Cheesy Potato Soup

I recently discovered the website shrinkingkitchen.com
I am fan! I've tried a few recipes and while not all of them were a hit we have enjoyed most of them. This one is might be my new favorite soup recipes.

Cheesy Potato Soup
adapted from Light Cheesy Potato Soup Ready in 40 minutes

Ingredients
2T butter
2C chopped onion
4 carrots, sliced
2-3 stalks celery, sliced
5T all purpose flour
6C chopped red potatoes
2 1/2C low fat milk
2 3/4C fat, free low sodium chicken broth
1C water
1C low fat shredded cheddar cheese
1/4t ground red pepper
S&P to taste
diced green onions for garnish

Chop your potatoes and onions before you start! Makes things go much faster. Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion to pan; saute' 5 minutes or until tender. Sprinkle with flour; cook 1 minute, stirring onion mixture constantly. Add potato, milk, broth, and water to pan; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes (I simmered for 15). Add cheese and ground red pepper; cook 2 minutes or until cheese melts, stirring frequently. Top each serving evenly with chopped green onions if desired.

 

My notes:

We really enjoyed this soup, don't forget to add the cheese slowly and stir after each addition otherwise it might clump together.

Chicken Soup

I went through a cooking frenzy last Sunday. I made BBQ pork in the crock pot, carrot bread, chicken soup with vegetables, and banana pudding.

I knew I wanted to make a chicken soup because I had made chicken stock earlier in the week and had a whole chicken that I needed to use. This soup was not only kid-approved but raved about. Strange since it had onions, tomatoes, and spinach in it.  All of which are considered deadly.

Chicken Soup

4 garlic cloves
1 medium onion, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
2 carrots, diced
4C chicken stock
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
2C fresh spinach, julienned

1 14oz can of cannelini beans, drained
2 cups cooked chicken
1/2 - 1 tsp thyme
1/2 - 1 tsp oregano
salt
pepper

Cook onion, garlic, carrots, and celery over medium-low heat. Sweat the vegetables, add oregano and thyme; cook until they are tender, stirring occasionally. Add the can of tomatoes and chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then drop down to a simmer. Add the beans and chicken; let simmer for a while. Basically until beans and chicken are heated through and you are ready to eat it. Before serving put the spinach in the soup and allow it to wilt a little.

My notes
This is my own recipe and as usual I butt-numbered this but at least I measured how much chicken stock I used. Like I said before, the kid raved about this soup which was really surprising but I'm not going to complain....
Even Jeff liked it and he says he doesn't really like spinach which I know is a mental thing b/c I put spinach in anything I can sneak it into. My Mom said that she and my Dad enjoyed it and that it was really filling.

Vegetable Lover's Chicken Soup

I decided it would be easier for archiving if I put each recipe in a separate post. So here is recipe number 2 from me. Initially this recipe was written for 2 services. I changed it to serve 4.









Vegetable Lover's Chicken Soup
From EatingWell: December 2006

4 servings (2C each) | Active time: 35 minutes | Total time: 40 minutes

Ingredients
1 T extra-virgin olive oil
1 lb chicken tenders
1 t Italian seasoning blend
1/4 t salt
1/4 dry white wine
2 small zucchini, sliced
2 shallots, diced
2 medium carrots, sliced
4 plum tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 cans chicken broth
1/2 C orzo
3 C packed baby spinach

Preparation
Heat oil in a large sauce pan over medium-high heat.  Add chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, 3-4 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
Add zucchini, shallot, carrot, Italian seasoning and salt and cook, stirring often, until the vegetables are slightly softened, 2-3 minutes. Add tomatoes, broth, wine, and orzo (or other tiny pasta); increase heat to high and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.  Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the pasta is tender, about 8 minutes, or according to package directions.  Stir in spinach, the cooked chicken and any accumulated juices from the chicken; cook, stirring, until the chicken is heated through, about 2 minutes.

Nutrition per serving:
261 calories; 8 g fat; 1 g sat fat; 5 g mono; 72 mg cholesterol; 12 g carbs; 31 g protein; 2 g fiber; 335 mg sodium; 483 mg potassium.

Cover and refrigerate up to 3 days of freeze up to 3 months.

My notes!
I think this would be good with mushrooms added.  I also added carrots to this recipe. I happen to love spinach so I'm pretty sure I put more than 3C but I can't be sure because I didn't measure it.

Hi

Howdy,
This should be a fun experience! I hope everyone enjoys the recipes and foods that I make here. Please feel free to send me your recipes to try as well. I am particularly interested in discovering new recipes that I can freeze. Most of the recipes that I have found so far aren't the healthiest and they rely on a lot of cream of... soups. Don't get me wrong. I like those soups but you can only eat so many combinations before you get tired of them.

Tonight I made 3 new recipes that I found on eatingwell.com. I made Chile & Beer Braised Brisket, Vegetable Lover's Chicken Soup, and Tortellini Primavera. I am particularly fond of eatingwell because the include health information with all the recipes as well as tips and notes.

Chile & Beer Braised Brisket
From EatingWell: March/April 2008
8 servings (3/4 c each) | Active time 30 minutes | Total time 3 1/2 hours

Ingredients
6 dried New Mexico, Anaheim or ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes, preferably fire-roasted
1 large onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 T plus 1 t chili powder
2 t ground cumin
1 t salt
1 C Mexican beer
1 T canola oil
2 lbs trimmed flat, first cut brisket
1 15 oz can pinto beans, rinsed

Prep
Tear the chiles into 1-in pieces and place in a large bowl.  Cover with hot water and let sit until softened, at least 20 minutes. Drain.
Preheat the oven to 350. Please the tomatoes and their juices, onion, garlic, chili powder, cumin, salt, and the drained chile pieces in a food processor.  Process until smooth.  Transfer to a bowl and stir in the beer.
 Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat.  Add brisket and brown on all sides, about 6 minutes total.  Pour the chile sauce over the meat and bring to a simmer.
Cover, transfer to the oven and bake for 2 hours.  Stir in the beans and continue baking until the meat is fall apart tender, 45 min - 1 hr.
Transfer meat to a cutting board and pull apart into long shreds using two fords.  Stir the shredded meat back into the sauce.

Nutrition per serving:
282 Calories, 9 g fat, 2 g sat fat, 4 g mono; 78 mg cholesterol; 19 g carbs; 30 g protein; 6 g fiber; 528 mg sodium; 664 mg potassium.

This can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 3 months.


Notes from me!
I will probably serve this over rice, I am a fan of brown rice personally. I did not have a Mexican beer in my fridge so I used Shiner. I also had a 3lb brisket so I put the whole bottle of beer in for some extra liquid. Before I put the meat back in the sauce I put it on the stove and brought it to a boil and reduced it. Then I added 1T corn starch and water to thicken the sauce. Then I added the meat.