Panera-ish Creamy Tomato Soup

Last year I developed a passion for Panera Bread's creamy tomato soup. Ever since tasting it for the first time, I haven't been able to enter their restaurant without having a bowl. So intense was my love, that I wanted to duplicate it at home so I could enjoy it without the price tag. I found a copycat recipe online, but I wasn't crazy about it the first time I made it. It just did not measure up to the Panera standard. I tried it again with a few modifications, and now I think I can declare it wholly awesome. Even the girls eat it with apathetic tolerance (and that is saying a lot when we're talking about tomato-based foods and my girls).


Inexplicably, it was one of the foods which suddenly seemed abhorrent to me during the first trimester of my last pregnancy. So it was shelved for a respectful amount of time in order to purge my soul of all first trimester prejudices, and has only recently enjoyed a revival in our house. Pregnant women are insane.

Here it is in all it's oh-so-much-better-than-Campbells glory

The green you see is basil pesto stirred in (recommend!)

Here is the recipe:

4 cups crushed tomatoes
3 cups milk
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 large clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 bay leaf
Salt and Pepper to taste

In a bowl, stir the baking soda into the tomatoes. This will prevent curdling between the tomatoes and milk (Supposedly. Once on a particularly dare-devilish sort of day, I actually skipped this step and couldn't tell the difference. If you are a more cautious sort whose blood curdles just at the mention of the word "curdle" then you should probably do it just to be safe). Set aside. Cook the onion and garlic in the butter until translucent. Add flour and stir and cook onions for about 1 more minute. Stir in milk, bay leaf, sugar, and oregano. Stir over medium heat until slightly thickened. Add tomatoes and cook until heated through. Salt and pepper to taste.

A variation I really enjoy lately is to reduce the tomatoes to 3 cups and add 1 cup of pureed roasted red peppers (in their juice) for even more flavor. Yum! Sam's sells a huge jar of roasted peppers for $4.

What is your favorite soup?

Salad for Studs :: Asian Bok Choy Salad

Want some?

Yes. You do. Trust Me.

I saw the original recipe for this salad a few years ago on another blog, and took note of it, but did not actually make it until a few weeks ago. We frequent a flea market in town that sells produce for amazing prices. Most of the vendors are asian, so bok choy and other vegetables not ordinary to our western diet are very cheap and plentiful there. By the way, I am so grateful for produce markets like this. It would not even be possible for me to cook the way I like to if I didn't have access to these places. 

We were hooked from the first time I made this salad. I didn't take pictures until the third time I made it because I was too eager to start eating it to stop for a photoshoot, and of course there are never any leftovers. 

The original recipe was here, but I did make a couple of small changes to it (most notably the addition of fresh ginger) which I think makes it tastier and a bit healthier.

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Here is my version:

For the dressing, in a glass jar, mix together 1/3 cup sugar, 1/3 cup olive oil, 1/3 cup red wine vinegar, 1 Tbs soy sauce, and about 1/2 tsp minced fresh ginger.

In a frying pan, lightly saute one package of Ramen noodles, 1/4 cup slivered almonds, and a generous sprinkling of sesame seeds in about 2Tbs olive oil. Drain on paper towels. (For a gluten free version, just substitute rice noodles)

Coarsely chop 8 to 10 leaves of bok choy and 1/4 cup red onion.

Toss all ingredients together in a large bowl.

Makes 4 large helpings.

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I know you might be questioning the studliness of this salad since it does contain sugar. But my philosophy is that studs can use a little sweetness here and there.

Simpler

Life would certainly be a whole lot simpler if everyone in our house enjoyed eating like this as much as Jessie and I do.

But I'm afraid if I put this plate down in front of one of the girls, they would seriously question whether their mother actually loved them.

Marinated Oven-Dried Tomatoes

I think we all have a few things that we have to watch ourselves over, or we'll get carried away in praise of them and start sounding kind of like Frank Navasky in "You've Got Mail" you know, the one who is so obsessed with his typewriter.

For me, this is one of them. My affection for this recipe borders on mania. I could extol their virtues for several pages worth, but in the interest of avoiding overkill, I will limit myself to the barest facts.

