Pumpkin Black Bean Soup

This is a really yummy soup--different than the usual pumpkin soup recipes and different from the usual tortilla soup recipes, even though many of the ingredients are the same. This was the perfect amount for my family, so double the recipe if you've got more people than me (2 adults, 2 kids). I used regular tomatoes instead of fire roasted because that's what I had available, I'm sure I didn't use this much chicken, and I added an extra cup of water. Yummy.

Pumpkin Black Bean Soup
1 clove garlic
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
1 can pumpkin (15 oz)
1 can chicken broth (15 oz)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed (15 oz)
1 can fire roasted diced tomatoes (15 oz)
1 Tbsp curry
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cumin
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked and shredded

Saute garlic in olive oil and butter. Add pumpkin, chicken broth, black beans, and tomatoes. Bring to a boil, add spices, and stir well. After it starts to boil, reduce heat and simmer 20-25 minutes. Add chicken and serve.

Baked Oatmeal with Berries and Bananas

Allison served this at a family breakfast a little over a week ago, and I had to have the recipe right away. I've had several different baked oatmeals before, and while I have liked them all, I love this one. Today I woke up before most of the kids (thanks, Lissy), so we'll have breakfast at a decent time once it's out. However, I think a better way to do this is to whip it up, then put it in the fridge and pop it in the oven the next morning. I love things that are both healthy and yummy! (Add health by adding in a little ground flax, decrease health by covering with buttermilk syrup.)

2 c. old fashioned oats

1 t. baking powder

1 ½ t. cinnamon

¼ c. brown sugar

¼ c. chopped pecans

½ t. salt

1 ½ T melted butter

1 egg

2 t. vanilla

2 c. milk

2 ripe bananas, split lengthwise and sliced

1 c. frozen berries (I use the triple berry blend from sam’s/costco)

Optional topping:

¼ c. chopped pecans

½ c. frozen berries

1.Preheat oven to 350. Mix first six ingredients in one bowl, set aside.

2.In microwaveable bowl, melt butter. Whisk in the egg. Once incorporated, add vanilla and milk, whisk to combine. Set aside.

3.Spray an 8x8 pan with nonstick spray. Put in layers: sliced bananas, then berries, then oat mixture, then pour milk mixture over the top of it all. Give it a nice thwack on the counter to make sure it all soaks in. At this point you can refrigerate it overnight and bake it in the morning.

4. Optional: top oats with nuts and berries before baking.

5. Bake 35-45 min or until oats are set. Serve with maple syrup or whatever unhealthy delicious concoction you can muster up. I love it with that buttermilk syrup.

(p.s. I would like the optional topping, but have never made it and it's still good.)

Mexican Rice

Here is the rice I always made with Mexican dishes before I discovered Arroz Verde. I still make it often because it's fast - I rarely actually measure the spices because that makes it take longer. Gary originally found the recipe on allrecipes.com, and only has one slight modification by me (I reduced the water from the original a bit because I thought it was a little gooey.) FYI, Kristen and Kayla, this is what I made with the fajitas when you were here, though I didn't spice it enough then.

Serves 4 (I make 1.5 times this for my fam.)

3 T vegetable oil
1 cup uncooked long grain rice
1 t garlic salt
1/2 t cumin
1/4 c chopped onion (a lot of times I just sprinkle in dried  minced onion and call it good)
1/2 c tomato sauce
1 3/4 cups chicken broth (water won't make it bad, just not as flavorful)

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and add rice. Cook, stirring constantly, until puffed and golden. While rice is cooking, sprinkle with salt and cumin.
2. Stir in onions and cook until tender. Stir in tomato sauce and chicken broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

Ok, I will make one more suggestion - saute the onions before or with the rice. Sauted  things always taste better. Also, I have never seen the rice look "puffed." Don't despair, just 2 minutes or so, until it's a little golden.

Why am I posting these rice recipes? I just realized I promised I'd post this one, but now I have two I like. We usually have rice with our Mexican food unless I am too sick to cook much - it creates "Sad Gary" if we don't have any.

Arroz Verde

You want this rice. Allison made it for her baby blessing, and I needed the recipe right away. Just whip it up before you start cooking the rest of your meal,  then it will be done baking when you're ready to eat. I always did red rice before, but if I have time and ingredients I will choose this. Yeah, there's a lot of butter.  Let me know if you use less and it works. The spinach cancels the butter, right? It's delish!

