My Version of Panera Bread Broccoli Cheese Soup

I love Panera Bread soups. I could eat them for every meal for days and be perfectly content (I think - I've never actually tried it). Broccoli cheese soup has always been one of my favorite soups.

In this recipe, I think I've successfully imitated Panera Bread's broccoli cheese soup. And despite the fact that this soup is, by nature, not the healthiest, I've tried to lighten it up at least a little bit.

Yield: 12-16 servings (The recipe is easily halved, but I like to make extra and freeze some.)

Ingredients:

• Canola oil spray
• 1 lb. broccoli, finely chopped
• 2 cups julienned carrots
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1/2-cup Smart Balance
• 1/2-cup flour
• 2 cups skim milk
• 2 cups fat free/low-sodium chicken broth (vegetable broth works fine)
• 16 oz. grated reduced-fat cheddar cheese
• 1/4-tsp nutmeg
• 2 Tablespoons spicy brown mustard
• 1/2-tsp garlic powder
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Heat a large soup pot over medium-low heat. Spray with cooking oil and saute onions until tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer onions to small bowl and set aside.
2. In same pot, melt Smart Balance (butter works fine, but has significantly more saturated fat and cholesterol). Once butter substitute is melted, add flour, whisking constantly for about 4 minutes.
3. To butter-flour mixture, gradually add milk, whisking constantly.
4. Stir in chicken broth and then bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 20 minutes. DON'T walk away from it, because it will burn on the bottom and your soup will taste like carcinogens. Just make sure you give it a good stir, making sure you hit the bottom of the pot, every couple minutes.
5. Turn heat to low, and add onions, broccoli, and carrots. Cook (stirring every few minutes) for another 20 minutes (until vegetables are soft).
6. Add cheese and seasonings, including mustard. Stir until cheese is melted and spices are combined. Adjust seasonings to taste.

No pictures this time! You'll just have to trust me that it looks great (and tastes even better)!

Turkey Shepherd's Pie

This week is a week of comfort food. I still have left over white bean turkey chili, four meals of pasta with marinara sauce (made yesterday), and today I made turkey shepherd's pie. Basically, I don't need to cook anything until next weekend, which is exactly the way that I like it.

This was one of those meals I made by throwing together lots of leftovers. No grocery shopping, no exact measurements. So I was a little surprised when it turned out amazingly. Here's (what I think approximates) the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3/4-lb. ground turkey
• At least 10 baby bella mushrooms (though white mushrooms would work; according to Wikipedia, they're the same species, just harvested at different stages of maturation), sliced
• 1 onion, diced
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 bag frozen vegetable mix (can use fresh, of course)
• 1 Tbs olive oil
• Worcestershire sauce
• Rosemary, thyme, oregano, chili powder and/or seasonings of choice
• Salt and Pepper
• 2 Tbs. flour
• 1 cup fat free chicken broth
• 3-4 large russet potatoes
• about 1/3-cup milk
• garlic powder
• Paprika

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375-degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Use russet potatoes to make mashed potatoes. Add milk, garlic powder, and salt when mashing. Set aside.
3. Cook frozen vegetables and set aside. I cooked mine about halfway (just enough to get the excess water out, but it'll work no matter how you do it).
4. Heat oil in large pan. Add onions, garlic, and mushrooms. Saute until mushrooms start to shrink.
5. Add turkey, salt, pepper, spices, and about 3-4 shakes of Worcestershire sauce. Stir and cook until turkey is cooked through (at least 5 minutes).
6. Drain turkey mixture. Return to stove and add flour. Mix until incorporated. Add chicken broth. Stir and cook about 2 minutes.
7. Transfer turkey mixture to a medium-sized baking dish (same size or smaller than a 9x13-inch casserole). Add vegetables to turkey mixture and stir to combine.
8. Spread mashed potatoes on top of turkey and vegetable mixture. Sprinkle with paprika.
9. Bake at 375-degrees for 30 minutes, or until tops of potatoes are starting to brown/crisp. I put my casserole on top of baking sheet, in case the gravy bubbled over.

Easy Marinara

I love tomatoes. I love tomato sauce. I love garlic and onions and celery and green peppers and carrots and basically all the ingredients that I use to make my easy marinara sauce. In my oh-so-humble opinion, it is way better than what you can buy in a jar and it's not even a little bit difficult, which makes it a no-brainer for weeks like this one (when I'm behind with my grading and working two jobs and going to credentialing class and will probably have to do laundry if I want to have any clean underwear...and I do want them).

