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What’s For Dinner Wednesday: Cream of Broccoli Soup

20 Feb
This soup is perfect for a cold winter day!

This soup is perfect for a cold winter day!

We have had some pretty chilly days this winter. Some days there’s nothing that hits the spot like a hot bowl of soup, and I’m a huge fan of creamy soups, which is why today’s post is a favorite of mine.

The other reason it’s a favorite is that it brings back memories, and I love recipes that remind me of the past.

This recipe is from my college roommate Karen, from the cookbook she made for me when we graduated.  The thing is, I can distinctly remember a time when we were roommates that I had a terrible sore throat and laryngitis.

Karen made me this soup. I can picture myself sitting at our kitchen table that day, eating her soup. Every time I eat broccoli soup actually, I think of that day.

And a few weeks ago when I made the soup, I thought once again, of that day.

This was the first time I actually made the soup. I’ve never been very brave with soups before, I’ve mostly left them to Don other than a basic chicken soup. But since my friend Paula’s My Soup For You blog has been in existence, I’ve gotten very brave and I’ve since made several soups. In fact, she and I each made a version of a cream of broccoli soup within a day of each other and we didn’t even know it.

As far as my family goes, Caroline and I loved this soup the most. Between the two of us, we enjoyed it over several days’ time, and she liked coming home and having a mug of it after school on cold afternoons.

Here is the recipe for Karen’s Cream of Broccoli Soup. I hope it warms you up on a cold winter’s day!

I used fresh broccoli for my soup.

I used fresh broccoli for my soup.

CREAM OF BROCCOLI SOUP
INGREDIENTS

6 cups chopped broccoli

3 and 1/2 cups chicken broth

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup chopped celery

1/4 cup flour

2 cups skim milk

1 tsp. butter

8 oz. cheddar cheese, cubed (I used fat free cheddar, shredded.)

Although I used a blender for this, it was definitely more of a food processor recipe, and I didn't use ours!

Although I used a blender for this, it was definitely more of a food processor recipe, and I didn’t use ours!

DIRECTIONS

Simmer broccoli in chicken broth until tender.

Remove bulk of broccoli and in blender or food processor, process the broccoli, onion and celery until smooth. Set aside.

Combine milk and flour in a separate container until dissolved.

Slowly add to broth, stirring until it begins to thicken.

Add puree, butter, salt and pepper to taste.

Stir until it begins to simmer.

Add cheese and stir until melted.

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Bonus Post: Continuing the Celebration for Chinese New Year: Alex’s Sunshine Salad

7 Feb
This salad was so delicious and Alexandra was so excited that it was her recipe!

This salad was so delicious and Alexandra was so excited that it was her recipe!

We have the tiniest kitchen, and there are five of us, and every single one of us likes to cook and be in the kitchen. Oftentimes I try to limit it to one daughter at a time helping out in there, just because of space limitations.

This week, Alexandra got her High Five magazine in the mail and immediately looked in the Table of Contents to see this month’s recipe.

“Oooohhh this looks good!!” she said.

Sure enough, the recipe did look good, a recipe for an oriental salad which they called Sunshine Salad. We actually had everything for it, even the Chinese Noodles, which we normally would not have on hand.

So that night, it was Alexandra’s turn in the kitchen. Everyone else, step away.

She wanted to be here today when I typed this, but I said she would be at school so she said to be sure to let everyone know that the salad included a homemade dressing.

That she made.

By herself.

This salad was great, and we’d definitely make it again. Everyone loved the addition of the noodles and the mandarin oranges, which they all love. It was quick and easy to make. I chopped the lettuce up for her, but she put everything else in the bowl and made the dressing.

Our nifty container for the dressing is from The Pampered Chef and we use it for all our homemade dressings. It has a pour spout and a whisk at the bottom, helpful for mixing up those oils and vinegars.

Here is the recipe for Alex’s Sunshine Salad from High Five.

Enjoy!

Ingredients were appropriately placed in Dora, Little People and Strawberry Shortcake bowls for easy management.

Ingredients were appropriately placed in Dora, Little People and Strawberry Shortcake bowls for easy management.

SUNSHINE SALAD
INGREDIENTS

4 cups mixed lettuce greens (we use Romaine)

11 ounce an of mandarin oranges (we opened and drained three little cups of them)

1/4 cup crispy rice noodles

2 tablespoons slivered almonds

1/4 cup sunflower seeds (I skipped this. All we had were the ones in the shells and I was not going to sit and open up a quarter cup of them one seed at a time, but they would be a great addition to the salad.)

