Creamy meatball soup

This soup is AWESOME! It's creamy, rich, and packed with veggies (but that doesn't mean it's real healthy...)


Quick and easy recipe:

- Meatballs
- Chopped onion, carrots, celery
- 4 cups chicken stock
- 1 can Cream of Celery soup
- 1 cup whole milk or cream - we always have whole milk
- 1/2 cup fontina, parmesan, mozzarella, asiago cheese mixture
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1 cup spinach
- Salt
- Pepper
- Basil
- Oregano
- 3 Tbsp. Hot sauce (I used Franks)

1. Start by sauteing your meatballs (not going to lie, I cheated and used frozen No Name wild rice meatballs). Once golden, add your onion, carrots, and celery with some olive oil will onion become translucent and celery/carrots become soft.

2. Add your chick stock, cream of celery soup, and milk. Bring to a boil.

3. Once boiling, melt in your cheese, add seasonings, and hot sauce.

4. Once all the cheese in melted, wilt your spinach. Should only take a few minutes - and you're done!

After eating this for lunch, it would be awesome with wild ride added into the recipe as well! -- Noted for next time :)

Enjoy!

e.l.l.

Lemon chicken sandwich with pickled bell pepper, onions, and pickles

This afternoon's lunch was a trial as I haven't done a lot of a quick pickling before but if Allan and I BOTH liked it, it must be blog worthy!

The chicken is left over from last night's dinner - I seasoned the chicken with Mrs. Dash Lemon Pepper/Mrs. Dash garlic and basil  seasoning then pan fried till golden brown. Once browned on each side, transferred to the crock pot. In the pan with the left over chicken bits, I added 1 Tbsp of butter, 1 small onion, and slices of lemon - once onions are golden, add chicken broth to get all of the flavor out of the pan. Once broth is simmering, transfer all to the crock pot - Can cook in the crock pot on low for approx. 4 hours :)

Now to the sandwich!

For pickling vegetables:

2 Tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp sugar
Lemon Pepper Seasonings
Pepper
Garlic Salt
*thinly sliced red bell pepper
*thinly sliced onion
----Mix all ingredients and let sit for approx 10 minutes

I shredded my chicken & baked my buns so they were toasty & and assembled  - only ingredients not listed that I used - spinach and a thin amount of mayo for the base!

enjoy!

e.l.l.

Lasagna

Wanting to make something that could last a few meals and bring comfort during the cold weather/rain that caused is to stay inside over the weekend, we chose to throw together a lasagna! Quick, easy, and makes at least five meals for the two of us :) 

What you'll need:

Lasagna noodles

Pasta sauce

Mozzarella cheese

Gorgonzola cheese

Cottage cheese

Olive oil

Spices - I used:

Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb & Table blend

Garlic Salt

Basil Leaves

Thyme Leaves

Crushed red pepper flakes

Preheat your oven to 375*

I started with a mix of sauce and olive oil in the bottom of my pan - then began my layers - 

- Start with layering your noodles

- Add sauce to cover your noodles evenly

- Sprinkle with your desired amount of spices- I used my garlic salt in ONE layer only;substituting this for regular salt throughout the lasagna

- Layer on your cottage cheese, Gorgonzola, and mozzarella cheese  

I did four layers of this - ending with noodles and sauce on top

Bake in the over covered with tin foil for 45 minutes, check and uncover to cook 15 more minutes or until golden

Enjoy!

e.l.l.

White Bean Dip

I made this recipe this morning for a work pot luck - I adapted it from Giada De Laurentiis's recipe from the Food Network website. Super quick, easy, and healthy.

One can of cannellini beans, rinsed

1/4 cup olive oil, adding more to get wanted consistency

1/2 Lemon (juiced and the zest)
2 Garlic cloves

Salt

Pepper

Dill

Mrs. Dash Lemon Pepper Seasoning

*The last four ingredients, add your desired amount

All of these ingredients get blended - continue to add olive oil or a few tablespoon's of water to mixture to get desired thickness

Once in a bowl, add a swirl of olive oil, a few squeezes of lemon juice, and dill. 

