Hurricane soup

Just a quick note to all my friends on the coast (including one of my closest friends since I was 12), I hope you're all safe and dry.  I'm thinking about you all.  If Issac wasn't bringing on both the noise and the funk, I'd be down there, cooking for you all.  Because I love you.

While we don't get hurricanes this far inland, we are just close enough to get a lot of the wind and rain.  And it's well on it's way.  I think we're supposed to see rain until next Thursday.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: Rain equals soup.  It's just that simple. 

On Saturday, Joe, out of the blue, had a major craving for tomato soup.  I, myself, have never been a tomato soup fan.  I think it's because when my brother was little, he LOVED tomato soup, but he'd add ketchup and baby tomatoes to it.  And that made me want to gag.  Does that make my brother seem gross?  he's not gross.  He's awesome.  Whatever.  He's doesn't read my blog.  So I guess he's not that awesome.  I'm kidding.  He's the best.  ANYWAY - I looked up recipes and got a general idea of how to make tomato soup and discovered it's incredibly easy.  Like, done in 30 minutes easy. 

After making it over the weekend, I did some tweaking and turned this soup into a vegan tomato basil bisque.  The results were creamy, rich, and full of flavor.  This is not my brother's ketchup, baby tomato, canned soup.  No sir.

Tomato Basil Bisque

- 1 tblsp olive oil

- 2 large tomatoes, diced (4 cups)

- 1 medium onion, diced

- 2 tblsp minced garlic

- 2 cups vegetable stock

- 3 tsp clove

- 1 cup basil leaves

- 3 tblsp coconut oil

- 3 tblsp flour

- 2 tsp honey

- salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add garlic and sautee until fragrant (about a minute).  Add diced tomato and onions and cook until onions are translucent and tender (about 5 minutes).  Add vegetable stock, clove, and basil and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, reduce to a simmer for about 20-25 minutes.  Remove soup from heat and carefully pour into a blender and blend until completely smooth.  Set aside.  In the same large pot, heat coconut oil until melted.  Then add flour and whisk constantly for about 5 minutes.  It's really important to whisk constantly, otherwise the oil and butter will burn and will be unusable.  Once you've mixed your oil and flour for about 5 minutes and they're starting to thicken, slowly pour in your tomato soup mixture while whisking the whole time to avoid lumps.  Add honey and salt.  Stir over heat until you've reached desired thickness and then remove from heat and serve.

Note:  It's easy to make your own vegetable stock.  I use about 8 cups of water, 3 or 4 carrots roughly chopped, an onion chopped, 3 or 4 celery stalks roughly chopped, corn cobs, and any other vegetables i might have lying around with no purpose. This is a good way to use up otherwise unusable things, like the tops of celery or corn cobs.  Put the water and veggies in a large pot, season with salt and pepper, bring to a boil, and then simmer for about 2 hours.  Strain the liquid into a jar or air tight container and use it the next time you need some rainy day soup!

Yeah, that's a grilled cheese sandwich made on that french bread I gave you the recipe for, with some goat cheese, ricotta, and Parmesan.  NO BIG DEAL.



They call it stormy Monday

It poured here in Mississippi ALL....DANG....MORNING!  We haven't had a lot of rain this summer so 5 hours of rain was definitely welcomed.  My little garden was so thirsty! 

With all the rain and gray skies, I immediately thought about how it was an ideal soup day.  It's really hard to find a good day for soup in the summer, so you've gotta take your opportunities when they come!  "The time to hesitate is through!"

I had several corn on the cobs in my freezer from the farmers market and one large zucchini (when I say large, by the way, I mean it was almost as long and as round as my arm.  Yeah.  I mean large.) from my sister in law's garden.  I've been really into roasting my veggies, so a roasted corn and zucchini soup was kind of a no-brainer.

Creamy Roasted Corn and Zucchini Soup

- 2 large ears of corn

- 1 zucchini

- 2 or 3 cloves of garlic, minced

- 1 tblsp olive oil

- 1 jalapeno (remove seeds for less heat)

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 2 cups vegetable stock (or chicken stock)

- 1 cup water

- 1 sprig of rosemary (optional)

- 1/3 cup barley (or rice, brown, white, wild, whatever!)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Remove corn from cob by slicing the kernels off, downward, with the cob standing on a cutting board, vertically.  Put corn on an aluminum foil lined baking sheet.  Reserve cobs.  Dice jalapeno and toss together with garlic, corn, olive oil, and salt, on the baking sheet.  Roast in the oven for 25-35 minutes. 

Meanwhile, add vegetable stock, water, corn cobs (snap those in half for a better fit in the pot), barley, and rosemary (if you're using it), in a medium sized pot.  Bring to a boil and then simmer while corn and peppers continue to roast, letting the barley cook through.

Once corn and peppers are roasted, remove the cobs and rosemary sprig from the broth.  Stir in roasted corn and peppers.  Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until creamy and smooth.  You can also (carefully!) pour soup into a regular blender and blend until smooth.  Reserve 1/4 of roasted corn for garnish, if you'd like.

And that's it!  This soup is sweet, salty, garlicy, and has a little punch of heat.  It's so rich from the sweetness of the corn and it's kind of hard to believe this doesn't have a whole cup of heavy cream in it or something.  It doesn't have cream in it...does it???  Nope.  I just went a re-read the recipe.  Ok.  It does not.

I'm from the s'th and I'd like some s'p

Mitch Hedburg reference in today's post title!  High five.

