Tuscan Bean Soup

Yes, it's more soup.  I am such a huge soup fan.  It's so easy and full of nutrition!  I bookmarked this recipe a while ago and decided it was time to make it.

The recipe originally called for 1/2 c of vegetables, but I increased it to 2/3 c.  You can never have too many veggies!  The recipe also called for pancetta.  I often see recipes that call for pancetta, yet I never make them or omit that ingredient because I could never find it.  I finally stumbled upon it at the Kowalski's market in Eagan.  Basically, any deli that sells Boars Head will carry it.

The pancetta and sage added a very decent flavor to this soup.  I really, really enjoyed this soup and will be making it again.  Serve with some warm bread and have yourself a meal.  One cup of this soup is incredibly filling!  Enjoy.
Tuscan Bean Soup
adapted from One Perfect Bite
Yield:  5 servings
Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3-oz. diced panchetta
• 1/2 cup finely chopped yellow onion
• 2/3 cup diced carrots
• 2/3 cup diced celery
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon dried sage leaves
• 5 to 6 cups homemade or reduced-sodium chicken, beef or vegetable broth
• Juice of 1/2 lemon or 1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
• 1 cup acini pepe pasta, uncooked
• 2 (15.5-oz.) cans drained cannellini beans
• 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• 3 to 4 tablespoons minced fresh Italian parsley

Instructions

1. Heat olive oil in a 5 to 6 quart stockpot set over medium heat. 
2. When oil shimmers, add pancetta and saute for 3 minutes. 
3. Add onion, carrots, celery, salt and pepper and cook until vegetables begin to soften, about 5 minutes. 
4. Stir in garlic and sage and cook until garlic releases its fragrance. 
5. Add stock and bring to a boil. 
6. Stir in lemon juice or vinegar. 
7. Reduce heat, cover pot and simmer for 30 minutes. 
8. Add pasta and beans and cook for 10 to 15 minutes or until pasta is al dente. 
9. Stir in cheese and parsley just before serving. 
10. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. 

Spaghetti and Meatball Sandwiches

Ron and I love watching the Food Network.  For a while, I became obsessed with the channel and began DVR'ing everything that would possibly be interesting.  Eventually, I realized that I did not have the time to catch up with the hours of shows that stayed on our DVR.  Plus, after an impulse purchase ($50 worth of brownies from Vermont) at 3am, I decided to cut my tv watching back and settled on a Food Network magazine subscription.

However, we still watch a fair amount from the Food Network.  We are big fans of the challenges and always tune in when they air.  A few months ago, we watched a Sandwich Challenge called "Super Heroes."  The chefs had so many hours to make 3 different types of sandwiches.  If I recall, this Spaghetti and Meatball sandwich was Jason's "hot" sandwich.  It impressed the judges and with good reason!  It looked intriguing and sounded delicious so I thought it would be perfect for a Superbowl meal!

This sandwich was very good.  The addition of the spaghetti turns a meatball sandwich into a party!  Like normal, I needed some veggies so I made up a small salad and some sweet potato fries.  I'm so used to my sandwiches being jam packed full of veggies.  But, this sandwich was pretty dang good.

Jason is the head chef at Gemini Bistro in Chicago.  We're planning on making a stop there for my birthday dinner when we're in town next month.  There's an incredible 3 course deal w/ wine pairings.  The restaurant has received very good ratings and well... he's been featured on the Food Network :)

You can find the full recipe by clicking on the link below.  However, I cut the recipe for 2 people and reflected the changes in the recipe below.  Also, I "cheated" to save some time.  I pre-purchased some meatballs and spaghetti sauce from Kowalski's.

Spaghetti and Meatball Sandwiches
adapted from Food Network.com courtesy of Jason Paskewitz, Chicago, Illinois
Ingredients  

• Spaghetti sauce
• Meatballs
• Cooked spaghetti
• Italian Bread 
• We used sliced wheat toast for individual sandwiches.
• Parmesan cheese (or whatever italian cheese you prefer)
• Fresh basil
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1/2 tsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp onion salt or garlic powder
• salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Prepare spaghetti as directed on box.  Make enough for 2-4 sandwiches (depending on how much you want).
2. Cut meatballs to lay on bread and set aside.
3. In a small saucepan, combine butter, onion salt or garlic powder, minced garlic and salt and pepper. 
4. Heat until butter is melted. 
5. Slice Italian bread lengthwise and remove any excess dough. 
6. Brush butter mixture evenly all over both sides of Italian bread. 
7. Alternate layers of spaghetti, sauce and meatballs throughout the bread. 
8. Top with basil and cheese and close the sandwich. 
9. Grill the sandwich for 3 minutes on each side on either a griddle or a panini press.

Chubby Hubby Cookies

Holy buckets, again!

I am a huge fan of Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby (currently renamed Hubby Hubby) flavored ice cream.  Basically, I am a fan of anything peanut butter/chocolate/pretzels.  I am also a huge fan of bite-sized goodness.  So, you can imagine how excited I was when I came across a recipe for Chubby Hubby cookies.

Ron's coming home so I felt the need to bake more cookies to have in the house.  Unfortunately, he's dealing with some food poisoning but I'm sure these cookies will cure that situation up fast :)

These cookies are pretty damn amazing.  Then again, what cookies are not pretty damn amazing?  Seriously, the crushed pretzels add such a unique texture to this cookie and provide the slightest hint of salt.  They are definitely in my top 3 (who can limit to 3 favorite??) 10 favorite cookie of all time list.  That is a pretty high honor.

Chubby Hubby Cookies
adapted from What's Cookin' Chicago who adapted from about.com
Yield:  I cut the recipe in half and managed to get 24 cookies.  Joelen said the original full recipe should yield 24-30 cookies.  ?????  Regardless, the ingredients below are for the full recipe.
Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter, softened to room temperature
• 1 cup graulated sugar
• 1/2 cup firmly-packed light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 3/4 cup semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate baking chips)
• 3/4 cup peanut butter chips
• 1/2 cup crushed and processed pretzel sticks
• * The pretzel sticks can actually be any hard pretzel - thin sticks, standard pretzel shapes, pretzel rods, etc. Place them in a food processor and process until you get the consistency of graham cracker crumbs. If you want more texture in the cookies, pulse the pretzels down to coarse crumbs instead.

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 
2. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
3. In the bowl of your stand mixer attached with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugars until fluffy. 
4. Beat in egg and vanilla.
5. Sift flour and baking soda together. 
6. Beat into batter on low speed. 
7. Stir in chocolate chips, peanut butter chips and crushed pretzels.
8. Drop by rounded tablespoons (or use a small scoop) onto prepared cookie sheets. 
9. Bake 11-14 minutes until golden on the bottom and just set in the middle. 
10. Cool on wire racks.  

Chocolate Chocolate Salty Cookies

OK, I don't want to freak out or anything but HOLY BUCKETS!!!  Seriously, these cookies are pretty damn good.  I am obsessed with chocolate (and salt) so pairing the two makes for a delicious cookie.

A few months ago, Ron first mentioned that he wanted some type of coffee cookie.  I had baked some magic middle cookies and he requested something that had coffee granules in the cookie.  So, I started my search for the perfect cookie of this sort.  The other day, I stumbled across this recipe and had the idea to shove cappuccino chips in the middle to make for an "espresso magic middle."  This attempt failed.  Miserably.

I had cooled the dough and then attempted to go back and mold the cookie.  Big mistake.  The dough was too hard at first and broke my small cookie scoop.  R.I.P. small cookie scoop.

I let it soften on the counter for about 25 minutes and attempted again.  I was able to grab some cookie dough but the dough was too crumbly to work with and I couldn't mold it around the chips the way I wanted.   So, only about 5 ended up with the cappuccino chips (I made a half batch).

However, the cookies that do have the cappuccino chips make the cookie taste pretty damn remarkable.  Unfortunately, I've had a hell of a time finding these chips in MN (apparently they are discontinued, not an unusual occurrence for my favorite products), so big props to my mom who sent me a batch to hold me over.  Honestly, the cookie itself is pretty damn remarkable so make these w/o the chips or substitute with good peanut butter chips!!  But, next time, I will replace the remaining chocolate chips with the cappuccino chips and pre-mix them into the batter instead of trying to do what I was doing.

