Santa Fe Soup

My friend Heather gave me this recipe a few years ago. I don't know where she got it from, so I can't quote any site or anything, but I will say it's not mine...and I will tell you what I did differently.

First off...if you want to make this vegetarian, feel free to put in vegetarian crumbles instead of ground beef. I, personally, am not a fan of ground beef. I like beef, don't get me wrong...but we do not eat beef on a daily basis in this house. I think it's just not good for the body to include beef in the daily diet. I do like to make a winter stuff over winter and I do keep burgers in stock for my husband, but I only occasionally eat beef.

Second, the recipe says to dump all the cans into the put without draining. It was my own choice to drain and rinse the beans. I really don't like the liquid in a bean can...I think it's...yick...Also tonight, I happen to have forgotten the pinto beans...it came out just fine...just not alot of beans. You could play with what beans you use too...use black beans, use different color kidney beans.

Third, if you do not have taco seasoning, no fret...as long as you keep some cumin (at the very least) and Sazon in your pantry (if you don't, you should), you're good. One to two teaspoons of cumin and a packet of sazon (only if you have it) and it should give the same flavor. My friend, Heather, also recommended, you could change up the ranch dip for onion dip.

Finally, as a side note, I had some extra green onions kicking around, so I chopped them up and threw them in. Added a nice touch and some color. This soup is really just a watery chili...but as the nights get colder, if you add some cornbread...it could be a nice comfort food.

Oh and one last note...I cooked the turkey in the soup pot in some olive oil...using my pampered Chef Mix and Chop. Now, I only plug stuff that works...but I think the Mix and chop is awesome when cooking ground beef...it crumbles and helps cook the food nicely. Then after the turkey was done, I just threw the rest of the ingredients in one pot...total dishes dirtied...three...the pot, the mix and chop and the cutting board...ok four...the knife...whatever...

Ingredients

1lbs ground beef (or turkey or veg crumbles) - cooked/crumbled

3 cans diced tomatoes

1 can pinto beans (or black)

1 can kidney beans

1 can whole kernel corn

t packet taco seasoning

1 packet ranch party dip (or onion)

In a medium/large soup pt, combine all ingredients (do not drain any of the cans), heat thoroughly, simmer 20 minutes.

Mushroom Calzones

I may have said this with the Strawberry Gooey Butter cakes, and I am sure I will say it again, but let me say now...I play with recipes...cooking doesn't always mean you have to follow the recipe every time. The recipe is a guide. Sure, there are times when I am first trying something (ie cheesecake) that I have to follow the rules this one time...but luckily for recipes such as calzones...it's not a perfect science.

This recipe is a perfect example of that. The mushroom calzone recipe here was found in my Vegetarian times magazine. You are supposed to use the previous post to make the filling. Since the Mushrooms are a filling, you can play with the recipe. You want to like what you stuff the calzone with...right? and sometimes, if you are cooking on the fly, you may not always have stuff on hand or be able to pick it up in the store.

In this recipe...when I made it, I replaced the roasted red peppers with sundried tomatoes (I LOVE SUNDRIED TOMATOES), I didn't use the red pepper flakes (I was afraid the kids wouldn't even tried it if I did). Gruyere cheese is hard to find for me...so I didn't bother...between the goat cheese and the parmesan cheese, this recipe was good. Finally, I could not for the life of me find whole wheat pizza dough balls, let alone regular pizza dough balls. Lucky for me, I have a bread maker and a husband that likes to make pizza dough. He made the dough, so it turned out the be a family effort to make this. Kevin ended up loving this recipe and he felt that one was plenty enough for him.

So enjoy!

½ recipe Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms, or 3 roasted Portobello caps

6 3oz balls whole-wheat pizza dough

1 ¼ cups jarred roasted red peppers, rinsed, drained, and chopped

¼ cup grated low-fat Gruyere cheese

1 tsp. Red pepper flakes, opt (very optional)

2 TBS. Grated Parmesan cheese (opt)

Place oven rack in lower one-third of oven, and preheat oven to 450. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or spray with cooking spray. Cut stuffed Portobello mushrooms into 1-inch pieces, and set aside. Roll dough balls into 7-inch rounds on floured work surface. Divide roasted red peppers among centers of dough rounds, and sprinkle each with 1 TBS. Gruyere cheese. Top with mushrooms. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes (opt), then 1 TBS. Gruyere cheese and tsp. Parmesan (opt). Brush edges of circles with water, and fold over filling. Press edges to seal, and roll slightly upward to form rope shape. Transfer to prepared baking sheet and bake 12 minutes or until golden-brown.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms - 1st veg recipe!!!

I got this recipe from my Vegetarian Times mag...and I'll share with you my tweeks and such. You need this recipe to make tomorrow's post. It's not too hard...a lot of steps involves...but it's very tasty...

First off...I did not include the pine nuts...I replaced leeks with green onions cause damn if I could find a leek at Safeway...

6 4 inch diameter Portobello mushrooms, stemmed

4 tsp olive oil, divided

2 leeks (or green onions if your grocery store is lame), white and pale green parts thinly sliced (2 cups)

6 cloves garlic, minced (2 Tbs)

1 ½ Tbs. Chopped fresh thyme or go with crushed dried

1 lb fresh baby spinach

4 oz fresh goat cheese, softened (feta works too!)

