Creamy tomato basil soup

I got this recipe from Lexi and I have made it once a week since then. I love it. I cut down the sugar by about half and add more basil and less cream, but it is great as is.

Creamy Tomato Basil Soup

1 medium onion finely chopped

1/2 cup butter

3-14.5 ounce cans stewed tomatoes (or fresh)

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. basil, or to taste

1 Tbsp. Chicken bullion

2-14.5 ounce cans chicken broth

1 cup whipping cream

Melt butter in a large saucepan. Add onion, bullion, sugar, salt and pepper. Simmer on a low heat until onion is tender. Add tomatoes with juice and heat until warm. Place these ingredients into a blender, blending thoroughly. You’ll probably have to repeat this step 2 or 3 times as it’s not possible to fit it all in the blender. Return mixture to saucepan adding chicken broth and cream or milk. Heat and serve with garnish of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Serves 6-8.

Apricot-Glazed Pork

This is the recipe I made at Mom and Dad's. It is super easy and delicious. I use soy sauce instead of tamari sauce and dried ginger instead of pickled. I use more like a teaspoon. I also tried this without the sesame oil and it is not as good. This recipe is supposed to feed 4, so for Andrea's family, I would double or triple this.

• 1 pound pork tenderloin, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch thick rounds
• Salt
• Ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1 1/4 cups apricot preserves
• 1/4 cup tamari sauce
• 1 tablespoon chopped pickled ginger

Season both sides of pork with salt and black pepper. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add pork and sear 2 minutes per side. Add apricot preserves, tamari sauce and ginger and bring to a simmer. Simmer 5 minutes, until pork is cooked through and sauce reduces.

Slow cooker Carne Guisada

My friends Caitlin and Hugh got this recipe from a Martha Stewart magazine, made it and invited us over for dinner. It was so good. The meat was so tender and flavorful. You have to serve it with cheese and cilantro, that makes it. Try this!

2 1/2 lbs beef chuck roast or bottom round, cut into 1-inch pieces
coarse salt and ground pepper
2 TB vegetable oil
1 medium white onion, diced medium
1 medium green bell pepper, seeded and diced medium
3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
3/4 tsp chili powder
3/4 tsp dried oregano
6 TB flour
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
1 can (14 oz) diced tomatoes
2 bay leaves
flour tortillas, grated cheddar and cilantro, for serving

Season beef with salt and pepper. In large skillet, heat 2 tsp oil over high. In two batches, cook beef until browned on all sides. 5 mins per side. Transfer to a 5-6 quart slow cooker.

In same skillet, cook 2 tsp oil, onion, bell pepper and garlic over medium, stirring and scraping up brown bits with a wooden spoon, until vegetables are tender, 5 minutes. Add cumin, chili powder, oregano and flour and cook 1 minute. Slowly pour broth into skillet, stirring until liquid is smooth. Simmer 2 minutes, then transfer mixture to slow cooker, along with tomatoes and bay leaves. Season to taste with salt and pepper and stir to combine. Cover and cook on high 6 hours. Serve in tortillas with cheese and cilantro.

Amazing Chocolate Frosting

I found this awesome new website called Our Best Bites that has a ton of good recipes. I made the candy corn cupcakes that I found on this site and then I made chocolate cupcakes and put this frosting on them, and I almost died they were sooo good. Seriously. The semi-sweet chocolate gives it such a great flavor, you must use semi-sweet chips. It sounds weird to put flour in a frosting, but it turned out really good. I only added 1 TB of extra cocoa at the end, but taste and add what you want. I used a disposable piping bag and the largest star tip I had and they turned out beautiful, sorry no picture.

Chocolate Frosting
Recipe adapted by Our Best Bites from Sugar Plum

2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup milk
1 cup real butter, softened
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
Optional: Additional cocoa powder as needed

Melt your chocolate chips if you haven't already and set aside to cool. You obviously don't want it so cool that it hardens, but you can get it close to room temperature and still have it be soft and stir-able.

In a small saucepan, whisk together sugar, flour, cocoa, and milk; bring to a boil, whisking frequently. Boil 1-3 minutes or until thickened like a thinned pudding. Remove pan from heat and strain mixture into a small bowl. Cool completely in the refrigerator or freezer.

When chocolate flour mixture is cooled, beat the butter until creamy, about 1 minute. Beat in the cooled chocolate mixture until well combined fluffy, about 1 minute. Finally add in melted chocolate and beat again until well combined and fluffy, about 2 minutes. If desired, add additional cocoa powder to taste, up to 4 tablespoons more. Spread or pipe frosting on to cupcakes or cake.

Makes enough to frost 24 cupcakes.

Storage: Store unused frosting in fridge and bring to room temperature before using again. If needed, beat with an electric beater before using.