In a blender, mix together:

1/2 cup tightly packed cilantro leaves

1 cup spinach leaves

1 can chicken broth

1 1/4 cup milk

1tsp salt

Heat in a skillet:

1 Tbsp. olive oil

3 Tbsp. butter

Brown in butter/oil mixture:

1/4 cup chopped onion, then add

1 clove garlic, minced, then add

1 1/2 cups long grain rice

Put browned rice mixture in the bottom of a 9x13 pan.  Pour green mixture over top.  Cover with foil and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

Pasta Primavera

Last fall some friends invited us over for dinner and served this dish . . . and I've been dreaming about it ever since. I got the recipe today and luckily had most of the ingredients on hand, so I changed my dinner plans and did not regret it for a second. This dish doesn't really have many seasonings, but it is somehow SO incredibly flavorful and delicious. I'm in love and so is everyone else in the fam.

Just a note on the ingredients. This is the type of dish that it's hard to go wrong with---you can really mix and match the ingredients here to customize it to what you have on hand and what your family enjoys. You MUST use pine nuts and asparagus and FRESH Parmesan cheese, however. Today I didn't have the fresh basil, so I made it without and that obviously changes the whole tone of the dish, but it was still delicious. So use it if you can (and if you like fresh basil, of course), but don't stress if you don't have it. I also think this would be amazing with some zucchini or yellow summer squash.


Pasta Primavera

4 Tbsp pine nuts
1 pound dried pasta of your choice (penne and rigatoni work well)
2-3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
20 cherry tomatoes, halved
15 (or so) fresh asparagus spears, bottoms trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieeces
4 (or so) carrots
1 cup green peas (thawed if frozen)
8 button mushrooms, sliced
4 Tbsp fresh basil, finely chopped
1/2 chicken broth
2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
grated Parmesan cheese

Heat a skillet over medium heat; add the pine nuts and toast, stirring continuously for 1 minutes; set aside.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package directions.

While pasta is cooking, heat 2 Tbsp of the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and cook the onions, stirring, for 6 minutes or until soft. Add garlic and cook another minute. Add tomatoes, asparagus, and carrots and cook, stirring regularly, for 2 minutes. Add peas, mushrooms, basil, broth, salt, and pepper; cover skillet and cook 5 minutes. Add remaining olive oil and toasted pine nuts; stir to combine all ingredients.

Drain cooked pasta in a colander, and put the vegetable mixture in the bottom of the empty pot. Top with hot pasta and toss together gently to combine well and heat through. Serve pasta topped with a little Parmesan cheese.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Gary discovered this recipe at allrecipes.com quite a while back. It's easy and yummy, and you can make it just like that. However, given a few more seconds of your time, you can make it something spectacular. I'm talking really only a few minutes. I thought I had written this already, but puzzling-ly, I have not.

Here's what I did the other day:
1 large onion (or 1 1/2 medium/small onions), diced
2 T bottled minced garlic (if you're using fresh, use less, but this is my fast recipe)
1 jalepeno, seeded and diced

Cook those in the bottom of the pot (in a little oil) on low to release their flavors while you go get all of the cans out. Or, to speed things up, cook on medium-high. The flavors get locked in more, but oh, well.

Now dump into the pot:
2 cans beans (I like one black, one pinto, but whatever works)
2 cans diced (or petite diced) tomatoes
2 cans diced green chiles (if you already have them in the tomatoes, you won't need this)
2 cups frozen corn, or a can of corn (really, I just eyeball this, 2 cups is a guesstimate)
1 can Preston-canned chicken or size equivalent of canned or other shredded chicken (rotisserie works great), be sure to add the broth. If you don't you will need more broth than I used.
1 cup chicken broth (or water and boullion)

Stir it all up and season with:
A lot of cumin
A lot of chili powder
some salt
some pepper

Maybe next time I'll measure. But really, if it tastes bland, add more. Measuring takes time. :) It's how you like it.
You may need to add a bit of sugar or red wine vinegar to cut the acid. To taste. Make sure it's hot, but really, everything in there is cooked. It will taste better as it sits and the taste comes together, but you haven't got all day. Unless you do, it will be yummier.

Now, for the grand finale. Serve with:
lots of lime
Tortilla chips
sour cream
cilantro
green onions
avocado
queso fresco or cojita . . . or monterey jack or cheddar
hot sauce, should you feel inclined (just a teensy of Chipotle Tobasco, and yum!)

