Turkish Red Lentil Soup

My mother-in-law made this fabulous soup while we were in Connecticut, for the annual 'Bethlehem dinner' on Christmas Eve.  I fell in love with the delicious flavors of the soup and asked for the recipe when we returned back home.  She sent me the recipe (from Whole Foods Market) and the only variation I made was to use some chicken broth along with the vegetable broth; it turned out phenomenally well and I will be sure to keep this in rotation. It's very easy to make and is a good, flavorful, vegetarian soup that is enjoyable with warmed pita bread or by itself.

1 1/3 c. (about 8 oz.) red lentils, picked through & rinsed
7 c. vegetable broth (I used 4 c. vegetable broth, 3 c. chicken broth)
1 large onion, diced
1-2 large carrots, diced
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 Tbl. tomato paste
1 tsp. cumin
1/8 - 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper (or to taste)
3/4 tsp. salt (or to taste)

1.  In a large pot, combine lentils, broth, onion, carrot(s), garlic, tomato paste, cumin and cayenne.  Bring to a boil over high heat.  Lower heat and simmer, uncovered, until vegetables are very tender and lentils begin to fall apart (about 25 minutes).
2.  Remove pot from heat and use an immersion blender to blend the soup until it is creamy but not completely pureed.  Add salt and serve with warmed pitas.

Skillet Cheesy Chicken Rice

We really liked this recipe and it was so easy and satisfying, definitely a comfort food type of meal.  It was so quick to throw together after a long day at work, which is always a good thing.

1/2 Tbl. oil
1 1/4 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 can (10.75 oz.) Campbell's Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup
1 1/2 c. water
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 c. uncooked regular long-grain white rice
12 oz. frozen bag mixed veggies (ours had corn, green beans, carrots & peas)
3/4 c. shredded cheese

1.  Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the chicken and cook for 10 minutes, or until well browned on both sides.  Season with salt & pepper to taste, remove from skillet once completely cooked.
2.  Stir in soup, water, spices, rice into skillet and heat to a boil.  Reduce heat to low and cover and cook for 15 minutes, stirring once.
3.  Stir in vegetables and return chicken to skillet.  Sprinkle with cheese; cover and cook for 5 minutes or until cooked through and rice is tender.

Individual Chicken Pot Pies

I got this individual pie pan for my birthday and was super excited about it; Zak loves chicken pot pie and I could just imagine making cute little pot pies for him!  So this afternoon I went for it.  Overall, it went really well, except for my first set of pies.  I didn't realize that I needed to put the little metal plates on the bottom, because the box wasn't specific enough and....it went everywhere.  But I at least had the forethought to put the pan onto a baking sheet in case it leaked.  But the second pan of pies turned out just perfect!  So I'm jazzed about this pan and it's going to be awesome for summer fruit pies!  

The recipe I have for chicken pot pie is from my mother-in-law; I made it for Zak for the first time the night we got engaged.  I've made it a few times since then, but haven't really measured the amounts in the recipe.  Since I've been trying to be good about what I eat, I went hard core today and measured everything and wrote it all down, but now I have a recipe with actual amounts for the ingredients.  The only note is, when using the pie pan, I used 4 pie crusts; when I make just a pie in a pie plate, I only use 2 crusts.  Anyways, enough with the background and onto the recipe!

4 pie crusts (for individual pan, 2 for normal pie pan)

3 medium potatoes, peeled & cubed

2 medium carrots, peeled & cut in half-circles (about 3/4 c.)

1/2 onion (about 3/4 c.)

2/3 c. frozen peas

1 stalk celery, diced (1/3 c.)

1/4 tsp. thyme

1 tsp. garlic powder

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized cubes (came out to about 9 oz. cooked)

3 Tbl. flour

1/2 c. milk

1 c. shredded cheese

3 - 4 chicken bouillon cubes

3 - 4 c. water

salt & pepper

1.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2.  Prepare all vegetables and place in a large stock pot.  Measure water--enough to cover the vegetables.  I usually end up with 3 cups.  Drop in corresponding number of bouillon cubes.