They are delicious.

They look like this.

They are super easy to make.

The recipe is here.

http://nelkindesigns.blogspot.com/2010/08/oven-dried-sungolds.html

 

They are awesome tossed with any pasta and chopped walnuts, but that is only one of many applications for these tomatoes.

People who eat them are cool.

In short, I like them a lot, and you should too. Seriously.

Salad for Studs :: Tabbouleh

I betcha you all were thinking its about time I pulled out another salad for studs, eh? You weren't? Well too bad. I'm kind of addicted to photographing my food now. And there isn't really much you can do with the photos once you have them, other than to make a redundant blog post.

This salad deserves special honor, because it is Lebanese. And Lebanese food is sacred. Kind of like cows (except cows which are unceremoniously run down by white Toyota Tacomas on late night Publix runs, of course). There is something so refreshing and exotic about Lebanese food.

Tabbouleh (or Tabbouli, if you prefer) has one unusual (for most) ingredient in it; this would be bulgur. Bulgur is just cracked wheat berries. I buy mine in bulk from a whole foods store because I have other uses for it besides making studly salads. But you can also get it at any regular grocery that carries Bob's Red Mill products (usually in the baking aisle).

First, measure 1 cup of bulgur into a bowl or baking dish. Then bring 1 cup of water to boil in a saucepan. As soon as the water boils, pour it over the bulgur. Let sit for about 30 minutes, until the water is completely absorbed. I use a baking dish so it cools faster.

Chop up about this much parsley:

and at least this much mint (I would have used a little more if I had it):

Dice one large tomato, one medium cucumber, and one small onion. Toss all the ingredients with this dressing:

To make this dressing, simply juice two lemons, then add enough olive oil to make it equal parts oil and lemon juice. Add salt and pepper to taste. It is best to refrigerate it for an hour or so before serving.

Your finished product will look like this:

This makes about enough for me to finish in one sitting while pregnant, or, about 6 generous helpings.

It is SO refreshing, especially in warm weather.

We paired it with grilled chicken breast, pita triangles, and hummus (not pictured) on this occasion. If I had gone all out, I would have made fattoush and falafel to round out a complete Lebanese meal. Sometime I will have to do a fattoush salad post. It is also a very studly salad. It happens to be my stud's personal favorite. I like to eat tabbouli in a pita sandwich too, with or without falafel.

sugar-free popscicles

Yesterday, per my sister's suggestion,

I made the girls sugar-free popscicles using

plain yogurt, a banana, and some frozen blueberries.

They were a big hit with all three girls.

We will definitely be doing this again.

Good all the way to the last lick.

Only thing I'll do different next time

is to not set loose any children with

a popscicle while they are wearing their ($3, but still!) brand new

shirt from Gymboree.

Blueberry stains are no fun to deal with.

Salad for Studs::Mango Salsa and Black Beans

This salad is basically an excuse to consume large quantities of mango salsa without the guilt of corn chips. I originally made this salsa as part of a grilled tilapia recipe (which I highly, highly recommend. You can find it here), but since then I have made it sans tilapia many times. It can be eaten with chips of course, mixed in a salad, put on a cracker with cream cheese, or eaten directly from the bowl with a spoon, while standing inside the open refrigerator door before bedtime.

You'll want to start with your ingredients:

2 ripe mangoes

2 limes (or a lime and a lemon, or two lemons)

1 red bell pepper (or 3 mini ones, as you see)

1/2 medium onion (red onion is best, but I didn't have it)

1 largish bunch of cilantro

1 or 2 jalapenos (depending on how studly you want it)

Chop all the ingredients and add the juice of the limes to the mixture. Salt and pepper to taste. Offering it to an idol of a Roman stallion is entirely optional. Chop your romaine (or other lettuce), generously heap with rinsed black beans, and top with mango salsa. I added a dollop of sour cream to mine, just because I am not on the strict studliness diet, and because "dollop" is such a cool word. I actually think this salad would be even better with some cottage cheese, or mozzerella, but we musn't forget that cheese is a no-no for studs.