This is super fast. Of course all of the extras are not necessary, but they are really good. You can serve it plain with cornbread, too. If you don't have time to dice an onion you can throw in onion power, if you have no minced garlic, you can throw in garlic powder. You can leave out the jalepeno entirely, but really, it's good, and when seeded, not hot in the final product.

Pizza Crust

I've been looking around for a fantastic pizza crust recipe, and America's Test Kitchen delivered. It says it takes 1.5 to 2 hours to rise, but I often warm my oven to 200 degrees, turn it off, then put the dough in there.  Rises pretty fast - half an hour or so. I use this to make pizzas, obviously, but also to make stromboli (kids call it pizza rolls). Will write about that in a separate post. Can make a double batch in the Kitchen Aid, which is enough for 4 pizzas or strombolis (regular is, of course, 2).

1/2 cup warm water
1 envelope (abt 2 1/4 teaspoons) instant yeast
1 1/4 cups water, at room temperature
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 cups bread flour (I use whole wheat), plus more for dusting the work surface and hands
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1. Measure the warm water into a 2-cup liquid measuring cup. Sprinkle in the yeast and let stand until the yeast dissolves and swells, about 5 minutes. Add the room-temperature water and olive oil and stir to combine.
2. Place flour and salt in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle. Briefly combine the dry ingredients at low speed. Slowly add the liquid ingredients at low speed. Slowly add the liquid ingredients and continue to mix at low speed until a cohesive mass forms. Stop the mixer and replace the paddle with the dough hook. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Form the dough into a ball, put it in a deep oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and proceed with the recipe.
3. Let rise until doubled in size, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Press the dough to deflate; it is now ready to use in recipes.

You will ask the baking times and temperatures. It depends on the recipe. If you don't know, bake at 425 until it's done. Yum.

Turkey Osso Bucco

I just wanted to pin this recipe, but darn Pinterest is all about appearances, and there wasn't a big enough picture on the page. Bah. So now you get a very delicious dinner idea. We just had it for Sunday dinner, and LOVED it. Very easy to put together, too, especially since the herbs don't even need to be cut. Got the idea from Allison, and here is the original recipe. There is a gremolata that goes with it at that site, should you feel so inclined. We like it. I will chime in with what I did differently. I'm sure it's perfect as written by Giada, but I had the ingredients I had . . . I doubled the veggies, because I had them, and liked it. Here goes!

1/2 breast of turkey (cut into 3 pieces, preferably by the butcher) (I didn't have a whole turkey, so I used a turkey breast tenderloin I got from Sam's club. I had 1.5 lbs of meat, which I cut into 6 large pieces so it would cook faster.)
2 turkey thighs (didn't use this, see above)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup all-purpose flour, for dredging
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used less, since I had less turkey)
1 small onion, finely diced (I used a large onion)
1 carrot, finely diced (I used 2 big carrots)
1 celery stalk, finely diced (I used 2 stalks of celery)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 cup dry white wine (I used 1 cup apple juice, 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar)
4 cups reduce-sodium chicken broth (I had less turkey, so I only used 2 cups)
1 large sprig fresh rosemary
2 large sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
2 whole cloves garlic

What I did was delicious, but I think that since I used apple juice and less broth, I'd probably use less apple juice next time to keep the proportions right in the sauce. It was, however, still delish.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Pat the turkey with paper towels to dry and ensure even browning. Season the turkey with salt and pepper. Dredge the turkey in the flour to coat.

In a heavy roasting pan large enough to fit the turkey in a single layer, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the turkey and cook until brown on both sides, about 6 minutes per side. Transfer the turkey to a plate and reserve.

In the same pan, add the onion, carrot, and celery. Season vegetables with salt. Cook until the vegetables are tender, about 6 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 1 minute. Stir in the wine and simmer until the liquid is reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Return the turkey to the pan. Add enough chicken broth to come 2/3 up the sides of the turkey. Add the herb sprigs, bay leaf, and cloves to the broth mixture. Bring the liquid to a boil over medium-high heat. Remove the pan from the heat. Cover the pan tightly with foil and transfer to the oven. Braise until the turkey is fork-tender, turning the turkey after 1 hour. (I cooked it for 1 hour, 20 min, and it was very tender. Had I used the full amount of turkey, probably would have needed the full time.)

We ate ours with mashed potatoes and a green salad. YUM!

Oatmeal (Chocolate Chip) Cookies

From Better Homes and Gardens. I've never made them without the chocolate chips, because they're really the point to me. However, the original recipe is just oatmeal cookies, and you can stir in in raisins. But then you won't get any chocolate. Just a warning.

