soup

One Pot Turkey Taco Chili

May 2, 2017

Do you have those recipes that happen on complete accident? I have lots of them. Some of them are goods, some of them are definitely not good. Actually there is really no in between.

This taco chili happened on accident when I started making chili and realized that I didn’t have any canned diced tomatoes. What I did have was a jar of salsa….which is pretty much just a bunch of diced tomatoes (and a few other things).

I was skeptical at first, not knowing if the salsa (I used my favorite pico de gallo) would totally over power the salsa. But then I just decided to lean in and go with it, adding my favorite taco seasoning and turning this into a taco chili. The result: fantastic!

I had every intention of showing you every detailed step of this chili, starting with chopped veggies and every step along the way until you have a nice bowl of chili.

Well, my husband called and I got distracted, so instead I have a picture of chopped veggies and a bowl of the finished chili. You can fill in the blanks, right?

If you have made chili before, this is exactly the same. Except that you will be adding salsa in place of diced tomatoes and taco seasoning instead of your normal chili seasoning.

You could also add some black beans and corn, like I did, to really round out the taconess (Mariam-Webster, I have a new word for you!) of this taco chili.

Then to kick it up even more, you could add your favorite guacamole, maybe a few tortilla chips!

Thats exactly how I ate it. I ditched the spoon and dug right in with a handful of chips. It was just like eating a crunchy taco out of a bowl!

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:156]

Red Curry Carrot Soup

January 25, 2017

According to my mother, I was a very picky eater as a kid. But really, what kid wasn’t? I do remember the days when I wouldn’t eat pepperoni pizza or drink root beer. And now here I am making red curry carrot soup! My how things have changed!

I think the word curry scares off a lot of people. Heck, it scared me off for a long time. I assumed curry was a specific spice or spice mixture. But really curry is a dish that can be made of any number of various spices, meats, vegetables, etc. They can be spicy or mild. Really they can be made just about any way you like. The more curries I have tried, they more I realized I actually really like them!

Red curry is popular in Thailand and the sauce is made from a mixture of ginger, tomato paste, cumin, coriander, tumeric, chili powder and a number of other spices. It’s super savory and flavorful, which pairs perfectly with the sweet carrots in this soup.

I first sauteed the carrots, onion, and garlic until the carrots were slightly tender. Then I added in the curry paste and stirred the carrots around so that they were coated. To that, I poured in some vegetable broth and coconut milk, which is another key ingredient in red curry.

Once the carrots were nice and tender after simmering in the broth for a while, I blended everything together with an immersion blender until it was nice and smooth. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can blend in a regular blender, just make sure to vent the lid to let the steam out.

While I love all the flavors in this soup, I also really love that its pretty healthy! The coconut milk has some healthy fat, but the rest of the soup is pretty much just vegetables and some delicious spices. Not to mention those spices have their own health benefits, like turmeric, garlic, and ginger.

If you are a little apprehensive about trying curry, I highly recommend giving this soup a shot! It’s definitely a good entry point to the world of curries, and since it’s homemade, you can control the spices a little more to suit your own tastes.

If you make this recipe, I would love to know what you think! Especially if you are new to curry. I hope you enjoy!

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:121]

Chicken Zoodle Soup

January 16, 2017

As soon as our feet hit the ground back in Charlotte after the holidays, both my husband and I immediately got a cold. It was like our bodies knew not to get sick during the holidays and waited until the very second we got home. So not only were we exhausted from the trip, now we were sick, and Charlotte was also about 30 degrees colder. As you might imagine, nothing sounded better to us than chicken soup! Scratch that; nothing sounded better than chicken ZOODLE soup.

Zoodle (zood-l) n: a noodle made from zucchini.

Chicken zoodle soup isn’t a whole lot different than chicken noodle soup. In fact, they are exactly the same recipe. The only difference being the zoodles which makes this classic comfort food that much healthier. It was exactly what the doctor ordered….if that doctor were me or WebMD.

First I sauteed carrots, celery, and onion. Once they were a bit tender, I added in the chicken and chicken stock. I let the whole thing come up to a simmer, then I covered it and left it alone. I find that most soups are better when the have a chance to just sit and hang out for a while. All the ingredients warm up and get friendly with each other. It just seems to help the flavors develop.

