Butternut Squash Soup Recipe

 Holy hell it's October. How did that happen? 

Well, since we're here, let's get October started right with a nice cozy cool-weather dish, shall we?

This is my second attempt at this recipe (I wrote about the first one here), and I'm really happy with how it turned out this time. This recipe is made to our tastes. I added the parsley and thyme to add an extra dimension of flavor. It ended up pretty mild, but still very tasty. It was perfect after I added oyster crackers (this is how I feel about all soups, though). Feel free to play around with the flavor profile to make it to your tastes.

Ingredients

2 Tbsp butter

1 small onion, diced

1 stalk celery, diced

1 medium carrot, diced (I used baby carrots, since that's what I had, and ended up using about 24)

2 medium potatoes, cut into ~1" chunks

1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cubed (I used this tutorial)

1 (32 oz) container chicken stock

handful of fresh parsley, chopped (I ended up with about 2 Tbsp after chopping)

dash of thyme (maybe half a tsp)

milk (optional)

Directions:

1. Melt the butter in a large pot. Add the onion, celery, carrot, potatoes, and squash and cook for 5 minutes, or until lightly browned. 

2. Add enough of the chicken stock to cover vegetables. Add the parsley and thyme. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 40 minutes, or until all vegetables are tender.

4. This is where it gets tricky. An immersion blender would be ideal here, but alas I do not have one (yet). If you have a blender, transfer the soup to it, and blend until smooth. I don't have one so I used my food processor instead. 

5. Return soup to the pot, and mix in any remaining stock to attain desired consistency. You could also add milk for a creamier consistency. Season with salt and pepper.

And that's it! From start to finish, this takes about an hour and a half. Cutting the squash is the most time-consuming part, so if you're making this on a weeknight I suggest prepping that the night or the weekend before, and storing it in a baggy in the fridge until you're ready for it. I also suggest baking the seeds, they taste just like pumpkin seeds! 

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Chicken & Pumpkin Cream Sauce Pasta

When I run out of actual planned meals for the week, but haven't made it back to the store yet, I like to play a version of Chopped with myself. I find a protein and a starch or grain and see what I can whip up with them. This week, I was left with a pound of chicken breast and some whole grain pasta. I also still have a ton of pumpkin left, and thought maybe I could incorporate it into a chicken pasta dish. So I scoured Pinterest for "chicken pumpkin pasta" and came across this pin of this recipe.

I glanced at the ingredients and figured I would have everything I needed. As it turned out, I didn't have any chicken broth or heavy whipping cream. But I was able to find substitutes for both of them, so I forged ahead. And then I realized I didn't have any sage, so I looked up spices that typically accompany sage and used the ones I had from that list instead. The recipe you see here is a result of all those substitutions, a sort of Frankenstein's monster of mish-mashed ingredients that I figured would be "good enough."

Don't worry, unlike Frankenstein, this story has a happy ending.

Ingredients

8 oz whole grain linguine 

2 Tbsp butter

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch strips

2 cloves pressed or chopped garlic

1 cup canned pumpkin puree

1/2 cup water + 1/2 Tbsp olive oil mixed (sub for 1/2 cup chicken broth)

1/2 cup milk + 1/4 cup melted butter mixed ( sub for 3/4 cup whipping cream)

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp rosemary

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions: 

1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and keep warm.

2. While pasta is cooking, melt butter in 12-inch skillet until it sizzles, then add the chicken and garlic. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until chicken is cooked through (8 to 10 minutes). Add chicken and garlic to pasta.

3. Combine the pumpkin puree, chicken broth (or substitute), whipping cream (or substitute), herbs, spices and salt in medium bowl. 

4. Pour over pasta mixture and stir to coat. Heat everything up over medium heat until heated through (3 to 5 minutes).

The end result was actually pretty good! My husband said it was "surprisingly good" (a glowing recommendation if ever I've heard one). It was pretty devoid of color, though. If I were to make it again, I might try it the way it was originally intended. But without having the original version to compare this one to, I think this was a pretty good substitute.

This has been another installment of The Pintester Movement, where I pick a pin and just go for it, win or lose. I'm counting this one as a mostly-win, since all of the substitutions didn't render the dish inedible!

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Pancetta Wrapped Stuffed Chicken

Last night I was going to make bruschetta chicken. But then I realized that it was pretty much the same thing as the bruschetta salmon, and that wasn't really blog-worthy. So I challenged myself to come up with something different, and this is that something.

Fortunately, a friend got me a meat tenderizer over the weekend (after I made an offhand comment that I still didn't have one... how sweet), so I just pounded out the chicken breasts, stuffed them with spinach and parmesan, and wrapped them in some leftover pancetta. Bam.

