Tomato-Basil Parmesan Soup - Review

This soup was AMAZINGLY good. And vegetarian. Mwa ha ha. I realized that as my husband was asking what was in it - hoping it had some kind of meat in it. When I told him what was in it he said, "So, it's basically like a drink?" I told him to sit down and eat his dinner. And he loved it. And then sneakily fixed himself an egg roll afterward. And a peanut butter sandwich. We're working on the vegetarian night here still, apparently. :)

from 365daysofcrockpot.com

This was not too bad to make, except at the end it calls for making a roux. That is basically mixing a fat with flour to make something to thicken your dish up. For this recipe, you melt 1/2 cup butter, then pour in 1/2 cup flour, and whisk for 5-7 minutes. When you are done, you have an unimpressive runny mixture. Ta da! BUT, when you add in the hot soup, crazy things happen. I have actually never seen something react that quickly, so be prepared. When you dump in the first cup of soup, it will IMMEDIATELY thicken up. It's crazy. Get that all stirred together, then add the other three cups at once, and stir. It will amazingly enough still be thick. Then you dump that all back into the crock pot and stir, then add the remaining ingredients. Not too hard.

This soup smelled SO good when it was cooking, and it had a really good flavor. My kids were a little "eh" about it - the 7-year old ate a serving of it and was done. The 4-year old decided that it looked unappetizing and he didn't want to eat it. We have a family rule (that we learned from a much wiser family) that you have to eat as many bites of a dinner as you are old, so he had to eat four bites of it. He actually liked it, but it was admitting defeat at that point, and he wasn't quite willing to do that.

I would probably eat this daily if it was an option. I almost had some after breakfast today. And I don't typically eat "dinner-y" things early in the day. I thought it was THAT good.

Family Rating: ***1/2
My Rating: *****
Cost: $ (all veggies!)
Difficulty: Moderate - due to the veggie chopping and the roux making. Not quite "dump it all in the crockpot and forget about it", but it wasn't too bad to make either.

BEST Bakers - Really. Truly.

You can use this as a side. As a main dish. Be vegetarian. Be meatatarian. Whatever. It is the beloved BAKER.

from whatscookingamerica.net

My 4-year old; however, will not eat potatoes. We have the best potato soup recipe ever, and he will not eat potatoes. He won't eat the potatoes in stew. BUT, he will eat these bakers. Because they are awesome. Skin and all.

We found these because my husband and I were having a debate as to whether you can cook the potatoes straight in the oven without wrapping them in foil, or if they needed to be foil-wrapped in the oven. We were out of foil. Thankfully I lost that debate by finding the recipe linked above.

The process takes a little more work than normal bakers, but not too bad. You scrub and poke the potatoes as usual, BUT instead of just leaving it at that and baking them, you rub them in oil and put coarse salt on them. It does not take much oil - just enough for the salt to stick - and I usually will flake a bunch of the salt off of the skin after baking. The salt and oil make all of the difference in the world. The skin becomes a part of the flavor of the meal instead of something you just discard, or feel guilty for discarding because it is supposed to be so vitamin-packed.

Here is what my oven prep looks like for this:

The potatoes will go on the top rack, but your potatoes are also covered in flaky salt and oil, which will make a mess in your oven. So, before I put my potatoes in I will take a cookie sheet, line it with foil (keeps you from having to clean up the cookie sheet - just throw away the foil when you are all done) and put it on the lower rack. Done. Then you can have easy clean up for your tasty bakers.

Of course, my kids kept telling me that I needed to take a picture of their bakers once they were loaded and ready to be eaten - and I didn't do it. But the bakers were all eaten and enjoyed. We like to put ham, chili (homemade - that's for another post), broccoli, cheese & other veggies.

Family Rating: *****
My Rating: *****
Cost: $ (Potatoes are CHEAP!)
Difficulty: Easy. Clean, Poke, Dip, Roll & Bake.