3.  Add thyme, garlic powder, and shakes of salt & pepper; cook on medium to medium-high until vegetables are tender.

4.  In another pot, boil water and add chicken; cook.

5.  Mix together milk and flour in small bowl, add to potato mix.  Cook until thick, more flour may be needed.

6.  Add cooked chicken and cheese, stir until cheese has melted.  

7.  Pour mix into pie crusts and place top layer on top, make sure to cut vents.

8.  Bake 20 minutes if using individual pie pans, or about 30 - 40 minutes if using normal pie plate -- until crust has started to turn golden brown.

Usually when I make it with a normal pie plate, there is leftover mixture.  It's good to eat plain, but I imagine it's great with biscuits or thick bread.  With the individual pan, I had plenty to make 10 little pies, hooray!

stock picture of the pan with the plates and cutter

my second batch of pies, perfect!

perfection

my very first pot pie, from the night we got engaged

Nutritional Facts
servings per recipe: 10
amount per serving

Calories: 424.7
Total Fat: 21.5 g
Saturated Fat: 9.2 g
Polyunsaturated Fat: 1.7 g
Monounsaturated Fat: 7.7 g
Cholesterol: 25.1 mg
Sodium: 716.1 mg
Potassium: 335.3 mg
Total Carbohydrate: 48.7 g
Dietary Fiber: 1.9 g
Sugar: 2 g
Protein: 10.6 g
Vitamin A: 35.5 %
Vitamin C: 18.8 %
Calcium: 9.5 %
Iron: 4.6 %

Kung-Pao Chicken

I found this recipe on a cute blog, called Six Sisters' Stuff, and decided it would be worth a try.  It's entitled '500 Calorie Kung Pao Chickn' and thought it'd be fitting because we are trying to watch our caloric intake AND we love Chinese food.  But Chinese food isn't known to be super healthy!  So anyways, I made this is and it's delicious.  The chicken's so tender and I love the bites with cashews in it.  I decided to sub in cashews for the peanuts the original recipe called for, mostly because we love cashews more and also because we didn't have peanuts.  I used a package of frozen vegetables called "Asian Medley", that had carrots, broccoli, snap peas and baby corn in place of the snow peas.  I think I'll use a little bit more next time, because they were so good in it!  Also, the sauce was pretty hot with just 1/2 tsp. of the red pepper flakes, so I am sure I'll go a little easier on those next time.  But this recipe is awesome and I am so so so happy with it!

2 Tbl. dark sesame oil (I used toasted sesame oil and it was just fine; the original recipe subbed olive oil)
1 c. chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3/4 c. water
3 Tbl. low sodium soy sauce
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. brown sugar
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 c. vegetable medley/snow peas/sugar snap peas
2 Tbl. chopped unsalted, dry-roasted cashews/peanuts

1.  Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add onion to pan, saute for 3 minutes or until tender.
2.  Add garlic and saute 30 seconds, stirring constantly.  Add chicken, saute 3 minutes or until no longer pink in the middle.
3.  Combine water, soy sauce, cornstarch, brown sugar & red pepper flakes and stir until sugar dissolves.  Add to pan and bring to a boil.
4.  Add vegetables and cook for 2 minutes or until veggies are crisp-tender and sauce has thickened.  Sprinkle with nuts.