Ingredients

4 thin sliced chicken breasts

8 cups spinach

1/2 cup shredded parmesan (give or take)

4 slices pancetta (or bacon)

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Saute the spinach.

2. Put the chicken breasts in a sheet of plastic wrap and pound out until about 1/2 inch thick. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Place spinach and parmesan on top, then roll the chicken breast up.

3. Place in baking pan and wrap with slices of pancetta (or bacon). At this point I would normally secure the wraps with toothpicks, but alas, I had none. It worked out okay in the end, but if you have toothpicks, I'd use them.

4. Bake for 35 minutes and enjoy!

I'd almost finished eating before I remembered to take a picture of what it looks like inside. How pretty is that? 

This was a huge crowd pleaser. Even my very picky little sister enjoyed it (and said I should make it a regular thing)! If I didn't have this blog, I never would have made this dish. How's that for a great hobby? 

Hope everybody is having a wonderful Tuesday!

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Tortellini "Soup" Recipe

 I don't know why I have such a hard time naming my recipes. This recipe is soupier than a normal pasta dish, but not as soupy as a traditional soup, therefore "soup" is in quotation marks. Just go with it. A rose by any other name is still delicious.

Ingredients

1 pkg tortellini (I used Buitoni chicken and proschiutto)

1 pkg frozen yellow squash

1 can diced tomatoes

1/2 jar spaghetti sauce (I used roasted garlic)

Directions:

1. Prepare tortellini and squash according to package directions. Drain each of them and combine in the pot you boiled the tortellini in.

2. Add the can of diced tomatoes (juice included) and the half jar spaghetti sauce. Simmer until everything is warm. Serve with garlic bread to soak up the liquid (my favorite part). 

That's it! I don't know if this even really counts as a recipe, but it was quite tasty, if I do say so myself, and very fall-y too (noticing a theme this week?). Enjoy!

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Shrimp Pasta Bake Recipe

When I served this to my husband, his first remark was "Oooh, I've never had your goulash before!" And I'm like... this isn't a goulash. So I looked up what constitutes a goulash, and this is what I found:

Goulash (Hungarian: gulyás) is a soup or stew of meat, noodles and vegetables (especially potato), seasoned with paprika and other spices.

Paprika is actually one of the few spices I didn't throw into this dish, so it's not technically a goulash, but you can call it whatever you want. I went with shrimp pasta bake. 

Ingredients

 Pasta:

1 pkg cellentani noodles

1 jar marinara sauce

1 can diced tomatoes

parsley, oregano, onion powder and garlic powder to taste

1 cup shrimp

Crumble topping:

4 Tbs butter, melted

2/3 cup Italian style bread crumbs

1/3 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare the pasta according to package directions. Drain and place back in pot.

2. Add jar of marinara, tomatoes, spices and shrimp to pasta, stir to combine and move to 13"x9" baking dish.

 3. Prepare the crumble topping by combining all ingredients. Sprinkle over the top of the pasta mixture, and place the baking dish in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes.

With fall coming, this is the perfect meal to prepare and just climb into a bowl of on a crisp cool evening. Comfort food at its best. Kind of like goulash (except not).

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Pineapple Pork Chops

Guys, I'm really proud of this recipe. This is the very first recipe I came up with off the top of my head using just whatever I had around the house. Since its humble beginnings, it has become a family favorite. By that I mean it is my husband's favorite meal, and my sister always requests it whenever she visits. Today, I share it with you. 

Pineapple Pork Chops

makes 3-4

3-4 pork loin chops

1/2 cup flour

1 egg

1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs

1 Tbs olive oil

1 small can pineapple slices (4 slices)

3 Tbs brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350°. Heat up a pan with the olive oil. Coat the pork chops in the flour, then egg, then bread crumbs, and transfer to the pan. Fry the chops for about 1 minute on each side, then transfer to a baking dish (I usually line mine with aluminum foil to minimize cleanup). Place one pineapple slice on top of each chop. Mix together the juice from the can of pineapples with the brown sugar to create a glaze, then pour half of the mixture over the chops. 

Bake for 15 minutes, then pour the remaining mixture over the chops. Bake for another 15-20 minutes, or until the pork chops are no longer pink in the middle.

These are best served with this Panera mac and cheese copycat recipe and a nice glass of white wine. Enjoy!

Spicy Cajun Shrimp Pizza

This pizza is basically this recipe in pizza form. I had the extra bell pepper, Cajun seasoning, and shrimp leftover from it, so it just made sense to throw it all on top of a pizza, right? This was also my first time using the whole wheat flour in the pizza dough, and it was actually pretty darn tasty!

Spicy Cajun Shrimp Pizza

pizza dough (my recipe here, except this time I subbed whole wheat flour for regular)
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp Cajun seasoning
1/2 jar marinara sauce
1 cup cocktail shrimp
olive oil

Preheat oven to 450°. Get your pizza dough ready (be it homemade or store bought).