DRESSING

2 Tablespoons light brown sugar

3 Tablespoons Rice Vinegar

1/4 cup vegetable oil (we used olive oil)

A very easy salad to prepare, and very quick too!

A very easy salad to prepare, and very quick too!

DIRECTIONS

Wash and dry lettuce greens.

Tear the lettuce into bite sized pieces.

Put the greens, rice noodles, almonds, oranges and sunflower seeds in a large bowl.

Put the brown sugar, rice vinegar and oil into a jar.

Shake or stir to mix the dressing.

Pour the dressing over the salad. Use tongs to gently toss the salad.

So proud! Enjoy your salad and Happy Chinese New Year!

So proud! Enjoy your salad and Happy Chinese New Year!

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Oven Fried Chicken

9 Jan
This new chicken recipe got five thumbs up!

This new chicken recipe got five thumbs up!

As we’ve gone along in our search for delicious low-fat meals, we have been pretty happy with many of the ones we’ve found. Today’s is again from the South Beach Diet Cookbook, a cookbook that I’ve tabbed over and over again, since checking it out of the library last month.

This is listed as a Phase II meal, but we’re just eating from all over the book. We also tried a Phase I side dish, mashed cauliflower. I liked it, but it did not get the overwhelming thumbs ups that the chicken got. I liked the cauliflower so much that I made it again this week but I did not get any additional thumbs this time. I might be making it just for me.

Even Alex, who has chicken on her Do Not Like list, loved this chicken and asked when I would make it again. Most likely that’s because I let her have her favorite dipping sauces to go with it: ketchup and honey. It’s her own version of bbq sauce. Either way I was thrilled that she liked it, and even had two pieces.

Here is the recipe, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

OVEN FRIED CHICKEN WITH ALMONDS
INGREDIENTS

1 cup whole wheat bread crumbs

1/4 cup (one ounce) grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup finely chopped almonds (You could probably leave this out if you don’t have them but I liked it in. I used a Pampered Chef food chopper to chop my slivered almonds from Aldis.)

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

Pinch of ground black pepper

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded to 1/2″ (I used chicken tenderloins.)

Sprig Italian parsley, for garnish

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In medium bowl, combine the bread crumbs, cheese, almonds, parsley, garlic, salt, thyme, and pepper. Mix thoroughly.

Place the oil in a shallow dish. Dip the chicken first in the oil then dredge in the crumb mixture.

Place the chicken in a shallow baking pan.

Bake for 25 minutes or until a thermometer inserted in the center of a piece registers 170 degrees F and the juices run clear.  (Do not turn the chicken during cooking.) Garnish with parsley.

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Chicken and Veggie Chowder

2 Jan
This soup was hearty and delicious and everyone in our family gave it a thumbs up!

This soup was hearty and delicious and everyone in our family gave it a thumbs up!

Happy New Year!

If you read my New Year’s Eve post on Monday, then you’ll remember that I mentioned that some of my posts will be showing the new recipes we’ve been trying at our house during the month of December.

These recipes are helping us in our goal of eliminating as much of the “bad fats” from our diet and we’ve been using a variety of websites, blogs and cookbooks to guide us in finding some fun new meal options.

One thing our family loves is homemade soup. During the fall and winter months we have homemade soup all the time.

When I was looking through The South Beach Diet Cookbook last month, I saw this recipe for Chicken and Veggie Chowder and it seemed like we would all love it. We had everything for it at home already, so we gave it a go. If you were following the South Beach Diet itself, this recipe is recommended for Phase II. Since we are not, we could eat it any time we wanted to.

It was a cold day when we had it, and it was definitely a warm-your-belly kind of soup. Everyone loved it, which is one reason we love making soups. Very rarely does someone not like soup at our house.  This recipe was definitely a keeper, and of course, it was good for you.

CHICKEN AND VEGGIE CHOWDER (from the South Beach Diet Cookbook)
INGREDIENTS

3 cups chicken broth

2 carrots, chopped

2 ribs of celery, chopped

2 ounces mushrooms

1 onion, chopped

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 3/4″ strips

2 tablespoons trans-free margarine or butter (We’ve been trying out the Smart Balance Omega 3 sticks and the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter sticks)

3 tablespoons whole wheat flour

1 cup 1% milk

3 spears asparagus cut up into 1″ pieces or 1 cup broccoli florets (we like both but we went with the broccoli.)

