Vegetarian Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Yes, the happy kitty bowl was happy again tonight. :)

I love broccoli. I think I'm the only one in the house who does. When I was a kid, I used to have fantasies of riding my pet triceratops, Spike, through the world sharing broccoli and having adventures. So when I saw a big honking bag of broccoli for a buck on the "yesterday's produce" rack, I figured it was time to try to make some soup and have another go with the immersion blender. I don't understand why people use chicken stock to broccoli soup. So, I made a vegetarian version so that I could share it with my imaginary dinosaur pal.


Ingredients:

4 cups uncooked Broccoli florets
1 cup sweet onion, diced
1 cup carrots, diced
½ mushrooms, sliced
2 ½ cups Veggie Broth
1 cup white wine
¼ cup milk/cream
½ cup cheddar (shredded)
2 tsp olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
Herbs de Provence to taste

In a stock pot, sauté the veggies in olive oil until they start to soften. Add the broth and wine, season with salt, pepper and herbs and bring to a boil until the veggies are soft. Stick an immersion blender in there and blend until smooth.

(If you aren't using an immersion blender: Transfer the veggies and half of the liquid into a blender of food processor and puree until smooth. Pour in the rest of liquid, continuing to blend until smooth.)

Pour the mix through a colander and return to pot. Stir in cream and cheese until cheese melts and serve.

I used heavy cream, so this was 7 points for a 1 cup serving. If you want to reduce the points value, then substitute lower fat milk for the heavy cream.

I know my happy kitty bowl was happy tonight and I imagine Spike would have been too.

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

There is a drink called an Irish Car Bomb. You drop a shot of Jameson's into a Guinness followed with a Bailey's chaser. (I've also seen it with the Jameson's chaser and dropping the Bailey's and dropping both shots.). No matter how you drink it, you will get bombed pretty quickly.

So yeah, I had to make the cupcakes.

The cake is chocolate cake made with Guinness:

Bring 1 cup of stout and 1 cup I salted butter ti a simmer. Whisk in 3/4 of a cup cocoa powder until smooth and remove from heat.

In a large bowl, whisk together 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon baking SODA and 3/4 teaspoon of salt.

In another large bowl, beat together 2 large eggs and 2/3 cup sour cream. Slowly beat in the egg mixture. (Slowly be the key word so you don't cook the egg and make it curdle.) Slowly beat in the dry mix. When fully mixed, fill cupcake liners 2/3 to 3/4 full. They don't get that huge.

Since I used my Babycakes thingie, I didn't have to set ovens. Otherwise bake at 350* F for 15-20 min.

While cooking, make the "bomb" filling:

Warm 1/3 heavy cream to simmering (NOT boiling) and pour over 8oz of chocolate. (I used semi-sweet chips). Let sit for a half minute or so before mixing until smooth. (I melted the rest of mix over a double boiler because the chocolate didn't fully melt.). Take off the heat and add 1/3 cup Baileys, 2 tbsp butter and 1 or 2 tsp of Jameson's. Mix until smooth.

When cool hollow the center and inject the filling into the center.

Then make a Bailey's buttercream frosting by beating a stick of unsalted butter together. When it's big and fluffy, and 3-4 Tablespoon of Bailey's. I also threw in a dash of vanilla to lighten the frosting.

These are yummy. Not overly sweet or overly moist it's a nice cupcake. :)

Bento for Dinner!

It's the holiday season and we all find ourselves out and running about. Tonight I was at the Natick Collection after finishing my final and wanted to celebrate. There's a new sushi bar in the mall called Wasabi and for $5 I could get a kid's bento box. It was rice, fruit, and an entree. The choices were things like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich roll, veggie sushi or teriyaki chicken. I thought I'd tried the chicken and was pleasantly surprised it was fresh roasted chicken with a light dressing, not that usual mall fare of sticky, gooey something on the grill how long ago? My dinner was fresh, light and had strawberries. :) :)

I also got a cup of Miso soup and a cup of tea with my dinner.

The adult fare was various sushi plates that would meander past on a conveyer belt so you just pick what you want and the price is the color of the plate. It was a fun concept and good food.

You know I'm going back... probably soon. If I worked in the mall, I had a feeling this would be my usual dinner stop. Either way, if you're in the DC area or Natick, check these guys out.

Veggie Soup

Something funny happened on the way to my soup, I tried using my immersion blender.

