Asian Inspired Vegetable Soup

I may have over indulged this Easter holiday. Perhaps just a little.

Maybe I shouldn't have eaten those last couple of chocolate cupcakes, or those cookies, or that last bag of M&Ms, or those Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (I'm pretty sure these are injected with something addictive to get you hooked), or those gravy covered turkey sandwiches, or .....well.....I think you see where I am going here.

I was not exactly watching my caloric intake too carefully.

*Sigh*

Why does it take so much hard work and struggle to take the weight off but only one over indulgent weekend to put it back on?

*Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*

Okay. I am done feeling sorry for myself (kind of). Back to healthier eating!!

I found this recipe in one of our mother's old cook books. It had been cut out of a magazine and was being used as a bookmark - to mark a chocolate cheesecake recipe, interestingly enough.

I changed it a bit to reduce the calories and add even more vegetables!

Asian Inspired Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

3 cups bok choy, chopped

2 cups cabbage, chopped

5 large button mushrooms, thinly sliced

2 cups green onions, chopped

8 oz can sliced water chestnuts, drained

1 red pepper, thinly sliced and then slices cut in half

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

6 cups chicken broth (I used low sodium)

1 Tbsp sweet chili sauce

1/4 cup cooking sherry

 3 Tbsp soy sauce (I used low sodium)

1 Tbsp Oh! So Garlic (Optional)

2 cups snow peas, tips cut off

1 cup fresh bean sprouts

2 cups shrimp (raw)

Directions

Place all veggies, except snow peas and bean sprouts, in a large pot. Add the broth and, if necessary, enough water to cover vegetables. Cover and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. 

Add chili sauce, cooking sherry, soy sauce, and Oh! So Garlic(if using). Simmer for about 5 minutes.

Add the snow peas, bean sprouts, and shrimp. Cook another 5 minutes, until shrimp is pink and peas are crisp-tender.

It probably took me about 40 minutes to put this together. The prep work took me a bit longer as I doubled the recipe so had more veggies to chop.

By the way, doubling this makes A LOT of soup.

As with all soups, you can feel free to make substitutions and/or just omit the things you want to.

If you don't have cooking sherry - just leave it out.

Don't like shrimp? Use chicken.

Love fresh ginger? Add some in.

Personally, I don't like the ginger flavoring in any of my dishes....neither does Sue. (I KNOW, we agree on something, holy heck!)

Another bonus with this recipe - I calculated the calories (roughly) using Fitday and it works out to about 70 calories per cup. Nice!

A fast and easy, not to mention delicious, way to get those veggies in.

Yay veggies!

5 Minute Carrot Cake

I cannot get enough of these "in a mug" recipes.

Seriously.

Who knew making single serving sized cakes and cookies in under 5 minutes could be so much fun?

Not this girl, that's for sure.

When I first tried microwave cake it was gummy and chewy and just plain weird.

Not anymore.

Cakes and cookies done in the microwave are just about as good as from the oven.

Notice I said, "just about".

Of course oven baked are still tastier and set the standard texture wise as well. But, that being said, the recipes I have been trying have turned out AMAZINGLY well.

Too well.

The fact that I can whip up one of these babies in 2 seconds is just not helping my waistline.

*Sigh*

5 Minute Carrot Cake

Ingredients

1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

pinch salt

1 egg yolk

splash vanilla

1 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar

1/3 cup finely shredded carrot

1 Tbsp milk

1 Tbsp oil

Cream Cheese Icing

1 Tbsp cream cheese, softened

splash vanilla

1/2 Tbsp icing sugar

Directions

In a microwave safe mug or bowl, stir together flour, cinnamon, baking powder and soda, and salt with a fork.

Add remaining ingredients to mug (or bowl) and stir with fork until well combined.

Before the cooking begins!

Before microwaving, combine ingredients for cream cheese frosting in a small bowl until smooth. Set aside.

Microwave cake batter for about 1 minute and 20 seconds, until cake is done. (Start checking for doneness at about 1 minute 10 seconds.)

While still warm, loosen from mug (or bowl) with a knife and flip onto a plate. Frost with cream cheese icing, if desired. Of course, you can eat it straight from the mug (or bowl) you made it in. Just dollop the cream cheese icing on top.

Oooooh, melty cream cheese frosting is the best!





A couple of things about this particular recipe:

(1) You can use leftover cooked carrots if you don't want to shred fresh ones. Simply mash up 1/3 cup cooked carrots and add them intead of the shredded ones.

(2) If you have some spreadable cream cheese you can use a Tbsp or 2 of that instead of making the Cream Cheese Frosting.

(3) Measurements have to be fairly precise when dealing with such small quantities. If you make changes be prepared that your results will differ.

