Sara Millett's Minestrone Soup

We got this great recipe from our good friend Sara Millett in Round Rock. We switched it up a little bit, using spinach instead of Swiss chard, using the fresh herbs we happen to have in the garden, and adding a little meat. Enjoy!



Ingredients:

1 white onion, chopped
6 cups chicken broth (can be from bullion)
4 cloves minced garlic (or 1 tablespoon)
1/2 pound ground beef or turkey
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1 can kidney beans, drained
2 cups chopped spinach
1/2 cup whole grain pasta (macaroni or mixed pasta)
2 sprigs fresh rosemary (or 1 teaspoon)
1 sprig each fresh basil, oregano, thyme (or 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning)
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes or paprika
Salt and pepper

Directions:

• In large saucepan, brown ground meat.
• Add onions and 3/4 cup chicken broth, cook over medium-high heat 5 minutes or until onions are translucent.
• Add garlic and another 1/2 cup broth, cook 5 minutes.
• Stir in tomatoes, rest of broth, garbanzo and kidney beans, spinach, pasta, and red pepper.
• If using fresh rosemary, add sprigs whole (remove before serving).
• If using fresh basil, oregano or thyme, chop finely or use food processor.
• Add herbs and bring to a boil.
• Reduce heat and simmer 10-12 minutes, or until pasta is tender.
• Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with whole grain bread and butter.

Thai Peanut Chicken Curry

Here's an easy one (and as Anna said, it's a MUST TRY - I think she liked it).

It's a pretty common recipe on the Interweb, using peanut butter for a spice that sticks to the roof of your mouth. Here's our version.


Ingredients:

1 white onion, cut
Oil
1 lb chicken breast, cut
1 red bell pepper (or green is fine), cut
Several small red chili peppers, cut
2 T garlic or garlic/ginger paste
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
Any peanuts left over from the airplane
1/4 to 1/2 cup frozen spinach (optional)
Soy sauce


Directions

• Fry onion until clear, add peppers, garlic paste, and peanuts
  
• Add chicken and cook until not quite done
• Add peanut butter and stir until it thins and coats everything
• Add spinach and a liberal amount of soy sauce
• Cover at a low boil for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding water if necessary
• Serve over rice (jelly optional)
  

McCormick's White Chicken Chili (Tacos)

Annamaria's been cooking this for a few months now since she discovered it. She took some to Enrichment night once and some ladies wanted the recipe, so here it is.

(Disclaimer: Ashley posted hers first, and we're going to try it this week. Hers uses spices from scratch, while this one uses a handy McCormick mix. So try 'em both!)

Ingredients:
1 McCormick White Chicken Chili Seasoning packet
1 to 1 1/2 lb chicken breast, cut
1 cup water or chicken broth
1/2 white onion, cut
1 T oil
1 small can diced tomatoes
1 bell pepper, cut
1 can white northern beans
1 can kidney beans
Directions:

• Saute onions in oil until it starts to turn clear
• Add chicken and cook till done
• Add seasoning and water/broth
• Drain the beans, then add beans, tomatoes, and bell pepper
• Simmer until you're too hungry to wait any longer
• Enjoy

We've actually never eaten this at home as "chili;" instead, we usually make it into a taco salad with lettuce, salsa, mozzarella cheese, and sour cream over torn-up tortillas.

Tilapia Curry

In India, if you live on the coast, you eat lots of fish. I didn't get a whole lot of it, but it's really a staple in places like Calcutta. (Even many vegetarians there eat it, since they don't consider it "meat")

Annamaria got some tilapia for us for Valentines, and we had a bunch of frozen fillets left over, so I set out to find a nice fish curry. I found this recipe for Tilapia curry, which was very tasty and pretty easy. For once, I actually followed the recipe fairly closely, so you'll get what I got if you follow it. I did substitute some canned tomatoes for fresh, and you'll probably have to skip the curry leaves or substitute bay leaves, unless you can find some, which you should - seriously, go find a store that sells curry leaf...mmm... The recipe only feeds probably two people, though, so use the amount of fish you want, and add a lot more onion and garlic/ginger then you think you'll need; it condenses down a lot. Enjoy!

For a more complicated and, I assume, tasty curry, try this recipe too.

Marbled Pumpkin Cheesecake

from Recipegal.com

We just tried this on Thanksgiving. Very tasty! The recipe makes a 10 inch cheesecake, or third the recipe to fill a ready-made graham cracker pie crust

Ingredients (amounts for small pie crust in parentheses):

-Crust
1 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
2 T sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
(or ready-made graham cracker pie crust)
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate (1 cup)

-Cheesecake
3 eight ounce packages cream cheese (1 package)
1 cup sugar (1/3 cup)
1/4 cup brown sugar (2 T)
1 3/4 cups pumpkin (2/3 cup)
4 large eggs (2 eggs)
1/2 cup evaporated milk (little less than 1/4 cup)
1/4 cup cornstarch (1 1/2 T)
3/4 teaspoon Cinnamon (1/4 t)
1/8 teaspoon Nutmeg (1/8 t)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350
  
• To make crust, mix graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter. Press into greased 10-inch springform pan (or get out your handy ready-made crust).
• Sprinkle with half the chocolate chips.
• Beat together cream cheese, sugar, and brown sugar.
• Beat in pumpkin, eggs, and evaporated milk.
• Beat in cornstarch, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
• Melt remaining chocolate chips in saucepan or microwave.
• Remove 1/2 to 1 cup of pumpkin mixture and stir into the melted chocolate.
• Pour the remainder of the pumpkin mixture over the crust.
• Pour the chocolate mixture over top and swirl with a small knife.
• Bake at 325 degrees for 60 minutes (about 35 minutes for small pie crust) or until edge of filling is set.
• Turn off oven; allow cheesecake to slowly cool: in the oven for a while, then at room temperature, then in the fridge.
• Chill for several hours. Serve with whipped cream or Blue Bell homemade vanilla ice cream.

Hints from the kitchen:
In addition to using a small recipe with a pie crust, we also substituted the evaporated milk with an almost 50/50 ratio of powdered milk and water (slightly less powder).
We'd post a picture, but uh, we ate it already!

New recipe site: Internecipes Blog

Ashley recommends Internecipes, a blog where you can sign in under the author's name and post whatever recipes you want. Share and Enjoy.

New recipe site: Sailu's Indian Food

As I was looking around for various things I could add to "cool up" the blog, I found this site. It's a blog of Indian recipes, with a lot from Andhra Pradesh, where I spent most of my time in India. In fact, it's by a lady living in Vizag, one of my favorite areas. It has some fantastic pictures! Time to go exploring!

Oooh! It also has a long list of other Indian food blogs...fun!