Butternut Squash Soup

This recipe was shared with me by an awesome lady who lives down the street. She is always talking about these yummy recipes she makes and this is the first one I've tried from her. And I've gotta tell ya, I'm going to need ALL her recipes if they are as good as this :) Mmm...

Here's what you need:

1 Butternut Squash
1 apple
1 onion
2-3 carrots (or about 1 1/2 cup baby carrots)
Chicken stock (about 2 cups)
Nutmeg or Curry
Brown sugar

Preheat your oven to 350. Place squash on a cookie sheet (put foil down to help with cleanup). Poke a few holes in the squash with a knife and bake for 1 hour or until it is soft. (You don't need to peel or cut it up. Just poke it and toss it in the oven!) To check softness, poke the squash with a fork on the end closest to the stem. (The bottom half is semi-hollow where all the seeds are). Take out of oven and let cool. Once cool, cut the squash in half length-wise, scoop out all the seeds and throw them away. Scoop out all the flesh off of the skin into a bowl and set aside.

*I baked my squash in the morning and let it sit on the counter to cool for a few hours. It seemed a lot easier that way.

Peel and chop the apple, onion and carrots. In a pot, saute the apple, onion and carrots in olive oil until they're soft.

Puree veggies and cooked squash with chicken broth in a blender, food processor, or with an emulsion blender right in the pot, til smooth. If you're using the blender or food processor, don't forget to vent the lid so you don't get an explosion in the kitchen ;)

Season with salt and pepper, brown sugar, and nutmeg or curry (we did nutmeg) and heat thru. Just add the spices to your taste preference.

Enjoy! Thanks, Ingrid for sharing this with me. I'm definitely going to be trying the rest of your recipes in the future!

Stuffed Peppers

I hadn't ever had a stuffed pepper until just about a year ago. And let me tell you, I fell in love. I don't know what it is about it, but we have these almost every other week. I never liked spicy food growing up, and this definitely has a kick to it, but it has the perfect proportion of tomatoes, cheese, rice and bell pepper in each bite. Mmm...

What you need:

2-6 green bell peppers (depending on how many people you're making these for)
1 lb. pork chorizo
1/2 cup onion, diced
4 cloves garlic
1 can tomatoes
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 - 1 cup cooked white rice (depending on how many peppers you have to stuff- I'll explain later)
1 cup cheese

Cut the tops off the peppers and clean out the insides (remove seeds and white rinds on sides while keeping the pepper whole like a bowl) Boil peppers in water for around 15 minutes and set aside in a casserole dish.

While the peppers are boiling, brown chorizo. If you are using chorizo that has a casing, remove it before cooking it. You want it to be more like ground meat. We've found a very cheap chorizo brand at Walmart that is usually under $1 and doesn't have a casing. It is more like a spicy paste than a sausage. It comes in a plastic wrap with a green, red and white label. (Sorry for not having a picture- you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it though.) All you have to do is cut open one end and squeeze the chorizo out onto the pan. It doesn't "brown" when you cook it, so if you use that kind, don't worry about browning it first.

Add onions and garlic to skillet and cook until onions are soft. Season with a little salt and pepper. Stir in tomatoes, Worc. sauce and rice. Since there's usually only 2 of us, we only use about a 1/2 cup of rice so we don't have too much filling. But if you're making 4 or more peppers, use at least 1 cup of rice (you can add as much as you'd like to make more filling). Remove from heat and mix in cheese.

Stuff peppers and top with extra cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

Serve with a little bit of sour cream and sprinkle a little lime juice on and enjoy!

*An alternate recipe for those with children or who don't like too much spice:
Only use 1/2 - 1/4 of the chorizo (or none at all if you don't want it) and use 1 lb. ground beef. Just brown the beef, drain grease and then start adding the other ingredients as called for above.

This recipe will stuff about 4 medium sized peppers, so if there's only 2 of you, save the extra mixture and use it with some refried beans to make a great burrito.

Delicious!

Taco Soup

I'm not the biggest fan of winter... so when it gets cold I love to have soup. This taco soup is so flavorful and not only warms me up when I'm cold, it gets me excited about my favorite season- SUMMER!!

Here's what you need:

1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tb olive oil
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 can tomatoes
1 can chicken broth
1 1/4 cups water
1 can of corn
1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can chopped green chiles
2 boneless chicken breasts, cooked and cut into bite-sized pieces
crushed tortilla chips
shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 avacado, sliced
sour cream

In a medium pot, heat oil over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic in oil until soft. Stir in chili powder, oregano, tomatoes, broth, and water. Bring to a boil, and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes.

