I’ve been really into soup lately. It’s all soothing and nourishing, and super healthy for you when you make it yourself (unless it’s cream based, of course). One of my favorites is roasted corn chowder. It’s full of natural flavor as well as being beautifully creamy – and still healthy! The trick to this soup is roasting the veggies until they are nice and toasty, which creates an amazing base flavor.

This soup is made with just a few ingredients and a couple of steps. Don’t freak out, but part of the deal is making a roux. Sure, that’s a fancy schmancy French thing, but it’s easier than you think. I’m including step by step pictures in the directions to help you along the way. Yes, that means there is whole milk and butter in this soup (which doesn’t sound all that healthy) but once all those veggies are added in, plus some other stuff, you’ve still got one fit as a fiddle soup that’s ready to eat in 30-minutes.

What you need

1 lb frozen corn

1 small onion chopped

2 celery stalks cleaned and chopped

1 carrot chopped

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1 teaspoon water

Dash of salt and pepper

2 cloves garlic chopped

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons flour

3 cups whole milk

Additional salt and pepper

Hot sauce

How to make the goodness

Start by cranking your oven to 425 F and then chopping up the carrot, celery, and onion, and tossing them onto a big sheet pan along with the corn. Drizzle with the teaspoon of veg oil and water and liberally sprinkle with salt and pepper, and then pop into that hot oven for about 20-minutes. You can check on them in a bit.

Okay, now it’s time to start that roux. Toss together the salt, tablespoon of butter and oil into a nice soup pot. Warm over medium-high heat until things are all melty and then add the chopped garlic and flour. Give things a little stir….

Now let the flour, butter, and oil simmer together for about 2-minutes or so. Give things a stir – you don’t want this to start browning, just bubble a bit.

Go ahead and measure and add the milk and give the mixture a stir. Turn the heat down to medium and keep an eye on things. This the perfect time to check your veggies and give them a big stir.

A roux is a way to thicken a soup and right now things aren’t looking that way. The thing is, the milk needs to get nice and hot to work together properly with the butter and flour. But you don’t want things to start boiling, which might ruin your roux. Just keep an eye on things while stirring and, before you know it, you’ll notice that the liquid will start thickening up…

Once the roux pulls together, you can turn the heat way down to low – or even off – and pay attention to those veggies. If they’ve started to brown on the edges, you are ready to go. Pull them out and measure and reserve 1-cup of the veggies. The rest can go into your hot pot of happy milk.

Get out your boat motor (a.k.a hand mixer) and blend together the veggies and milk – otherwise you can puree in batches in your blender, and then add back to your soup pot. Give your soup a taste test and add additional salt to pepper as needed. Hey, if you like things spicy, dash in some hot sauce or sprinkle in some red pepper flakes.

Now mix in the cup of reserved veggies, add 1-cup of water, and bring the soup back to a low simmer over medium heat. Once things are hot and bubbly, ladle up a bowl and enjoy.

It was a bit of a challenging week. We just got back from vacation and then had a day to flip and head back to our regular routines. I’ll be honest – we all had a pretty hard time adjusting. The tot wanted to go back to Gamma and Opa’s house at the beach (which she told me over and over and over and over again) and I was having a difficult time getting motivated about anything.

Oh well.

After moping around most of the day on Monday and then having an action-packed Tuesday, it almost slipped my mind that it was Valentine’s Day. YUP. I really almost forgot. The husband and I don’t really do much of anything for each other (although he is pretty good at providing me with flowers and some amazing chocolate), but I did want to make something tasty for dinner. I made a last minute run to the grocery store and found some fresh clams at the grocery store – yum.

The week continued on without much else of interest. We had a nice lunch with friends at our new favorite restaurant, Miller’s East Coast Deli, which was totally tasty and ended with the befuddling experience of watching a very, very old man back up and then slowly pull forward repeatedly while just barely grazing the car next to him. We all stood a bit wide-eyed trying to figure out what to do alongside a nice group of people. Eventually someone helped the guy back out of the parking spot, he screamed off (at a big whopping 4-miles an hour) jabbering in some unknown language, and the woman walked up to her car, jumped in – without blinking an eye, and drove off.