Ratatouille - Review

My oldest son had a great idea a couple of weeks ago - to EAT Ratatouille while we watched Pixar's "Ratatouille". So, I found a recipe and decided to try it out this weekend.

from allrecipes.com

That was amazingly delicious. Like, surprisingly delicious. We had never eaten eggplant before (tofu and eggplant BOTH for the first time in the same week?!), and I was a little nervous about that. The eggplant gets chopped up and you basically cook it in olive oil and garlic until it softens up. Then you put the eggplant in the bottom of a baking dish, and start layering more veggies on top. After each layer, you sprinkle grated parmesan and salt (I used kosher salt). Then you bake it. The concept isn't hard, but it is a lot of slicing. And the result was SOO good.

 First layer - eggplant, then sprinkled with parmesan and kosher salt

Finished product.


















My husband had given strange looks about eating a veggie casserole for dinner (which is what it basically is), but he was happily surprised at the result. Our consensus was that it was fantastic, but you probably want to use it as a side dish. We also learned that my oldest son may be allergic to eggplant because as he was happily scarfing it down, he stopped and said that his throat was feeling strange. Eggplant and sesame seeds. Interesting potential allergies.

I had also (of course) forgotten to chop onion and put an onion layer on it, so I sauteed some onions in a bit of vegetable oil on the stove just as the Ratatouille was finishing up in the oven. The onions, to me, were one of the key flavor ingredients so I'm glad that I did that.

Family Rating: **** (my 4-year old actually gave it a thumbs up too)
My Rating: ****
Cost: $ (depending on your price of vegetables)
Difficulty: Medium. Lots of slicing. Plan on it taking longer than the 15 minutes to prepare that it lists in the recipe to prepare the dish.

Tofu Stir Fry - Review

One of my good friends passed along some vegetarian recipes that her family loves, and one of them was for a Tofu Stir Fry. I have never in my life felt inclined to try tofu, but since we have been starting this vegetarian thing I have felt strangely liberated to try new and strange things. Like compressed bean curd (which is what tofu is). I bought the tofu last week from Sprouts (only $.99 - crazy!) and it sat in our fridge, with my husband giving me funny looks and asking what "that" was for. I told him we were going to have tofu stir fry. Bless his good-natured heart, he just nodded and said, "Okay" and went about his business. Good husband. :)

This was all that was left when we were done. For days, the kids begged for tofu. I'm telling you - this is a good recipe.

I modified the recipe that my friend gave me because I realized that a lot of the fresh veggies that needed to be chopped up were ones that I typically buy frozen at the store (sugar snap pea stir fry veggies), so I just opted to toss a bag of frozen veggies in, added some extra frozen broccoli, and called the veggies good.

It wasn't too hard to throw together - especially after I "lazy-ified" it. The only trick was with the tofu. It isn't hard to do, you just have to plan to give yourself some extra time (30 minutes) to press out the liquid in the tofu.

As a side note, awesomely enough, there are some packages of tofu with Po in it from Kung Fu Panda. Po eats tofu kids. Just sayin'. And, yes, the "Dragon Warrior" eating tofu was definitely part of my sales pitch to the kids. And it worked really well.

Back to the tofu: Take the tofu out of the packaging and cut it in half. You only need half of a block of tofu. Cut it into pieces to fry up (I tried to imagine what cut up chicken would look like and tried to cut accordingly), BUT before you chuck it in the pan, you have to actually press some of the storage liquid (water? soy liquid?) out of it. My friend said to put it inbetween layers of cookie sheets and paper towels (cookie sheet, paper towels, tofu, paper towels, cookie sheets) and then put heavy stuff on top of the pile to help press the liquid out. I was in the middle of using one of my cookie sheets, so I just made a cutting board, paper towel and tofu sandwich, the same order. I used two layers of very absorbant paper towels on each side, and they were SOAKED by the time it had been pressed for about 30 minutes (the minimum recommended time).

