Baked Parmesan Tomatoes

Greetings! Sometimes you just need the simplest of simple recipes, wouldn't you agree? The majority of the time I really don't mind spending a little extra time in the kitchen to prepare a yummy, healthy dish. However, there are times when you're hungry, tired, cranky, or crunched for time (or all of the above!), and the last thing you want to do it make a dish with multiple steps or ingredients. The recipe I'm sharing with you today, baked parmesan tomatoes, is one of those easy and delicious recipes you can make in a flash and don't need to expend much mental or physical effort to make. :) This recipe wouldn't really serve well as a main dish, but if you wanted to use it as part of a meal, you could easily pair it with a simple salad, soup, or sandwich, or maybe pick up a rotisserie chicken at the store, and then you've got yourself a complete meal.

When I made this recipe a couple weeks ago, for me it was one of those, why haven't I ever thought of this before? It's something you'd think I could come up with on my own, but alas, I did not. I found the recipe at EatingWell.com. You can easily modify it too, depending on how many tomatoes you have, how many people you're cooking for, etc.

Ingredients:

-4 tomatoes, halved horizontally

-1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

-1 tsp. chopped fresh oregano

-1/4 tsp. salt (I omitted the salt)

-freshly ground pepper, to taste

-4 tsp. extra virgin olive oil

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place tomatoes cut side up on baking sheet. Combine the cheese, oregano, salt, and pepper in a small bowl, and sprinkle evenly over the tomatoes. Drizzle with olive oil, and bake until the tomatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.

Oh, and I didn't have fresh oregano so I just used some dried herbs de provence that I had. Use whatever herb(s) you like! Basil would be great with this, I bet.

I actually added some shredded mozzarella, on top of the parmesan, to two of the tomato halves I made. I had mozzarella on hand that I wanted to use up, so this was a great way to use it.  

That one on the bottom left was a little overdone, but that's okay. Still tasted great!

Seriously, such a delicious and easy side dish! You've gotta give it a try!

Tomorrow Whole Foods is announcing the two finalists of the Pecan Recipe contest. Wish me luck! I'll keep you posted on how my pecan cranberry cinnamon chip cookies fare. ;)

Pumpkin, Sweet Potato, and Black Bean Chili

Deeeelicious. That's the one word I'd use to describe this chili (well, if I had to choose only one word ;-)). If I could use more words (and why can't I?), I'd also use hearty, flavorful, comforting, easy, and healthy.

And it's made with pumpkin beer! Yes, please! The recipe only calls for one cup of beer, which means there's some leftover. And you know what that means...

I found this recipe from a wonderful blog, Healthy Food for Living. I'm feeling lazy this evening so I'm not going to re-type the recipe here (my apologies!). But, please head on over to Healthy Food for Living and read it there. And check out the other great recipes there while you're at it!

I did make a couple changes to the recipe...namely because I didn't have all the exact ingredients on hand. I did not add actual chili peppers, but I had some great dried chili spices that I added. And also, the recipe calls for tomato sauce/puree, but I only had canned diced tomatoes on hand so that's what I used.

I also made some homemade herb drop biscuits to go with this yummy dish. The biscuits turned out fabulously! I was really happy with them. The recipe will be shared with you in the near future...

You have to try this dish! It is totally a keeper of a recipe, and I can't wait to make it again. :)

Homemade Tomato Soup with Garlic Twist Breadsticks

Welcome back to the "shop." ;-) I've got another super simple recipe for you here for homemade tomato soup. In fact, this recipe would pair well with my last post about English muffin bread! However, you may be able to tell from the title of this post that I served this soup with some breadsticks when I made it last week. :) Maybe next time I'll go for the soup and English muffin bread pairing! Or even better yet, soup and a homemade grilled cheese sandwich made with the English muffin bread...

The colder, winter months in New England make me think more about soups and stews, and I always love a bowl of classic tomato soup! This recipe must be one of the easiest soups to make at home. It calls for just six ingredients, two of which are olive oil and salt, which barely count as ingredients...right? ;-) The other four ingredients are garlic, canned tomatoes, chicken broth, and basil. This soup could easily be made into a vegetarian recipe too by substituting vegetable broth for the chicken broth. I didn't actually add the salt to this recipe because I figure the broth adds enough salt on its own (even if the broth is low sodium). And besides, if someone wants more salt, they can just add it to their own bowl of soup!

Start to finish, this takes about 30 to 35 minutes or so...and 20 minutes of that is just letting the soup simmer on the stove! The other preparation time involves cooking the garlic on the stove top in the beginning and then pureeing the soup at the end. That's all, folks! Oh, and guess what else is great about this recipe? It's very low-calorie! One serving (which equals 1 and 1/2 cups of soup) is just 103 calories and 2.8 grams of fat. Check out the recipe, instructions, and the rest of the nutrition stats here! 

Would you like to see some pictures? I thought so!

The ingredients minus the broth!

Garlic, cooking on the stove in olive oil... (by the way, I just used garlic that I sliced/chopped; the recipe calls for minced garlic, but it all gets blended in the end anyway, so it really doesn't matter, I say!)

Tomatoes and broth!

Tomatoes, broth, and garlic!

Blending time :-D

There's the final product! I blended the soup in two batches and poured it into this nice, big glass bowl after it was pureed to the consistency I wanted.

I added some shredded mozzarella on top for a treat. ;-)

Are you wondering how I made the garlic twist breadsticks?! Well, let me tell you! Or, you can also read it here on Pillsbury's website since I semi-followed this recipe.

I started out with Pillsbury crescent rolls (bought them on sale with a coupon!).

I mixed together some olive oil, pepper, garlic powder, and a bit of parmesean cheese (sorry, I didn't really measure how much of each!).

The dough will be in four rectangles. Brush each with the olive oil and spices mixture.

Cut each rectangle in half so you have eight pieces...

...and then twist each one!

Bake at 375 degrees for about 12 - 15 minutes (mine were done after 10 minutes though, so check them early!).

Finally, dunk your tasty breadstick in your delicious tomato soup. ;-)

See you again soon!