So, anyway, to sum up - I am becoming addicted to making these 5 minute treats. I've made 2 cookie recipes and 2 or 3 cake recipes. I have a banana bread recipe to blog about already (Delicious, by the way) and am waiting to try a cinnamon bun-like cake and an apple crumble.

I would never have guessed treats in the microwave could be so exciting.



Easter Treats

Another Easter dinner has come and gone and Sue and I found some pretty cute Easter related food to make this year. The bunny above is one that we make almost every year.

He is simply shaped out of bread, baked, and then you scoop out his tummy and fill him with dip for veggies.

Here is a close up so you can see his cute buck teeth made of almonds and googly eyes made of raisins.

Then we made some carrots out of Pillsbury crescent rolls and filled them with salmon that our dad had smoked, mixed with cream cheese. This idea was from Hungry Happenings . You should click the link to visit that site if you haven't been there yet. It is full of amazingly creative ideas. Sue and I have made many of the amazing recipes from Hungry Happenings.

The Hungry Happenings site used cream horn molds to make the carrots but Sue couldn't find her molds. To improvise we simply crumpled up tinfoil into carrot shapes (kind of - our carrot shaping skills need some work), sprayed them with a little cooking spray, and then wrapped with crescent dough. Please go to the Hungry Happenings site for a full tutorial and step by step photos.

See.......kind-of carrot shaped. At least everyone knew what we were trying to do.

For one of our appetizers Sue made these delicious Couscous Poppers. We will post a follow up blog with the recipe for these. They were so tasty!

These little guys were one of my favorite new recipes this Easter. All you have to do is get some crunchy green grapes, dip them in caramels melted with a little cream, then dip them in finely chopped, salted peanuts. So addicting. Like little tiny caramel apples....but better...

And, of course, it wouldn't be Easter without sugar cookies. Sue and I baked for a fundraiser for the local hospital so made a billion of these cute little guys. The Decorated Cookie was our inspiration for these cookies.

I made the cutest, teeny-tinniest little guy because I couldn't get over how cute they were.

That little purple guy? His name is Ed.

I had to give him a name.

Some more bunnies and chicks. Created by Diane shared the bunnies on Pinterest so we thought we would give them a try. The chicks we came up with because we were just getting really tired of bunnies.

I know..I know.....Tired of bunnies? Who gets tired of bunnies?

You try frosting 10 million bunnies and then let me know what you think...

We also made some chocolate cake eggs and decorated them with candies and some melted icing.

Another great Hungry Happenings idea was the Easter bunny bums. Sooooo adorable. We used marshmallow fondant for the bunny and jelly beans for carrots.

When we ran out of jelly bean "carrots" we used some candy flowers for our "gardens".

Yup, still cute!

Of course, there was the bunny buns I made a little early this week.

Aaaaaaaand the Easter Rainbow Bread from earlier this week as well.

Of course our Easter dinner was full of a crazy amount of food. Salads and ham and turkey and hot cross buns and desserts and on and on and on.

I think we had about 25 family and friends in the house for Easter dinner this year.

Food, family, and friends.

What more could anyone ask for?

 

Want to see some great links? Pop over the The Mandatory Mooch and Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons for tons :)

Double Chocolate Guinness Brownies

I made these for St. Patrick's Day last month and they were very interesting.

I say "interesting" because I still don't know if I really liked them or not.

I have this incredible brownie recipe that I make as my "usual" so this one was different. Not "different" bad, just "different" different.

The Guinness definitely adds a unique flavor that intensifies the chocolate. I think what threw me off was the whole wheat flour in it. I think next time I would make these with all purpose flour. Not that I don't like whole wheat flour, I just found it overwhelmed the other, more subtle flavors in these.

Double Chocolate Guinness Brownies

(Adapted from Alive Magazine #353, March 2012)

Ingredients

1 medium sweet potato, peeled and diced (about 1/2 lb)

6 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

2 Tbsp butter

2 eggs

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

2/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup baking cocoa powder

1 cup Guinness, room temp

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Line an 8 X 8 or a 9 X 9 pan with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray.

Boil sweet potato until very tender. Transfer to a bowl and mash until smooth. Set aside. (You can also microwave the sweet potato until tender and then mash.)

Place chocolate and butter in a metal bowl over pan of barely simmering water. Stir until melted.

Remove from heat and whisk in eggs, one at a time. Gently stir in mashed sweet potato, flour, sugar, cocoa, beer, vanilla, baking powder, salt, and nuts.

Spread batter evenly in prepared pan. Bake at 350 for approximately 20 - 30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Do not over bake. (Cooking time will depend on size of pan you use too.)

Let cool to room temp before slicing.

You might notice in the photos that these are frosted. I decide that I needed a little more chocolate on top to hide the whole wheat flour taste a little more. I just mixed together the following:

3 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp cocoa
1 cup icing sugar
2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla

And then spread it on the brownies before I cut them.

