Sweet Potato Soup

I must be on a soup roll.... two soup blog posts in a row!

This stuff is really good.  It reminds me of Ethiopian food or even mild Indian food.  It tastes like FALL.

I nabbed the recipe from: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sweet-Potato-Carrot-Apple-and-Red-Lentil-Soup/Detail.aspx.  I followed the original pretty closely, but used less butter and regular lentils instead of red lentils.

Here's what you will need for the first step:

2 tablespoons of butter
2 sweet potatoes (pretty big ones, peeled and chopped)
1 onion  (chopped)
3 carrots (peeled and chopped)
1 large or 2 small apples (peeled and chopped)


Cook all those lovely harvest flavors together for 10 minutes on medium heat.

Sauteing the sweet potatoes, onion, apples and carrots.

 
Next you will need:

4 cups vegetables stock
1/2 cup of lentils
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
salt
pepper

Add these ingredients to the vegetables and bring to a boil for about half an hour or until veggies are tender.

Smelled soooooooooooooo good.

Transfer to food processor in small batches and liquify!

Pour back into original pot.  Add more broth, water or olive oil until you like the texture.  I added a little more broth and a few tablespoons of olive oil to mine.

DONE!

Check out the finished product:

spaghetti pie

I remember my mom making this when I was a kid.  I loved the dry crunchy pasta crust edges.  Mmmm.  Nothing like taking decent Italian food and making it totally waspy.  I LOVE IT!

Here's my rendition of spaghetti pie.  It's super-easy and possibly less messy than traditional spaghetti.  Royall loved it because he said it had the great taste of spaghetti, but in a more convenient way to eat it.

Here's what you will need:

box of spaghetti
jar of spaghetti sauce
mozzarella cheese (just a sprinkle)
ricotta cheese (1/2 to 3/4 cup)
2 eggs
cooking spray
oregano

First things first:
Boil some water and cook a whole box of spaghetti.  Also, preheat the oven to 350.

Once the spaghetti has cooked, rinse it off with cool water and spray it lightly with cooking spray or olive oil.

In a bowl, combine the spaghetti, 2 well beaten eggs, a dollop of sauce (maybe more like a 1/2 cup), and some ricotta and mozzarella.  I didn't measure the cheese very well, just used what I thought looked good.  Sprinkle some oregano in there too!

Pour the spaghetti mixture into a pie pan.  Press it down so it is even and if you can, press some spaghetti up on the sides to form a pie crust.  Leave a shallow well in the middle and add more ricotta and mozzarella in the middle.

Pour spaghetti sauce on top and press/rub it into the pie.  Try and use the whole jar or else you risk a dry pie.  If you don't like dry crusty pasta on the edges, cover well with sauce.

Bake for 25 minutes and then add mozzarella on top.

Let it cool a little bit before cutting into the pie.


Here's the photo play-by-play:

YUM!!!

PS: You can spice this up by adding the following: veggies, ground beef, olives, or different cheeses!

Zucchini Casserole

Zucchini Casserole

Ingredients: zucchini, onion, garlic, can diced tomatoes, shredded mozzarella.

Got a little too brown on the top for my liking.  I think our oven runs too hot.

Didn't even get to take other pics because it was gobbled up pretty quick!

Here's how to make it:

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees and spray a pretty dish with oil.

2. Slice up two medium/large zucchini (about 1 to 1 1/2 pounds), put aside for later.

3. Saute about a half a cup of chopped onion and 1 clove garlic in olive oil.

4. Add a can diced tomatoes, drained very well.  I used the kind with Italian seasonings in it.  Cook for about 5 minutes.

5. Create a layer of zucchini coins on the bottom of pan.

6. Add layer of tomato mixture.

7. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.

8. Repeat until all ingredients are gone.  Don't put cheese on top yet- it will burn.

9.  Bake for 20 minutes.

10.  Reduce heat to 350 and add top layer of cheese.  Bake for 10 minutes.

DONE!

OKRA, part one

Okra. Not orca (as in whale) or oprah (as in tv host). The weird green sorta-looks-like-a-pepper vegetable that for some reason people adore in this state I am living in. Every barbecue joint around here serves fried okra.

The farmer's market bounty.  Looks like I need to buy a cornucopia.