At the very end, just when I was ready to serve, I added in the zoodles. Just like your classic noodle, the zoodles can get really mushy if they are cooked too long. And it doesn’t take very long for zoodles to get mushy. I prefer my zoodles to still have a little bit of a bite to it, like an al dente spaghetti noddle, which is why I liked to add them at the very end.

All that was left was to assemble a couple big bowls to soup for the both of us! The broth was so soothing for our soar throats. And we didn’t miss the noodles a bit. I think it helped to eat something so healthy! We both bounced back pretty quickly and got over our colds relatively quickly. Well, some more than others.

If you are on a no-carb or gluten-free diet, you need this recipe! Especially if you get sick! This will help you get through any cold…and who know, maybe it will actually help! Or at the very least, it will be a nice comforting, healthy meal to get you through the Winter.

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:117]

PIN NOW, MAKE LATER

Classic French Onion Soup

November 30, 2016

Sometime after I graduated from college, I was living in Houston with two of my best friends. One of those friends was always trying to fix us up with her boyfriend’s roommates. She would casually suggest that we hang out and watch the football games with them, or make them dinner. The first, and maybe only time, we made them dinner, we decided to make them my French Onion Soup! Not only did the boys love it, but it must have worked it’s magic on at least one of them. Sometime after that dinner our other roommate started dating one of the boys. Now, they are married with a beautiful daughter.

All thanks to that French Onion Soup.

Okay, not really. But in my head that’s where it all started.
The reason I choose my French Onion Soup recipe all those years ago was, first, it was the one recipe I felt I had really mastered.

Growing up, FOS was my absolute favorite. When I started doing more and more cooking during college, it was probably one of the first recipes I tried and experimented with.

Second, it only requires a few easy steps.

Step 1: Caramelize onions.

Step 2: Add wine and reduce.

Step 3: Add flour and stir.

Step 4: Add broth and simmer.

I like to let the soup simmer for at least 30 minutes so that all the flavors in the herbs start to seep into the broth, making the broth extra rich and flavorful.

Once the broth is ready, I ladle it into a couple bowls, top with a slice of bread, a couple slices of Gruyere cheese, and pop it under the broiler until the cheese is nice and melted.

That first bite is my favorite. You have to break through that thick layer of cheese and bread to get down to the good stuff. That first spoonful has a bit of everything – a healthy glob of cheese, a bit of bread, and the yummy onions. A little bite of heaven if you ask me.

My husband and I will eat the soup on it’s own as our dinner. But, it would also be great on the side of a big, hearty salad, or even as a starter before a nice steak dinner.

PIN NOW, MAKE LATER

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:101]

Pork Belly Ramen Bowl

November 14, 2016

One of my husband’s and my favorite date-night restaurants is a little ramen spot up the road from us. I am pretty sure they have the best ramen in town, but that may be because there are no other ramen restaurants around here. Not that it takes away from how good this place is, it’s fantastic! The only “problem” is that it’s incredibly small (only a few indoor tables) and wildly popular, which makes it almost impossible to get a hot bowl of ramen these days.

So what do I do when I want a bowl of ramen but can’t get one? I make it myself!

I didn’t want to make just any old cup of noodles. I wanted my ramen to be good. Which is a little bit more difficult to do at home when time and ingredients are somewhat limited. At that ramen spot up the road, I imagine that they spend hours cooking their broth and use some exotic ingredients I can’t pick up at the local super market.

Despite all that, I was determined to make it work and to make a rich and delicious broth for my ramen without laboring over it for hours.

To intensify some of the flavors, I used a method that it sometimes used when making pho broth: charring the vegetables then adding them to the broth. To cut down on time, I used store bought chicken broth instead of making my own.

I started the broth by sauteing some shiitake mushrooms and garlic in sesame oil. Then I added the charred vegetables (onion, leeks, and ginger) and the stock. I let the stock simmer for quite a few hours so that all the flavors would meld together.

Even though the broth is the foundation of a good bowl of ramen. For me, the star of the show is the pork. In this case, pork belly! So while the stock was on the stove, bubbling away, I went off to make my pork belly.