 

These are a healthier choice for brownies with much less sugar and fat because of the addition of the sweet potato, and they are tasty in their own way. Like I said above, I would definitely make these again but just change to all purpose flour instead of whole wheat.

Are they my favorite?

No.

Are they interesting?

Yes.

Browned Butter Ice Cream

Let me start first by apologizing.

I know you have no idea what I am apologizing for so let me explain.

I made Browned Butter Ice Cream.

Delicious,

Creamy,

Rich,

Addicting,

1,000,000 calories per bite,

Browned Butter Ice Cream.

See where I am going with this?

It is probably one of the most delicious things I have ever created THEREFORE one of the most unhealthy things ever.

EVER.

I can only imagine the calories and carbs and fat in this. I'm going to do us all a favor and not look it up.

I don't want to be traumatized.

So....I'm sorry but, enjoy :)

Browned Butter Ice Cream

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar, packed

pinch salt

6 egg yolks

1/2 Tbsp vanilla

1 cups whipping cream (heavy cream)

1 cup half & half

Directions

Heat butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until butter turns a deep, caramel color and you start to see dark flecks. Pour into a bowl and let cool until room temp. You can place in fridge to speed up this process if you like.

When it is no longer warm, cream together browned butter, brown sugar, and salt until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks and vanilla and mix until well combined. Slowly pour in whipping cream and half & half, whisking the whole time. Mixture should be smooth and free of lumps.

Transfer mixture to a large pan and place on medium high heat. Stir constantly over medium heat until mixture starts to thicken. (Mixture will come to a boil and then you can turn the heat down and simmer until you reach the point where the custard lightly coats the back of a metal spoon.)

Pour into a bowl and set in fridge until well chilled, 3 hours or more.

Once chilled, place in your ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer's instructions.



Everything in moderation, or so I've been told.

So, eating the entire batch of this ice cream would probably be a bad idea.

Probably...

I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh, by the way, I used salted butter to make this. If you choose to use UNsalted butter then, instead of just putting a pinch of salt in, you will probably want to add about 1/2 tsp of salt.

Not only does it add the to flavor, it also keeps it from freezing totally solid.

Easter Bread Ideas

Easter is almost here and I have been searching everywhere for some Easter-y type bread to serve with dinner. There are lots of bunny shaped buns and such out there but nothing was "just right".

I decided to give it a go myself and see what kind of bunny I could come up with.

These little guys turned out so cute.

Just what I was looking for.

Cute, right?

I stuffed him full of cheese and turkey pepperoni so he was extra tasty. I just used a little food dye on the end of a toothpick for his eyes.

Then our mother asked me to make something Easter-y for her Senior's Center brunch. I didn't want to make a billion little bunnies. Don't get me wrong, they are easy and cute, but I would have had to make a lot of bread balls.

So then I decided to try and make some pastel colored bread into egg salad sandwiches.

It turned out very cheerful looking.

I wanted the colors to be bolder so you could really tell them apart - there is pink, purple, green, and white in there, but Sue had taken all of her food coloring back to her house and I only had a little left in my cupboard.

Yes, Sue always steals all the good stuff. *Sigh*

Anyway, I wasn't sure how to equally divide the colors amongst the dough.

I tried dividing the dough after it was mixed and had rested, but that meant kneading the color into the dough which was difficult and didn't color evenly.

Then I tried to divide the ingredients evenly into three bowls and mix in the food coloring with the wet ingredients. Turns out math isn't my strong suit and the ingredients weren't split evenly amongst the 4 bowls so some of the colors were sticky and some were too dry.

Eventually I just made 4 batches of bread dough and colored 3 of the batches with the food coloring by adding it to the wet ingredients before mixing them into the dry ingredients.

Worked perfectly.

BUT

It made a whole lot of dough.

Two loaves of this size to be precise.

See how big it is? That is a full size oven it is rising on. That cookie sheet fills the entire rack.

Two of those.

BIG.

On the upside, it made a lot of bread for egg salad sandwiches.

Oooooh....pretty slices.

Mmmm....egg salad.

Easter egg salad.

Our mother said the group at the Senior's Center found it very cheerful.

Yay!

I thought so too. 

I used my go-to bread recipe to make these. It is the same recipe I used for our:

Bread Cornucopia

Medusa Cheeseball Snakes

Mummy Bread Braid

Smorgastarta - Sandwich Cake

Click HERE for the bread dough recipe.

It really is a multipurpose recipe. I don't want to say it is a "never fail" recipe because then I would probably jinx it, but, it is pretty hard to mess it up.

You can have fun with it and shape it into pretty much anything you like.

Nothing as cute as this bunny though.....

 

*Need some other great Easter Ideas - Check out the links at Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons