Tuscan White Bean Soup

Ingredients:

2 Slices Bacon (1 diced 1 whole)

1 Shallot diced

¼ cup white Onion (use more shallot or whatever you like, this is just what I had on hand)

2 celery stocks diced

4 Cloves of Garlic diced

Salt/Pepper

4 Carrots diced

2 qts – reduced sodium Chicken Broth

Italian Seasoning

Red Chili Flakes

2 bay leaves

4 fresh basil leaves

2 cans – White

2 can Cannellini beans (white kidney beans)

1/3 container – Swanson's Cream Starter (optional)

Al Fresco - Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage (or any sausage you prefer but I highly recommend this kind)

3 cups roughly chopped spinach

Take one slice of bacon and diced up, sauté it in large stock pot with the following, adding and stirring each as you go, so they cook the right amount of time (I honestly just dice as I go), add diced shallot, white onion, celery, garlic, salt/pepper and 2 of the carrots, sauté until soft and browning slightly. Add in the 2 qts of Chicken Broth, Italian seasoning, 1 basil leaf diced, 2 bay leaves and Red Chili flakes, cook at a gentle boil for a few minutes, add one can Cannellini beans, cook for 5-10 minutes until everything is soft and tender.  

Remove bay leaves. Transfer soup to a large bowl. Add 1/3 of the soup at a time to the blender and blend until smooth. As batches are blended, return to big stock pot, continue cooking at a gentle boil. Add in the cream starter (not sure this was needed), stir until well combined. Add 2^nd can of Cannellini beans.

In a separate sauté pan, add the 2^nd slice of bacon whole, and the chicken sausage chopped up.  Brown the chicken sausage slightly, then add just the sausage to the soup. Finish cooking remaining slice of bacon, reserve for garnish. Add the remaining 2 carrots diced to the soup. Cook for about 5-7 minutes, once it’s all done, add in the fresh basil chopped, the spinach roughly chopped. Remove from heat. 

Garnish with the 2^nd slice of bacon (or just eat it), and a little parmesan.  Serve with bread if desired – we had it with Rosemary Seasalt bread from Safeway – SO GOOD!

ENJOY! 

Ps. This was really an experiment and a combination of lots of different recipes online and a little of my crazy creative vision, but really came together into a lovely hearty soup my whole family loved! Adding it to our staples! Really inexpensive and comes together in about 1-1.5 hours depending on your speed at prep-work. Let me know what you think! 

Asian Inspired Curry Soup

Main Soup Ingredients:

Olive Oil

Garlic

Swanson's Thai Ginger Broth

Curry Spices*

Fish Sauce

Firm Tofu or Meat

Coconut Milk

Veggies Of Your Choice

Garnish: 

Lime Juice

Sriracha

Green Onion

Cilantro 

Takes less then 30 minutes, to prep/cook and plate, but feels like a restaurant dish, and so healthy and delicious! Really versetile and simple to prepare, one pot, one cutting board, a knife and a spoon, and you're pretty much set!

Step One:

Heat a medium sized sauce pan over Low-Medium temp. Add a tiny bit of EVOO. Soften one clove chopped garlic in the olive oil for about a minute, not too long, don't want to brown it, just release the juice and delicious flavor.  If you were going to add meat, this is when you'd want to do it. Raw slices of chicken work well. Haven't tried shrimp yet, but I bet it would be awesome!, However, shrimp doesn't take too long to cook, so I'd probably wait on that a little.  

 Add about 1-1.5 cups of the Swanson's Thai Ginger Broth. This broth is semi spicy, so keep tasting it as you add the other ingredients to make sure you get your desired spice level. 

One of the things I love about this soup recipe, is that you can literally prep as you cook. So after you get the broth in, you can let that simmer gently while you peel and chop up some carrots (at this point add any veggies that are hard and need to cook down a bit) I usually use 1 normal sized carrot. Toss that in. 

Then chop up some nice red bell pepper, this is a little less then I usually add, but its what I had left in the house. I make this recipe FAR too much! :) Its soooooooo good!

 At this point you want to season the broth a little more with various things. I love this set of curry's from my local spice shop, and a bit of fish sauce. Gives it a very authentic yummy, flavor. Remember a little of all of this goes a long way, especially the fish sauce, it works as your salt, and so you want to careful not to go too crazy, a good 2 shakes of it should be good, and you can always add more if it seems not quite right. 

