Beautiful Soups

My family once rented a live version of Alice in Wonderland that was full of celebrities. Whoopie Goldberg was the Cheshire Cat, Christopher Lloyd was a wandering knight, and Gene Wilder was the Mock Turtle. In the movie he sings a song called "Beautiful Soup" that has become one of my very favorite ways of bothering Jeff. The chorus of the song (if you imagine big and little Us as the top and bottom notes of an extended trill) goes like this:

"BeuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuuUUtiIIfuUUl SouUUuuUUuuUUuuUUuup."

It drives Jeff totally bazonkers. If I start singing it he'll recognize it and yell Stop! before the second syllable. It makes me feel pretty powerful.

Anyhoo! This is relevant only because we've been eating a lot of good soup lately. The only one I have a picture of is the African Sweet Potato Stew with Red Beans from Cooking Light. But I'll also include the recipes for Braised Lamb Stew with Ginger (so yummy! and also from Cooking Light). These were both really delicious. I know it's a little too hot for soup right now, but I'd recommend them anyway.

African Sweet Potato Stew with Red Beans:


Ingredients:

2 tsp. olive oil
1 1/2 c. chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
4 c. (1/2 inch) cubed peeled sweet potato (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 1/2 cups cooked small red beans
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 c. chopped red bell pepper
1/2 c. water
1 tsp. grated peeled fresh ginger
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 (14.5-oz) can diced tomatoes, drained
1 (4.5-oz) can chopped green chiles, drained
3 T. creamy peanut butter
3 T. chopped dry-roasted peanuts
6 lime wedges

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Cover and cook for 5 minutes or until tender.
2. Place onion mixture in a 5-quart electric slow cooker. Add sweet potato and next 10 ingredients. Cover and cook on Low 8 hours or until vegetables are tender.
3. Spoon 1 cup cooking liquid into a small bowl. Add peanut butter and stir well with a whisk. Stir peanut butter mixture into stew. Ladle stew into individual bowls, top with peanuts, and serve with lime wedges. Yield: 6 servings. Calories: 308. Fat: 8.8g. Fiber: 10.2 g.


Braised Lamb Stew with Ginger:

This was, I think, my favorite of the soups. So soothing. And BeauUUuuUUuutiful.

Ingredients:
1 lb. lamb stew meat
2 T. cornstarch
1 T. soy sauce
1 T. dry sherry
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 c. boiling water
6 dried shiitake mushrooms (I used one 4-oz can with its liquid instead of dried mushrooms and boiling water)
1 T. canola oil
2 T. minced peeled fresh ginger (I used 1 T. grated)
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 c. chicken broth
1 1/3 c. sliced carrot
2 T. oyster sauce (I omitted this since I didn't have any)
4 c. hot cooked rice noodles (I didn't have these either, so I put a package of Ramen noodles minus the seasoning in with the soup for its last 5 minutes of cooking).

Directions:

1. Combine first 5 ingredients in a bowl.
2. Combine 1/2 c. boiling water and dried mushrooms in a bowl. Let stand 15 minutes; drain, reserving soaking liquid. Discard stems; thinly slice caps.
3. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add ginger and garlic; saute 30 seconds. Add lamb mixture; saute 4 minutes. Stir in broth; bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat; simmer 40 minutes. Uncover; bring to a boil. Add carrot, mushrooms, and reserved liquid. Cook 5 minutes or until slightly thickened. Add oyster sauce. Ladle into bowls; serve with rice noodles. Yield: 4 servings. Calories: 451. Fat: 10g. Fiber: 4g.

Chicken Tetrazzini

(This picture stolen from a Cooking Light page online. I'm not that good.)

In an effort to eat more healthily, I've started adding more fruits and veggies to my diet, and I've been trying more recipes from my Cooking Light book. I've also developed a 7-star point system to reward myself for doing good health things. If I get 7 stars in a day, I get a bonus star. For some reason, the goal of having an 8-star day has been really helpful for me. And rewarding myself for the good things I do instead of getting down on myself for the one or two slip-ups has been really nice, too.

Of the many healthy recipes we've tried lately, this one was definitely a winner.

Chicken Tetrazzini

Ingredients:

1/2 T. butter
Cooking spray
1/2 c. finely chopped onion (I used a whole onion)
1/3 c. finely chopped celery
1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper
3/8 t. salt
12 oz. presliced mushrooms (I used 2 10-oz. packages)
1/4 c. dry sherry
1/3 c. flour
1 1/2 (14-oz) cans fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth (I used an equivalent amount of broth from bouillon cubes)
1 1/8 c shredded fresh Parmesan cheese, divided
1/4 c. block-style 1/3-less-fat cream cheese
3 1/2 c. hot cooked vermicelli (about 1/2 a pound) (I used a very thin spaghetti, and it was fine)
2 c. chopped cooked chicken breast (about 3/4 pound)
1 slice white bread (I used wheat)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Melt butter over medium-high heat in a large stockpot coated with cooking spray. Add onion, celery, pepper, salt, and mushrooms, and saute 4 minutes or until mushrooms are tender. Add sherry, cook 1 minute.
3. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cup, level with a knife. Gradualy add flour to pan, cook 3 minutes, stirring constantly with a whisk (mixture will be thick). Gradually add broth, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from heat.
4. Add 7/8 c. Parmesan cheese and cream cheese, stirring with a whisk until cream cheese melts. Add pasta and chicken, and stir until blended. Place in an 8-inch square baking dish coated with cooking spray.
5. Place bread in a food processor, and pulse 10 times or until coarse crumbs form. Combine breadcrumbs and remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, and sprinkle evenly over pasta mixture.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven; let stand 15 minutes.

