Greek-Style Minestrone

Ahhhh, Soup Sunday.  It’s my favorite thing about cooking.  Soup, as I have long mentioned, is my favorite food, and so nothing makes me happier than tending to a giant pot of soup.  I happened to make about a thousand gallons of this soup (I doubled everything … but for your benefit, I’m sticking to the regular ratios!).  I’m glad I did, though, because this soup is well worth it.

This recipe comes from my new soup cookbook (The Big Book of Soups and Stews, which I received for Christmas from my grandparents).  I hope to make a few more recipes from it this year, because there are some great ones!  This was a good one to start with, as it has a ton of veregbales, which is good for your post-holiday detox!  Enjoy!

Greek-Style Minestrone

from The Big Book of Soups and Stews

• 1/2 c. chopped onion
• 1/2 small eggplant, unpeeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 carrots, coarsely chopped
• 2 stalks celery, coarsley chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 6 c. chicken stock or broth
• 1 can tomato juice
• 1 can small white beans, drained and rice
• 1 large (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes, with juice
• 1-2 c. chicken, pulled from a rotisserie chicken
• 1 zucchini, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1/2 inch slices
• 2 tbsp. dill weed, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 tsp. Greek seasoning
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• freshly ground pepper, to taste
• Juice of one lemon
• 1/2 c. crumbled feta

1. In a large soup pot over night heat, combine onion, eggplant, carrots, celery, garlic, stock, tomato juice and tomatoes.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, until vegetables are tender, at least 25 minutes.
2. Increase heat to medium and add beans, zucchini, chicken, dill, Greek seasoning, salt and pepper.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Stir in lemon juice, and simmer an additional 5 minutes.  Ladle into bowls and sprinkle with feta.

Chicken and Brown Rice Casserole

Is it cold where you are?  Guessing that the majority of our readers are in Boston or Wisconsin, the answer is likely yes.  The wind is beating against our outer windows and through the (bare) tree.  Marc and I are currently plagued with the laziness of a mid-January weekend.  We have nothing major planned, aside from haircuts, dinner with friends and maybe a movie.  Sounds pretty perfect to me.

This week, we focused a lot on warm, delicious foods that would make for great lunchtime leftovers (New Year’s always brings a new look on one’s budget, does it not?!).  On Sunday night, I prepared this fantastic casserole for Monday which made for great leftovers throughout the week.  The casserole doesn’t have many green vegetables, so for an added nutrient boost, I served it on top of fresh baby spinach.  I would definitely make it again, but next time, I would add additional vegetables, maybe peas or carrots, and definitely spinach.  Enjoy!

Chicken and Brown Rice Casserole

from Kalyn’s Kitchen

• 2 cups cooked brown Jasmine rice
• 16 oz. mushrooms, washed, thickly sliced
• 3 tsp. olive oil, divided
• 1 onion, diced into small pieces
• 2 tsp. Northwoods Seasoning Blend from Penzey’s Spices
• 1/2 tsp. ground poultry seasoning
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 1/2 – 2 c. rotisserie chicken, diced
• 1/2 c. chicken stock
• 1/2 c. low fat sour cream
• 1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese
• 2 c. Monterey Jack cheese, divided
• Any additional veggies that suit your fancy.  For this, I just served it over a bed of fresh baby spinach.

1. Cook brown rice according to package and let cool.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Heat 2 tsp. olive oil in heavy non-stick pan and sautee mushrooms until they are starting to brown and all liquid has evaporated.  Remove mushrooms from pan into a large bowl.
3. In hot pan, add 1 tsp. olive oil.  Add onions and sautee 3-4 minutes or until onions are softened.  Add Northwoods and poultry seasonings, salt and pepper.  Sautee about 2 minutes more.
4. When onions are finished cooking, add to bowl with mushrooms.  Add chicken and rice and stir gently until all meat and vegetables are evenly distributed in the rice.
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together sour cream and chicken stock, then stir in parmesan cheese and one cup Monterey Jack.  Gently stir the sour cream mixture into the rice mixture.   (If you’re adding extra vegetables, ths would be the place to do it!)
6. Spray a 2 quart casserole dish with non-stick spray.  Spoon rice mixture into the casserole dish and press down evenly to distribute.  Bake for 25 minutes or until casserole is slightly bubbling and barely starting to brown.
7. Sprinkle remaining cheese over casserole and bake for about 15 minutes more or until cheese is melted and lightly browned.

Bowtie Lasagna

Who doesn’t love an easy dinner?  I know it’s the best part of my week when I can do something quickly and easily and walk away feeling satisfied.  I found this delicious recipe on Tasty Kitchen, and was excited  to try it, especially given how simple it is.  It’s a great meal for a busy family, or for someone seeking the comfort that only gooey cheese and pasta can provide.

Bowtie Lasagna

• 1 lb. ground turkey, chicken or beef (I used turkey)
• 5 c. farfalle
• 3 c. of your favorite spaghetti sauce
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 1 tsp. Italian seasoning
• 1/2 c. mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 c. sour cream

1. Fry ground meat in pan until browned.  Drain off any fat.  Meanwhile, boil noodles according to directions on the package, until al dente.
2. When noodles are cooked, drain and drizzle with olive oil.  Return noodles to their original pan, and mix in spaghetti sauce.
3. Add drained meat, seasonings, cheese and sour cream and fold together.  Allow cheese to melt over low heat (about 4-5 minutes).  Serve hot.

Chicken Marsala

Happy New Year! We’ve definitely had a busy time as of late but it’s great to be back posting again. I made this dish for Elysabeth’s birthday week (all the way back in November!) and am glad I took some photos so I could post it today. This turned out better than I could have possibly imagined and I was so glad to put a smile on my sweetie’s face with one of her favorite dishes.

This preparation was something I came up with after thinking about the sauce-building process and is pretty standard for a wine sauce that is thickened by flour. Instead of using a standard roux however, I decided to use a Beurre manié which was easier to integrate into the already reduced sauce. The prosciutto added plenty of salt, so I didn’t need to adjust the seasoning in the end. Please enjoy, and have fun!

Chicken Marsala (Serves 4)

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, halved lengthwise, pounded into cutlets (8 pieces total)
• 4 thick slices prosciutto, diced
• 16 oz. cremini mushrooms, sliced
• 3 tbsp. butter, divided, at room temperature
• 1 tbsp. flour, plus extra for dredging
• 2 shallots, minced
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
• 3/4 cup marsala wine
• 1/4 cup sherry
• 2 15 oz. cans chicken broth (about 4 cups)
• 1 tbsp. fresh sage, sliced thinly
• olive oil
• kosher salt
• freshly ground black pepper

1. Place a handful of flour on a smal plate and spread it out. Dredge chicken pieces in the flour, making sure to shake off all excess.
2. Heat 1 tbsp. olive oil over medium-high heat in a large straight-sided sauté pan and brown chicken pieces, being careful not to crowd the pan. Work in batches and add additional oil if necessary. Cook chicken pieces until just browned (not cooked through), set aside and keep warm on a plate or in the oven covered by foil.
3. Turn heat down to medium-low, wait for it to cool slightly and add 2 tbsp. of butter to the pan. Add shallots and cook until just soft. Add all mushrooms and a pinch of salt. Cook gently, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms lose liquid and reduce in size significantly, about 15 minutes.
4. Once the mushrooms are done, add garlic and cook for another minute, stirring frequently, until fragrant. Add both wines and turn heat up to a simmer. Cook until all liquid is nearly evaporated, about 10 minutes. Add prosciutto and broth, bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.
5. While liquid is simmering, mix the remaining tbsp of butter with 1 tbsp of flour with your fingers to make a beurre manié. 
6. Simmer sauce until reduced by 1/2 and thickened somewhat (it should coat the back of a wooden spoon), then turn the heat down to low and whisk in the flour mixture until completely integrated without any lumps. Turn the heat back up just until simmering and keep stirring as the sauce begins to thicken.
7. Once the sauce has thickened put the chicken pieces back in to finish cooking through, about 5 minutes, on a medium heat. Do not let sauce boil.
8. Once the chicken is finished cooking through, adjust seasoning if necessary, cut the heat and stir in the sage. Place the chicken on plates and spoon sauce on top, and serve with crusty bread and a great side.

Key Lime Pie

Happiest of new years to you, gentle readers!  We have had an incredibly busy and crazy end to 2011, with lots of travel, lots of celebrations (I turned 30 — and Marc flew my mom out to surprise me!) and lots of dinners from a box (veggie burgers, stick-it-in-the-oven entrees from Trader Joe’s) or repeat recipes.  We did have a few special dinners, but no time to blog.  Lucky for you, we have a queue of meal posts that will be coming your way, hopefully soon.  May 2012 be full of delicious dishes and on-time posts!  Here’s hoping.

Starting the year off sweetly, I can’t wait to share this delicious key lime pie recipe with you!  Marc’s grandpa made a key lime pie at Thanksgiving, and swore up and down that it was beyond easy.  I was motivated to make my own, and have since made it TWICE — once for a holiday gathering with friends, and once for New Year’s Eve with my family, per the request of my brother.  I found this recipe from Chaos in the Kitchen, one of my favorite blogs.  This recipe is super easy, but EVERYONE will think that it took you quite a while to put this together. Enjoy!