So, as you probably know by now, I live in Mississippi.  And Mississippi is in the south.  And if there were a "survival list" that we southerners had to compile for the very basic needs in order to survive down here, it would read something like:

1. Oxygen
2. Water (make that sweet tea)
3. Fried Chicken

That's right.  Fried Chicken is a means of survival.  It's just how we live.  My first vivid food memory is my great grandmother's fried chicken.  I can remember being 5 years old and pacing the kitchen just waiting for a plate full of drumsticks (making my great grandma really annoyed.  She had no patience for children.)

But this blog is about a healthy spin on food and also about easy, family friendly recipes.  So I modified my great grandmother's recipe.  Which seems a little sacrilegious and is definitely something Grandma Murray would've whacked me with a ruler for.  But I gotta do me.

These are baked chicken tenders.  But they're coated in cornflakes, flour, and spices, the way God intended.

Baked Corn Flake Chicken Tenders

- 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

- 2 cups corn flakes, crushed

- 1 egg yolk (if you're making sweet potato fries with these, save the egg white - you'll be using it then)

- 1/2 cup flour

- 1/4 cup milk (you can use 2%, skim, soy, or even left over corn milk, like I did!)

- 1/8 tsp cayenne

- 1/4 tsp paprika

- 1/4 tsp garlic powder

- 1/4 tsp salt

- 1 tblsp olive oil (or olive oil spray)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Cut chicken breasts into 2 or 3 strips, per breast.  Place strips in a shallow baking dish.  Beat egg yolk and milk and pour over chicken breasts.  Set aside for 10 minutes.  Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Mix together crushed corn flakes, flour, cayenne, paprika, garlic, and salt, in a bowl.  Once chicken has soaked in egg wash, take each strip and coat it in the corn flake mixture, pressing it firmly on the chicken to make sure it sticks.  Place strips on the covered baking sheet, drizzle (or spray) lightly with oil, and bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes. 

And who doesn't want fries with their chicken tenders?  Come on.  We're all a big fan of the "happy meal" approach to life.

Baked Crunchy Sweet Potato Fries (adapted from Naturally Ella)

- 1 medium sweet potato

- 1/2 tblsp olive oil

- 1 large egg white (use the one leftover from making chicken tenders!)

- salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Peel and cut sweet potatoes about 1/4 of an inch thick.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Toss sweet potatoes in olive oil.  Whisk egg white in a bowl until frothy.  Pour egg white over sweet potatoes and toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Make sure, after coating, that the fries are in a single layer and not touching.  This just helps make sure they cook evenly. 

Cook fries for 20 minutes.  Remove from oven, flip fries to the other side, rotate the pan, and bake for another 20 minutes or until crispy.

Blammo!  We just healthified fried chicken and fries!  I think coating chicken in corn flakes and baking it, seals the deal that I am a total mom (just in case the whole giving birth thing didn't seal said deal).



When I dip, you dip, we dip

I'm not proud of that title.  But it's the first thing that popped in my head.  So there ya go.

Coming up with new things to make every week is a challenge I've started to enjoy, thanks to starting this blog.  Prior to getting into cooking, Joe used to joke that I had two food groups: nachos and pizza.  That makes me sound kind of gross.  It is also accurate.  This blog possibly saved me from overdosing on nachos and pizza (aka dying from heart failure). 

I've started to write down a running list of ANY ideas that pop into my head or recipes I see in magazines or on websites or just food I really enjoyed when I was out to eat somewhere.  But today I didn't rely on that list.  Today I woke up with spinach dip in my head.  I just wanted something creamy and snacky.  Something rich and garlicy and fresh.  Spinach diiiiiiipppppp.

I generally only ever eat something like spinach dip, at holiday parties or some sort of get together.  It's a go-to appetizer.  And that's because spinach dip has cheese or cream or ranch dressing or something else fatty and delicious.  If I'm going to make spinach dip for just a regular old Tuesday, I feel like I gotta make it healthy or I'm just going to cry into the bowl while I eat it alone in my yoga pants and an over sized t-shirt.   I can't be that person.  I just can't. 

But don't think making spinach dip healthy, doesn't mean it's not every bit of creamy, snacky, rich, garlicy, and fresh as the fattier stuff. 

Creamy Spinach Avocado Dip (oh yeah, and it's vegan!)

- 6 cups of fresh spinach (or one box frozen spinach, thawed and drained of excess water)

- 2 avocados

- 2-3 tblsp minced garlic

- 2 tblsp olive oil

- 1/2 of a yellow onion

- 1 tsp honey

- 1 can white beans, drained and rinsed (try cannellini beans, navy beans, or try 1 cup greek yogurt if you wanna just go vegetarian)

- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast (or 1/4 cup grated parmesan)

- 1 tsp salt

In a medium skillet, heat 1 tblsp of oil.  Add onion and saute until tender, about 5 minutes.  Add honey and 1/2 tsp salt and continue stirring onions until they start to caramelize.  Remove from heat and put onions into a food processor.  Put skillet back on the heat, and add remaining tblsp of oil.  Add garlic and stir until fragrant, about one minute.  Add spinach, one handful at a time and cook until wilted (you'll probably have to do this in batches).  When all the spinach is cooked, add to the food processor, with the onion.  Add avocado, nutritional yeast, beans, and remaining salt to the food processor. Pulse until smooth and serve.

I made a fresh, homemade loaf of french bread, and cut several thin slices, brushed a little olive oil on them, sprinkled them with salt, and toasted them up.  You could eat it with crackers, chips, bread...whatever! 

You could also smear this stuff all over some bread and make a sandwich, with some grilled chicken and tomato.  Get crazy, man.