aside.

In a large stock pot put water, onions, celery, carrots, and garlic. Cook until soft, adding more water if needed. Add nutmeg, pepper, red pepper,salt and corn.

When squash is cool enough, scoop out flesh and puree in food processor or blender.

Add squash and cashews to stock pot, and water to desired consistency. Cook 5-10 minutes.

Add cilantro. Serves 6.

Miso Soup

woops didn't add the scallions before taking the picture :)

Miso soup is a staple in one of my friends diets, I love having it while I'm out for sushi and figured I really should learn to make it at home. Turns out it is so much easier then I would have guessed! The first time I made this I used the thin sheets of seaweed... and I'm not sure if what I bought was bad... but it tasted and smelled horrible. I love seaweed in all forms so I'm not exactly sure what happened but I tried making the soup again without the seaweed and this time it came out great! If anyone has a brand of seaweed they can recommend please leave me a comment!

One important thing to know is you can't boil miso paste. Once the soup is all done you need to let it come down to a simmer before adding the miso... otherwise... ok I'm not sure what but it's bad :) and wont taste good!

Miso Soup
1 small onion thinly sliced
4 cups water
1 small carrot sliced into thin long pieces with a vegetable peeler (optional)
8 oz firm tofu sliced into 1" pieces
8 fresh wanton wrappers torn in half

1.5 - 2 Tbs Miso Paste (I used Organic Hacho Miso)
2 scallions chopped (green and white parts)

In a medium pot cook onion until brown and starting to caramelize. Add 4 cups water and tofu chunks and bring to boil. Once boiling add carrot slices and wanton noodles, boil according to package (about 5 minutes). While that is cooking take the miso paste and dissolve it in 2 Tbs water, stir until totally dissolved. Once noodles are cooked remove pot from heat and once water is no longer boiling add dissolved miso paste mixture. Serve immediately and garnish with chopped scallions.

Chow!