Key Lime Pie

adapted from Chaos in the Kitchen

• Graham cracker crust (make your own using a recipe found here, or use a store bought crust, which is what I did)
• 2 14-oz. cans of sweetened condensed milk
• 1 c. key lime juice (you can squeeze your own, or use a bottle of key lime juice, found in the juice aisle of your local grocery store)
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 c. sour cream
• 3 tbsp. powdered sugar
• Lime zest

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. In a bowl, combine condensed milk, lime juice and two eggs.  Whisk until well blended , and pour into pie shell (if you make your own pie shell, you MUST make sure that your pie shell is completely cool).
3. Place pie shell on cookie sheet and bake for 18-20 minutes.  Pie filling will be slightly wobbly upon taking out of the oven, but will firm up when cools.
4. Cool pie and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, but better if it is overnight.
5. Before serving pie, combine sour cream and powdered sugar in a small bowl, and spread topping over chilled pie.
6. Sprinkle with lime zest before serving.

Korean-style Chicken Tacos

Hello everyone! It’s finally getting cold outside. It’s been in the 40s in the morning, and we have all of the windows closed up. I’m hoping we can make another 2-3 weeks before we turn the heat on, and it’s been nice to wear sweaters, and snuggle up under the covers with my sweetie! I was looking around online today, and found that my old roommate/friend Leigh Ann Stewart has a new food blog called Nomapotamus. She has a few posts up so far, but it’s looking great!

These tacos are a tweaked version of a popular style of taco that has taken the world by storm: Kogi.  The people who run this food truck in the LA area have really started something. I could be wrong, but I believe this eatery is directly responsible for starting the modern food truck craze that has spread across the US. Many imitators and competitors have sprung up all over the country, and the mobile food truck craze shows no signs of slowing down. I have not gotten to try one of these myself, but recently one of our local burrito purveyors called Boloco has introduced a similarly-flavored burrito as a special, aptly named the Korean BBQ Burrito.

This burrito comes with a very tasty sauce, some spicy pickled cucumbers, and a vinegary slaw. I wanted to strive to replicate these flavors at home, and luckily, I found a great recipe here that took me almost all the way there. I made up a quick slaw to go on top, and served the tacos alongside a number of Banchan (Korean side dishes) that we picked up the other day at Hmart. Enjoy!

Korean-style Chicken Tacos (Serves 4)

SAUCE

• 2 tbsp. gochujang (Korean fermented chile paste)
• 3 tbsp. sugar
• 2 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tsp. rice vinegar
• 2 tsp. dark sesame oil

Tomato and Zucchini Soup

Last year, Marc and I went to Salem the week before my birthday, and stayed at a Bed and Breakfast (I was on a work trip on my actual birthday ).  We also had a fantastic lunch at a little lunch spot right in downtown Salem, called Coven.  There, we played Battleship, and had delicious sandwiches, and split a bowl of the most DELICIOUS tomato and zucchini soup.   When I was trying to come up with my soup for this week’s soup Sunday, I thought it might be time to emulate their recipe.

Whenever I have made a tomato-based soup in the past, I have always had problems with the soup being a bit too acidic, and the texture being a bit one-note.  The wateriness of the zucchini really helped to make up for this problem.  We also grated one of the zucchinis and two carrots to add a sort of unusual texture to the soup.  Lastly, we also tried a can of San Marzano tomatoes, in addition to regular Market Basket diced tomatoes.  According to Marc (and Wikipedia), San Marzanos have lower acidity, and therefore are much less heartburn-inducing overall.

I think this soup was really delicious, and the best part is, we have a TON of leftovers. I froze quite a bit, and I think this soup will do well for us when we inevitably get hit by a winter cold.

Tomato and Zucchini Soup

• 2 28-oz cans diced tomatoes, including their juice
• 1 can peeled whole San Marzano tomatoes, including their juice
• 4 zucchinis, 3 of which are quartered and chopped into about 1/3″ quarter “moons”, one of which is grated
• 2 carrots, grated
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 1/2 yellow onions, 2 chopped, 1/2 sliced
• 2 1/2 quarts chicken broth (vegetable broth, if you want to make this vegetarian…)
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar

1. Heat olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add onions and garlic, and sautee.  Once onions are translucent and garlic is fragrant, add sliced zucchini, and sautee until zucchini is somewhat soft.
2. Add tomatoes, broth, and grated vegetables to pot.  Bring soup to a boil, and then reduce to a rapid simmer.
3. Simmer at least 1 1/2 hours.  Just before serving, add balsamic vinegar, and salt and pepper.

Smoky Turkey & Sausage Chili with Jalapeño & Zucchini Cornbread

It has been oddly hot the past few days. I don’t believe this actually qualifies as an “Indian Summer” because we haven’t had a sharp drop or frost yet, but the temperature has been above 80 for the past 3 days straight! I wish I knew that when I was planning this meal for last night originally. Luckily, by dinnertime it had cooled somewhat, and this was a spicy and comfortable meal for an Autumn night.

