Mmmm: Carrot Soup

Carrot Soup 

2 tablespoons olive oil 

1 clove garlic, minced 

1 medium onion, finely chopped 

2 1/2 cups chopped carrots 

2 macintosh apples, peeled,cored and chopped 

2 celery ribs, chopped 

1/2 cup long grain brown rice 

parsley (optional) 

salt (optional) 

4 cups veggie stock



Put oil in a pan, saute onion, celery and garlic until tender. 
Add stock, carrots, rice, and apple. 
Bring to a boil. 
Cover and simmer for 25-30 minutes or until carrots are tender and rice is cooked. 
Blend in blender. 
Add salt and parsley to taste.

I used a different apple and due to the size (they were sort of small) and the fact that one was actually half (little people like apples here) I used 2.5/3ish. Mine were....ummm sweet. I found the soup to be a little too sweet but had I not used the extra I think it would have been fine. Everyone (well 4 of 5) loved it. It would be prefect with a nice potent sourdough or rye. We only had plain ol wheat (not even the fancy kind) and it was somewhat lacking. Not sure if I'll make it again. It's tasty and we like it but I dunno. I may try a different recipe. It's super simple to make which was nice. Mine came out a bit thick but I also let it simmer longer to make sure my rice cooked through (I have bad luck with rice at times). I added my salt and pepper and oregano to the mix before blending it. It made for a nice even seasonning.

Mmmm: Creamy Lentil Soup

Clicky!Clicky!

I didn't have the tumeric, cumin, or ginger which would have been very nice. I added carrots to the onions for some added color and thickness. When I pureed the soup it came out sort of thin but that was just my impatience. I forgot puree tends to have some substance to it still so it ended up being a nice and thick soup. The cilantro on top was sooo tasty. I love cilantro!

Overall, a nice soup. We're having leftovers tonight. :)

Breakfast Egg Rolls

After my success last night I wanted to keep going. I decided rather late that the husband needed some breakfast egg rolls. It would use up the last of various items and be fun. I was right. There is something oddly satisfying about frying.

Corn
Onion
Butter
Eggs
Morning Star crumbles
Boca Italian Sausage
salt
pepper
seasoning salt
Azumaya large wraps
Mozzerella cheese
Cheddar cheese

Dice onion and garlic and cook together with corn. Season with seasoning salt. Scramble eggs (I didn't season). Mix eggs together with corn mix. Let cool. Add in cheeses and stir up. Cook meat according to package. I chopped the sausage into chunks. Once everything is cooked, spoon corn mixture into wraps. Add meat on top. Wrap up. Fry according to directions.

I haven't had one yet and I don't know what he thinks of them but the 3.5 year old loves them. Good enough for me!

Oh man was tonight tasty!

First up: Black Bean Hummus. TO DIE FOR. I'm not a fan of hummus but this one rocks. I was googling around for some green lemonade recipes and found a blog called green-lemonade. I went browsing through the posted recipes and came across one that was more of a suggestion than a recipe. Here's how I did mine:

Black beans- I used dried and boiled them for a couple hours since I wanted this now and didn't want to wait for soaking. Super fast and awesome way to cook dried beans! I did not measure out an amount..just dumped some in my pot and set it on the stove.
Garlic- 3 cloves diced up nice and tiny
Green bell pepper_- just 1 average siced...diced up into chunks
salt
pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
lime juice -fresh...I needed to get 3 limes used up. I only got about one lime's worth of juice.
Seasoning salt
A bit of water

Cook black beans and toss in blender/food processor. Sautee bell pepper and garlic together in some EVOO and salt and pepper. Cook until garlic is tender and getting abit crispy/brown on the edges. Add to blender. Add in a dash of EVOO to blender mix and squeeze in lime juice. Blend like crazy. Add in seasoning salt to taste and give it one last go round. Add a bit of water if mixture is too thick. Careful not to add too much!

I topped ours with mozzerella and we dipped radishes, green bell pepper, and celery. My only regret is not having more stuff to dip in it. :)

This is a new one all around. 3-cheese Lasagna Roll Ups ( Clicky!Clicky!) using Azumaya Large Square Wraps. The package for the wraps has a lasagna (tofu) recipe on it so I decided to give this a try. This does not have tofu in it. :)

I used Ragu 3 cheese spaghetti sauce. Not because I'm lazy but because I had it and I needed to get it used up. :) Cheese mixture is 1 tub of cottage cheese (the husband couldn't find the ricotta), 1 8 oz. bag of mozzerella cheese, and some parmesean cheese. I used oregano, salt and pepper for the spices. I used a different recipe than the one linked above but figured I should find an actual recipe to shar for what I acutally made. :)


These weren't too bad. I wasn't thrilled but the rest of the fam was. I set my oven to 350 which was what the recipe called for. A recipe that used real lasagna noodles. It wasn't until I pulled it out a half hour later (and well past our normal dinner time) that I thought about that. The noodles were sorta....gooey. I checked the directions on the wraps package and I was supposed to have cooked them at 400 (if I remember right...not in my kitchen right now to double check) for 45 minutes. I threw them back in, set the timer again, and upped my oven heat. After sitting for a few minutes to cool down the noodles hardened up a bit and were indeed normal. The picture only shows one layer. I was able to get another layer in there for a total of 10 roll ups. Next time I need to remember to allow for extra cooking time for the bottom layer.

I'll definitely make this again but use lasagna noodles and different spices. It was lacking in my opinion. There wasn't much punch to it which was sad. I like a well seasoned lasagna.

My house was tasty tonight! I'm being beckoned to the kitchen by the wee one who should be asleep. She wants more. Gladly.