 I'm not sure why but I like my squashes in this dish, to be pretty big, I think its because I like them firm, but with time to soak in the flavor.  So I usually add them in next. If you were going to add in Cauliflower, this would be a good time for that. I usually do, but I didn't have any today. 

I love the firm Tofu in this recipe a lot, it absorbs the flavors but holds its shape well.  One trick I will share, is usually when you pop the tofu container, all the juices spill, and you wont need a whole container for the recipe, so grab a tupperware first, and make sure to catch the juices, so it will keep fresh in your fridge.

 I usually slice, about 1/2" slices 2-3 of them work well, then move them to my cutting board. 

Here's probably too many photos to show you how I cut them. Just basically you want nice cubes of tofu, slightly big cubes are good!

  

 Toss those on into the soup. You want them to hang out for a bit, so they warm up and absorb the flavor of the broth. 

I've tried a LOT of coconut milk, and they are all pretty terrible, except this brand, so I'd HIGHLY recommend you use this. Its richer and more flavorful then others. Also doesn't separate as much, and can reincorporate pretty well! Make sure you shake or whisk it well before stirring it into the soup. It can be put into a tupperware and saved for a few days. You wont need more then 1/2 cup, I like this soup more brothy, then coconut milky but it gives it a nice flavor either way, so its really more of a personal taste thing. 

I had about half a can left and just added it all, turns out it was a bit more then I like, became very heavy and rich, so if you like that - add more coconut milk, if you want something lighter and brothier, add less!

 Above is what it looks like BEFORE you stir, and then after you stir is below this line. Mmmm

At this point the soup is basically done, so its a good time to add the items you want to cook the very least. Such as Mushrooms, or Broccoli. No one wants sludgey veggies in their soup. Its all about fresh, crisp yummy veggies! 

Because I added a bit too much coconut milk for my taste this time, I added some more curry powders to help break through that rich milk. 

 Here's another odd trick I picked up making this dish often. Sometimes my ratios get off and I have way more broth then I need, so I like to scoop out all the veggies and tofu/meat and put them in the bowl first.

 Then pour the broth over it so I make sure that its's got a nice ratio. As it turns out today, I made just the right amount and it all fit. (please keep in mind this is a LARGE asian soup bowl) 

 As for garnish, I love some lime juice, about 1/2 a cap full works well. Sriracha if you want even more spice. Then top with chopped green onion and/or cilantro. Or really whatever sounds good to you!

 As I said before, I added a bit more coconut broth in there today then usual, so here's a few pics of what it might look like with less. I highly recommend trying this soup, espcially during the cold/flu season. I swear it cures what ales ya!  

ENJOY!

White Sauce Lasagna, with Bacon, Veggies and Chicken

Hey!

Per your requests, here is the my version of the following recipe: http://thecozyapron.com/the-layers-of-six-cheese-lasagna-like-the-layers-of-life/ - Thanks to the author of that blog for such a great recipe, its a wonderful starting point, that you can run with in many different directions. However, with that said - I believe the original recipe would be amazing as well! I just was working with what I had on hand. :)

First thing I did was bake 5 slices of thick-cut bacon, that I seasoned a little prior to baking with a tiny bit of pepper and italian herbs - not sure if it was needed, but it tasted good so its worth trying.
Much more then 5 slices I think would be TOO much, as bacon is very heavy and assertive, if you use a different salted/pork product you may be able to get away with more.

Then I chopped up 1 chicken breast and 1/2 pack of mushrooms into small bites (about 1/4-1/2" chunks) you want them small so you get a little bit of each in every bite. I think I could have used a 2nd breast of chicken in mine, but I was making a VERY large batch in my 11x15" Pyrex. Lasted 3 days (could have lasted longer but my hubby kept having multiple servings each night!) with my 3 person family.

So once you have the chicken and mushrooms chopped up fairly small, saute them together (I used the bacon grease from the baked bacon for the fat to help it from sticking and impart more flavor) with Italian seasoning/herbs and pepper. Until JUST cooked, you don't want them to dry out. In cooking them together though it helps keep the chicken moist and not dry out, as well as impart a lot of flavor in both. Now remove them from the pan, reserving as much liquid as possible for later.

Chop up whatever veggies you intend to use, again keeping the pieces small so it incorporates throughout the lasagna, I used broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots (as well as the mushrooms listed above), as that's just what I had on hand. I used about 2 cups of each, and again I think I needed more in such a big lasagna - but it was tasty!