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, finely diced**
• 1/2 green pepper, minced
• 2 ribs celery, minced
• 1 large carrot, minced
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups fat free chicken broth
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 1 Tbs Italian seasoning (or combination of rosemary, thyme, oregano, and basil, minimum)
• Additional seasonings, listed above
• Salt and pepper
• 2 Tbs sugar
• 2 (28 oz) cans crushed tomatoes
• 2 cups fat-free half-and-half (optional)

Method:

1. Add olive oil to a sauce pan. Heat over medium heat.
2. When oil is hot, add diced/minced** ingredients (onions, green pepper, celery, carrot, and garlic). Add salt and pepper and Italian seasoning. Saute until tender, about 5 minutes.
3. Add chicken broth and turn heat to medium-high. Bring to a simmer/soft boil and leave the broth to reduce (at least 20 minutes).
4. Add tomatoes and sugar. Stir, let cook a few minutes, and taste.
5. This is a key step. Adjust seasonings. Don't be afraid to go a little wild. Add some more rosemary, thyme, and oregano. Add some more salt. Add a bay leaf if you have some time. Maybe add some red chili flakes. Man, I'm not an expert. Just do what you want here, as long as it tastes good. Also, this is a good time to test for acidity. If the sauce is too acidic, add some more sugar.
6. Let whole thing simmer for about 30 minutes. Technically, it's ready to go as soon as it's warm enough, but you want to give all those flavors time to get to know one another and share their final regrets and say goodbye or whatever before you eat them.
7. Add half-and-half, if you're using it. I like it because I'm a sucker for dairy proteins that human beings aren't meant to digest, but I've always been one to make bad decisions that just taste so good. Stir.

So that's that! Yum. Now I am going to eat.

**Mincing and dicing are technically different. When you dice something, you are cutting it into uniformly-shaped pieces that are at least 1/4-inch in size. Mincing is much smaller, about 1/8-inch or less in size, and since the pieces are so small, it doesn't matter if they are uniform or not; they will cook in the same amount of time, regardless. For this recipe, I definitely minced all my veggies, except for *maybe* the onions. It really doesn't matter except that I like my basic marinara to be smoother. Chunky sauce is delicious, but if I were making chunky sauce, I'd go balls-to-the-wall and add mushrooms, zucchini, etc.

Just an idea of how I *minced* my ingredients and the ratio of onion to everything else.

Weight Watchers Cornbread

This recipe is an exact copy of the Weight Watchers recipe (found here) except for the final preparation steps. The original recipe calls for baking in an 8x8-inch dish, but Shannon and I poured the batter into muffin tins, thereby reducing the points per serving (1 muffin vs. 1/8 of total dish) from 3 points to 2 (well, 1.75) points.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup uncooked corn meal
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 15 oz. can cream-style corn
• 1/2 cup buttermilk (*we substituted by mixing 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar)
• 2 large egg whites
• 2 tsp corn oil (*we substituted vegetable oil)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (Fahrenheit...duh). Coat a muffin tin with cooking spray.
2. Combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl. Mix well, then make a well in the center. Set aside.
3. Combine creamed corn, buttermilk*, egg whites, and oil in a medium bowl. Mix until blended. Fold mixture into dry ingredients until well-blended. Pour batter into prepared muffin tins, filling about 3/4-way.
4. Bake until a toothpick/knife-tip comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for a couple minutes, then use the edge of a knife to loosen and remove.

White Bean Turkey Chili

Big ups to Gina at Skinny Taste for developing SO many delicious, health-conscious recipes. I'd been wanting to make this one for a long time and it turned out great!

I've been on a soup kick lately. I like the way that sounds. It sounds healthy. Or it sounds like I've been walking around kicking soup, but that doesn't make as much sense. (i really want to make a joke about how the only thing I've been kicking is bad habits! or something...but, yeah...no.)

As it were, for the past few weeks, I've been making black bean soup and tomato soup and butternut squash soup. LOTS of butternut squash soup. Like, if I were a baby, I'd do that thing where I turn orange. Also, on a side note, every time I brought butternut squash soup to work for lunch, my colleagues would comment about how "that curry smells good!" I just kept saying "thank you" and never explained what I was actually eating. I don't know if this means that my soup really smelled like curry (there was cumin in it), or if people I work with are not very curry-aware. There are worse sins, I suppose.