Stir in corn, chiles, beans and chicken. Add salt and pepper to taste if desired.
Simmer for 10 minutes.

Pour soup into bowls and top with crushed tortilla chips, cheese, sour cream and avacado slices.

Jambalaya

(This was originally from my regular blog, but for the sake of time I just copied and pasted)

Last night I made jambalaya for the first time. And it turned out SO good! I was actually quite impressed with myself (hehehe) which is why I decided to post it on here for you all to enjoy as well. Seriously, you HAVE to try this!

It started out as an adventure- McKenzie and I walked to the grocery store just to pick up a few items that I needed, one of which being the Andouille sausage that is called for in the recipe. After walking all the way there and searching high and low for it, I decided to ring the service bell at the meat counter.

Butcher guy- "Hello, how can I help you?"
Me- "Do you carry Andouille sausage?"
Butcher guy- "Uh.... If we did it'd be over by the breakfast sausages."
Me- "Well this isn't a breakfast sausage. It's kind of like keilbasa, but... not."
(We walk over together to look at all the sausages)
Butcher guy (after slightly glancing in the general direction of the sausages)- "I don't think we carry that brand."
Me- "Andouille isn't a brand, it's a type of sausage."
Butcher guy- "Hmm...I don't think we carry it."
Me- "Uh... ok. Thanks anyway."

In all honesty I think the butcher guy had NO idea what Andouille is. I've never bought it before so I just didn't know exactly where to look. After searching all the different kind of sausages I decided to just get Keilbasa and call it a day. I grabbed the "spicy" variety and almost walked away when I noticed it had expired last week- gross! I put it down and searched thru all 20 or so of the same kind only to find out that they were ALL expired. (It's a smaller grocery store that we usually only go to if we need one or two things and need it quick. And this has actually happened a few times before...) I was disappointed and grabbed a "smoky" keilbasa instead (not expired), hoping that it wouldn't ruin the flavor of the jambalaya.

As I got ready to start making it, I realized I forgot to buy an onion. *doh!* But luckily we had half of one from a few days ago still in the fridge and I only needed half or 1/4 anyway, so it all worked out in the end. :)

Ok- so here's where the recipe begins. Micah found this on Food Network's website and it comes from the King of Cajan himself, Emeril Lagasse.



Ingredients-

1 chicken breast, diced
1 Tb Creole seasoning (recipe will follow)
2 Tb olive oil
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 chopped green bell pepper
2 Tb chopped garlic
1/2 can diced tomatoes
2 bay leaves
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
3/4 cup rice
3 cups chicken stock
5 oz keilbasa sliced (about 1/3 the package)

Creole seasoning (I made just enough to get to the 1 Tb called for in this recipe. If you want to make a bigger batch and save some for later, click on the link at the bottom to see Emeril's bigger batch recipe)

1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp paprika

Combine all ingredients thoroughly

Directions-

In a bowl, combine chicken and Creole seasoning and mix well. Set aside.

In a large saucepan heat oil over high heat with onion and bell pepper, 3 min. Add garlic, tomatoes, bay leaves and Worcestershire sauce. Mix well. Stir in rice and slowly add chicken stock. Reduce heat to medium and cook until rice absorbs liquid and becomes tender, stirring occasionally, about 15 min. (I covered mine with a lid and that seemed to help get the rice to cook through a little better)

While the rice mixture is cooking, start cooking the diced chicken over medium heat. Once it looks about done, toss it and the sliced sausage into the rice mixture. Let it cook until the rice is done and most the liquid is gone. (About 7-10 minutes)

Add salt and pepper to taste and BAM! (Sorry, couldn't help myself. I get all excited about Emeril...hehehe.)


Oh yeah, and this is for about 3-4 people.


This is the way we made it, but the original recipe calls for a few extra ingredients that we decided not to use (shrimp, hot sauce, celery). You can either try our way or click here for his original. (There are also like a million different jambalaya recipes by him alone, this is just the one we thought sounded best.)

All in all, I 'd say this was perfect. I actually enjoyed the smokiness of the keilbasa and will probably just use that next time anyway instead of fussing about the Andouille. This had just enough kick for us, but if you're adventurous you should try the hot sauce, add extra Creole seasoning, and maybe you can get your hands on some Andouille sausage...haha