Yield: 6 servings. Serving size: about 1 1/3 cups. (This was originally a double recipe for 2 casserole dishes, but I halved it all. Sorry if that makes some of the measurements a little wonky.)

Calories 380, fat 12.2 g, Fiber 2g.

Holy Jicama!

(Hint for non-Spanish speakers: Those words start with the same sound.)


This is a jicama. Until this week, I had never eaten the "Mexican potato," but I had a recipe from Julie's slowcooker book that called for some as a topping to yummy beef tacos. So I bought a big one. Much bigger than necessary. And I was left with a load of jicama and no idea what to do with it.

This is one of my favorite situations: having odd leftovers that I must somehow use, for, lo, I am loath to waste even the smallest bit of food.

It's potato-like, I thought, so why not make mashed jicama? I looked up a recipe on line that turned out to be a no-cooking, raw foods kind of recipe, but the ingredients looked yummy. So I modified it into a cooked version to suit my own tastes. I was very pleased with it. Here you go. What to do when you have too much jicama:

Rosemary Garlic Mashed Jicama

Ingredients:

4 cups peeled, chopped jicama
1 1/2 cups cashews (I omitted - for lack thereof - with no detrimental effects)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary (or dried)
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1-2 T. butter, softened
Black pepper, to taste

Directions:

Boil jicama, as you would potatoes for mashed potatoes, for 20-30 minutes, or until tender. Drain. Blend in a food processor (It's a little tougher and chunkier than potatoes--or maybe I just didn't boil it long enough...), along with the rest of the ingredients. Blend till combined.

I had to get rid of some sour cream, so I had the mashed jicama with a very easy Sour Cream chicken and gravy. The gravy was nice, because it counterbalanced the spicy jicama concoction with its mildness. Any similar dish will do, but here's the one I did just for the heck of it.

Ingredients:

1 cup sour cream
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup white wine
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (I just used three huge ones)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Combine the sour cream, soup and wine. Mix well. Place chicken breasts in a 9x13 inch baking dish. Pour sour cream mixture over chicken and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour.

Lemon Rolls

(Cool pattern, eh? This is pre-frosting.)

This is my problem. I have a drive to bake--especially if it carries the added challenge of experimenting with something new: trying a new recipe, modifying an existing one, substituting ingredients and such. In this instance, Jeff wondered if we could make orange rolls, but we had neither oranges nor orange juice. So we decided to try lemon rolls. It was delicious, and I'll include the modifications in the recipe below, but here's the thing: the full recipe made 24 rolls.

And there are two of us.


So when I make something delicious, we each end up eating much more than we should.

How do I solve this problem?! We ended up taking the rolls over to a party at a friend's house and distributing them around. Good thing, too, because they just weren't as good on the second day. Can I freeze the rolls and bake them 4 at a time? Can I use a partial packet of yeast? Ideas on smallifying recipes for two would be appreciated.

This recipe, like so many of my favorites, is from the Ivy Bake cookbook. Honestly, next time you are in Nauvoo, you must jog (drive, really) on over to Ft. Madison and go to the Ivy Bake Shoppe. It's a Shoppe, after all. And it's scrumptious.

Now that I've advertised for them, my conscience is clear and I can feel free to share this recipe. [Modifications in brackets.]

Orange Rolls [Lemon Rolls]

Ingredients:

Rolls:
2 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 T. (1 pkg.) yeast
2 tsp. salt
7 cups flour, divided
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. lemon extract [1 tsp. lemon juice-but only because I didn't have lemon extract]

Filling:
2 T. grated orange [lemon] peel
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup orange juice [I used 1/2 cup lemon juice mixed with 1/4 cup water, but it ended up kind of funny. The lemon curdled the butter into little bits so it didn't really blend, and the lemon/water combination was very watery, so when I spread it on the dough, it started leaking off. I had to dump as much liquid as I could back into the bowl (though I used it later for the glaze) to keep it from spilling off of the dough when I rolled it up. I don't know if it's that runny with the orange juice. If I made the lemon again, I'd probably use half as much liquid.]

Glaze:
4 cups powdered sugar
Orange juice [I used the leftover lemon/water combo, but straight lemon juice would have made a more flavorful icing. But what am I saying! My end result was completely mouth wateringly scrumptious. I don't know that it needs changing.]