Anyway, my roommate Shannon and I hosted our very first book club meeting this past week. We deliberated - err, I deliberated and Shannon patiently listened and advised - about what to serve at the meeting for a couple weeks. Finally we settled on a white bean turkey chili.

I fully intended to make this once before the Big Night, because who wants to serve something awful to a bunch of strangers? But I didn't. That is, I didn't make it once before and I didn't serve something awful. Some people just walk in the light, you know? Recipe as follows:

YIELD: About 14 1-cup servings

INGREDIENTS:

• cooking spray
  
• 2 small onions, chopped
• 5 garlic cloves
• 2 tsp chili powder, to your taste
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tbsp cumin
• 1/2 tbsp oregano
• 2 tsp red pepper flakes (to taste)
  
• 3 lbs 99% lean ground turkey
• 4 16 oz cans of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 cups of fat free chicken broth
• 1/2 cup of fat free sour cream
  
• salt and pepper to taste

METHOD:

1. Heat a large pot over medium heat. When hot, spray with cooking oil. Add and saute the onions and garlic (about 5 minutes).
2. Add the turkey and cook, breaking it up. Cook until until all turkey is white, about 7 minutes.
3. Add seasonings: salt, chili powder, cumin, oregano, bay leaf, and red pepper flakes. Cook for about 2 minutes.
4. Add beans and broth and turn up the heat to medium-high. Let cook, uncovered, for about 10 minutes.
5. Bring the soup to a simmer and lower the heat. Cover and let simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring as needed.
6. Add sour cream and cook for about 5 more minutes.
7. Adjust seasonings to taste and serve!

We served this with toppings on the side ("toppings on the side" is making me crazy, but whatever): chopped red onion, cilantro, and fat free sour cream.

My Notes: I made this recipe exactly as listed except I substituted one can of regular white beans for one can white kidney beans (a nutritionally identical substitute). However, please note that the recipe as written is what I consider meat-heavy. If I made it again, I would probably decrease the meat and up the beans; this would, of course, change the nutritional values listed below.

Weight Watchers Points: 1-cup serving = 4 points (toppings would be extra), 212 calories, 22.5g protein, 8.4g fiber, 5.4g fat.

Chicken Tikka Masala

I sometimes play that game where you ponder what foods you could live on forever. Not nutritionally, of course, because that one's a clear winner: hard-boiled egg, shell included. Nope, I just like to think about foods that I could eat for the longest period of time without getting sick of.

Chicken tikka masala is at the top of that list. Rich, tomatoey sauce, dense, smothered cardamom seeds, tender chunks of broiled chicken all on top of fragrant coriander basmati rice.

I only tried to make tikka masala once before, and it was a total disaster. This time, it turned out great.

I'm not going to re-type the whole recipe here, since I just followed this one pretty much exactly. But here are a few tips and photos:

1. Buy almonds pre-blanched (skinned). While blanching almonds is not difficult, it adds time to an already time-consuming dish.
2. Garam masala: go easy on it. Better to add some later than too much to begin with. It is overpowering.
3. Note 2 on garam masala: the cheapest I could find was at Whole Foods. Surprise! Same thing for ground cardamom.
4. Use whole cardamom seeds/pods in the mix. They are so wonderful to bite into.
5. Don't be afraid to add more tomatoes. I doubled the amount for this recipe and didn't regret it even a little bit.

Toasted almonds! Yummm...

Broiled "tikka" chicken.

And the whole delicious dish.

My Perfect Scrambled Eggs

Eggs seem to be a particularly personal food. I think this is partly because eggs are one of those foods that almost everybody eats growing up, so we all have unique and strong food memories about them. For instance: I am convinced that my dad makes the best fried eggs in the world. I never liked egg yolks when I was a kid (I'm still not really a fan), and each weekend we stayed with him, he would make me two fried egg whites on toast for breakfast. And of course it wasn't just the eggs; it was that he teased me for not liking the yolks, for eating the crust of my open egg sandwich first, that he would eat the yolks that I refused to because he couldn't bring himself to waste them. So I always try to make fried eggs like my dad.

But scrambled eggs I make my way. A simple dish, but one I'm particular about. Method as follows.

Gently whisk:

Eggs

1 teaspoon milk per egg

1 dash pepper per egg

1 pinch salt

**If you want super-fluffy eggs, you could use about a teaspoon (total) of cream of tartar rather than or in addition to the milk; but I don't like them that way...so there.