I had never attempted pork belly at home, so before I did anything I did tons or research (thank you, Internet!). Did you know there are about a dozen (or more) different ways to make pork belly? You can smoke it, grill it, roast it, braise it, sous vide it…you get the idea. A more traditional, Japanese way of cooking pork belly would be to braise it. Braising is also probably the most fool proof method.

But I also wanted that fatty layer right under the skin to be nice and crispy. To me, that’s the best part of the pork belly! To get the skin extra crispy, I pricked it with a fork to make hundreds of tiny holes. Then I rubbed some salt on top and let that sit out for about 30 minutes so that it could draw out all the moisture. After 30 minutes were up, I patted it down with a paper towel to sop up any of that moisture, and then scored the top of the fat layer with a knife in a cross hatch pattern.

While the pork was resting, I prepared the pan and all the ingredients going to braise the pork belly in. I wanted lots of flavor to find there way into the meat to make it soft and delicious. I used a combination of leeks, garlic, ginger, and lemon grass then I plopped (that’s the scientific word, right?) the pork belly, fat side down, into the pan so that it was nice and crispy. After about 5 or so minutes, about the point my kitchen started to smell like bacon, I flipped it over and then ladled in some of the broth that was on the stove. I only added enough broth to immerse about half the pork belly. I wanted that top fatty layer exposed to roast and get crispy, and the meaty half to braise and get tender. Then the entire pan went into the oven to cook for about an hour.

The good thing about ramen is that, while it sounds really time consuming (I mean, it’s no 30 minute meal), most of it is just waiting around for everything to cook. All of those flavors in the broth and pork belly need some time to develop. So it was at this point I just kicked back and relaxed for about an hour. I guess I could have cleaned up the mess I had made, but I left that for my husband to have fun with later.

At just about the time the pork belly was about to come out of the oven, I put a pot of water on the stove to start boiling. I used the same pot to soft boil the eggs and to cook the ramen.

Once the pork belly was out of then oven and had a chance to rest a bit, I used a serrated knife to slice it into half-inch thick pieces. The skin on top was really dry and crispy, so it took a bit of effort to get the knife through the top layer. Then once it got down to the meat, it cut right through it like butter.

And the last step in this day long adventure in ramen making was to assemble the bowls. I started with the noodles, fresh out of their pot of boiling water, then ladled on some of the broth, until the bowl was almost full. I added a generous helping of the pork belly on top of the noodles, as well as the soft boiled egg, some scallions, and pea shoots.

Since my husband likes his ramen on the spicy side, I added some sriracha on top for him.

But this definitely didn’t need the extra flavor! There was so much flavor packed into the broth and the pork belly that my taste buds were overloaded. It was so rich and delicious, it was hard not to eat the entire bowl. And yet, because it is so rich and delicious it was almost impossible to fit that much food in my stomach. I was stuffed! It lulled us both into a nice food coma, and we ended up falling asleep on the couch with Netflix still on.

This is what marriage is kids. Stuffing your face with ramen and falling asleep to cheesy 90s movies. Sounds like the perfect date night to me!

PIN NOW, MAKE LATER

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:93]

Healthy and Hearty Turkey Chili

November 2, 2016

As soon as the temperature gets below 70 degrees, I break out my stock pot and make a batch of chili. I love chili. I could eat it year round, but I can really only enjoy it when it starts to get a little cold and you can tell that Fall is right around the corner.

This particular chili recipe is one that I have been tinkering with for years. I made my first batch of chili using the recipe on the back of the seasoning mix you pick up at the store. Over the years, I have made a quite few changes. Mainly, trying to make it more healthy and more flavorful. Not that there is anything wrong with that classic chili.

But just because I have made this chili a bit healthier, doesn’t make it any less filling and satisfying. Every spoonful is packed with lean ground turkey, kidney beans, tomatoes, and other delicious veggies. I personally like to sneak in any extra veggies I can find into my chili. I almost always make mine with onion, bell pepper, tomato, and jalapeno. Sometimes I will sneak in some carrot, spinach, or kale. And if I have an extra sweet potato lying around, I will dice that up and throw it into the pot as well.