Salad for Studs :: Barley Romaine Salad

My husband's latest quest for studliness has involved him cutting a lot of foods out of his diet entirely. This has left me with the challenge to make foods that he enjoys, and that fit all the studly requirements. Truth be told, I've been enjoying it immensely (the studliness and the change in diet).
I love salads in particular, and we've been eating a lot of them. I am of the persuasion that there are hardly any foods that wouldn't go well on a bed of fresh greens.
This salad is one of our favorite concoctions of late. I had discovered it before, out of leftovers from a burrito dinner party. Lately I have just subtracted the cheese (since this is a no-no for studs).

The ingredients are:
cooked barley (cooked in chicken broth)
chopped romaine
black beans
sauteed onion and yellow peppers
tomatoes
avocadoes
chopped cilantro
lemon juice and olive oil

Just throw it all together in whatever combination of quantities that brings you delight. Chopped grilled chicken is also delicious in this salad (and is acceptable for studs).

Pimp my Pancakes

I hardly ever post about food on my blog. Its not because I don't cook, or don't like to cook, because I do, and do. Its mostly for the reason that when I prepare food, I'm usually in such a frenzied and distracted hurry, that grabbing my camera and documenting the process seems ludicrous, if the thought even happens to occur to me at all.

However, for some unkown reason, I was feeling remarkably mellow as I began breakfast preparations yesterday morning, so as a result you are treated to the first (and quite likely also the last) edition of "Pimp my Pancakes".

I have a basic pancake recipe, and it should be noted that it is a quite good, decent little pancake recipe in and of itself. But somewhere in the course of things, this recipe ceased to be viewed as a recipe, and came to be viewed as more of a framework for bigger and {arguably} better things.

The most recent flavor of the week is "Banana Peanut-Butter Pancakes". They came about one morning when I had a couple of mushy bananas on my counter which needed to be used poste haste. They were an immediate hit, and since over-ripe bananas are hardly a thing that is in short supply around here, they have been made several times since, with further variations.

My basic no-fail dry ingredients for pancakes are these:

2 cups all purpose flour (or whole grain, or what have you) 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt

On this occasion I added to the dry ingredients: 2 Tbs brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and roughly 3Tbs flaxseed meal just to make us feel good about ourselves (if you do not require flaxseed meal to make you feel good about yourself, than by all means, skip it).

I then mashed up one banana (although I sometimes use two, only one was to be had on this particular morning) and mixed in 1 tsp vanilla and 2 generous spoonfulls of organic peanut butter.

The other staple wet ingredients are 2 cups milk (feel free to substitute almond milk, or whatever) and two lightly beaten eggs. My original recipe calls for 1/4 cup of oil, but I do not use this, since the banana and peanut butter lend plenty of moisture to this version.

Throw the wet ingredients in with the dry and mix them up, and cook them up. Then slather with more peanut butter and drizzle with syrup or honey.

Feed them to your children, and feel good about yourself (after all, there's flaxseed meal and 2 whole servings of fruit in this recipe!)

I don't mean to leave Ingrid out of this post, but she already had a generous amount of syrup in her hair by the time I took pictures of the pancakes being consumed, so she was conveniently skipped over.

What types of food do you find yourself constantly tweaking?

Isn't He Dreamy?

I love that it is no unusual circumstance to walk into the kitchen in my home and find that my husband has, once again, outshone me in the culinary department. Although I am reasonably proficient in the kitchen, baking is not my strong suit. Not because I can't do it, it just doesn't occur to me to do so. You see, I grew up in a family where desserts were typically only served on birthdays or major religious holidays (of course, birthdays were by no means an infrequent occurrence in our household of [insert large number here] children). These muffins were just a Saturday impulse of Jessie's from a few weeks ago. Even though he has comparitively limited experience in the kitchen, he's not afraid to get his hands dirty, um, in the mixing bowl. I wish I had a picture of the puffed pancake I found when I finally stumbled out of our bedroom on Sunday morning after a night of quality time with Ingrid and my allergies. It was almost as puffy as my eyes. Jessie nearly always makes breakfast before church on Sunday mornings - and its hardly ever oatmeal. Isn't he dreamy?