Melt 1 Tablespoon butter in a pan over low heat. As soon as the butter is melted, add diced onions (about 2 Tablespoons diced onion per egg) and sauté for a few minutes.

Use spatula to make sure onions are evenly distributed across the pan. Add egg mixture all at once and allow it to fill pan. Do not stir eggs right away.

Let egg mixture "set" so that the "bottom layer" is cooked. Then push eggs in toward the middle of the pan, letting runny egg mixture flow and fill the pan.

Repeat until eggs won't run anymore, then flip eggs and stir as needed. Don't over-handle them; they will get rubbery and gross.

(Remember how I hate yolk? I always hard-cook my eggs. Not a popular thing, but they makemy perfect scrambled eggs.)

My favorite way to eat these eggs is in a burrito with sour cream and salsa. I probably make this dish at least twice a week (and usually for dinner), but using half whites.

Curried Split Pea Soup

I don't make a lot of money, and I'm not that great at budgeting what I do make. Inevitably, by the end of each month, I've exhausted my grocery budget and resort to cooking out of my pantry. This means the ingredients I have on hand dictate my meals rather than the whims and cravings that rule the first half of the month - which is probably the way more practical people live all month long, but, well...I'm not them.

It's the 29th of June, and even my pantry is anxiously awaiting my next paycheck. The cornmeal and dried legumes hanging out in there are getting a little lonely. Even so, the following is one of my favorite easy meals month-round.

This recipe yields 4 servings and takes about one hour to make (most of which is waiting time!).

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1.75 cups split peas, rinsed

1 Tablespoon curry powder

5 cups vegetable broth

2 Tablespoons butter (or olive oil)

Steps:

1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over low heat.

2. Add the diced onion and a pinch of salt. The salt isn't added at this stage for flavor; it's added to help breakdown the onion and draw out its flavors and milk. Stir the onion around for a minute or two, then

3. Add the minced garlic. Make sure you don't let the garlic burn or brown (this means stir with a watchful eye, ensuring that the garlic is always involved with the oil/butter).

Is there any smell quite as auspicious as that of

onion and garlic being sautéed in butter?

4. Add the veggie broth (chicken broth is fine, but I prefer to keep the dish vegetarian). Of course it would be fine to use liquid stock here (I don't like canned; I prefer Pacific or other boxed brands. This preference is probably irrational, but I don't care), but since this a cheap, end-of-the-month version and I don't have any liquid stock on hand, I use bouillon cubes reconstituted with water.

5. Add the rinsed split peas. 1.75 cups is approximately 12 ounces. Yeah, yeah, I know that generally one cup = 8 ounces - but most dried legumes (for whatever reason) weigh a little light.

6. Add the curry powder. The given measurement is a pretty "average" curry flavor. You can definitely adjust down or up according to your tastes.

8. Stir everything together, and bring to a boil.

9. Once your pot's come to a boil, turn the heat to low-low-low and cover (you want things cooking at a simmer). Leave it for about 50 minutes (even if you've halved the recipe). You want your split peas to hydrate and then break down.

10. Your soup is done when the peas are tender and no longer holding their shape.

11. Blend! You can do this with an immersion blender (ohh, I want one), an actual blender, or a food processor. Alternately, if you lack any of these appliance and want to cut back on time and clean up, you can use a fork or potato masher to mash up the peas (just be sure to stir well periodically if you use this last option).

This isn't a pretty-looking dish. As with most split-pea soups, it looks kind of like baby food - and this one doesn't have the advantage of carrot or ham chunks to break up the unappealing green goop. But don't count it out just because it looks bleghhh! If you've cooked it alright and don't hate the flavor profile (peas and curry tend to be polarizing), then it's a sure-fire hit.

Good sides would be a tomato or cucumber salad (or a tomato-cucumber salad! Go crazy!) and a nice, crusty, grainy bread. I keep thinking of this Zuni Indian bread that my friend Aaron makes. It would be perfect.

Zuni Goodness.

Recipe adapted from Alton Brown.

Introduction

If you're reading this blog, then you probably know me. Which means you know that I am most definitely not any kind of professional cook. But I do cook for myself on a regular basis, and in doing so I've discovered something incredible: when I cook, I'm not anxious or shy or easily-stressed. I cook the way I sometimes wish I could live; I laugh at my mistakes, revel in my successes, and unabashedly reveal some of myself in every dish I make.