Directions:

Heat milk, sugar, and shortening in a saucepan to 115 degrees [I just made sure it was all melted]. In mixing bowl with paddle attachment, place yeast, salt, and 3 cups flour. Pour in heated liquid and beat for 2 minutes on medium speed.
Add beaten eggs and lemon extract. Slowly add rest of flour and beat until dough pulls away from side of bowl. Pour into a greased bowl, and turn one time. Cover with a damp towel, and let rise about 1 hour. Pour out of bowl onto floured table. Cover and let rest 10 minutes. Roll out dough on a floured board into a large rectangle.
For the filling, mix all ingredients together thoroughly. Spread dough with filling and carefully roll up, tucking in the ends. Slice and place on a greased baking sheet. [I learned this trick in the Family Living Center on my mission in Nauvoo: slice by wrapping a string of dental floss around the rolled loaf and then pulling the ends - crossed over the top - to slice it through. Does that make sense? It's like pulling the strings on the hood of your sweatshirt to make the sweatshirt small. Kind of. Anyway, it prevents the loaf from squishing.] Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees until lightly brown, about 12 to 15 minutes. Make glaze while rolls are baking. Combine powdered sugar with enough orange [lemon] juice to make a glaze consistency. Glaze rolls while still warm. Makes approximately 20 small rolls. [yeah, right! More like 24 big rolls!]

These are best warm. Enjoy!

Spicy Black Bean-Corn Casserole

Sorry for the lack of picture. Camera stolen. So sad.

It really is sad, though. Because this was a very yummy (and healthy!) meal and I wanted to tempt you to try it by including a pretty picture. This one is from my Cooking Light book, and it filled us with warm and happy goodness. I had forgotten how wonderful corn bread is.

You know what. I won't stand for this. You're getting a picture, and a food-related one at that--and if I have to pull a totally random one out of my library, then so be it.


Ingredients:

3 T. diced green chiles, divided
1/2 cup salsa
1/4 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (Which I totally left out. Bleh! Nasty!)
1 15-oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 11-oz. can corn with red and green bell peppers, drained
1 10-oz. can enchilada sauce
1/2 cup egg substitute (I just used 2 eggs.)
1 8.5-oz. package corn muffin mix (One of those little Jiffy boxes works well.)
2 T. chopped bottled roasted red bell peppers (or just chopped tomatoes)
1 1/2 cups (6 oz.) preshredded reduced-fat Mexican blend or Cheddar cheese (I used 3/4 cup regular cheese, which was plenty)
6 T. reduced-fat sour cream
1 1/2 t. thinly sliced fresh cilantro (Yuck! Don't do it!)

Directions:

1. Mix 2 T. of the green chiles and the next 6 ingredients (or 5 if you're skipping the cilantro) in a 3 1/2-quart electric slow cooker. Cover and cook on LOW for 4 hours.
2. Combine remaining 1 T. green chiles, egg substitute, muffin mix, and roasted red bell peppers in a bowl. Spoon batter evenly over bean mixture in cooker. Cover and cook 1 hour or until corn bread is done.
3. Sprinkle cheese over corn bread. Cover and cook 5 minutes or until cheese melts. Top each serving with sour cream (it really is better!); sprinkle with cilantro (No! Don't!).

Yield: 6 servings (more like 4, if you've a healthy appetite). Serving size: about 1 cup casserole w/ 1 T. sour cream)

And for you healthy eater types:
Calories: 366, Fat 12.4 g, Fiber 5.6 g

Slow Cooker Sweetness

The following recipe is one more reason I have to be grateful for Jeff. You see, he's mentioned a couple times that slow-cooking is his favorite way to prepare meat--it just gives it such a tender texture. In my family, we had two or three classic slow cooker meals, but our crockpot was very rarely used beyond those few. Taking Jeff's cue, though, I've tried two slow cooker meals from one of our wedding presents ("Fix-it and Forget-it Cookbook: Feasting with your Slow Cooker") and I'm planning on trying many more. The winner this week?

Orange Chicken and Sweet Potatoes

*Official Endorsement: This recipe is ridiculously yummy and, as is the way of the crock pot, simple in both ingredients and effort.*

Ingredients:
2-3 sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced (I used 3. I love sweet potatoes!!)
3 whole chicken breasts, halved
2/3 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
dash pepper
dash garlic powder
10 3/4 ounce can cream of celery or cream of chicken soup (I used celery, and the recipe was amazing, but it might be amazing either way)
4 ounce can sliced mushrooms, drained
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 tsp. grated orange rind
2 tsp. brown sugar
3 Tbsp. flour

Directions:
1. Place sweet potatoes in bottom of slow cooker.
2. Rinse chicken breasts and pat dry. Combine flour, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper, and garlic powder. Thoroughly coat chicken in flour mixture (Don't throw away extra flour--see below). Place on top of sweet potatoes.
3. Combine soup with remaining ingredients (for the 3 Tbsp. of flour, I used the leftover flour from coating the chicken, as there was at least 1/4 cup left). Stir well. Pour over chicken breasts.
4. Cover. Cook on Low 8-10 hours or High 3-4 hours. Serve over rice.

"Victory for inventiveness, Katie"

That's what Jeff just said to me. This one's easy, and it came to me from above:

Put a slice of banana inside of a cookie-sized ball of peanut butter cookie dough. Bake as directed. That's all.

Cookievana.

P.S. From further experience, peanut butter oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips are possibly even better and aren't so funnily shaped.