Heat up a skillet with about a tablespoon of olive oil. Saute the bell pepper and garlic until it becomes fragrant, about 2 minutes.

 Once the dough is spread onto the pizza pan, sprinkle the Cajun seasoning on top of the dough and rub it in a little bit. Spread the marinara sauce. Then add the pepper, garlic, and shrimp.

 Bake for 10 minutes, then top it all off with cheese and bake for another 5-10 minutes.

Enjoy! This was one of our favorite pizzas to date.  Nom nom nom.

Cajun Campfire Packets (and S'mores)!

This past Sunday, we had a camping themed night for dinner, in honor of summer and 4th of July coming up and the general fact that we wish we could go camping but aren't quite ready to do that with a preschooler just yet. We couldn't even actually make the food over a fire-- no fire pits are allowed in base housing, which makes sense, because who wants to accidentally set an entire state on fire? But our campfire themed night was delicious nonetheless!

Cajun Campfire Packets, makes 4-5 servings

 adapted (barely) from here

3 cups cooked rice (white or brown)
2 cups cocktail (cooked) shrimp
2 small bell peppers (I used one red one green)
4 cloves garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons Cajun spice
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 tablespoon cilantro
salt + pepper to taste 

Preheat oven to 350° (if cooking it in an oven, which is how I had to do it). Cook the rice according to the package directions. Chop the bell peppers into bite size pieces. Remove the shrimp tails. Mince the garlic. Combine all ingredients into a bowl and mix until well incorporated. If you're actually taking this camping, you can put it into ziplock bags to store in your cooler until you're ready to eat it. 

Fill a square of aluminum foil with a serving size amount of the mixture. Cut a small hole in the top. Place in the oven until hot (you may notice steam seeping out of the top cut-- mine took about 10 minutes). Be careful as you remove the foil.

Since this recipe made enough for double the amount of people that were eating it, I am freezing the leftovers to use again next week as a burrito filling and adding salsa!

Then for dessert, we had s'mores! I popped the marshmallows into the microwave for a few seconds, then topped it off with a Reeses peanut butter cup. Candy that isn't a slab of Hershey's on a s'more is by no means a new thing, but if you haven't tried it yet, you need to. It's amazing. 

(By the way, these packets totally count as real food if you use brown rice instead of white. I would have used brown, but like with my flour, I'm trying to use up the last bit of white rice I have in the pantry before switching to brown.) 

What's your favorite food to make/eat while camping?

Real Food Recipe: Bruschetta Salmon with Cheese Garlic Biscuits

 I've recently been making the effort to incorporate more "real" food into our diet: you know, less processed, more natural. So when I stumbled upon this blog, it was like being handed a stone tablet with the Real Food commandments written on it. There may even have been a heavenly chorus, I can't be sure.

So after reading all the rules and tips, I decided to try to come up with something that I know my family likes, but made with all (or at least mostly) real food. I think I hit my mark with this one.

My family loves salmon. Even the little loved it once we finally got her to try it. Plus I have an unhealthy obsession with bruschetta. And when you combine the two, you get a meal that is 100% "real food" approved. Bonus points for the fact that the salmon is wild-caught never-frozen from a local market, and the produce was from a farmer's market. 

Bruschetta Salmon

serves 2 (and a half)

• 1 lb salmon (two half-pound fillets) (wild-caught preferred)
• 2 ripe tomatoes (I used Roma)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1/2 tsp oregano 
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Then prepare the bruschetta. Chop up the tomatoes and garlic, then mix everything together.

2. Next, put each fillet in a sheet of aluminum foil. Spoon half the bruschetta over each fillet, then wrap everything up in the foil and seal the packets closed, like so:

 3. Place the packets in the oven and set the timer to 30 minutes.

At this point, I prepared the biscuits. I used this recipe pretty much to a T except for the fact that I used regular all-purpose flour because I want to use all of it up before replacing it with the whole-wheat version. While the timer was running on the salmon, I was able to get these prepared and in the oven at the 19 minute mark, which ended up being perfect. I love it when everything gets done at the same time.

The salmon was juicy, and took on just a hint of the flavors from the bruschetta. And the recipe for the biscuits didn't lie: they reminded me of the ones from Red Lobster more than a little. The two together made for the perfect at-home seafood restaurant-inspired dinner, made with (almost) 100% real, unprocessed ingredients. Plus it got two thumbs up from my husband, so there's always that. 

Over the next few weeks, I will slowly be looking to replace the ingredients I currently use with more and more real food options, and any recipes I come up with that pass muster will be shared here. Just look for them under the "real food recipes" label!