2 Tbs pine nuts (op.) (very optional)

Preheat over to 400. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper (or spray with

cooking spray. Spray mushroom caps with cooking spray, and sprinkle gill sides with

salt and pepper, if desidered. Arrange mushrooms gill-sides down on prepared baking

sheet. Roast 10 minutes, or until mushrooms begin to soften. Turn mushrooms over.

Meanwhile, heat 2 tsp. Oil in large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add leeks, garlic,

and thyme, and sauté 4 minutes or until leeks are tender. Add 2 large handfuls spinach

at a time and cook 8 to 10 minutes, or until spinach is wilted and most liquid has

evaporated, stirring often. Stir in goat cheese and pine nuts (op.) until cheese is melted.

Remove from heat, and season with salt and pepper, if desired. Fill mushrooms with

spinach mixture, mounding on top and packing filling down with hands. Bake 25

minutes or until browns on top and mushrooms are fork-tender. If you are making tomorrow's recipe I wouldn't even bother cooking to be honest...

Raspberry Pork Chops

Ok...I've had alot of request for this recipe. I originally found it in one of my Taste of Home magazines. The original name was "Strawberry Pork Chops". However, the only thing strawberry about it was the fact that it was garnished with strawberries. It's marinated in raspberry vinaigrette, not strawberry. So, hence, after taking out the strawberries (was a pain to do) and making some tweeks, I changed the name.

I must also note, we LOVE brown sugar in this family. Any opportunity to add more than required, we do it. It's not great for you, but makes things taste so much better. I'm going to present this recipe as I've made it. Not as I originally made it. Feel free to look up "Strawberry Pork chops" on Taste of Home's website. However, these pork chops, I can honestly say are way better, and even easier to make. After making this recipe for myself and friends for a few years, I kept wondering how the recipe would taste if I made it in a crock pot. After doing so, I have vowed to never go back.

I make this recipe alot for moms in my moms groups that have just had babies. It's something different from chicken (which seems to be a popular thing for people to make someone when making them a meal) or your typical casserole meals. Plus now that I make this in the crock pot, it's not too difficult to make an additional meal when I have to make a meal for church or mom's group.

So here you have it...Raspberry Pork Chops.

3/4 cup of raspberry vinaigrette

2 tablespoons of chopped green onion

1/4 cup of brown sugar

1/4 tsp of paprika

2 tsp of rosemary

1/2 tsp - 1tsp of pepper

Dash of Worcestershire sauce

4 bone-in pork loin chops (1 inch thick/6oz each)....seriously, I use a package of no bone, thin cut chops...use what you want...

In a small bowl, combine the vinaigrette, onion, brown sugar, paprika, and Worcestershire sauce (or combine in the measuring cup to save dishes), set aside. Combine rosemary and pepper, rub over both sides of pork chops (or if you are lazy, put chops in the crock pot, and then just shake over them...). Put Chops into crock put, poor vinaigrette mixture over them. Set pot for desired cooking time (6 hours on high/8 hours on low). Serve chops with desired sides (I usually serve mine with brown rice and string beans).

Enjoy!

Strawberry Gooey Butter Cake

I should feel silly about posting a recipe that has absolutely no nutritional value. However, if I didn't start off with this recipe, a ton of people would be pissed. I first made this for my old MOMS club yard sale shortly after I joined. After that yard sale, I had alot of friends! Everyone asked me for this recipe.

Gooey Butter Cake first came into my life after I met my husband. It is his favorite dessert. He likes traditional vanilla (BORING!). My mother in law gave me the recipe after we were married because she wanted to make sure I could make this for her boy. Sadly, when I went to make it, I couldn't find her recipe. So I turned to the queen of butter, Paula Deene. The first time, I made it, I used as much confectioner's sugar as she called for. While that made for an awesome gooey part of the cake...it was a bit much...and the dust from the sugar stuck around for a while...so after some tweeking and adding of strawberry, I came up with this...

Ingredients:

2 sticks of butter

1 package of strawberry cake mix

3 eggs

8 oz of strawberry cream cheese

2 cups of powdered sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 13 x 9 inch pan (very important to use this size pan!).

In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, 1 egg, and 1 stick of melted butter. Stir until well blended. Pat mixture into prepared pan, set aside.

Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add the remaining 2 eggs. Lower the speed of the mixer, and add the powdered sugar. Continue beating until ingredients are well mixed. Slowly add the remaining 1 stick of melted butter and the vanilla. Continue beating until smooth. Spread the filling over cake mixture in pan. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Be careful not to overcook the cake (it will have brown top though...don't fear...it's still delicious). The center should still be a little gooey when finished. Let cake partially cool on a wire rack before cutting into pieces.

Feel free to play with this recipe. Besides vanilla gooey butter cake and this strawberry, I've made chocolate, holiday spice, and lemon.

Welcome! Not posting recipes today!!!

Hi!

My name is Jessica and I started this blog because I love to cook. Because I love to cook, I'm always getting asked for the recipe of what I've cooked. So I started this blog to share a bunch of recipes I've been asked for over the years. I also hope for this to be a place for my family to find certain recipes that they love.

I hope for this blog to be a more productive way than Facebook to keep in touch with people and I hope for it to share with people not just some great baking recipes I have, but share some healthy recipes too. I challenge myself every week to cook vegetarian/vegan three times a week. I've also challenged myself to make a homecooked meal every day of the week. That being said, I also fully believe in cooking simple. My recipes are never too difficult. If I'm going to post a difficult recipe, I'll let you know. But that will be rare...

So keep your eyes out...I have enough recipes to keep me busy for a while posting!!!

Jessica