But it wouldn’t be chili without the spices. I use 5 different chilies and peppers to spice my chili: chili powder, chipotle chili powder, cayenne pepper, paprika, and a jalapeno. To compliment the chilies, I like to add a generous amount of garlic, a touch of cumin, and a splash of Worcestershire.

I let all of those flavor meld together over the stove for at least 30 minutes, then when it’s ready I spoon an very healthy serving into a bowl and top with some of my favorite chili toppings: cheese, sour cream, and avocado. I will also sometimes toss on some cilantro, chives, maybe even some oyster crackers! And of course, I always have a piece of corn bread on hand to sop up all that extra chili goodness.

PIN NOW, MAKE LATER

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:91]

Creamy Pumpkin Soup Recipe

September 30, 2016

I will admit that I am relatively inexperienced when it comes to cooking with pumpkin. Sure, I can bake with pumpkin that comes out of a can, but something about that chubby little gourd intimidates me a bit. Maybe because I think of it more as a decoration than a vegetable.

But really, it’s not any different than some of my other favorite Fall vegetables, like butternut, spaghetti, and acorn squash. Which is why I decided to stretch myself a bit and try making some savory pumpkin foods instead of staying in my comfort zone of sweet pumpkin foods.

The first recipe I decided to tackle is a pumpkin soup. I figured I could adapt my favorite butternut squash soup recipe pretty easily to work with pumpkin. (I’m really breaking outside that comfort zone, guys. Watch out!)

I started by peeling and chopping up 1 medium sized pie pumpkin. Then I roasted the pumpkin in the oven for about 20 minutes until it was tender.

And just a quick reminder, you don’t want to use a pumpkin that you find outside the super market waiting to be carved. You want to use a pie pumpkin, which is much smaller and can be found with your other Fall squash in the produce section.

Once the pumpkin is nice and roasted, I add it to a pot with sauteed onions, garlic, shallot, stock, milk, and spices. Once all the flavors are all melded together, I transferred the soup to a blender to blend until smooth. You could also use an immersion blender for this task, but if you do use a blender or food processor, make sure to it doesn’t splatter all over the place.

I like to serve this with a few pepitas on top and a dash of cinnamon. I didn’t want this soup to taste like pumpkin pie, but cinnamon and pumpkin just go so well together! You could also drizzle in some truffle oil (truffles are good on everything) or spoon in some sour cream to make this extra creamy. But this soup is great on it’s own and the perfect lunch or dinner for a crisp Fall day.

PIN NOW, MAKE LATER

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:81]

Roasted Poblano Sweet Potato Soup

March 30, 2016

Sweet-Potato-Soup-4title

A couple weeks ago I was traveling for work and was sick as a dog. I felt so bad for my coworkers traveling with me, stuck in a small conference room or car with me as I hacked up a lung. On our way back to Charlotte, we stopped in some small town in the middle of nowhere to try find something to eat. I don’t know about you, but when I am sick I crave healthy foods, maybe I think it will make me recover even quicker, but this little town did not seem like the kind of place that would have anything remotely healthy.

Sure enough we found this cute little restaurant that had a sweet potato soup on special. Healthy, warm and soothing sweet potato soup. I was sold! But there was something a little different about this sweet potato soup. It had a little kick to it as well as this nice smokey flavor. It was absolutely delicious! I just about licked the bowl clean. According to the waitress, “secret” (not-so-secret, now) was the addition of fire roasted poblanos and habaneros. I knew I had to come home and try to make my own version!

Of course I can’t remember the town or the restaurant or else I would recommend it if you are ever driving between Raleigh and Charlotte.

Sweet Potato Soup-2

To make the soup, I roasted two large sweet potatoes and broiled two poblanos until the skins were black and blistered. I let the peppers steam in a plastic bag for a few minutes, then when they were cool enough to handle, I rubbed off the charred skins. I threw the skinned sweet potatoes and de-seeded poblanos into a pot with some chicken stock and spices, and once it came to a boil I let my immersion blender go to work and blend the soup into creamy oblivion.