You're done! Serve with pita's, chips, or veggies 

enjoy!

e.l.l.

Holiday vases

Last Christmas, I spent a lot of time doing holiday decorations for our house... Now that we're planning on buying and kind of growing out of our rental house, I'm taking the time to enjoy the decor we already have vs. making more and not knowing where it'll all go next holiday season!


Here's a late post from last seasons craft:

All you need is - 
-glue gun
-vases
-ribbon
-rocks
-I used fake flowers

All you need to do is wrap your ribbon around the vases in a way that it'll lay flat,

Glue the ribbon in a few places - making sure you glue on the SIDE and NOT on the bottom of the vase - gluing on the bottom will make it tipsy and not sit flat,

With hot glue, glue a few of the flower heads to your vase in a pattern that makes sense with the shape and size of the vase,

Add the rocks to the bottom, place your flowers (I kept mine together with twist ties), and you're done!

enjoy,

e.l.l.

Apple Cinnamon Pancakes

Weekend breakfasts are my favorite - it's the one time a week my husband and I can work together in the kitchen, talk about the week, and make plans for our weekend. This is the first weekend of his semester break and I cannot wait to enjoy more time together and less time working on homework or rushing around to get things done... This morning we made apple cinnamon pancakes that are quick and easy - made without the box powder :)


Ingredients:

1 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup yogurt
1 medium egg
Cinnamon
1 peeled and diced apple
Milk - any amount you want for the thickness of your cakes

In a blender, mix all ingredients. I add milk as a blend to get the consistency of cakes I want :) Batter is complete!

On a griddle, pour out your mix into the size of pancakes you want - the ones we made this morning were fairly thick, so they didn't bubble like a pancake normally would to let you know it's ready to be flipped - if this happens, just keep an eye on the edges of the pancake, once they're cooked it's ready to be flipped.

Flip them once more to make sure they're golden on each side and you're done!

In this recipe, the apple can easily be replaced with any other fruit, banana's are great as well as strawberries or blueberries! If using a banana, add more milk as the banana keeps the batter fairly thick!

Enjoyed with turkey breakfast sausage :)

Enjoy!

e.l.l.

Spicy Bell Pepper Soup

Each week, I make it a goal to make at least one soup... they're easy enough to heat up for when only one of us is home or when wanting something small for lunch. I'm on a huge soup and sandwich kick!

This bell pepper soup is one of my husbands favorite... here's the recipe :)
- 3 bell peppers
- garlic
- large onion
- olive oil
- serrano or chili pepper
- horseradish
- chicken stock
- milk
- paprika
- basil
- thyme
- Mrs. Dash table blend
- tomato paste - optional
- salt
- pepper 

1. Start by slicing three bell peppers in half,  removing the seeds. Drizzle with olive oil on a baking pan, broil until blacked. Once blackened, throw in a paper or Ziploc bag for 10 minutes 

or so to let the peppers sweat. 

2. While peppers are sweating - dice one large onion, a serrano or chili pepper, and dice your garlic if using fresh cloves.

3. Preheat olive oil in large pot - once hot, add your onion, serrano pepper, and garlic. Saute till onions becomes translucent.

4. While onions are sweating, peel your

 bell peppers. Using a spoon, the skins

 should easily  peel  off. Once peeled, 

dice into small pieces. 

5. Next, add your spices - I used horseradish, paprika,

 basil, thyme, salt, pepper, and Mrs. Dash's table blend. Use your desired amounts of whichever spices you life the most!

6. After letting the spices sweat with the onion mixture, add approx. 4 cups of chicken stock, 1 cup of milk, and your bell peppers. 

7. Let simmer and blend with an immersion blender. If it's not your desired consistency, add either more stock or milk. If it's too thin - add a table spoon or two of tomato paste!


Just this recipe alone wasn't spicy enough for me - I added a shake or two of red pepper flakes to kick it up a notch! If you have a hot sauce you'd like, that would work as well!

enjoy!

e.l.l.