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Amaretti Cookies

This recipe is from Tyler Florence from Food Network. Oh how I love him. This soup is so good and easy! It also has no dairy in it, which is great. I bought my butternut squash from Costco and roasted it from there, super easy. I loved the sage leaves and Amaretti cookies in it, delish.

Ingredients

nocoupons

• 2 (2 pound) butternut squash, halved lengthwise, seeded
• 1/4 pound amaretti cookies
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/4 bunch fresh sage
• 1 onion, sliced thin
• 4 cups chicken stock, either homemade or store-bought
• Pinch of grated nutmeg
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 13 by 9 by 2-inch glass baking dish with vegetable oil. Place squash cut side up in prepared dish. Pierce each squash half several times with toothpick or skewer. Bake until squash is tender, about 45 minutes.

While the squash is cooking, use a handheld mixer with the chopping attachment to pulse the cookies until roughly chopped. Set aside.

In a large pot, bring the olive oil up to almost smoking. Quickly cook the sage leaves until crisp. Remove and reserve the sage, and saute the sliced onion. When the squash is done cooking, using a large spoon, scrape squash into the pot; discard peel. Add 3 1/2 cups chicken stock and nutmeg and puree until smooth, add additional stock to reach desired consistency. Stir soup over medium heat until heated through. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls. Top with crushed amaretti; garnish with sage leaves.

Baked Potato Soup

You all know how much I love soup!! I think that it is the ultimate comfort food. I found this recipe once again on a food blog that I follow, ourbestbites.com. They posted it a couple of days ago and I thought it looked really good. I am sorry I don't post pictures, I don't know how to. I know that sounds really stupid, but I am going to have Dad help me, then I will post some... I promise!! Anyway, this soup is kind of like a chowder it is really rich and full of flavor, but it can be made very light.

Baked Potato Soup

2 TBSP butter
2-3 cloves garlic (I just used one small clove, it added really good flavor, but not too much.)
1/2 C flour
4 1/2 C milk (you could use skim if wanted and would be just fine)
1-14 oz can lower sodium chicken broth
4 medium baking potatoes - baked
2 C grated cheddar cheese, divided (I used the 2% Colby jack shredded cheese, I think that it would be really good to use some pepper jack cheese)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 1/2 C light sour cream
1/2 C green onions, chopped (I used dried chives, about a tsp)
8 slices bacon, cooked, crumbled, and divided

Melt butter over medium heat, add garlic cook for a second until fragrant, add flour and cook for a minute to get flour taste out. Slowly add milk, whisk until smooth. This will take a lot of whisking!! I was afraid that it wouldn't ever get smooth, but it finally did. Add chicken broth, bring soup to a simmer and heat until thickened. Stir often so it doesn't scorch.
Turn heat down to medium low. Cut potatoes in half length-wise, use a spoon to scoop them out of their shells. I used a spatula or wooden spoon to break the potatoes up once in the soup, leaving them chunky. Add 1 1/2 C grated cheese, salt and pepper, and stir until the cheese is melted. Remove the pan from the heat stir in 3/4 C sour cream, 1/4 C green onions (or chives), and half of the bacon. You don't want to have the pan on the heat when you add the sour cream, it will easily curdle. Taste and add more salt and pepper, if needed. Ladle into bowls and top with remaining cheese, sour cream, onions and bacon.
The soup thickens up a lot. I actually added more chicken broth to make mine to the consistency that I wanted. I also found that the soup was really rich and didn't really need the garnishes, although they are pretty and fun.

Crockpot Shredded BBQ Chicken

Today I tried a new recipe. I found it on a food blog that I look at every now and then called My Kitchen Cafe. I will be completely honest I am usually very hesitant of crockpot meals, mine always turn out dry no matter how careful I am, but today I thought that I would give it a shot. The blog that I got this recipe from suggested that you serve this on rice or noodles. I served it with rice, but I think that next time I would serve it on a baked potato with some sour cream, or even just on the side of some yummy mashed potatoes. I am not a huge rice or pasta fan, I prefer my potato! You could even serve it on a roll and have a yummy shredded BBQ chicken sandwich. The only thing to be careful with is the sauce that you make stays thin and could make the sandwich a little soggy. There really are lots of possibilities, now on with the good stuff!!

Crockpot BBQ Chicken

4-6 Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 TBSP olive oil (any oil will work, butter too)
1/4 C ketchup
1/2 C apple cider vinegar
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 onion diced (use how ever much you would like, I used about 1/4 of one and it was plenty)
1 TBSP soy sauce
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1 C beef broth

In a large skillet heat oil, season chicken with salt and pepper and cook 1-2 minutes on each side, until nicely brown. Put chicken in crockpot. In medium size bowl mix remaining ingredients whisking well. Pour over chicken. Cook in crockpot on low for 6 hours. Shred and Enjoy!!