Cooking Light Baked Potato Soup

Last week I mentioned that I'd have a delicious, hearty winter soup recipe for you. Well, I'm back and here it is! I made this baked potato soup a couple weeks ago on a cooooold weekday night, and it really hit the spot. I was inspired to make this recipe by my latest magazine issue of Cooking Light, which had a recipe for a "cheesy potato soup" in it. However, when I looked up reviews of that particular recipe online, the reviews were only mediocre. So I looked around for other potato soup options (I was really craving a potato soup for some reason and couldn't get the idea of making one out of my head!) and luckily stumbled upon this one that I ended up trying and loving.

The original recipe makes enough for 8 servings. I halved the recipe (more or less, it was probably more like I "5/8'd" the recipe ;)). So when I made this I had 4 or 5 servings. I have written the original recipe below for 8 servings. Feel free to alter it as you wish!

Ingredients:

-4 baking potatoes (about 2 and 1/2 lbs.)

-2/3 cup all-purpose flour

-6 cups 2% milk (I used 1%)

-1 cup reduced-fat shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese, divided

-1 tsp. salt

-1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

-1 cup reduced fat sour cream

-3/4 cup chopped green onions, divided

-6 bacon slices, cooked and crumbled

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pierce potatoes with a fork and bake at 400 for 1 hour or until tender. Cool. Peel potatoes and coarsely mash.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Place flour in a large Dutch oven (or just a large, deep saucepan - whatever you have!); gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until blended. Cook over medium heat until thick and bubbly (about 8 minutes). Add mashed potatoes, 3/4 cup of the cheese, salt, and 1/2 tsp. pepper, stirring until cheese melts. Remove from heat.

Stir in sour cream and 1/2 cup onions. Cook over low heat 10 minutes or until thoroughly heated (do not boil). Ladle 1 and 1/2 cups soup into each bowl. Sprinkle each serving with desired amount of cheese, onions, and bacon (the recipe says 1 and 1/2 tsp. cheese, 1 and 1/2 tsp. onion, and 1 Tbsp. bacon). Garnish with cracked pepper, if desired.

I used this Whole Foods brand of reduced sodium bacon. Use whatever your favorite kind is! Also, of note, I only added 1/4 tsp. of salt to the recipe. For 8 servings, the recipe calls for 1 tsp. of salt, which seemed like a lot to me, and halving the recipe means I should have added 1/2 tsp. salt, which still seemed like a lot. With soups, I tend to be conservative when it comes to adding salt to the actual recipe. I think it's better just to let each person who's eating the soup to add their own salt, if they want, to their individual bowl! :)

Mike and I enjoyed this soup with some toasted Whole Foods ciabatta bread. Simple and delicious.

Mmmmm, extra sharp cheddar. It makes everything better!

I really really liked this soup. It was slightly time-consuming to make, thanks to the need to bake the potatoes and cook the bacon. All in all though, it was not difficult and was totally worth any time and effort you put in to make it. And cream/milk based soups tend not to freeze very well, which is one reason I chose not to make the full recipe....if I had made the soup and had a lot leftover, I would have felt the need to either eat most of it within a few days or freeze the rest, and I didn't really want to do either. Also, I didn't want to use up 6 cups of milk for one soup! That's about all I had in my fridge when I made this recipe, so it was a better choice for me to halve the recipe and still have milk in the fridge for other uses.

And on a completely different note, isn't this a gorgeous sunset? This was a pic I took outside my apartment last week. Love those beautiful colors!!

And on yet another note, my cookie recipe won the Whole Foods pecan recipe contest!! Woohoo! I found out on Friday the 13th (my lucky day!) and was totally psyched. I'm planning another blog post about that, so please stay tuned! Thanks so much for your votes and support! :)

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. :)

Split Pea, Carrot, and Cannellini Bean Soup

Hi! I am back...just one day after my last post! :)  And I'm back with a soup recipe that I made last night for the first time and just loved! As I've said, I have all sorts of recipes on deck to share with you, but a few people have asked me already about this soup, so I wanted to get it out to you sooner than later. All the other recipes will have to wait a little longer still...

The inspiration for this split pea, carrot, and cannellini bean soup came from both a food blog and a couple of my own cookbooks that I was browsing. The initial recipe that I followed, generally speaking, can be found here. As you can see, this recipe is for a vegetarian soup - no ham bone required as is the case in many traditional split pea soup recipes. I did not make it fully vegetarian, however, since I used chicken broth in mine. But you could easily use vegetable broth if you wanted! I decided to also add the carrots and beans after looking at a few other soup recipes that contained various veggies and other ingredients.

To begin, you cook a couple sliced onions in olive oil on the stove. I decided to add carrots too; I used approximately four large carrots, peeled and chopped. As you can see here, I cooked the carrots with the onions in the beginning.

After cooking the onion and carrots for just a few minutes, I added about five cups of chicken broth (low sodium) and about two and a half cups of rinsed split peas (the recipe calls for just two cups). 

This mixture is brought to a boil and then left to simmer for about 20 or 25 minutes. With about five to 10 minutes left to simmer, I added a drained/washed can of cannellini beans for an extra punch of protein and fiber! The original recipe didn't call for the beans...

When the soup is done simmering, you then puree it in a blender in batches (just like the technique I used in my homemade tomato soup). At this point, I did add a bit more water because it was a little too thick to blend well on its own. To each half of the soup, I probably added 1/2 to 2/3 cup of water when blending.

And then...voila! You have delicious, pureed split pea soup!

This made a lot too, friends! I'd guess it made about 8 to 10 servings.

A few of my own thoughts on the soup... I am glad I decided to add broth instead of just water. Although it still may have been yummy with just the water, I do think a lot of the great flavor I tasted in the soup came from the addition of the broth. The carrots and beans were fun additions as well. You can probably add other veggies too....spinach? broccoli? It's up to you - have fun experimenting! I really enjoyed the thicker consistency of this soup, but if you wanted it thinner, you could simply add more water when you're blending it. Oh, and I also added some garlic powder and thyme during the simmer (I didn't have fresh garlic, sadly). My final version also had some small bits of carrot in it, which added a nice texture. The bowl of soup I had for dinner kept me full all evening too....gotta love a filling, healthy meal!

Serve it up with your favorite crackers or bread, and enjoy!! :)

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!

Butternut Squash Apple Soup

Hello!!! My favorite month, October, arrives tomorrow. :) In honor of this wonderful month, I thought I'd post a very appropriate autumn recipe...butternut squash apple soup! This recipe is definitely a keeper!

I'll skip the chatting and just get right to the recipe. It's from Health magazine, and you can read it here! I love that it's low-cal and good for you. :)

Here are some pictures of the process.

The chopped squash and apple, ready for the stove.

The mini chopper was super helpful for finely chopping the onion!

Simmering away...

Next, everything goes in the blender to puree the veggies! You also add evaporated milk at this stage to thicken the soup a bit.

And here you go - deeelicious butternut squash apple soup! Piece of cake! It truly is a very simple and incredibly tasty recipe.

A tip I learned about cutting butternut squash after I made this (I'll know for next time now!). Apparently it's much easier to work with if you microwave the squash first for a few minutes (pierce it with a knife in several places before microwaving). Then you can peel and chop it much more easily. This type of squash is a tricky bugger, so this is a great tip!

I made homemade apple cider donuts tonight, also in honor of October beginning tomorrow. They are soooo darn good. Stay tuned for that recipe! See you again soon, hopefully. ;-)