Perfect with 1/2 - 3/4 c. rice in a bowl.  It makes 4 servings, at 250 calories per serving (excluding rice).

it smells so good!

nom nom nom

Nutritional Facts
servings per recipe: 4
amount per serving

Calories: 249.7
Total Fat: 10.8 g
Saturated Fat: 1.7 g
Polyunsaturated Fat: 3.5 g
Monounsaturated Fat: 4.2 g
Cholesterol: 65.7 mg
Sodium: 830.2 mg
Potassium: 413.8 mg
Total Carbohydrate: 9 g
Dietary Fiber: 1.5 g
Sugar: 2.2 g
Protein: 28.7 g
Vitamin A: 4.2 %
Vitamin C: 14 %
Calcium: 4 %
Iron: 8.5 %

Zucchini Monterey

This is a family favorite, and one of my personal favorites.  I made it for Zak's birthday with the pork recipe I just posted.  Zak isn't a huge fan of zucchini, so I figured this would be a decent way to maybe get him to like it.  He didn't love or hate it, but he is a little bit more open to the idea now!  This is a great side dish and pretty simple to make, once you get it through your head that it's not too difficult.  


I made 4 zucchini and kind of eye-balled the ingredients.  The most important things are: cooking the zucchini long enough so that it's not crunchy or too soft, and, while you're cooking the vegetables, add in salt and pepper until it tastes good.  But here is the recipe, enjoy!  


6 zucchini
3 Tbl. butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 c. chopped green onion
(1/4 c. white onion, optional)
salt & pepper
3/4 - 1 c. monterey jack cheese


1.  Cut a V down each zucchini, roughly a quarter of it.  Chop up.
2.  Boil rest of zucchini about 5 minutes, until they're not crunchy, but not falling apart.  They'll turn a little opaque in color.
3.  Meanwhile, sauté in butter: zucchini, green onion, garlic and, if wanted, white onion.  Season to taste.
4.  Drain zucchini, and scoop out a channel in each; add the pulp to the sautéed mixture.  
5.  Stir in 1/2 c. - 3/4 c. cheese -- however much you want.
6.  Spoon into zucchini shells, place in baking dish and sprinkle with remaining cheese.
7.  Bake covered (or uncovered, until cheese is slightly browned) at 375 degrees about 20 minutes.

all done!

Macaroni Salad

So, Zak and I have been to the local Hawaiian restaurant here in Moscow a few times. Overall, it's pretty good, but their macaroni salad leaves something to be desired. It's bland, flavorless and needs a decent amount of salt, and makes me sad. Because I love mac salad and Hawaiian food, and it was just disappointing. So I decided to make some myself, using the family recipe. My grandma was born & raised in Hawaii and this is her recipe. I was nervous that Zak wouldn't like it as much as I hoped, because his idea of mac salad is something so foreign to me (involving cheese, tuna, other things? it didn't sound bad, it just didn't sound like what I knew to be mac salad). Well, I worried needlessly, because he devoured this and wants me to make more as soon as possible! Yay! We had this with grilled teriyaki chicken, rice, and corn on the cob. It made me feel like I was home. :)

Here is the original recipe, I cut it in half and it still made a huge bowl's worth. But that's ok, because we certainly did not mind having leftovers!!

Salad

1 package (16 oz.) salad/elbow macaroni, cooked until soft (super soft), drained & cooled

1 carrot, peeled & grated

1 cucumber, peeled & quartered lengthwise

6 - 8 hard-boiled eggs, shelled, cooled & chopped

1 can small black olives, sliced in half

Dressing

1 1/2 c. mayo

1/2 c. milk

1/8 tsp. celery seed

salt & pepper to taste

1. Scoop out/cut seeds out from cucumber, chop into thinly sliced pieces and place into a small bowl. Sprinkle with salt and let sit for a few minutes. Gently squeeze out the water from the cucumbers, discard liquid.

2. Place above ingredients into a large bowl, then fold in the dressing.

mmmmmm

pictures make me salivate

Pizza! (+ dessert pizza)

If you were around me and Zak last year before we were engaged, you'd know about our fabulous Pizza Fridays. The dough recipe is Zak's mother's recipe (he grew up having Pizza Fridays); the sauce recipe comes from my family's huge cookbook...Although we have tweaked it, per usual.