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS

In a large pot, combine the broth, carrots, celery, onion, mushrooms, garlic, thyme, and salt.

Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.

Using a slotted spoon, remove half of the vegetable mixture to a food processor and process until pureed. Return to the saucepan.

Stir in the chicken, cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until the chicken is no longer pink.

Melt the margarine in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the flour until smooth and cook for one minute.

Gradually add the milk and cook, stirring constantly for three minutes, or until thickened.

Stir into the chicken mixture. Add the asparagus or broccoli, parsley, and pepper and cook for 5 minutes, or until heated through.

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Sam’s Sizzling Tofu with Green Onions and Sugar Snap Peas

31 Oct

I’d never had tofu before, and I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I loved Sam’s recipe!

One of the cool things about our DC trip for the Kids’ State Dinner in August, was being exposed to things we hadn’t had before. Some things were regional, some things were just new and different for us, but so far there hasn’t been one thing I haven’t liked that I tried from that trip.

Sam’s Sizzling Tofu is my latest winning recipe to try.

I’ve slowly been going through the cookbook making a new recipe every now and then, and Sam’s Sizzling Tofu recipe was next up on my list, simply for the fact that I’d never had tofu before and this sounded good to me.
Sam is ten and he’s from Maryland. His mom, Paula, makes him this recipe for lunch often because he doesn’t like sandwiches. Paula is also the person who made the Pumpkin Soup that I posted a couple of weeks back.

Sam and I have something in common, if you remember my post last spring, because I don’t like sandwiches either, which makes lunchtime a tough time for me each day.  I do however, like brown rice, scallions and sugar snap peas, so if I liked tofu, then I’d like this too.

We tried Sam’s recipe on a Sunday afternoon and I loved it, I even had the leftovers for lunch during the week following.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle…..

I wish I could have photographed the way Sam’s Sizzling Tofu really did sizzle. It was so cool!

Here is what Sam had to say in the cookbook about his recipe:

“Well, I don’t really eat sandwiches very well, so my mom has to find other things for me to eat for lunch,” says Samuel.

“One day I tried tofu and I liked it, so my mom got it. Then my mom was asking me what I wanted for lunch, and I asked her for the tofu. She made it and put it in a thermos. My friends wondered what it was, and a couple of them tried it and really liked it too!”

I’d definitely make Sam’s Sizzling Tou with Green Onions and Sugar Snap Peas again, and if you’ve never had tofu, I encourage you to try it too! If you are already a fan, then this recipe is for you as well. Give it a try, it’s a great side dish for your dinner and a great lunchtime recipe!

SAM’S SIZZLING TOFU WITH GREEN ONIONS AND SUGAR SNAP PEAS

Tofu…got it!

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
¼ pound firm tofu, cut into small cubes
1 garlic clove, minced
2 scallions, white and light green parts
only, chopped
1 cup sugar snap peas, cut into thirds
½ cup cooked brown rice
DIRECTIONS

1. In a large sauté pan over moderate heat, warm the oil.
Add the tofu and cook, stirring often, until golden brown,
about 15 minutes. Add the garlic, scallions, and sugar
snap peas, and cook 5 more minutes.

I served mine with a squirt of soy sauce on top too, yummy!!

2. While the vegetables are cooking, warm the rice in the
microwave for 1 minute on high, then serve the sizzling
tofu on top.

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Paula’s Pumpkin Soup

17 Oct

Fantastic for fall!

I’m actually eating Paula’s Pumpkin Soup as I type this post today. It’s my lunch on this autumn day, and it’s a perfect fall crock pot recipe!

Paula is a new friend of mine from the Washington DC Kids’ State Dinner trip. Many of us have kept in touch since the trip through a Facebook page. Paula has been a great friend and a fan of The Whole Bag of Chips. I’m thrilled to feature her recipe on here today.

It’s fast and easy and it was great for our day this past Sunday, which was filled with an afternoon of family fun at Don’s school, followed by a later afternoon of football, laundry and errands. Having dinner cooking in the crock pot on a day like that, couldn’t have been more helpful. I also threw a beer bread in the oven to go with it, since I can’t picture having a thick, hot soup such as this one, without a slice of beer bread to go along with it.

Here is the recipe for Paula’s Pumpkin Soup. Just to note, I doubled this recipe, using two quarts of stock and a 29 ounce can of pumpkin.

Thank you Paula for passing it along!
Enjoy!

I loved the added flavor that the sausage and onions gave to the soup.