I’ve been wanting to make chili for a while, and have always been slightly daunted by it. I’ve only made one before this, but it was from someone else’s recipe. Somewhere during the thought process for this, I realized that this is no different from the preparation of a tomato sauce, but with different spices. After that I calmed down and had a good time! To keep the calories low we used a chicken sausage and ground turkey, but you can really feel free to play around with the meats, as this is a template for a basic chili.

The cornbread was something from Cook Live Eat Vegetarian, by way of The Kitchn. It gave me an opportunity to use a spare zucchini we had on hand as well as some jalapeños. It paired nicely with the chili and kept things savory and spicy.

Smoky Turkey & Sausage Chili (Serves 6)

• 1.3 lbs ground turkey breast
• 2 links smoky chicken sausage (we used “Chipotle Chorizo”), halved and sliced diagonally
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 jalapeño chiles, seeded, halved, and sliced
• 1 bottle dark beer
• 1 25 oz. can diced tomatoes
• 1 25 oz. can crushed tomatoes
• 1 25 oz. can red kidney beans, drained
• 3 tbsp. chili powder, divided
• 1 tbsp. ancho chile powder
• 1 tbsp. ground cumin
• 1 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
• kosher salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• olive oil
• garnishes (grated cheese, chopped scallion, chopped cilantro, diced avocado, sour cream, etc.)

Mushroom Pizza

I feel kind of bad blogging this, because there literally is NOTHING to this recipe at all, BUT it is so good that I have made it about three or four times.  Part of what makes this recipe so delicious is that the mushrooms are cooked down in sherry, which definitely comes through in the overall flavor.  I have thrown this together within minute a few times, and have been pleased and excited each time.  I think you will be, too!

Mushroom Pizza

• 1 pizza crust of your choice
• Pizza sauce
• 3 portobella mushroom caps, sliced
• Olive oil
• 4 tbsp. sherry
• Pizza cheese

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Heat oil in pan over medium-high heat.  When oil is hot, add mushrooms and sautee for 3-4 minutes, until mushrooms begin to soften.  Before mushrooms get too soft, add sherry to man, and left mushrooms soak up that delicious cooking liquid.
3. Meanwhile, lay your dough out on a pizza pan that has been sprayed with Pam.  Add pizza sauce.
4. When mushrooms are done, spread them out evenly on pizza dough.  Add cheese.  Bake for 12 minutes or until crust is golden.
5. Slice and enjoy!

Black Bean and Pumpkin Soup

Our leaves haven’t changed color yet, but it is definitely fall weather.  This week, every high temp is in the 60s, and it will only definitely get colder.  The fall is my favorite season, by far, especially in New England.  One of the things I love the most is that it s completely and utterly OFFICIALLY Soup Season.  Though in my mind, you can eat soup at any point during the year, it really makes the most sense (and hits the BEST spot…) in the fall.

This year, we are going to try our hardest to do official “Soup Sundays.” To kick off this new tradition, we decided to make Smitten Kitchen’s Black Bean and Pumpkin Soup.  Marc was positively salivating when looking at the original post, so I had to give it a try. Marc also roasted some pepitas (pumpkin seeds), and toasted them with freshly ground cumin and coriander.  It gave the soup an additional spiciness that really made it work!

Lucky for both of us, this recipe is absolutely a keeper!  We gobbled up our bowls, and are excited to have more for lunch tomorrow.  I’d say this made about 9 servings, so you can even eat what you wish and freeze the rest, like we did.

Black Bean and Pumpkin Soup

adapted from Smitten Kitchen

• Three 15 1/2 oz. cans of black beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 15 1/2 oz. cans tomatoes, drained, with juice reserved
• 1 1/2 c. chopped red onion
• 1 shallot, minced
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp. ground cumin
• 1 tbsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 6 c. beef broth
• 1 16 oz. can pumpkin puree
• 1/2 c. sherry
• 1 ham steak, cut into 1/4 inch dice
• 3-4 tbsp. red wine vinegar

1. Combine drained tomatoes and black beans in a food processor.  Puree beans and tomatoes until your desired texture — ours was pretty smooth.
2. In soup pot, cook onions, shallot, garlic, cumin, salt and pepper in olive oil until onion is soft and transparent.  Then, stir in bean puree, reserved tomato juice, beef broth, pumpkin puree and sherry.
3. Bring soup to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer.  Simmer for about 45 minutes.
4. Before serving, add ham and vinegar, and heat until meat is warmed through (about 4-5 minutes).
5. Season soup with salt and pepper, and garnish with roasted pepitas and sour cream or plain yogurt.  Enjoy!