My favorite Vegetable Soup with Italian Sausage
Jan 16, 2011 Food Things, Healthy, Soups, Weeknight Favorites
I was going to write about brownies today, but this soup was so amazing I couldn’t think about anything yes. Yes, the vegetable soup beat the brownies. I don’t know what’s happening to me.
I can honestly say without exaggeration that this soup is the best soup I’ve ever had in my life.
After I first had that thought, I spent some time thinking through all of the great soups that I’ve tried. A few great ones came to mind, but as I was eating this I knew it had them all beat. The flavors of the vegetables along with the small bit of Italian Sausage and fire roasted tomatoes blend together perfectly, and you are left with a delicious broth that you won’t want to leave a sip of behind. Which, as it turns out, is perfectly fine because this soup is probably not only the best soup, but the healthiest soup in the world.
Probably.
I really wanted to make a healthy dinner, because before I made this soup I made this cake:
It’s my friend Rachel’s birthday, the same person I made the cake for when I posted about it over a year ago, and she is having a party with about 30 people. The recipe is awesome- you can find it by clicking here- except this version is twice the size, measuring 12x12x8 and weighing 15 pounds. After creating such a massive chocolate and peanut butter masterpiece I knew I wanted something healthy.
Now, the soup recipe originally came from Mark Bittman’s book The Food Matter’s Cookbook, and it’s called the Clean-out-the-Fridge Vegetable Soup. It has so many variations in the book because for each vegetable you use he gives you 3 choices to pick from. For example, I used an onion, but for that ingredient I could have also used scallions or leeks. For the carrots I could have substituted parsnips or turnips. For cabbage I could have used spinach or broccoli. I chose the vegetables I liked, added some extra tomatoes and a little Italian Sausage, and it turned out wonderfully.
The recipe in the book said this made four servings, and if you are a giant Lumberjack then this might be true for you. It actually made about 7 Brian and Molly sized servings, which I think is fairly normal… I think.
My favorite Vegetable Soup with Italian Sausage
Slightly adapted from Clean-out-the-Fridge Vegetable Soup from The Food Matters Cookbook by Mark Bittman
Ingredients
4 tablespoons olive oil
8 ounces mild or hot Italian sausage, casing removed
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 yellow squash, chopped
1 cup frozen corn kernels
10 ounces cabbage, chopped (about half a medium sized head)
salt and pepper
2 15 ounce cans fire roasted diced tomatoes with their juice
1/2 cup chopped basil
Grated Parmesan cheese for garnish, if desired
Directions
1. Put 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add Italian sausage and cook, breaking the sausage into bite-sized bits, until the sausage is cooked through and browned. Remove the sausage from the pan with a slotted spoon (it’s alright if little bits stay in the pan). Add the rest of the olive oil to the pot, then add the onion and carrots and cook, stirring often, until the onion is soft, about 10 minutes.
2. Add the squash, corn, and cabbage. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, for a minute or two, then add the tomatoes and 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then adjust the heat so the mixture bubbles gently. Cook, stirring every now and then, until the vegetables are soft and the tomatoes have broken up, about 15 minutes.
3. Add the basil and Italian sausage and adjust the heat once again so that the mixture bubbles gently. Cook until all the vegetables are very tender, 5 to 15 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Scoop into bowls and top with parmesan if desired.
Tags: healthy soup, italian sausage soup, mark bittman soup, mark bittman vegetable soup, vegetable soup
Chorizo and Black Bean Chili
Jan 9, 2011 Food Things, Mexican, Soups, Weeknight Favorites
It’s snowing oustide, which makes it chili inside.
Get it? Chili? I’m so funny.
This is Hurley’s first time to see snow. I don’t think he quite knows what to make of it yet. When I took him outside he just kind of sat in it and looked around like he didn’t know what was going on. I’m sure when it accumulates a little more he’ll start to run and play in it. Maybe.
Or maybe he will just sit inside in this chair and listen to records. Or maybe a little bit of both.
Either way, while he does those things, I’m going to be inside warming up with a hot bowl of chili.