I started tonight in the veggie drawer in the fridge: onion, carrots, peppers and mushrooms. Oh wait, there's a tube of crushed garlic and crushed ginger on the door. So after I sautéed the veggies, I poured a carton of veggie broth in with some herbs de Provence, a shake of red pepper, a shake of cumin, salt and pepper. A splash of lemon juice and some white wine and let things simmer.

Then I decided to give the immersion blender a try.

Lessons learned? Immersion blenders have amazing suction and work wicked, wicked fast and sort of puréed everything.

Yummy though.

Chicken Thighs in White Wine Tomato Sauce

OK I was feeling adventurous but not crazy experimental... so what do you do with chicken thighs and tomatoes?

Well, I browned the thighs, then took them out of the pan and put them aside. In the pan I tossed in half a large sliced onion, a teaspoon of chopped garlic, a tablespoon of chopped ginger, a teaspoon of chili flakes and sauteed them together a little bit. After deglazing the pan with a half cup of white wine, I tossed in a couple of bay leaves and a couple of cinnamon sticks before pouring in a 28 oz box of crushed tomatoes. After it simmered for a few minutes to blend the flavors together, I put the chicken back in the pan and placed the lid on top to let it simmer for about a half hour or so.

When it was done, I pulled out the bay leaves and cinnamon sticks and served over some linguini fini.

I also oven roasted some sweet potatoes; however, they didn't make it to the plate because we ate them all of the cookie sheet. I sliced up 3 sweet potatoes into 1" slices and placed them in a single layer on a cookie sheet before I sprayed them with olive oil and salted them. I flipped them over and sprayed the back side and salted them and tossed them in the oven at 375* for 20 minutes before turning them and roasting them for another 20 minutes.

Soooooo yummy!

I should calculate the points plus values, but that requires a level of thought right now that I'm incapable of as I puzzle out my next short story that will post in the morning (you can see those over on the writing tab).

Basalmic Glazed Butternut Squash

So tonight Pi asked for something different with the veggies, so I went on line and found a recipe for Balsamic Glazed Butternut Squash.

I peeled and chopped a butternut squash and tossed it in a bowl with:

- 1/4 cup of Balsamic vinegar
- 2 tbs of honey
- 3 tbs of olive oil
- touch of salt and pepper

Simply toss the squash in the bowl with the vinegar, honey, oil and salt and pepper and then bake at 400* for 30-35 minutes. Flip the squash after about 15 minutes. The glaze on the squash is a total of 8 points+ and figure there are 4 servings of squash so your total, per serving is 2 points+ BUT, as always, your mileage may vary

One tip: I used tinfoil on the baking sheet so that I could clean up easily.

Veggie Sauce

I've been trying to incorporate more vegetables into my life every day. I know my Italian grandmother did not get sauce from a jar or a can. She made her own sauces and foods from scratch. Whether it was buying fish and mixing it up to make fish cakes to the ever present pan of sauce on the stove, her kitchen always smelled good and the end result always tasted wonderful.

I've been trying to wean my family from jarred sauce for a year with mixed success. They don't quite get how easy it is and last night I wanted to again remind them it doesn't take that long. Whole Foods had a nice Italian style chicken sausage with garlic on sale the other day so I picked up a pound. I had some sunrise slaw in the fridge along with onion and red pepper. In the pantry was diced tomatoes... all I needed for sauce.

I put the pot on the stove to get the water boiling. I then Sliced up the sausage, cooking it up in a deep frying pan with a few sprays of olive oil - which took all of a couple minutes. Because it's chicken sausage, I wanted to make sure it was cooked through. I tossed in the diced onions and peppers and let them soften a bit and tossed in about half the bag of sunrise slaw, the can of diced tomatoes and some white wine. I seasoned it all up with some Italian seasoning, salt and pepper and let it simmer while I waited for water to boil and then the whole wheat pasta to cook.

When the pasta was done and drained, I poured the sauce over it and gave everything a good mix. In the end, it took as long as to make a healthy veggie sauce that was tasty as it did to open a jar of blah and heat it up. Overall, it was 24 points plus for the sauce - most of it being the sausage. When you figure it's 6-8 servings total, then you end up around 4 points plus a serving over the pasta. This would also work over couscous, rice or some other grain.

I wish I had taken a photo of dinner, but the truth is, I wanted to dig in. Yum.