Sweet Potato Soup-1

I topped off the delicious bowl of sweet potato heaven with some extra pieces of poblano, cilantro, and some feta cheese. (I would prefer cotija cheese, but I don’t even think I can get that here in North Carolina. These North Carolinians don’t even know what they are missing.) And because I was serving this to my hungry husband, I also paired it with a quesadilla to make a more complete meal. It’s almost like the Mexican version of a grilled cheese and tomato soup. I think I might prefer this version better!

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:13]

Leftover Thanksgiving Turkey Ideas

November 25, 2015

I have a feeling that most of us will have plenty of leftover Thanksgiving turkey on our hands tomorrow. Even if you aren’t hosting or roasting a bird yourself, you will probably be sent home with enough turkey to make a hearty sandwich.

We just make so much turkey, it is inevitable that we have so much left over that we can make a whole other meal with it. Well that is exactly what I have rounded up. What to do with all that leftover Thanksgiving turkey! Sure you could make a turkey sandwich every day for the rest of this week AND next. But there are so many more creative ideas out there.

Because there are so many, I have broken them up into sections. If you are just looking for a delicious sandwich recipe, well I’ve got a handful of those. But if will have family around for the next couple days and want a to use the turkey for a whole other meal, I’ve found lots of those, too.

SANDWICHES

Grilled Turkey Florentine Sandwich via Love Grows Wild

Turkey and Brie Panini via The Brewer and the Baker

Turkey Apple Brie Panini via Nutmeg Nanny

Green Goddess Roasted Turkey Sandwich via Noming Thru Life

The Gobbler via Buns in My Oven

Avocado Pistachio Chicken Salad via Follow the Ruels

SOUPS

I should point out that some of these recipes may be call for chicken instead of turkey, but you can easily substitute turkey in these recipes.

White Bean and Chicken Chili via Hip Foodie Mom

Light Turkey Corn Chowder via Cookin’ in Canuck

Turkey Pot Pie Soup via Handle the Heat

Turkey Barley Soup via The Food Charlatan

Chicken Chili Verde via Follow the Ruels

Chicken Enchilada Soup via Follow the Ruels

Leftover Turkey Noodle Soup via Jo Cooks

ENTREES

French Onion Turkey Casserole via Nancy Creative

Chicken Enchiladas with White Sauce via Raining Hot Coupons

Leftover Thanksgiving Wedge Pies via All Recipes

Turkey Enchiladas via Le Creme de la Crumb

Turkey Noodle Casserole via Creole Contessa

Turkey Tetrazinni via She Wears Many Hats

Turkey Stuffing Bake via Betty Crocker

Turkey Pot Pie via Roth Cheese

Turkey Hash via Creole Contessa

Chicken Pot Pie Turnovers via Spicy Southern Kitchen

Leftover Turkey Pizza via Baked by Rachel

Turkey Tikka Masala via the Delicious Cook

Also, check out all these recipes and more on my Thanksgiving Pinterest board!

Follow Lindsey’s board Thanksgiving on Pinterest.

Thai Carrot Soup with Meatballs

November 18, 2015

Here we go, another soup recipe. I am on a roll, guys. This time it’s a carrot soup. Now, there is nothing sexy about carrot soup. Plain old carrot soup might as well be baby food. They are essentially the same thing – pureed carrots. But this soup…This is no plain ol’ carrot soup, its Thai carrot soup. It’s sweet, spicy, nutty, creamy, flavorful, and rich. Sexy, right?

In addition to the soup, I tossed in a few turkey meatballs spiced with lots of Thai-inspired spices like ginger, cilantro, garlic, fish sauce, and chilies. Together is a complete meal that is surprisingly healthy!

The star of the show are these lovely carrots. I roasted them in the oven first before roughly chopping them and tossing them in a big pot with diced onions and chicken stock. If you wanted to make this soup vegetarian, substitute vegetable stock instead.

Once the soup stock came to a boil, I added a healthy scoop of peanut butter, a spoon full of coconut cream, and red chili paste. I then got out my hand dandy immersion blender [Side note: I have used this thing more in the last month than I have since we got it as a wedding gift 2 years ago] and blended everything together until almost smooth.