I've eaten okra before, usually fried, but never actually touched a fresh one until today.  Royall got close to two pounds of it at the farmer's market this morning.  It has a fuzzy layer on the outside like a peach and a mysterious goo with a texture that is not un-like spit on the inside.  I tried it raw and it was nothing spectacular- kind of sweet, pretty bland.

Oooey-gooey.  This is why people use it to thicken soups.

Ooey-gooey, take two.

So, what is the first thing you do with a vegetable that you don't know how to properly cook?  If you live in the south, the answer is: fry it.

I googled how to fry okra and came up with this conglomerate of a recipe:

1. Cut okra.

2.  Place in ice water in the fridge for an hour.

Add salt to ice water.

3.  Drain and dredge in cornmeal, salt and pepper.

I double dredged: coated once, let it sit for a few minutes and coated again.  EXTRA CRISPY!

4.  Fry for 4-5 minutes at 375 or so.  

Our fryer is banished to the storage closet.  New house, new rules.  No frying inside, it makes everything smell!

Don't they look like tater-tots?

Don't worry, OKRA, part two is healthier.  Much healthier.

Basic Baked Rigatoni

This recipe is a healthy make-over of a dish I learned how to make in my 8th grade cooking class. Whole wheat pasta and low-fat cheeses make this better for you and more Weight Watchers friendly. This is also a basic dish, meaning you can add all kinds of different ingredients to it to shake things up if you want!

Ingredients:

1 box of whole wheat pasta
1 jar of pasta sauce
1 small container of low-fat ricotta cheese
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (again, low-fat)
Parmesan cheese
oregano
garlic powder
salt & pepper

First, cook the pasta. You could use ziti, penne, rigatoni or similar shaped pasta.


While pasta is cooking, make the cheese mixture. Use small container of ricotta, 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella, salt, pepper, oregano and garlic powder. Mix well.


Coat a 9 by 9 dish with non-stick spray.

Pour a small amount of pasta sauce on the bottom of the pan.


Add half of the cooked pasta. Sprinkle with oregano.


Add all of the cheese mixture and then top with half of the jar of sauce.

(be sure to smooth out the ricotta, not shown here)

Add the remaining half of pasta.

Top with remaining sauce and sprinkle with cheese if you please.




Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.




1/6th of the pan is 7 Weight Watchers points and is very filling! That is the serving size shown in the picture above.

Ideas for a more versatile dish: add ground beef or vegetarian crumbles, add spinach, mushrooms or other vegetables, use different varieties of pasta

Pancakes

I don't think there is anything better than Saturday morning pancakes. Except for Saturday morning BLUEBERRY and BANANA pancakes.

I usually want pancakes but don't want to make them because it can get a little messy. Using the food processor for this seemed to make clean up a little easier.

This recipe made about 7 pancakes, good for two or three people!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup oats
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
dash of salt
teaspoon of vanilla extract
3/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons of oil
1 egg

1 chopped banana and some fresh blueberries

It doesn't get much easier than this: put all the ingredients (except banana and blueberries) in the food processor until it's well blended.


Pour onto pan or griddle. It takes a little bit of "know-how" or sheer luck to get the perfect temperature. I like medium or medium-low.

Dot with blueberries and chopped banana.

SMILE!

Flip when the pancake looks dry around the edges and has bubbles on top.


This is the best maple syrup you will find at the grocery store:


Serve with coffee and a little extra fruit. And syrup, of course!



These were perfect! I really liked the combination of the banana and blueberry. Nice and fresh!

Recipe adapted from: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Oatmeal-Pancakes-II/Detail.aspx

Not quite homemade, crock-less french onion soup

Don't know where my hankerin for french onion soup came from. It's about 100 degrees here and soup doesn't usually sound good. It must be a salt craving.

French onion soup= carbs + salt + fat. A delicious combination.

After I bought the ingredients for the french onion soup, Royall told me our crocks were broken. Don't know how our french onion soup crocks were broken, seeing as we NEVER used them.... interesting.

Anyway, I decided to make it in the cast iron skillet.

First, I made the soup. Empty can, add water. Pretty easy. Making your own soup base for this isn't hard, but I was feeling lazy today.


Next I added the bread. French bread that I left out for the day and then toasted briefly in the toaster oven.


Put slices of provolone on top. Classic french onion soup uses gueyere, but that was too pricey for our new budget.


I then put the whole deal into the oven with the broiler on high. It only took a few minutes for the cheese to bubble and brown.






That's it! Pretty good stuff. Plus, it only took about 10 minutes to make!