Gingered Carrot Soup

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Inspired by my zucchini soup experiments a few weeks ago, I decided to try something a little different.  As I walked through the produce isle at the grocery store, I picked up a bag of peeled baby carrots which I like to snack on during the week.  I looked down and saw a 2 lb bag of large carrots and it hit me… Carrot Soup!!  Not only was it insanely easy to make, its very good and, of course, nutritious.
Ingredients: 
  • 2 lb bag of carrots peeled and diced
  • 2 cloves of garlic peeled and smashed
  • vegetable or chicken broth
  • water
  • ¼ tsp ground ginger
  • ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 2 oz softened cheese.
Directions:
  1. Place diced carrots in soup pot along with garlic cloves just cover tops of carrots with broth.
  2. Bring to low simmer and cook covered until carrots are soft.
  3. As broth evaporates during the cooking process, continue to replace evaporated broth only to cover carrots.
  4. Once cooked, take immersion blender and blend carrots in the pot.
  5. Add water to create desired thickness.  I added approximately 1 cup to mine.
  6. Add cheese and spices and blend again.
Voila!  Delish!
I was so proud of the way it turned out that I called my mother and asked her to come over for a taste.  The following is the dialogue from that lovely conversation:
Mom: Ooh, spicy. Very good, but don’t eat too much of this. (as she puts another spoonful in her mouth)

Me: Why? It’s healthy. 

Mom: (pointing to my face) It’s going to make you turn orange!
Me: (shaking my head and smirking)
Mom: (smiling now but trying to be serious) Fine! Don’t listen to your mother.

Chicken Fajita Salad

taco salad

Check out what I made from yesterday’s left-overs.  I made chicken fajitas last night and decided that, for lunch, I didn’t want to eat the left-overs wrapped in a tortilla.  Instead, I placed the meat and veggies over lettuce and tomato, used salsa as the dressing and voila!  A healthy, low-fat and super nutritious lunch was served.

Here’s how I made yesterday’s fajitas.

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb chicken tenderloins cut into cubes
  • 1/2 large onion sliced
  • 1 green bell pepper sliced
  • 1 orange, yellow or red bell pepper sliced
  • garlic powder
  • cumin
  • Sazon Goya Complete Latin Seasoning Mix with Saffron
  • cayenne pepper
  • olive oil

Suggested garnish ingredients:

  • 2% milk cheese (Mexican blend)
  • low fat sour cream
  • salsa
  • guacamole
  • shredded lettuce
  • diced tomato
  • whole wheat soft tortillas

Directions:

  1. heat a drizzle of olive oil in large skillet and toss onions and peppers along with desired amount of seasoning until veggies are slightly tender and are a bit charred.
  2. transfer to a plate
  3. using same skillet, heat up another drizzle of oil and cook the cubed chicken tenderloins with desired amount of seasoning
  4. throw both veggies and chicken together in skillet and heat through

Serve family style.  Let everyone fill their whole wheat tortillas as they wish with chicken/veggie mixture and garnishes.

 

Ginger Butternut Squash

pumpkin soup 1

On my way to the grocery store this afternoon, I called my friend Magaly to see how she was doing.  True to her energetic and endearingly quirky way of being, she went into some random tangent about a topic that was completely unrelated but interesting none the less… “How do you make squash soup?  I tried to make it the other day and it was grainy and awful!”

I gave her a quick recap on how I usually make the soup then felt instantly inspired to make and eat some myself tonight!  There are very few ingredients, it contains barely any fat and it is completely vegetarian.  Although I finished making the soup way after I had eaten my steelhead trout dinner, I filled a mug and had treated myself to some on the couch while watching tv.  I also packed myself some for lunch tomorrow.  Yum!!

Ingredients:

  • 2, 12 oz packages of frozen cooked squash
  • 3-4 carrots
  • 3-4 stalks of celery
  • 1/2 large onion or 1 small
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 vegetable bouillon cube
  • 1/2 tsp each of garlic powder, ginger and cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp (or more if you like spice) red cayenne pepper
  • 1/4 tsp turmeric
  • 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
  • (1 tbsp sugar is optional)

Directions:

The ginger and cayenne give this one a real kick.  Enjoy!