Showing all posts in January 2018

In Sauces

Tinkered Tomato Sauce

Author KatePosted on
Tinkered Tomato Sauce

Remember how I didn’t blog very much last fall? That’s because I was living it up in Italy! Bobby and I went for two weeks to see Venice and Rome (and Belgium at the beginning of the trip, but that doesn’t really fit the theme). Venice is the most magnificent place I’ve ever been in my whole life, and I miss it constantly. I ate pizza for lunch and pasta for dinner nearly every day, and I have zero regrets. Here’s a quick peek at our trip…is it time for me to go back yet?

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Upon returning home, I was obsessed with getting my mom’s recipe for tomato sauce. She’s been working on it for years, and I don’t think I had a proper appreciation for good tomato sauce until I went on this trip. My mom’s sauce is aptly named Tinkered Tomato Sauce, since she experimented with it for so long before getting it just right. It has that bright tomato flavor, deep warm garlic base, and bold spices that are sautéed in olive oil at the beginning of the cooking process to help them become as rich and aromatic as possible. This sauce is good on homemade pizza or as a pasta topping, and it’ll make you want to never buy a jar of sauce off the shelf again. It’s easy to make, too – and you can make an enormous batch and freeze some until you need more.

The holidays and the fall wedding season took over my life when we got back from our trip, so try not to hold it against me that it’s taken me this long to share! Of course, once you taste it, you probably will hold it against me, since it’s that wonderful, but I hope we can get past that. Now go make some and pretend you’re in a gondola, drifting down a canal in Venice as someone feeds you pizza and the gondolier sings…instead of talking on his cell phone like he did for us.

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Tinkered Tomato Sauce

Servings 3 cups, before straining

Ingredients

  • 3 Tbsps extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 1 Tbsp garlic, minced or pressed
  • 2 tsps dried leaf oregano
  • 1 tsp dried leaf basil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp crushed dried red pepper flakes
  • 1/2 tsp dried leaf marjoram
  • 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
  • 1/4 tsp dried leaf thyme
  • 1/4 tsp dried ground sage
  • 28 oz can plain crushed tomatoes
  • dash of fresh ground black pepper
  • 1/4 cup tomato paste
  • 1 Tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1 Tbsp parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Saute the onion in the olive oil until soft. While it is cooking, crush all the herbs and spices {except the red pepper) with mortar and pestle, and immediately add to the onion (at least 5 mins cooking time for the herbs etc). Stir in the garlic and crushed red pepper and saute for 1 minute longer.

    Stir in the remaining ingredients, simmer over low heat for 30 – 45 minutes. Taste and adjust  - add more salt if desired.

    Can be put through the blender and strained for a smoother sauce (which allows use of chopped instead of crushed tomatoes and a rougher chop of the onion and garlic); it will be quite thin after straining.  

 

 





In Soups, Starters

Lighter Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Author KatePosted on 1 Comment
Lighter Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Happy 2018! I’m so excited to be back at creating content after a very busy holiday season! This recipe is inspired by everyone’s favorite New Year’s Resolution to hate: to start eating better. While I’ve given up on dieting as a concept – I’ve discovered that it makes me profoundly miserable – everyone likes to eat healthier if it’s delicious and painless. This soup is perfect to help you start 2018 off with your resolutions going strong.

Adapted from a recipe in the Washington Post, originally by Ellie Krieger, it’s the lightest broccoli cheddar soup you could make, with all of the flavor and richness of a soup that’s usually heavy on cream and cheese. Cannellini beans are the star of this show, blending together perfectly to substitute for a lot of that heavy cream. I’d never even eaten a cannellini bean before experimenting with this recipe, so I can attest, with no long-harbored love of them, that they really don’t alter the flavor of the soup at all – just the texture and creaminess. Shelled chickpeas work just as well in this recipe, so you could use those instead. My changes to the original recipe are mostly changes to the seasonings. With so much of the fat removed from this recipe, it felt like it needed a good flavor boost, and I’m very happy with how it turned out.

I’ll admit that when I make this soup, I think to myself that it’s so healthy, it won’t matter if I top it with a little extra (read: way too much) cheddar cheese. Cheddar is in the name, after all. Every year, my brother makes a New Year’s resolution to eat a Five Guys burger at least once a month for the whole year, and I’ve found that really inspiring. Imagine making a resolution that you know for sure that you’ll be able to keep – and thoroughly enjoy! So, I’m resolving to have extra cheese on my food whenever I feel I should. I’ll let you know how it goes. My other resolution is to save money, so my husband and I can buy our first house this year, so this recipe is about to become even more of a staple in our home. It’s the least expensive way to make broccoli cheddar soup – especially if you make your own chicken stock, as I do. I guess you could call this double-whammy broccoli cheddar soup, since it’s easy on the wallet and the scale. Are you sold yet? I’m adding more broccoli to my grocery list as I type this.

You can play around with the amount of milk and cheese you add, depending on just how calorie conscious you want to be with it – you already know what I suggest doing. You can also blend it until it’s completely smooth, or opt to leave chunks of broccoli, if you’re into that. Either way it’s a perfect starter or lunch, especially served with some kind of cheesy roll or toasty garlic bread.

I’m well aware that my cheese obsession is out of hand. Don’t send help.

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Lighter Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Adapted from Broccoli Cheddar Soup, by Ellie Krieger, as printed in the Washington Post.

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 55 minutes
Servings 4

Ingredients

  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 2 Tbsp butter
  • 4 1/2 cups chicken broth
  • 1 large head of broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces about 6 cups
  • 1 14.5oz can cannelini beans or chick peas
  • 1 tsp powdered mustard
  • 2 1/2 tsps salt
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp onion powder
  • 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1/8 tsp ground thyme
  • 1/8 tsp ground sage
  • 3/4 cup 1% milk
  • 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, plus more for garnishes

Instructions

  1. Add onion and butter to a large pot and cook over medium heat until onions soften and start to brown.

    2. Add the chicken broth, broccoli and beans. Turn heat up to high and allow the soup to come to a boil. Stir in all seasonings. Reduce heat, cover, and allow to simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

    3. Let the soup cool slightly, and then blend until smooth (I used my NutriBullet, as always) and return to the pot. Stir in the milk and cheese until well combined. Serve immediately and garnish with extra cheese on top.