HA!

This all happened before any of us had a chance to even tell her what happened – or determining what the proper action was for dealing with the nonsensical driver.

(I’m sure we will all be highlighted on one of those exposes showcasing people behaving badly.)

The winner this week was our spaghetti squash dinner – it was so good! Look for the recipe coming soon…

Don’t forget to link up your favorite recipe of the week below!

*Top row from left to right: Leftover try-tip tacos with veggie beans, garlic and white wine steamed clams with asparagus, capellini, and garlic toast, rosemary, oregano chicken breasts over carrot and celery lentils. Bottom row from left to right: spaghetti squash with fresh tomato sauce, spinach and Wisconsin mozzarella, homemade beef and broccoli over white rice, oregano garlic chicken thighs and zucchini fries.

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and, instead of running out and spending a wad on stuff, I wanted to put together something tasty and easy to share with my loved ones. I don’t know about you, but Valentine’s Day screams of chocolate, so chocolate it must be. I wasn’t in the mood for putting together anything too challenging (I’m still pretty lazy since getting back from our vacation), so decided to keep it simple.

Chocolate cream cheese refrigerator cookies.

This is a tasty and easy recipe, which makes a big pile of cookies. You could even make a double batch and have enough to give to friends, family, teachers, and neighbors. Add white or semi-sweet chocolate chips for some extra love or toss in a sprinkling of pecans or walnuts. I didn’t have any of those yummies in the house, so simply chocolate cream cheese cookies it was.

Make sure to set aside some time when doing this recipe. The cookies need a bit of time to set up in the fridge, and you could totally go all fancy and use a cute cookie cutter to perfectly shape your sliced cookies.

Or you can just slice away like I did.

(still really good)

Ingredients

1/4 cup room temperature butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Dash of salt

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 1/4 cup flour

4 ounces room temperature cream cheese

What you do

Start by smoothing together the butter and sugars along with the dash of salt. Once it’s all soft and mixed nicely, go ahead and stir in the egg and vanilla.

Now slowly add the cocoa and flour while gently stirring. Go slow otherwise you’ll have a huge cocoa flour mess! Sprinkle in the baking soda and keep mixing until the cookie batter comes together.

Cube up the cream cheese and add to the mixture. Fold together just until the cream cheese starts blending in with the cookie dough. You still want there to be nice chunks of cream cheese spattered throughout the mix.

Tear off a nice length of plastic wrap and drop in your dough. Wrap it up while rolling and lengthening the cookie dough into a long roll, about 1-foot in length and three to four inches in circumference.

Place your cookie log onto a sheet pan and then into the fridge to chill for at least two-hours. If you can let it hang out over night, even better.

Preheat your oven to 350 F and get out your chocolate cream cheese cookie dough. Release from the plastic wrap and then carefully cut 1/4 -1/2 inch slices and place on a lightly greased sheet pan leaving an inch or so around cookies.

Pop into the hot oven for about 10-12 minutes or until the cookie tops are cracked and crisp.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

So, we’re on vacation – but that doesn’t mean there’s no cooking going on. I’m just a bit more distracted with the beach and stuff, which means this post is going to be short and sweet. To start off, the hubs was concerned everyone was going to raid our house after I publicly let the world know we were heading out. But, then I reminded him that our crazy ass mean neighbor was going to be watching the cats.

And, really. He’s crazy – and mean (but loves cats). So, whatever.

When you’re going away, the last thing you want is a bunch of stuff smelling up your fridge, so it was all about leftovers at our house this week. Some looked like a bunch of brown mush – but tasted amazing, while others were awesome the first and second time…. (hello, slow roasted barbecue turkey things!)

I hope you all had a great week – what was your favorite recipe? Link up!

