Broccolie Cheese Soup

I am a soup person. I like soup alot. Its not all I eat, but it is one of my favorite things to eat....as long as its good. This soup is great. Its creamy, cheesy and has a few vegetables thrown in there for good measure. Now you can make this as healthy as you like or not...I have made it using low fat ingredients and skim milk. Either way you go this soup is good. I will try and add a picture tomorrow..I am technology challenged and cannot get my camera to co-operate with me at this time. This soup makes plenty to feed 4 hungry adults with leftovers. Its great served in bread bowls.


Broccoli Cheese Soup

4-5 cups of chopped broccoli
3/4 cup of finely diced carrot
5 1/2 cups of chicken broth
5 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
1/2 pound Velveeta cubed (you can use regular, 2%, or the Mexican they are all good)
2-3 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
pepper to your taste

Directions
In a large pot over medium heat, simmer the carrots for 5 mins then add the broccoli and simmer for 10 minutes more. In a separate skillet over medium heat, melt the butter, add the onions and saute till nice and tender this usually takes 5 minutes or so. Then add the flour to the onions and stir well. I recommend a whisk for this that way you get it really smooth. Its going to form a pasty substance let this cook for about a minute. Keep stirring because you really want to cook the flour to get the raw taste out but not really brown or burn the mixture. Slowly add the milk and stir until thick. Now pour your milk mixture into the broccoli/carrot mixture in the pot and stir well. Then add the cheese, stirring until melted. Finally, give it a little taste and add the pepper the way you like it...typically we don't add salt.


Tips-If you like it spicy go for the Mexican Velveeta and even use a fiesta blend of shredded cheese. Also I don't recommend that you boil it because it burns really easy and the burn taste goes all through the entire soup and you taste it in every bite (just ask me how I know)

Last weeks Cauliflower Soup recipe

Here we go last weeks soup recipe. This recipe is really forgiving and really easy to change up any way you like. What I mean by forgiving is at one time or another I have forgotten steps or ingredients and added them out of order or forgot them all together....I like a recipe that doesn't hold a grudge about the tiny details and still tastes this good. Also you can omit the butter and use skim milk and make it pretty healthy. I actually made this soup on Weight Watchers that way and it was low in points

Cauliflower Soup

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
5-6 cups of finely chopped cauliflower (a large head should get you that much)
1 cup of onion
1 clove garlic (chopped, smashed, or diced)
3 tablespoons of flour
4 cups chicken broth
1 c milk
8 oz Brie (peel and remove the rind)chopped
1/2-3/4 teaspoon of dried thyme
Salt and pepper to your taste
dash of cayenne
green onions, chives, cheese or bacon pieces for garnish


In a large soup pot, preferably non-stick heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic. Saute for 3-5 minutes. Add the chopped cauliflower and saute for another 7-10 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute. Stir in the chicken broth and milk. Cook for 5-7 minutes more till it starts to bubble and thicken up. Now add the Brie and thyme and season with the salt and pepper and cayenne to taste. Cook until the Brie fully melts. Now you can eat it this way or you can put it in a food processor in small batches and puree it till its creamy...or hey if you have an emersion blender like I did at one time and you didn't loose the parts use that.

**Now I cheat alot, I make my chicken broth out of water and bouillon cubes. Occasionally I want to make it heartier and I dice up carrots and celery and add it in with the onions and cauliflower. Sometimes I even go wild and add in a small diced up potato....this recipe is really flexible just make it yours. I top mine with chives cheese and bacon. Forgive the picture I was eating it out of a white soup bowl and it didn't want to show up anything but washed out. This would be my husbands gigantomous bowl and his equally huge helping of cheese.

Pot Roast & Not Homemade Oreos

So first the pot roast. I have to be honest I am not much of a meat eater right now. Pregnancy for me makes me almost a vegetarian. My husband however is a meat and potatoes kinda man. So to entice myself to eat meat I am experimenting. What I want to eat all the time right now is fruit and veggies. I am enjoying strawberries with vanilla yogurt....Salads...huge salads with everything on them covered in ranch dressing...the homemade kind...spicy hot v8 with extra hot sauce...hot salsa with baked chips.. This pot roast was good but it didn't really make me "love" it. I liked it and probably ate a couple of ounces. My husband "loved" it. He ate several helpings of the meat and potatoes and said the recipe was a keeper ad he would eat it again. So here is my experiment


Manly Slow cooker Pot Roast

3 lb roast (whatever your favorite cut is)
1 pkg Brown Gravy Mix
1 can French Onion Soup
1 can Golden Mushroom Soup
2 c. baby carrots
2 c. of peeled cubed potatoes
1 c. water
1 T. Worcestershire Sauce

Put the meat int the slow cooker. Place the veggies around it. In a medium sized bowl mix the Brown Gravy Mix, Onion Soup, Mushroom Soup, water and Worcestershire sauce. Turn on low and cook 8-10 hours.





I wanted to make Homemade Oreos....not just any Oreos though Mommy's Kitchen's Oreos Do you see that picture above? That's not oreos...What happened you ask. Well my kitchen gremlin did it again. I laid out the butter and the cream cheese in preparation for the recipe. They were ready so I went to go get the cake mix out. I looked everywhere....I know I had a dark chocolate cake mix!...I reorganized my pantry last week after Christmas. I put that cake mix towards the front because I knew I wanted to make those oreos...that cake mix was no where to be found. I emptied that sucker out. I messed up all the work I did. Guess what I found....well it wasn't a chocolate cake mix that's for sure. I found a carrot cake mix...a carrot cake mix that I did not put in there. What kind of kitchen gremlin takes a chocolate cake mix and puts a carrot cake mix in its place?....my kitchen gremlin thats who. So after cramming everything back in there....and only having to pull half of it back out once because I packed the carrot cake mix up again (that's my karma I guess for the language I was muttering while I was losing my cake mix mind). I held to another 2010 goal. I didn't waste that butter and cream cheese. I didn't see the glass half empty (OK for a few minutes I did the important thing is I corrected it)...I made carrot cake....well what do I call them? They aren't Oreo's (on a side note I haven't given up on the those I will be getting another chocolate cake mix) I guess I can call them carrot cake cream pies. They are good just extremely rich and here is the recipe if you want to try it...just make sure your gremlin didn't get your cake mix. Tomorrow looks like I will be organizing my pantry again...and maybe scrapping cream cheese filling off my cabinets...If you only knew the mess I made. Happy cleaning...wait I mean happy cooking your probably not as messy as me.

Carrot Cake Cream Pies

Cookie Recipe
1 package carrot cake mix
2 eggs
1/2 c. veg. oil
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Add oil and eggs to cake mix and blend together. Roll dough into balls. I used a teaspoon so that I could get all the little balls about the same size. Place on greased cookie sheet. Bake for 7-8 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on sheet for about 2 minutes. Remove cookies from sheet and place on cooling rack. To assemble the cookies I used a pastry bag with a star tip...I could tell you what size but I don't remember and its in there soaking the frosting off. I add about a tablespoon of filling into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie similar in size on top of the filling. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream.


Cinnamon Cream Cheese Filling Recipe:
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1 block of cream cheese (8 ounces)
4 c. confectioner's sugar
1 T cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Cream butter and add cream cheese and mix well. Combine cinnamon and confectioners sugar add slowly to the creamed butter mixture. Mix until completely combined.


***On a side note I toasted some pecans and chopped them then rolled some of the cookies in them...you will see one in the picture above.