DON'T FORGET TO GET YOUR NOODLES GOING - I was so focused on the other ingrediants and the sauce that I honestly had everything ready to go before I realized I didn't even have water on the stove to boil! Now you can use the no-boil noodles to eliminate that problem, but I happen to like the texture of original lasagna noodles better... your call.

Gently cook the veggies in the reserved liquid from the meat/mushrooms, helps impart more flavor. (bacon, chicken, mushrooms, herbs.... all cooked into your veggies slightly... mmm).

Now for the sauce - the directions in the recipe link above is pretty much what I used, only I didn't have fresh basil or chicken paste so I just used the Italian seasoning and instead of only milk, I used a bit of chicken stock (low sodium). Because of the salt content in the cheeses used and bacon, you really don't want to add any more salt then needed.  I also added extra cheese, A LITTLE BIT of crumbled goat cheese (little goes a long way, don't go over-bored), mozzarella and parm. The lemon juice/zest is KEY - really helps break up all the heaviness of the cheese and bacon down the road. If you want to cut a little corners - I found adding jarred Alfredo sauce after the cheese sauce is done to help add more flavor and give you a bit more to work with was very effective.

Chop up the cooked/cooled bacon into small bits.

The rest of the assembly is pretty straight forward, just put a little of the sauce on the bottom of the baking dish. then noodles, then more sauce (you don't want dried out noodles, so keep them covered, but don't go crazy - cause you'll need a good deal of sauce at the top.) then chicken/mushroom mixture, veggies, bacon, sliced/grated mozzarella, goat cheese (again keep this part light), and ricotta in small bits. more noodles and repeat. Be sure to reserve a good amount of sauce for the top, you REALLY don't want it to dry out. more cheese, a little parm, pepper, herbs if you want and bake at 400 for 30 minutes or until bubbly & slightly browned! (*Tip from the other recipe is the put a foil lined baking sheet under your pyrex, to catch any spill over - helped a lot)

Like I said before, you could probably put just about anything in here veggie wise, or pork product wise. Other meat isn't really needed, my 2 year old just LOVES chicken and is hesitant on veggies and cheese, so I wanted to give her something she could get into. It was a huge hit for the whole family, and with a bit more veggies in it next time, it would be a great, slightly indulgent way to feed the family a nice semi-healthy dinner.

Hope you enjoy!

Best Banana Bread Recipe EVER - Apple, Cinnamon, Raspberry, Banana Bread!

I love to experiment with conventional recipes and add and tweak them, just pretty much not follow recipes. Usually I have some successes and some less successes, but I almost never write the recipe down because I am lazy and I'm impatient, always off to find the next exciting concoction. This recipe however I stumbled onto - is so good I've made it several times, and tomorrow I will be serving it at my daughters 2nd birthday party, masquerading as a cupcake! So with all this in mind I made sure I got a very clear perfectly followable recipe to share with everyone. Seriously make this bread, you will not be disappointed!

Preheat oven for 340

Bread Loaf: 40-50 minutes.

24 cupcakes: 27 minutes

                                                        1/2 Stick Butter (Room Temp)

                                                        2-3 Very ripe bananas (chopped)

                                                        2 Eggs

                                                        2/3 cup Sugar

                                                        1 tbsp Cinnamon*

                                                        1/2 tbsp Nutmeg*

                                                        1 Fuji Apple (pealed and diced)

                                                         Lemon Juice (drip on apple pieces)

                                                        1 1/3 Cup Flour

                                                        3/4 tsp salt

                                                        1/2 tsp baking soda

                                                        1/4 tsp baking powder

                                                        15 Raspberries (broken into smaller pieces) 

Combine butter, bananas and eggs, mashing up bananas so there are no large pieces. Add sugar, *1/2 the cinnamon and *1/2 the nutmeg, mix together. 

  Then add apple pieces.

In another bowl combine the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, the remaining cinnamon and remaining nutmeg, whisking together to combine well. Pour into wet ingredients and stir til it comes together.

 Fold in the raspberry pieces. The raspberry is great in this so feel free to add a few extra.

 

Put in greased loaf pan or lined muffin pan. I filled the liners almost to the top - they puff up good at that level. OPTIONAL: Sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture on top of either loaf or muffin/cupcake to get a sweet crispy top. Good without it too!

With cinnamon

Without Cinnamon

Mmmmmm

Best served fresh and a little warm, but its amazing out of the fridge too! HOPE YOU ENJOY!