INGREDIENTS

One quart chicken broth (low sodium and low fat)
One can pumpkin puree
1/2 TSP nutmeg
One half an onion
Garlic to your liking
Sweet italian turkey sausage
1 – 1 1/2 cups brown rice and quinoa
DIRECTIONS

Sauté the sausage, onion and garlic in olive oil until the sausage is done.

Put everything but the brown rice and quinoa in the crock pot and cook on low for 6 hours.

Add the cooked brown rice and quinoa 30 minutes before serving.

If you prefer, orzo also makes a nice addition to this recipe.

Nothing like crock pot cooking on a busy day!

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Quinoa, Black Bean and Corn Salad by Haile Thomas

3 Oct

Quinoa, Black Bean and Corn Salad was on the menu at the Kids’ State Dinner at the White House in August.

Ever since our trip to DC for the Kids’ State Dinner, I’ve had a list a mile long of things I want to make that we either had on the trip or are recipes in the cookbook (free download here) we received from epicurious showing all the recipes from the other winners. One of the things I’d heard about but had never tried til DC was quinoa. It was in one of the dishes we ate at the White House, and it is now today’s recipe.

A few weeks ago I picked some up and I spent some time reading about what it is, how you cook it (has to be rinsed first in most recipes) and what kinds of things you eat it with. Even though I had the recipe for today’s dish, I actually used it first to make muffins, which four out of five of us liked, so you’ll see that at some point in the future too.

Caroline was so excited that we were finally going to try out this recipe, it’s been at the top of her list too!

Last week we tried out Haile Thomas’ recipe. Haile is from Arizona and Caroline and I both loved her dish when we had it in DC. Haile is 11, and the cookbook blurb states that they began experimenting with quinoa when the family gave up eating white rice when her dad learned that he was a diabetic.

“The secret to [the recipe’s] success is that ‘all the kids love it, the ingredients are affordable, it’s easy to make and it’s just plain good,'” Haile’s mom says in her quote. They say it can be served hot or cold and I agree. We had ours as a side dish with quesadillas and again, the same four out of five of us loved it. I guess quinoa is now going on Alex’s Don’t Like List.

Coincidentally, just as I finished typing this, I found out that Haile is featured in this month’s Food and Flourish Magazine. In fact, she’s not only featured on pages 26-31, but she’s ON THE COVER!

If you haven’t tried quinoa before, I highly recommend it. I’m thrilled to have another healthy option for side dishes with our meals and I’m glad so many of my family members love it!

**Any modifications I had to make for this recipe I have put in parentheses. **

Haile’s Quinoa, Black Bean and Corn Salad

Serves 6

I love all of the colors in recipes like this. We definitely “ate a rainbow” with this dish!

INGREDIENTS

2 (15 ounce) cans of organic black beans (ours weren’t organic) drained and rinsed
4 cups fresh corn (we used a bag of frozen, cooked but not hot)
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered (I chopped up a large tomato)
2 cups cooked quinoa
1 medium red onion, chopped (I used half, it was large)
1/2 bunch fresh cilantro or flat-leaf parsley (I used dried parsley)
2 avocados, pitted, peeled and cut into cubes
1 Tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 lemon halved (mine was bad so I used lemon juice instead)
Sea salt

DIRECTIONS

In a large bowl, combine the black beans, corn, tomatoes, quinoa, cilantro or parsley, red onion, avocados, and olive oil.

Squeeze the lemon halves and add their juice to the bowl.

Toss to combine, then season to taste with salt and serve.

Cook’s note from the Thomas family: To make this dish hot, warm it on the stovetop of in a microwave, or saute all the ingredients together and add the avocados and cilantro or parsley after it’s plated.

This was a perfect side dish for our quesadillas last week!

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Baked Zucchini Fries

12 Sep

I have had lots of requests for the Baked Zucchini Fries recipe ever since I posted this photo from the Washington DC Kids’ State Dinner.

I’ve had a lot of requests for this recipe for Baked Zucchini Fries, ever since I posted this photo on my blog and on Facebook recently. It being zucchini season, it’s a perfect recipe to make at the end of the summer, and really throughout the year.

We actually made this recipe at the end of the summer ourselves, using a garden zucchini. They were delicious and they were easy. We used the recipe in our new The Healthy Lunchtime Challenge cookbook that epicurious gave us at the White House dinner. The recipe comes from Sydney Brown, age 11, from North Carolina. She submitted it with her winning Homerun Meatloaf Burger recipe as the side dish to accompany the burgers.

