Tag Archives: Cook

May 6th: Green Machine Soup

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green machine soup

 

Today I am grateful for the opportunity to make myself a yummy dinner and relax.  This recipe was inspired by my Spanish co-worker’s quick fix dinner recipe for zucchini soup.  She calls it “Crema de Calabazin” or “Cream of Zucchini.”  I attempted to make it the night she told me about it but made the mistake of making it too thin and watery.  I reattempted it today and added my own touches to make it more nutritious AND amazingly delicious.

Ingredients:

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  • 4 large zucchini
  • 2 large garlic cloves
  • water and vegetable bouillon
  • cube or prepared broth (either chicken or vegetable)
  • 2 oz of soft cheese
  • 1 cup of copped kale
  • ripe avocado for serving

 

 

Peaches and Creame

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Peaches and Cream:

This is yet another extremely easy holiday dessert in my repertoire.  It is so easy, in fact, that I don’t like to tell people how to make it so that they still believe me to be more amazing than I really am in the kitchen!  It boasts only 4 simple ingredients and is so delicious, I have NEVER had any left-overs when I bring it to gatherings.

Ingredients:

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1 block of cream cheese brought to room temperature

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

1 package of lady fingers

1 large can of quartered or halved peaches in heavy syrup

Directions:

Let it sit over night in the fridge so that lady fingers soften and flavors meld… absolutely divine!

Spinach Balls with Pine nuts

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Spinach Balls:
These are a delicious (but due to the high butter and bread content, not so nutritious) appetizer for any party.  We usually serve these along-side bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, a big ol’ plate of stinky cheeses with French bread, olives, charcuterie and other similarly amazing things that fill you up before you even sit down for the main show.
We’ve been making these for years.  The recipe was originally given to us by my Aunt Lynne who swears she doesn’t remember where she got it from.  Possibly a newspaper clipping or an index card from a relative… regardless the source, they’re great. 
The original recipe didn’t include pine nuts.  This is a little Mediterranean spin my mom added but has become an integral part of the recipe ever since.  Trust me, you NEED the nutty crunch it adds.
Ingredients:
2 boxes of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed of all its moisture
3 cups of herbed stuffing
6 eggs
1 tsp garlic powder
1 small chopped onion (half a regular sized onion)
1 1/2 sticks of melted butter (3/4 cup)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 cup pinenuts
If butter is unsalted, add about 1 tsp of salt.  Omit if using salted butter.
Directions:
Mix all ingredients together and roll into walnut sized balls and place on a foil lined sheet.
bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.
At this point you can either serve or freeze for later use.
Simply thaw out the day of your party and heat through.  Delish!!

Healthy and Fast Weeknight Meal #1: Gazpacho

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Yummy and fresh

Yummy and fresh

I used to make the excuse that I was too tired to cook dinner after work waaaayyyyy too frequently. Unless I snuck over to my mom’s house and mooched a home-cooked meal from her, my excuses usually led to either too many calories (half a box of mac and cheese one night, the other half the next) or too few calories (a bag of low-fat microwave popcorn and a can of Coke Zero). Either way, the choices were horrible and the food tasted like crap… which, coincidentally, was how they made me feel.

The truth is, I was always the one that helped my mom prepare meals growing up and am usually her designated sous chef for holidays and family gatherings so, there was really no excuse for me not to have known how to feed myself a little better. Despite whatever culinary skills I may delude myself into believing I possess, however, you actually need very little (if any) skills in the kitchen to prepare some basic and healthy meals during the week. Trust me, your body will thank you and I bet you’ll save a lot of money as well. Take-out and prepared foods at the supermarkets are REALLY expensive and often not that healthy.

Monday afternoon, I received an email from my boyfriend with this link, along with the following message: “I’ve been craving gazpacho for a while. Would you make this for me, please?”

Spanish vegetable soup for dinner on the first day back to school and after a SERIOUSLY SWEATY hot yoga class?… I was up for the challenge!

Now, I may not be a lot of things, but one thing I am certain that I AM is practical. Practicality comes in handy when you need to get a task done quickly and efficiently. Weeknight Cooking Tip #1: The first thing you should always do when making a new recipe for the first time is analyze how you could simplify it without taking away its nutritional value or flavor.

If you open the link to the recipe, you’ll see that it calls for 2 lbs of fresh tomatoes. Can you imagine having to slice and dice 2 lbs of fresh tomatoes and adding water to get them to the right consistency?!… not to mention having to worry if they were sweet, unripe or mealy when you got them from the produce isle? In the words of Sweet Brown, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” Instead, I used whole, canned San Marzano plum tomatoes in their own juice. These can be bought in 1 lb cans and have a sweet flavor and the perfect texture.

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Everything else was easy. I just dumped it into the same bowl and blended it! Notice I said “bowl” and not “blender.” Weeknight Cooking Tip #2: Invest in an emersion blender (hand-held stick blender). It will be the best $45 investment you ever make for your kitchen and you will be eternally grateful to me for having given you the brilliant idea. It will save you so much time and mess that you’ll be more willing to make recipes that used to make your kitchen sink look like a war-zone. I use mine to blend my pumpkin soup right in the soup pot, sauces on the stove, smoothies in plastic cups and even salsas in their serving dishes.

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From prep to finish, I think the whole meal took me about 15 minutes to make. And voila! We had a pretty healthy and delicious dinner on the table.

The recipe suggests adding either basil or cilantro as a topping to the soup. Cilantro is DEFINITELY the way to go here because it pairs better with the chipotle, if you ask me. Some people have a bizarre aversion to cilantro, however, so do what tastes best to you…

How about the protein, you ask? Well, some gazpacho varieties are traditionally garnished with chopped hard boiled eggs. We always have a carton of eggs at home so I boiled a few of these up and served them along side the soup. If you are vegetarian/ vegan, however, it would be just as tasty with some sauteed extra-firm tofu cubes floating on top (maybe dust them with a little onion powder, garlic powder and cumin)!

Weeknight Cooking Tip #3: Make enough for left-overs! Guess what the best thing about this meal is?!… We had it for dinner today too, which meant NEITHER of us had to cook 😉

Do you have any go-to weeknight meals?
Is there a web site you love to go to for to search for recipes?
Any great cooking short-cuts you’d like to share?
Any great gadgets YOU think are must-haves for they kitchen?
Please share! As always, I love hearing from you.