I'm still planning on creating this espresso magic middle cookie though. 


Hyperbole Cookies (a.k.a Chocolate Chocolate Cookies with Sea Salt)
adapted from In Praise of Leftovers who adapted from Seattle Homes and Lifestyle magazine. 

Ingredients

• 4 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1/4 c. (1/2 cube) unsalted butter
• 12 oz. (2 c.) dark chocolate chips
• 1/2 c. flour
• 2 Tb. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 Tb. instant espresso powder
• 1/4 ts. baking powder
• 2 1/2 ts. flaked salt
• Don't use sea salt.  It makes the cookies taste too salty.
• 1 1/2 c. light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 ts. vanilla
• Cappuccino chips
• I use Guittard.  I'm not sure if anyone else makes these.

Instructions

1. Heat unsweetened chocolate, butter and 1 cup of chocolate chips in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently.  Cool.
2. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
3. In another large bowl, beat sugar, eggs, and vanilla with an electric mixer on medium speed until pale and frothy, about two minutes. 
4. Whisk in chocolate mixture until blended.  
5. Stir in flour mixture at low speed until blended.  
6. Stir in remaining chocolate chips (or cappuccino chips). 
7. Refrigerate batter, covered, until dough is firm, about two hours.
8. Place a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350.
9. Take enough dough from batter to shape into 1″ balls.
1. I let my dough soften a bit on the counter for about 20 minutes before working with the dough.  I found it was difficult to work with, so adjust as necessary.
10. Mold a 1″ ball or use cookie scoop to get even cookies.
11. Arrange 2 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet.
12. Smoosh down a tiny bit and sprinkled flaked salt or vanilla powder on top (if desired). 
13. Bake in batches until puffed and set, about 10 minutes per batch.  
14. Cool on baking sheet 10 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool completely.

Fruit and Nut Loaf

On Monday, I began training for my first half-ironman competition.  It is an 18 week progression that will end on June 6th.  My goodness!  I thought training for a marathon was time-consuming.  At a minimum, my training will take about 2.5 hours each day.  Needless to say, I'm going to be needing something to fuel these workouts.

This loaf is incredible and extremely filling.  Accordingly, it will provide the necessary carbs to fuel those longer work-outs.  I cut it back, significantly, from the original recipe.  I added some wheat bran, reduced the nuts/dried fruit and used organic dried fruit.  Despite how active I will be these next few months, I couldn't bare the thought of eating a "slice" of bread that was in the 350 calorie range.  I baked it for about 60 minutes so it is pretty crispy.  It actually tastes like an energy bar, but much better and more nutritious. 

I'm very impressed with this bread.  It was incredibly easy to make and very yummy.  If you're looking for the original recipe, click the link below.

Fruit and Nut Loaf
adapted from Anja's Food for Thought
Yield:  One loaf.
Ingredients

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup wheat bran
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3 eggs (or 3/4 cup eggbeaters)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup SF maple syrup (or agave nectar or honey)
• 1 cup chopped nuts (1/2 pecan, 1/2 walnut)
• 1 1/2 cup chopped dried fruit (I used 1 cup dried cherries and 1/2 cup dried apples/apricots - dates and cranberries will also work well)
• Cinnamon to sprinkle on top.

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Grease a 9x5 loaf tin and lay parchment paper at the bottom.
3. In one larger bowl, combine dry ingredients through baking powder and mix well.  Set aside.
4. In another bowl, beat the eggs and stir in vanilla and syrup.
5. Add the chopped dried fruit and nuts into the flour mixture.  Stir until nuts and fruit are well coated with flour.
6. Stir in the egg mixture to the flour nut mixture until well combined.
7. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin, pressing the batter down with the back of a spoon.
8. Bake in the preheated oven for about 60 minutes.
9. Cool completely.
10. Wrap in silver foil and store in fridge!

Red Thai Curry with Cauliflower on Shrimp

This recipe intrigued me.  It has a lot of vegetables that I like and accompanies flavors that I like.  Ron's out of town so I decided it would be a quick and easy recipe to try out for myself.  The original called for tofu, however, I substituted that ingredient for shrimp.  Shrimp sounded much more appealing.