Dough
5 c. flour (the last time I made the dough, I did about 3 c. white flour, 2 c. whole wheat..it worked alright, but I think I shouldn't have added so much wheat dough--I need to work on it)
2 tsp. salt
2 Tbl. yeast (1 packet is a little less than 1 Tbl.)
2 c. water
5 Tbl. olive oil
*sometimes we add a few Tbls. of honey

Sauce
1 6-oz. can tomato sauce (most are 8 oz.)
1 6-oz. can tomato paste
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. basil
*this is the base, we usually add all or any of the following, until it tastes perfect:
-minced garlic (fresh or other)
-garlic salt (instead of normal salt)
-onion salt (ditto)
-black pepper
-garlic powder

All you have to do is mix the dough ingredients together and let it rise in a warm place, about 45 - 60 minutes, or until it looks like it's doubled. Punch it down and then roll it on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin. This recipe makes 2 - 3 pizzas, depending on how big your pizza pans are. We have a HUGE pan, so we usually make one huge pizza and a normal 9" one.

Then mix up the sauce until it tastes perfect to you. Some toppings we use include:

-pineapple
-red onion (good on our BBQ chicken pizza)
-black olives
-tomato slices
-red pepper
-green pepper
-ham
-bacon
-pepperoni
-onion
-sausage
-chicken marinated in BBQ sauce

We use a pizza three-blend of cheese, which we've found works better than just straight up mozzarella. Make the pizzas with whatever combination you see fit and bake at 550 or 500 degrees (however high your oven will go) for about 8 minutes. The important thing is to make sure the crust is a golden brown and that it's cooked underneath. With our huge pan, that's hard to determine; we've taken it out of the oven and cut it up, only to discover it wasn't as cooked as we would have liked.

Some other fun hints: if you want to make a stuffed-crust pizza, buy 4 or 5 string cheese sticks and quarter them. Make the dough a little bigger than the pan, place the cheese around the edge and fold the crust over. It works so much better than shredded cheese.

Also, running a stream of honey around the edges makes the crust very tasty. We have done that with our BBQ chicken pizza, yum!

our first time making pizza, the crust was huge

our BBQ chicken pizza we made when my best friends visited

the way I like Hawaiian pizza: with LOTS of pineapple and the ham barely visible 

 

pepperoni, black olives and chopped onion

Dessert Pizza

Crumb topping

1/2 c. flour

1/2 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. quick oats

1/2 c. firm butter

1 tsp. cinnamon

Vanilla glaze

2 c. powdered sugar

3 Tbl. milk

1 Tbl. melted butter

1 tsp. vanilla

1 can apple, cherry, or blueberry pie filling.

1. Using a portion of the dough (since it makes 2 - 3 pizzas), roll it out.

2. Spread pie filling over it.

3. Mix crumb topping well and spoon over filling.

4. Bake 10 - 15 minutes or until crust is golden brown (at 550-degrees, it was about 5 minutes)

5. Once removed out of oven, drizzle with glaze.

'Golden' Potato Soup

This soup is very hearty and great paired with a thick bread.  It's also pretty simple and a favorite of ours.

2 Tbl. butter
1/2 c. onion
1/4 c. celery
1 medium carrot, shredded
3 large potatoes, peeled & diced (add salt to these)
1 1/2 c. water
2 c. milk
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbl. flour
2 Tbl. cornstarch
6 Tbl. water
1 - 1 1/2 c. shredded cheese (we usually have a bag with a pizza blend of three cheeses in the fridge)
paprika (for garnish)

1. Sauté butter, onion and celery.
2. Add carrot, 1 1/2 c. water, and potatoes; bring to a boil, reduce heat and cover until tender (about 20 - 25 minutes).
3. Stir in milk, pepper and salt, bring to a gentle boil, stir often.
4. Mix flour, cornstarch and water in a small bowl, then add to soup; stir until thick.
5. Add cheese, stir until completely melted.
6. Serve, with sprinkling of paprika for garnish.

*When I have green onions, I will add about 1/4 c. and sauté with the first three ingredients. I also use some as a garnish.