Everyday Food Mini Magazine

One of my favorite little recipe books that's put out seasonally is Everyday FOOD, from the kitchens of Martha Stewart Living. I picked up a copy this past winter, their January/February issue, because it had so many recipes in it that sounded good! This past week I tried out two of them and as usual, they were a jumping off point and I didn't follow them exactly:

Rustic Chicken Minestrone Soup
olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced small
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 can of petite diced tomatoes
6-8 cups of chicken stock
1 cup shredded, cooked chicken
1/2 cup uncooked pasta (I used elbows)
1 cup baby carrots, sliced
2 cups baby spinach, chopped
1 zucchini, diced into quarter slices
1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 frozen basil cubes from TJ's
salt and pepper

1. In a large pot, heat oil over medium heat and add the chopped onion, cooking until softened (about 5 minutes), then add the garlic and cook another minute more. Add the tomatoes with all of their juice and cook for 5 minutes more.
2. Add the broth and bring to a boil. Add the carrots and cook for a couple of minutes, then add your uncooked pasta (it will cook in the hot broth). After another 5 minutes, add the chickpeas and the basil cubes. After another couple minutes you can finally add your zucchini and spinach. Those last two will cook pretty quickly so you want to be careful not to overcook.

3. It's important to remember that the soup will continue cooking while it cools once you turn the stove off, plus it will cook more anytime you reheat if you've made up a big batch. Season to taste - so try a spoonful and if its needs a bit more flavor, feel free to add some salt and pepper.

4. Serve with some fresh parmesan sprinkled on top!

I used chicken from Sweet Cheeks BBQ restaurant, so this minestrone came out really smoky - probably too smoky for some people's tastes, but I liked it! That is easily avoided by using your own chicken, from a meal earlier in the week or just shred a chicken breast after cooking it. I also learned in a cooking class that you should never use uncooked macaroni in a soup because it will get overcooked and keep soaking up the liquid. It seemed to work okay this time though!

Triple Chocolate Brownies
SECRET INGREDIENT: 1/3 cup black beans!
1/2 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 eggs plus 1 egg white
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
dash of cinnamon (optional)
1/2 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and get your pan ready - lightly butter or spray your pan (9-inch square) and also line it with parchment paper, which will make getting the brownies out WAY easier.
2. In a food processor, puree the black beans. Then in a large microwaveable bowl, combine butter, beans and chocolates. Microwave in 30-second intervals, stirring in between each until the combination is melted and smooth. Should take 2-3 minutes.
3. Whisk in the sugar, eggs and egg white, and vanilla until smooth.

4. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the melted chocolate mixture, but be sure not to over mix.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and you'll bake for about 25 minutes. A toothpick you put into the middle of the brownies should come out pretty clean or with crumbs attached, but not with liquidy chocolate on the toothpick - that means it's not done.
6. Let the brownies cool before you try to take them out with the parchment paper hanging over the edges.

These brownies are pretty fudgy and less cakey - but they were a big hit! Everyone was so surprised to hear there were black beans in the dessert - the three types of chocolate really make them rich and decadent, oh yeah - and delicious! I would even try making them with more black beans instead of some of the butter or egg yolk next time.

Potato Leek Soup

After buying an excessive amount of leeks for a latke recipe, I had to find something to do with all of the leftovers. I've been meaning to try out a recipe for potato leek soup, so now seemed as good a time as ever. It's a pretty hearty soup because so much of it is made out of potatoes, but in small amounts it's good. A very wintery dish.

Use only up to the light green part of the leek

Potato Leek Soup
1 leek (discard the thick green part) = about 2 cups sliced
3 cups diced white potato
1 TB lemon juice
1 tsp minced garlic
2 cups chicken stock
salt and pepper
pinch of rosemary and/or thyme
1 TB olive oil
1/2 - 3/4 cup skim milk

Lemony Spinach Broccoli Soup #1

Late last week I found that I had a few things left in my fridge that needed to be used: broccoli, baby spinach, celery, scallions - the usual suspects that I inevitably throw together to make a soup. Soup to me is the easiest dinner to make - yes, it requires lots of chopping, but otherwise the prep work is pretty easy and it creates good leftovers to bring for lunch. The flavor of this soup was great - thanks to the fresh lemon juice I used, but the texture could use some improvements, so this is Lemony Spinach Broccoli Soup, round #1.

Lemony Spinach Broccoli Soup

1/2 cup orange pepper, chopped
1/4 cup carrot, chopped
1/4 cup celery, chopped
1/2 cup scallions, chopped
1 tsp garlic, minced
2 cups broccoli, chopped
2 cups baby spinach, packed
1 TB butter
2 cups chicken broth*
3 TB fresh lemon juice
2 TB light sour cream
1 cup milk
1 TB flour

*You could make this recipe vegetarian by substituting vegetable broth for the chicken broth.

Curried Cauliflower Soup

I wish that I could buy just a couple pieces of celery at a time, but instead it tends to come in giant packages with so much celery I don't know what to do with it. You can only eat so much celery and peanut butter, and you don't usually use more than a couple stalks for a soup dish. Cream of celery soup doesn't really excite me either, so I had to be a bit more creative than that. I also noticed a fresh looking head of cauliflower on sale at the grocery store this weekend, so I had that to play with last night for dinner too. Despite getting home from work late I still had enough motivation to try out this new soup, which I threw together on a whim around 7:45. I was sitting down to dinner by about 8:45! I was also motivated to finally open and setup my new blender, which was an extra incentive to try this dish.

                                                                      Curried Cauliflower Soup

1/2 onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups celery, chopped
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 cup carrots, chopped
1/2 head of cauliflower, roughly chopped
1 TB lemon juice
2 TB butter
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 TB Patak's mild curry paste
2 TB sour cream
                                                                                       1 cup skim milk

Picking up where I left off

After going to a Winter Farmer's Market in Raymond, NH this past weekend I was inspired to try out some new recipes this week for dinner. I found lots of winter root vegetables, Macintosh apples from the fall harvest still and some homemade blueberry jam. Once I returned home I was determined to plan out our entire week of dinners, which was only complicated by the fact that our oven broke on Sunday! Some of you may have seen the start of this on facebook, but to recap:

Sunday: Roasted Chicken with Apple Chutney, Mashed Root Vegetables and Sauteed Brussel Sprouts with Baked Apples for dessert!

Cooking is all about innovation and creativity. With the oven broke I decided to sear the chicken (bone-in chicken breasts) first in a hot pan on the stove, and finished under the broiler - making sure not to keep the pan too close to the top.

The Mashed Root Vegetables drove this menu. I bought a Rutabaga at the farmer's market and had never cooked with it before - so I went in search of a recipe to use it. My dad recently bought a vegan cookbook (The Vegan Table) thinking it was a vegetarian one - but as it turns out the book is full of these great, healthy recipes. This is where the recipe came from - except I substituted all of the animal products I wanted for their ingredients - no butter substitute for me, thank you!