At this point I did a little taste test and added a bit of salt, pepper, and Sriracha. Normally I am not a spicy-food eater, but this soup definitely needs some spice to balance out the sweetness of the carrots.

The meatballs were very simple to make, and they came together so quickly I didn’t have time to take any pictures of them. Plus they get my hands so dirty, if I wanted to take pictures I would have gotten raw turkey meat all over my camera.

For the meatballs, I just mixed together the ground turkey, spices, and breadcrumbs, and formed them into ping-pong sized balls then baked them in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Once everything was ready, I ladled the soup into a couple bowls then plopped a few meatballs right on top. I sprinkled a bit more Sriracha sauce on there for good measure along with some cilantro and green onions.

It is such a change for us since we don’t do that much Thai cooking and we really don’t do that many spicy meals. But I could not get enough of this soup. Even the Sriracha sauce wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I can see why people love the stuff so much.

I hope you give this soup a try even if Thai food isn’t your thing. The spice profile can be adjusted to suit your tastes, whether spicier or not so spicy. So you really have no excuse NOT to make it!

[yumprint-recipe id=’82’]

Healthy Creamy Tomato Soup

October 30, 2015

I continue my soup obsession (see here, here, and here) with this delicious bowl of tomato soup. This obsession is real, people. Vegetables need to be on alert…I may roast you and puree you and make you into a yummy soup. I’m looking at you Sweet Potato!

But really, to me tomato soup is one of the most comforting dishes during the Fall and Winter. Pair it with a cheesy grilled cheese sandwich and I’m in heaven. I prefer my tomato soup on the creamier side, which in most cases means adding heavy cream. Tasty, but not super healthy. To lighten this soup up but keep the creamy texture, I added in Greek yogurt before I pureed the soup. It added richness, balanced the tartness, all without adding fat.

To make this tomato soup extra flavorful, I roasted the tomatoes and garlic in the oven before adding them to the pot with sauteed onions. I love the flavor of roasted garlic! It takes away some of the bite that raw garlic can have.

Once everything gets added to the pot, the immersion blender makes it easy to puree. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can blend everything in a blender first then add it back to the pot to boil.

It’s that easy. Roast. Blend. Boil. Serve. Okay, there might be a few more steps in there, but not many!

For the sake of being healthy, I did forgo the aforementioned grilled cheese. But I did’t want to skip the cheese altogether. Instead I made little Parmesan crisps to serve on the side. These were so easy to make! Make little piles of shredded Parmesan on a baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 5 minutes. Boom. Done!

Hope you make this recipe next time the weather just makes you want to stay inside and watch Netflix all day.

[yumprint-recipe id=’73’]

Cheesy Chicken Enchilada Soup

October 21, 2015

I am on a major soup kick lately. Something about a hot bowl of soup just makes me feel so cozy! One of my absolute favorites is enchilada soup! This recipe reminds me a lot of Chili’s version I loved so much in college, but even better (because I know what’s in it!).

My favorite part about it is that 95% of the work is done by the crock pot. The night before I saute up some diced onion and garlic and just about everything else goes in the slow-cooker as is: Chicken breast, chicken stock, roasted tomatoes, and spices. Once it’s done, I mix in some cheese and top off with some tortilla chips.

It really is so easy and is hearty enough to satisfy any appetite for lunch or dinner. Plus it tastes just like a chicken enchilada, but is so much less work!

[yumprint-recipe id=’70’]

Butternut Squash Soup

October 16, 2015

My mom made butternut squash soup all the time when I was a teenager. At the time I didn’t totally appreciate it. It seemed too healthy! But now I definitely appreciate how creamy, healthy, savory, and satisfying a good butternut squash soup can be on a crisp Fall day!

Because it is so light, it is a great accompaniment to a hearty salad, cheese bread, or grilled meat. My husband and I made this a few nights ago and paired it with some juicy steak. We both couldn’t get enough, which is really saying something since my husband can be a pick eater. I was afraid he, like me at 16, would think it was just too healthy so there is no way it could be good. But he pretty much licked his bowl clean! I will take that as a vote of confidence in this recipe!

[yumprint-recipe id=’69’]