I actually liked this a lot.  It was very quick and easy to prepare.  It only takes about 2.5 hours in the crockpot and the flavors were subtle, but good.  I doubt I'd make this again for dinner, but this is only because Ron wouldn't eat it.  He'd end up picking out all of the shrimp or saying "why don't you add some meat into this?"  It would turn into a fight that I'm just not interested in having.

However, I will remember this one for the next time he goes out of town.

Red Thai Curry with Cauliflower
adapted from askGeorgie.com
Yield:  4 servings
Nutrition:  Per serving (with shrimp): 263 calories, 8 g total fat, 6 g saturated fat, 218 mg cholesterol, 20 g total carbohydrate, 6 g dietary fiber, 29 g protein, 884 mg sodium.
 
Ingredients

• 1 head cauliflower (6” diameter)
• 1 cup frozen cut green beans
• 1 cup frozen peas
• ½ cup chopped yellow onion
• 2 tablespoons minced ginger
• 2 tablespoons red Thai curry paste
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
• ½ cup regular coconut milk
• If using FF coconut milk, increase to 1 cup.
• ¼ cup fresh basil, shredded
• Salt to taste (or 1 Tablespoon fish sauce)
• 1 pound cooked shrimp

Instructions 

1. Chop cauliflower into large florets and place in slow cooker. Add green beans, peas, onion, and ginger.
2. In a bowl, combine vegetable broth and curry paste, and stir until smooth. Pour over vegetables in slow cooker.
3. Cover and cook on high for 2 1/2 hours.
4. Stir in the coconut milk and shredded basil, and season to taste with salt or fish sauce.
5. Place shrimp into serving bowls.  
6. Ladle hot curry over shrimp to serve.

Lemon, Garlic & Thyme Chicken Drumsticks

We ate this meal over the weekend.  I wish I had a better reason as to why I have not posted since that weekend.  My reason:  I did not have batteries.  The batteries in our camera died and we didn't have any spares around.  So, I couldn't upload this picture.

Oh well.  I'm bumming about my photos lately.  I don't have the time/energy to dedicate to a "serious food blog" and it's frustrating.  Food blogging is highly addictive and looks like it can be fun, rewarding and social.  *Sigh - maybe in the next few months.

Anyway, enough pity party.  Normally, I don't make/eat drumsticks.  This dinner explained why.  Apparently, I do not like them.  At all.

Ron really liked this recipe, but I didn't.  I guess I just don't like dark meat.  All I could taste was fat and oil.  I ate about 1.5 bites before I gave them to Ron to finish.  I rolled up the rice and veggies in a wrap and had a wonderful meal.  I found a ton of recipes for various "baked" versions of drumsticks, etc.  However, they are being tossed.  No drumsticks in this kitchen.  Sorry.

I did really enjoy the veggie mix though.  The veggie mix I used was a new product from Alexia.  Oddly enough, there is no picture on their site, so here is mine: 

It was very, very simple to make and required about 8 minutes in a skillet.  I saw several flavors that I intend to try.  You can probably find them in the organic section.

Lemon, Garlic & Thyme Drumsticks Recipe
adapted from Gimme Some Oven
Ingredients:

• 6 chicken drumsticks (about 1.5 lbs.), rinsed
• 3 Tbsp. olive oil
• zest and juice of one lemon (about 1 Tbsp. zest, 2 Tbsp. juice)
• 4 garlic cloves, minced (about 2 tsp.)
• 1 tsp. dried thyme
• coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions:

1. Place the first five ingredients (chicken through thyme) in a large bowl or ziplock bag, and mix well so that the chicken is well coated.
1. I removed the skin off of a few of my drumsticks. 
2. Cover/seal and refrigerate to marinate for 1-12 hours.
1. Or 5 minutes, however long you have.
3. When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 375F degrees.  
4. Then remove drumsticks from marinade bowl/bag and place in a greased baking dish, and season with salt and pepper.  
5. Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until the juices run clear.  
1. For extra flavor, brush the drumsticks with more of the marinade about 20 minutes into baking.  
6. Serve immediately.