This chili was probably the best chili I’ve ever had in my life. I think I’m starting to fall in love with Rick Bayless a little bit. His recipes are my favorite ones to cook. When I tried this I said, “It tastes like Mexican chili,” to which Brian replied, “Yeah, but way better!” We both loved it.
The chorizo gives this dish a spicy kick that we both loved. If you don’t like spicy chili, you can substitue ground turkey, beef, or pork, but I fear that the flavor of the entire dish will be dramatically mellowed. I wouldn’t change a thing.
Chorizo and Black Bean Chili slightly adapted from Salsas that Cook by Rick Bayless
Makes 4-6 main dish servingsIngredients
1 medium-sized red onion
1 bunch green onions, roots trimmed off, cut into 1/4 inch pieces (I used about 8 stalks)
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped or pushed through a garlic press
1 pound raw Mexican chorizo sausage, casing removed (we got ours at Whole Foods in the meat department. It doesn’t come in casing so you can get the exact amount you need)
2 cups Frontera Chipotle Salsa (Rick suggested Roasty Red Guajillo Salsa, but we couldn’t find it. I honestly loved the chipotle salsa and I can’t imagine loving this chili any more than I did)
3.5 cups cooked black beans, drained
2 15-ounce cans fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried oregano, preferably Mexican
1 cup shredded Mexican Chihuahua cheese, Monterey Jack, or Cheddar for garnish (I used Monterey Jack)
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro, for garnish
1/2 cup sour cream, for garnish (optional)
Crushed tortilla chips, for garnish (optional)Directions
Mix the red onion, half of the green onions, the garlic and chorizo in a large saucepan an dset over medium heat. Cook, stirring from time to time, until the onions are soft and the chorizo cooked through, about 15 minutes. Raise the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring, until everything is richly browned. Spoon the mixture onto a plate lined with paper towels to drain off the fat. Stir the salsa and 1/2 cup water into the pan, scraping the bottom of the pan to incorpoarted the browned bits. Add the beans, tomatoes, oregano and drained chorizo mixture. Partially cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer for 30-45 minutes to blend the flavors.
Divide the chili into bowls and garnish as desired. Eat in a chilly house as snow falls outside your window while watching football.
Tags: bean chili, black bean chili, chili, chili recipe, chili with black beans, chili with salsa, chorizo, chorizo and black bean chili, chorizo chili, mexican chili, Rick Bayless, salsa chili, salsas that cook
Angel Hair Pasta with Chile, Lemon, and Arugula
Jan 6, 2011 Food Things, Pastas and Sauces, Weeknight Favorites
I would like to thank my brother Timmy and Tyler Florence for my first ever “Weeknight Favorite”. This year for Christmas Timmy gave me the Tyler Florence cookbook, Tyler Florence Family Meal. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorite cookbooks, and this pasta recipes was one of the best new recipes I’ve tried in a long time. It was incredibly easy, incredibly light, and incredibly delicious. I give it 5 stars.
I would also like to apologize for my blog being down yesterday. Not only was it down, but I lost the posts and comments that were generated the day before the crash. Not fun.
Oh well. At least we have pasta.
Angel Hair Pasta with Chile, Lemon, and Arugulaonly slightly adapted from the Tyler Florence Family Meal Cookbook.
Serves 6
Ingredients
2 cups panko bread crumbs
8 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 garlic cloves, silvered (he says slivered but I wasn’t sure what that meant, so I just sliced them as thinly as I possibly could)
1/4 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1 pound angel hair pasta
2 cups lightly packed baby or wild arugula
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese for serving
Directions
In a skillet, combine the panko with 2 tablespoons of the oil and toss to combine. Toast over medium heat, stirring, until the bread crumbs are golden brown, about 10 minutes. season with salt and pepper, then transfer to a small bowl.
In the same skillet, heat the remaining 6 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook for 10 to 12 minutes to infuse the oil and gently cook the garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the lemon zest and remove from the heat.
Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, or until al dente. Drain the pasta well, and transfer to a large bowl. Immediately add the arugula, the infused oil with the garlic, and the bread crumbs. Use tongs to gently toss everything together. Mound the pasta on a large platter and serve, topping with grated Parmesan as desired.
Creating a healthy weekly meal plan that saves time and money: Part 2
Jan 4, 2011 Food Things, Tips and Tricks, Uncategorized
Now that the rules are established, let’s go through how you plan these meals. This entire process used to take me longer, but now the planning part (before shopping) takes about 30 minutes. It can take longer if I really want to spend a lot of time looking at recipes (which sometimes I do), but it doesn’t have to take an extremely long time. The efforts you put into this will be well worth it, I promise.
Step One: The first thing I do is print off this sheet. Click on the following link for a download:
I sit down with this sheet, which is a weekly calendar divided by meal times that I can write on as I look up recipes or look around my kitchen and decide on what to make. It looks like you have to plan a LOT to fill this out, but really it ends up saving you lots of money and time. Before I did this, I would go to the grocery store and pick up things I thought we would eat, but after writing down a plan I would notice that there isn’t room for some of those items on the sheet. Either I would end up wasting the food I bought because we didn’t eat it, or we would eat it in addition to what we planned to eat and would end up eating too much that week. Planning out what you eat does take a little time, but for me it is really worth it.
Step Two: Do inventory
Look around your kitchen and see what you have. First, look for fresh fruits or vegetables that will expire. Those are things you want to be sure and use this week. Make a list of these items, along with any pantry items you have already like a box of pasta, can of beans, rice, etc. These are the ingredients you want to look for in recipes this week. That way you will save a lot of money by not having to buy a lot of ingredients.
Step Three: Hit the books… or the web
This is the fun part. Now you get to find recipes that you want to make for the week. Here are few of my favorite resources. These are what I use consistently every week to find what we eat.
1. Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless. This is hands down my favorite cookbook. When we got this book about a year ago Brian decided he wanted to make every recipe in it, and we almost have done that. At first we would make 3 recipes a week from it, and after a while we noticed Brian started to lose weight. The only change in our life was that we were eating from Rick Bayless’s book, and he lost about 15 pounds. This book is full of healthy, delicious, and different Mexican recipes than you will find anywhere else. It is honestly amazing. Plus, the recipes are all easy and fast, which really helps.
2. The Food Matters Cook Book by Mark Bittman. This book is one that follows the rule I told you, “Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants”. The recipes in this book contain little if any meat, lots of fresh vegetables, and lots of various grains. If you like things like couscous, buckwheat, bulgar, and cabbage, this book is for you. If those things sound scary, I want to encourage you that they aren’t! I made cabbage rolls from this book reluctantly one day, but they ended up being one of my favorite recipes of all time. Every single recipes is ridiculously healthy, so anything from it is a good choice for healthy eating.
3. Any recipes by Rachel Ray. I use the Food Network website mostly by visiting her page, but you can also find a lot of recipes of hers on her magazine’s website, Everyday with Rachel Ray. Her recipes are generally fast, generally easy, and generally really delicious. I make a lot of her stuff. Last year I had a subscription to her magazine and I would always find great recipes from it to use for fast and easy meals.
4. Food Network’s Website. This has a ton of recipes if you want a fun place to look online for new ideas. There is a healthy eating section on the site that is great, but I think it’s ok to make something by Paula Deen every now and then too, even if she does use a lot of butter. Just don’t pick her every time.
5. My own family cookbook. We don’t actually have a real cookbook, but I make things all the time that my family has made for years. Cooking what you know is always a good place to start.
Step Four: Create the plan
Now all you have to do is fill in the calendar. When you choose a recipe, be careful to make sure it doesn’t contain a lot of ingredients that are hard to find or that you don’t want to buy. If you don’t mind looking for grains of paradise or wonton wrappers then by all means, pick whatever you want, but if it’s important to you that the ingredients are easy to find then keep that in mind when you pick your recipes. Also, it’s a good idea to choose recipes that contain similar ingredients. For example, this week I am making two things that contain cilantro. This way I will use it all up instead of making something else that takes (for example) parsley and leaves me with a bunch of each left over at the end of the week and less money because I had to buy two herbs instead of one. This takes a little time to find recipes that can use up all of your ingredients, but it really does save money.
Here is what my calendar looked like for this week:
Collect the recipes as you go by saving them on your computer, printing them off, or writing the page number of the cookbook they are in on the calendar. You will need the recipes in the next step. Once every spot is filled in, you are ready for the next step.
Step Five: Create the shopping list. Download this sheet for help: Grocery List
Look at your plan and recipes and mark down everything you need. Dont’ forget to include amounts. Sometimes I mark down that I need whipping cream (for example) and I get to the store and forget how much I need. I either end up buying way too much or not enough. Writing down amounts can help.
Here is my shopping list, but keep in mind I made these recipe choices based on the fact that I already had a lot of ingredients, so don’t go by my list. For example, I had black beans and canned tomatoes already to make the chorizo and black bean chili, so all I needed was cilantro and chorizo to complete that meal. You won’t see all of the ingredients needed to make the dish checked off on your sheet if you have some things already in your house.
Step Six: Go Shopping
I don’t know how much time you have or how involved you want to get with this, but if you want to really save money sometimes it’s best to go to more than one grocery store. This might not be true depending on what you choose to eat, but sometimes I make things with ingredients that I can only find at certain stores, and I go there for those items and Wal-Mart for others. Sometimes Target is cheaper than Wal-Mart for certain ingredients like coffee, peanut butter, jelly, and half and half (things I frequently shop for), but Wal-Mart can’t be beat for canned goods or bread. This week I went to Whole Foods for chorizo and Frontera Salsa, but Wal-Mart for everything else. You can price shop around if you want depending on what ingredients you choose.
Step Seven: Relax and enjoy your week of cooking
Some people don’t think the words “relax” and “cook” should be used together in the same sentence, but I have found that cooking is one of the best stress relievers for me. I love to cook. I love to come home and chop things, stir, and create a delicious meal. It gives me something to focus on after work and creates a good transition between work and home. I notice on nights when I don’t cook I tend to think about work throughout the evening, but cooking and eating with Brian help my mind to shift back into a relaxed mood. Hopefully after a few weeks of living with planned meals you can say the same.
Throughout the week I’ll share some of my recipe I cooked this week, and from now on I’ll always post my favorite weeknight recipe. Even if this plan isn’t helpful for you and your family, at least now you know a little more about what I do every week.
Creating a healthy weekly meal plan that saves time and money: part 1
Jan 3, 2011 Food Things, Tips and Tricks
I decided to take my blog’s advice . Those were some pretty good suggestions, and I’m ready to start all of those things. The first request was that I share with you how I plan my meals for the week. I plan to do that immediately… as in right now.
I want to start off by saying that I don’t think I’m an expert by any means in creating a healthy meal plan, but it is something I spend a lot of time doing and I think it might be helpful to share what I do with everyone. Putting a little time into planning can ensure you eat a LOT healthier and that you ultimately save money by only buying what you need for the week, not what you think you might want to eat. Also, having a plan will decrease the chances that you will get lazy and stop at a fast food restaurant for lunch or order pizza for dinner after a long day. You won’t have to go to the grocery store every day after work because you will already have everything you need, including a recipe, for a healthy meal. This really is one of the best things I do to keep Brian and I eating right.
I’m going to break it up into two or three separate posts because I think that will make it a little easier to follow. This one will focus on the choices you make to create your weekly menu. Next time I’ll give you some tools to start creating your own menu for yourself. I’ll share my menu with you for this week, and over the course of the week I’ll post about the recipes I made so if you want to ever use any of them in your own plan you can do that.
I think for most people, the problem isn’t that they don’t know what is healthy, it’s that they don’t think they have time to prepare healthy meals. Some people think that it is too expensive to buy and cook healthy food, and that it takes a lot longer than preparing fast microwavable or frozen meals. I would say that it does take some extra time to plan healthy meals, but it doesn’t necessarily need to much more expensive than “easy” meals. When you plan all of your meals in advance you can shop one time a week, and by not making multiple trips to the grocery store you can save time and money. It takes a commitment to cook every day, but I’ve found that there are lots of easy, fast, healthy recipes out there if you know where to find them.