Top row from left to right – Slow roasted barbecue turkey things over quinoa and zucchini casserole, breaded and baked eggplant with fresh garlic tomato sauce over polenta and spinach, garlic and spinach pasta with leftover barbecue turkey thighs. Bottom row from left to right - half a rib eye over polenta spinach cakes topped with caramelized onions, Trader Joe’s Beef and Broccoli and TJ’s Fried Rice, slow roasted barbecue turkey things over quinoa and zucchini casserole, grilled balsamic orange chicken breasts with roasted sweet potato and steamed cauliflower and broccoli salad.

With the Super Bowl right around the corner, all I can think about are snacks, snacks, snacks. Honestly, I don’t really care about the football game – I’m not a big fan of either team (because they aren’t the Packers or Niners), so I’m in it to win it on the snack front. We usually gather around the TV to yell at the players for missing the ball and laugh at the really-not-so-funny commercials.

It’s kind of a tradition.

This year I pre-made a couple of goodies to make sure they would be a hit on game day. I am already planning on making a big overflowing bowl of peanut butter popcorn. Alongside that crispy, tasty goodness will be homemade pizza with ricotta and prosciutto, yogurt covered pretzels, and also, horribly addictive sweet and spicy pecans.

For the holidays, my aunt sent us one of the biggest bags of fresh-from-the-tree pecans I’d ever seen. While looking at tons of pecan recipes, I decided to ditch all those steps for something super simple.

Sweet and spicy nuts.

This is a really easy recipe and you can tweak it to your taste and use any kind of nut you like – or a big mix of all different kinds – and change up the spices as you like.

Ingredients

4 cups raw nuts (I used pecans)

1 egg white

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon chili seasoning

1/2 teaspoon flour

Dash of pepper

What you do

Place your nuts in a big bowl. In a smaller bowl, mix together the seasonings along with the sugar and flour. Go ahead and preheat your oven to 250 F so it will be nice and warm when you’re ready.

In another small bowl, froth up your egg white. It doesn’t need to be whipped, just a bit bubbly. Now pour the egg over the nuts and give things a good stir, making sure all those nuts are coated.

Sprinkle the sugar and spice mix over the nuts and toss or stir until they are all nicely coated. Evenly distribute the nuts on a lightly greased sheet pan and then pop in the oven for 40 minutes. You can check on the nuts after about 20 minutes and give them a stir.

Give the hot nuts a dash of sugar and salt and then let cool before munching.

Enjoy!

I like to make something homemade every night for dinner, but I do like to get some help from time to time. This week we even braved going out to dinner, which is something we never ever do.

Really. Ever.

But, things went really well, and I also had fun putting together something with the help of Chef Boyardee. This week was all about taking it easy. Our tot came down with a cold (which the husband now has), we were all super busy, and the weather was just wonderful. We enjoyed a weekend of soaking up some some sun – and hopefully getting rid of all that sick.

What’s your favorite go-to pre-made dinner item? Share your favorite recipe or awesome tip!

Top row from left to right: Trader Joe’s fish nugget tacos with big veggie black bean salsa, garlic, oregano, and olive oil marinated and roasted chicken legs with green onion rice and a cucumber yogurt sauce. Bottom row from left to right: Mushroom cap meatballs with spinach garlic pasta and a sprinkling of fresh Parmesan, cheesy chicken Florentine with Chef Boyardee, breadcrumb coated and fried yogurt honey mustard marinated chicken breasts with steamed green beans and rosemary garlic rice-a-roni with fresh Parmesan.

After a long day I want things super simplified when it comes to dinner. I try to cook a homemade meal every night, but sometimes I need a bit of help.

There’s nothing wrong with using a boxed or canned item to make dinner easier.

I’ve also got a budding chef that’s really into helping right now, so while cruising up and down the aisles at the grocery store, something caught my eye.

Chef Boyardee Mac & Cheese. Already made in a can.

Sure, I’ve loved Chef Boyardee products forever with their saucy good pastas. But this? Mac & Cheese in a can had to come home with us.

Cooking with your kids encourages them to try new things and also introduces essential kitchen skills. Even young tots like mine can do lots of things to assist with making dinner.

I had a tasty idea for using that Chef Boyardee Mac & Cheese, and she could totally help.

After getting out a cutting board, butter knife, and a handful of mushrooms, she got busy cutting away while I had time to prepare the rest of the meal without her attached to my leg.