There are so many recipes in this cookbook that I want to try out, and slowly but surely I’m trying them one at a time.

This was a perfect summer meal!

We had our fries with oven baked chicken, garden tomato salad, and green beans. Don added a dip on the side for the fries which consisted of a mix of mayo and cocktail sauce.

Here is Sydney’s recipe, just as she has it in the cookbook. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

1 large egg white

1/3 cup milk

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup unseasoned breadcrumbs

salt and pepper

2 large green or yellow zucchini, peeled, trimmed, and cut into strips (2″ long 1/4″ thick)

Place your zucchini fries on a baking sheet and bake in the oven at 425 degrees.

DIRECTIONS

Combine the egg white and milk in a small bowl and combine the Parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper in another small bowl.

Dip the zucchini slices first in the milk mixture and then in the cheese mixture. Shake off any excess, then move to the baking sheet and place in the oven.

Bake for 10-15 minutes at 425 degrees.

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Val’s Zucchini Fritters

5 Sep

These zucchini fritters were easy to make and according to Val you can make them using almost anything including Swiss chard, spinach, broccoli or carrots, or any combination of the above.

It’s zucchini season. If you are someone who grows zucchini in your garden, then right about now you have lots and lots of zucchini. We are often those people, but this year our zucchini didn’t take. So when we were at my cousin Val’s house a couple of weekends ago we were lucky enough that she gave us some of the zucchinis that she and her husband Bob grew in their garden this summer. And, she gave us the most fabulous new recipe for zucchini fritters. We had them that night and we have since made them ourselves (when I say we, I actually mean Don made them) this weekend for a big cookout that we attend each year on Labor Day Weekend.

This cookout that we attend is big and it’s been going for 40 years. You can even read about it here. The menu has evolved over the years and every so often a new menu item is added in. I can tell you now that Val’s Zucchini Fritters will be returning to the cookout next year. Additionally, all of my kids liked these, so it’s a recipe all five of us liked, which is rare.

From the printout Val gave me, I can see that the recipe she uses is originally from Simply Recipes. You can see the original recipe that she gave me, here. Valerie said the most important thing to remember is to squeeze the zucchini, or whatever vegetable you’re using, until there is as little moisture left as possible.

Here, from Simply Recipes is the recipe for Val’s Zucchini Fritters, great for an appetizer before dinner or to go along with dinner:

Zucchini Fritters
Ingredients

  • 1 lb of zucchini (about 2 medium sized), coarsely grated
  • Kosher salt
  • Ground black pepper
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 scallions, finely chopped
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup grape seed oil or olive oil
  • Sour cream or plain yoghurt

Directions

1 Salt the zucchini with about 1 teaspoon of salt. Try to remove the excess moisture from the zucchini by either squeezing the liquid out with a potato ricer, or by squeezing with paper towels. (The original recipe calls for putting the zucchini in a colander set in the sink to let it drain for 10 minutes after salting it. I think it works much better to use a potato ricer.)

2 Whisk egg in a large bowl; add the zucchini, flour, scallions, and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Mix to combine well.

3 Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook fritters in two batches. Drop six mounds of batter (2 Tbsp each) into the skillet. Flatten slightly. Cook, turning once, until browned, 4-6 minutes on each side. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate. Sprinkle with salt. Repeat with remaining batter.

Serve immediately, with sour cream or plain yoghurt on the side.

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What’s For Dinner Wednesday: Asparagus Polonese

1 Aug

Asparagus: always looking for new ways to prepare it!

Earlier this year I posted about asparagus and the fact that I needed to find some new ways to prepare it since my family liked it so much. I also noted in that post that I’d long forgotten about a recipe my mom used to make when we had asparagus at home growing up. I promised that when I made it, I’d post it.

In keeping with that promise, here is my mom’s recipe for Asparagus Polonese, which got thumbs up from my family when I made it earlier this summer. It’s not something I’d make all the time because of all the butter in it, but it’s a great way to mix things up when you’re looking for some variety in your meals.

ASPARAGUS POLONESE

Simple ingredients are all that’s needed for this recipe.

INGREDIENTS

1 pound asparagus

5 Tablespoons melted butter or margarine

1 mashed hard cooked egg yolk

1 and 1/2 Tablespoons bread crumbs
DIRECTIONS

Place butter in a small frying pan.

When hot, add mashed yolk and bread crumbs.

Cook two minutes.

Pour over steamed (or sauteed) asparagus, serve immediately.

Make sure you have a hard boiled egg for use with this recipe!

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