So, this is what I do every Saturday. I sit down, decide what Brian and I are going to eat during the week, make a shopping list, and go to the grocery store. There are some rules I follow when I’m making decisions, but I get to be creative and plan on cooking things that are both fun and delicious.
Here are some Rules that Alton Brown uses for himself. Whatever your reasons or goals, you can set goals for yourself that are going to help you do your shopping.
Here are the rules that I came up with for myself. They aren’t all necessarily rules for healthy eating, but some are money-saving or time-saving rules.
My Rules:
1. Never buy DoritosFor you this may be pop, cookies, dip, ice cream, or candy, but for me Doritos represents the one food that I can’t say no to. I love Doritos, and if there are in my house I will eat them fast. I don’t miss them when they are gone, but when they are near me I can’t stop thinking about them, and when I open the bag to eat just one then all of a sudden half the bag is gone. It’s a terrible, terrible thing! So, as a rule, I never, ever buy Doritos for my house. I let myself have them when they appear in everyday life, like if I see some at a party or I pick a bag of chips to go with a sandwich at Subway. I eat enough Doritos to keep myself satisfied, and I really don’t need them in my house. It makes sense when you go to the grocery store to buy foods you like, but sometimes it’s smart to NEVER buy some things that you love.
2. Use what you have in your house first
I always do a little inventory before I plan my meals so I can see what I have. Using what you have saves money, and using fresh ingredients up before they spoil saves food and money. It’s amazing how much fresh food can go bad if you don’t plan correctly. Look at what you have, and choose recipes that use those ingredients.
3. Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants.
This is actually a philosophy I stole from Michael Pollan. It is a lot of rules in one, actually, but I’ve found that following it is really the best way to eat. It says to eat REAL food, and I take that to eliminate pretty much all processed foods. I don’t like to buy things that don’t include chopping up vegetables at some point in the process. It also says to eat “not to much”, which is pretty self explanatory. Making dinner for two is hard because there is always a lot left over, even if we cut the recipe in half. For us, it is easiest to eat the leftovers for lunch, which makes me want to make even healthier dinners that I don’t mind eating again the next day. The third rule, to eat “mostly plants” is easy for me, but I know it’s hard for a lot of people. I have found a few chefs that are really great at making meals that involve a lot of vegetables and grains. My favorite chef for home cooking has got to be Rick Bayless. He uses has created Mexican dishes that use very minimal cheese, sour cream, or other “non plant” condiments (if they use any at all) and that have lots of fresh vegetables and meat. I love Rick Bayless. Mark Bittman is another great option if you want someone who uses a lot of vegetables and limited meat and cheese.
4. Make things that sound good.
I’ve discovered that when I have to cook something that doesn’t sound awesome, then I dread making it. Cooking has to be fun and the result has to be exciting for me or I will probably avoid cooking it. I’ll push that dish back to later in the week and hope that maybe we don’t have to eat it. We always do. So, the trick is to pick recipes that sound good and that you are excited about eating, and then you won’t mind cooking them as much.
5. Create space for fun eating
Once a week I create a time when we will eat out, whether it be for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. When we go out we don’t try to eat healthy necessarily, we go to a place that sounds good and fun to us. In the weekly eating plan I generally leave a few open spaces because over time I’ve found that life happens every week, and we don’t always cook everything we plan on if we make plans for every single meal. Friends or family might ask us to come over and eat, Brian might have to work late one night, someone gets sick, etc. Having a few open spaces saves money too because things always fill up those spaces.
Now that you’ve seen some examples or rules, come up with some rules for your family. Maybe you want to make a rule that every recipe takes 30 minutes or less. Maybe you want to never buy red meat. It might be that you want to try to go vegan this year. Whatever your rules, make them ones you can stick to and that will motivate you. Tomorrow I’ll give you some downloadable tools to help you plan meals and create a shopping list.
Tags: cooking at home, healthy eating, healthy eating plan, how to eat healthy, how to plan meals at home, mark bittman, meal plan, Rick Bayless, saving money by cooking