The thing is, Chef Boyardee is running a contest right now (December 29 through March 11, 2012) with a final winner getting a year’s worth of groceries and ten weekly $500 cash prizes.

If that’s not encouragement to get in the kitchen and get creative with the Chef, I don’t know what is!

While prepping our dinner I kept finding myself distracted while watching my daughter cut her way through those mushrooms. I was so proud of her and her budding knife skills.

She helped me mix things together and then was more than excited to sit down to dinner and enjoy what she had helped to make.

Cheesy Chicken Florentine!

This recipe is so good, super easy-and healthy (for real-under 300 calories per generous 1 cup serving and full of vitamin-packed spinach)!

This dish, that easily serves six, can be on the table in less than 30 minutes and uses one pan, which makes clean up a snap.

Serve alongside garlic toast and a few sliced tomatoes for a complete meal.

Ingredients

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 lb chicken breast tenders, cubed

1 c chopped mushrooms

1/2 t pepper

1/2 t dried rosemary

10 oz box of frozen chopped spinach at room temperature and drained of water

2 15 oz cans of Chef Boyardee Mac & Cheese

1/2 c reduced fat sour cream

1/2 c shredded mozzarella

Directions

Place a 12-inch frying pan over medium-high heat and add the oil, chopped onion and garlic and stir.

Add the cubed chicken tenders along with the pepper and rosemary and let things brown for about five minutes stirring as needed so the chicken doesn’t stick to the pan.

While you’re stirring the kids can chop the mushrooms and squeeze the water from the spinach by pressing it in a colander.

Once the chicken has started to get toasty around the edges, add the spinach and mushrooms to the mix and stir.

Go ahead and turn off the heat under the frying pan and crank the oven to 400 F.

While it’s preheating, mix in the Chef Boyardee Mac & Cheese along with the sour cream to the chicken.

Sprinkle with the shredded mozzarella and pop into the oven for about 20-minutes or until the top is all bubbly brown. Dinner!

What’s your favorite Chef Boyardee product? Use it to create your own unique recipe and then share on the Chef Boyardee Facebook page for a chance to win!

Enter Chef Boyardeeís Make It Boyardeelicious Recipe Contest from December 29, 2011 through March 11, 2012 for your chance to win free groceries for a year as well as one of ten $500 weekly cash prizes. Then visit Chef Boyardeeís Facebook page from March 26, 2012 through April 8, 2012 to vote for your favorite recipes from the ìMake It Boyardeelicious Recipe Contest.î Each day, one voter will be selected to win a $100 cash prize.

Be sure to visit the Chef Boyardee Roundup page on BlogHer.com to check out other bloggersí recipes!

This week was totally overwhelming. We are in the process of refinancing our house and were waiting on pins and needles at the beginning of the week on the appraisal, I headed into the city to meet with someone up close and personal about an exciting work adventure, there was preschool with the tot, and then two conference calls on Friday.

We had high hopes of getting a sitter for a friend’s party on Saturday night, but things just didn’t work out and the husband went solo. As much as I would have enjoyed hanging out and enjoying much needed adult time, I was exhausted, so spent a few hours with a book and some silence.

This week’s dinners started out with a bang and then kind of lost momentum. Our stuffed chicken breasts didn’t look nearly as appealing as they tasted, and frozen pizza dough saved me on Saturday evening.

But we did have two vegetarian dinners this week and I tried to keep going with our plans to ditch the carbs. By adding additional veggies to our meals we still had full plates – and full tummies.

What was your favorite meal this week at your house? Link up a recipe to share, or leave a comment telling me which recipe from our meals this week you would like me to share tomorrow!

*Top row from left to right: Mushroom stuffing stuffed chicken breasts with roasted celery and white beans, healthy beef stroganoff made with plain yogurt over spinach and egg noodles, noodle free eggplant lasagna. Bottom row from left to right: Pounded boneless chicken things over veggie filled rice with a green onion pan sauce, lean cheeseburgers with baked zucchini fries, mushroom and garlic cheese pizza with fresh ricotta.