These have become Gary's specialty and they disappear very quickly wherever he takes them!

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup flour
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup chocolate chips or raisins (optional)

In a large mixing bowl or bowl of stand mixer, beat butter on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour. Stir in rolled oats. (I've never had any problems doing this with my Kitchen Aid.)

Drop dough by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are golden. Cool on cookie sheet for one minute. Transfer to wire rack and let cool.

Breadsticks!

So, tonight I wanted to make some breadsticks, but since I hadn't planned ahead very far I needed something that would be FAST. I found this recipe and am completely converted . . . super easy, super fast, super super super delicious. Funnily enough, when I went to post the recipe, I realized that Kristen's last recipe was from the same blog---totally a coincidence, as I had never heard of this blog or checked out her site. Anyway, I highly recommend these breadsticks, and I especially love the method of patting all the dough out onto the pan and then slicing them on the pan. So much easier than the traditional method.

Quick and Easy Breadsticks


1 1/2 C warm water
2 T sugar
1 T yeast
1/2 t salt
3 1/2- 4 C flour
1/4 C butter
3/4 C grated Parmesan or mozzarella cheese
Johnny's Garlic Seasoning (*Note: I always use this seasoning from Our Best Bites)

1. Mix the water, sugar and yeast together in a measuring cup or in the bottom of your mixer. Let it sit for 5 minutes.
2. Add the salt and the flour, one cup at a time, until it is well incorporated. Mix on high for 5 minutes. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.
3. Melt the butter and pour half of it into a jelly roll pan (large cookie sheet). 
4. Place the dough in the center of the pan. Let it sit for 2 or 3 minutes. Letting the dough rest makes it MUCH easier to shape. 
5. Spread the dough out flat onto the pan until it reaches all of the edges. Doing all of the spreading and cutting of these bread sticks, in the pan makes cleaning up your counter so much easier! 
6. Pour the other half of the butter onto the dough. Spread it around with your hands. Sprinkle the Johnny's Garlic Seasoning all over the dough, and then the Parmesan cheese. 
7. With a pizza cutter cut the dough into three rows lengthwise, and then into about 12 little height wise rows. 
8. Put the pan into a 170 degree oven for about 7-10 minutes. The breadsticks should rise about 1 inch.
9. Turn you oven up to 350 and bake for about 12 minutes, or until golden brown.
10. When they come out of the oven let them sit and rest again for about 5 minutes. Then redefine your cutting lines with the pizza cutter.

Crispy Cheddar Chicken

So I am posting this because it was so easy and really delicious (especially for it's simplicity) And you know if I am posting it then it really is easy and quick. Here is the link:

Crispy Cheddar Chicken

And then I made it with this because the blog suggested it. I am so creative:

Rice Pilaf With Almonds

Easy Teriyaki Chicken

I like the Our Best Bites teriyaki recipe a lot, but this is something totally different. It doesn't really have a thick sauce, and it's got a hint of lemon . . . the point of this is SUPER easy and quick. It's Deanne's recipe, so you know it can feed a lot of people fast.

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 tsp ginger powder, or more to taste (I grate in fresh ginger root. Way tasty.)
garlic powder to taste (I saute a little minced garlic before adding water instead)
lemon zest to taste

Let these ingredients come to a boil, then add chicken pieces. Let it simmer (a strong simmer), until the chicken is done. Serve over rice.

Chocolate Cherry Cordial Cookies

I found this recipe in Parade magazine around Christmas time, and decided to give it a try . . . good decision, these are delicious! It sounds like a lot of work to put a cherry into each cookie, but really it's not, especially if you give a jar of cherries and a bowl of dough to 3 little boys then make dinner while they get the job done.  If you don't have 3 little boys, you could maybe sub in girls. Interestingly, these cookies were better the next day once the flavors had hung around together for a little bit. Yes, I bought rum extract for this recipe, but now I have a reason to make them again, so I'm not disappointed with the purchase.

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp rum extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
30 maraschino cherries, drained and patted dry with a paper towel
2 Tbsp sugar, for coating

For glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp rum extract
4 tsp maraschino cherry juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, egg, and rum extract until light and fluffy. Add flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Beat well.

Flatten out about 1 Tbsp dough. Place a cherry on top; mold dough around it. Roll in sugar.Repeat with remaining dough.

Place cookies 2 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 8 minutes. Cool on a rack.

For glaze, whisk ingredients; spoon over cookies.