I just love quinoa – and I’m a big fan of butternut squash. Quinoa is easy to cook (really) and so healthy for you. Not only is it packed with protein, it’s also low in cholesterol, carbohydrates, and has hardly any calories. With a nutty, crisp flavor, it’s great as a side or main dish. And, butternut squash isn’t anything to complain about either. Full of antioxidants and also low in calories, butternut squash can be enjoyed savory or sweet.

This was our winner from last week’s dinners, and I enjoyed the leftovers cold the next day for lunch. Even if you’ve never cooked quinoa before, you’ll have success with this dish – really, it’s that easy.

And, hey. Not a fan of blue cheese? Leave it out – or crumble some feta or shred on some Parmesan.

Ingredients

1 butternut squash, skin and seeds removed then diced

1 small onion chopped

1 big clove garlic chopped

1 t olive oil

1/4 c water

Dash of salt and pepper

4 c fresh spinach leaves

1/4 c crumbled blue cheese

Cooked quinoa (don’t worry, I’ll tell you how to make it later)

How to make it

Start by cutting off the skin from the butternut squash and then cutting in half. Scoop out the seeds and then chunk the squash into 1-inch pieces.

Go ahead and crank your oven to 400 F and dig out your biggest non-stick-but-safe-for-the-oven sauté pan. 12-inches is a good size, and if you don’t have a non-stick, you can use a regular one – things might just stick a bit.

Slice and dice the onion and garlic and add to the butternut squash along with a couple of good dashes of salt and pepper and the water and olive oil. Give things a stir and then toss into the hot oven.

Now get 2-cups of water boiling with a dash of salt. Once things are simmering away, add 1-cup quinoa, turn down the heat, and cover things up for about 10-minutes or so. Check back every once in a while to make sure your quinoa isn’t burning at the bottom or to add more water if things look dry. Give things a stir and then taste for doneness. You should end up with lots of itty-bitty swirls that are nice and tender and fluff with a fork.

Turn the heat off under the quinoa and leave covered. Give your butternut squash a stir and keep on roasting for another 20-minutes or so.

While the squash is finishing up, wash and dry your fresh spinach and add to a nice sized mixing bowl.

Give your butternut squash a doneness test after about 30-minutes of roasting by poking a chunk with a fork. If it goes in easy, you’re ready to go. Pull the squash out of the oven and dump in your quinoa. Give things a gently toss and return to the oven for another 5-minutes to toast up the quinoa.

Mix the hot butternut squash and quinoa with the spinach and then top with the blue cheese. You can also add another drizzle of olive oil and add additional salt and pepper to taste.

Tasty AND healthy!

This week was all about cutting back on pasta, pasta, pasta, pasta, and potatoes. I’ve gotten into a bit of a rut lately and giving myself the challenge of finding other fun sides was really exciting this week. I experimented with quinoa, mashed cauliflower, and did make one night of light pasta with olive oil, fresh pepper, and lots and lots of garlic. Sure, I didn’t eliminate carbohydrates altogether, but it’s a start, right?

We also worked on watching our portions and not heading back for seconds. I often make extra so the tot and I have something for lunch the next day (or for double-duty another night as dinner), so before serving I popped leftovers in the fridge making them  unappealing for more munching.

There were a few winners – and a couple of losers. The yogurt marinated rice crispy coated chicken tenders were really tasty – as well as the hot roasted butternut squash quinoa salad. I really wanted the mashed cauliflower to be phenomenal, but the hubs and I both agreed the texture was spot on, but the flavor a bit cabbage-y.

What did you make for dinner this week? Leave a comment with a recipe or link!

I’ll be sharing our favorite recipe of the week tomorrow….

*top left – basa fish tacos, top right – hot roasted butternut squash salad with half a rib-eye, middle left – yogurt marinated rice crispy coated chicken tenders with garlic spinach pasta, middle left – pulled turkey thighs over carrot couscous, bottom left – chuck roast with peas over mashed cauliflower, middle bottom – chicken/turkey sausage with caramelized onions over polenta, right bottom – the wine of the week: Bannus