Other than the tofu pressing (which is NOT hard), everything is pretty much just chucking stuff in and smelling all of the good smells.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
- 1 bag frozen stir fry veggies
- 3 T. peanut oil
- 1/2 pkg. extra firm tofu
- 2 cloves garlic (or, if you are like me, use 1 tsp. of refrigerated pre-minced garlic)
- 1-2 T. sugar
- 2-3 T. soy sauce

Directions
- Heat the peanut oil in a pan
- Add the garlic and let cook for 10-15 seconds
- Toss in your veggies and tofu (I forgot to put the tofu in until later. Still turned out great)
- Add the sugar (I used 5 tsp. and it was perfect for us)
- Add the soy sauce
- Cook until everything is nicely browned

That is IT. It is really easy with the frozen veggies. My husband commented that it is the best-flavored stir fry that has come out of this house (and we have tried to tweak our flavors on our own stir fry - I would have to agree with him). My boys wanted to eat dinner with chopsticks (no problem!) and commented over and over again about how much they loved the tofu, and actually asked for seconds of the tofu. Weird. And awesome. The texture of the tofu was still softer than meat (Maybe because I didn't have enough layers of paper towels to press out the fluid? Maybe because it is bean curd?), but it still browns to look just like cooked meat. It is strangely cool. And I love that I don't need to be paranoid about making sure it is cooked as thoroughly as chicken and wondering if I'm giving my family food poisoning by not cooking things well enough. Go vegetarian! This is definitely one to repeat.

Family Rating: ****
My Rating: *****
Cost: $ (under $5 with the tofu and frozen veggies - would probably be more if you cut up fresh veggies)
Difficulty: Easy. The only thing is remembering to allow time to get the tofu ready.

Easy Baked Manicotti - Review

This recipe from Kraft foods is so delicious. And easy. And delicious. And vegetarian too. :)

from kraftfoods.com

All of my kids will eat it (even the picky little one), and it's kind of fun to fill up the ziploc bag with the filling, snip the corner, and fill the cooked manicotti shells. I fill one side as far as I can, then flip it over and fill the rest of it in from the other side. This was my first exposure that I can remember to ricotta cheese, and I love it. It has such a good texture and gives it a good flavor without feeling too "dairy". I also will line the bottom of my baking dish with tin foil to make for easy cleanup afterward.

Family Rating: *****
My Rating: *****
Cost: $$ (due to the cheeses - probably around $7)
Difficulty: Easy. Multiple steps, but they are not time-sensitive, and there is no chopping involved.

Hearty Vegetable Quinoa Chili - Review

Again, on the quest for good vegetarian meals, I found this recipe on Picky Palate. It looks nothing like it tastes, and that is a good thing. At least for my family. It looks like a vegetable soup, but it really has a taco/chili taste and smell to it, courtesy of the cumin and chili powder. Chili is a good word for it. I kept calling it a "stew", and then was wondering why it smelled like southwestern fare. BECAUSE IT IS A CHILI, KAT!

from pickypalate.com

Quinoa is a little tricky to find. It is a South American member of the grass family (thank you, Wikipedia), and each grain kind of looks like one of those beanbag chair pellets, but with a little more hint of brown. I found it at our local Sprouts. I have also heard they sell packages at Costco, but we don't have one here in good ol' West Texas, so I couldn't tell you for sure. If you check your local "whole foods" store, they should have it. That's where I go to find things that I think only strange, healthy people would eat. Generally, I can find them there. Also, I think you could substitute rice and still have a good flavor. By the way, when you cook Quinoa, it almost looks like it sprouts. Don't be alarmed - I think that's normal. It's a little different, but apparently Quinoa is full of protein, calcium and other good stuff.

We actually had one of my son's friends from school over while I was making it, and more than once he said, "That smells great! What is it?"

One trick. I didn't cook the Quinoa separately. I am lazy. I threw it straight into the pot when the "cooked" Quinoa was supposed to go in. I had read one reviewer who said they did this, and I decided it was a good idea. Especially given all of the chopping required.

I will have to admit that I was a VERY happy person cutting up all of the veggies. They filled up a decent-sized glass cooking bowl. I typically don't like cutting up veggies, but for some reason these were actually enjoyable to do. Lots of pretty colors. And I was happy because I had bought a bunch of veggies a couple of weeks previously and forgotten about them, and I had wondered how in the world I could use them all up quickly. Problem solved.

I was a little nervous about how it would be received by the kids because it has SQUASH (7-year old is not a fan) and TOMATOES (4-year old is not a fan), but all THREE of my children ate it happily. Ha HA! I think it is because it smells so deceptively good. You just want to eat it. Even with little strange sprout-y quinoa floating in it.

Family Rating: ***** (YES! My picky almost 2-year old ATE IT!)
My Rating: *****
Cost: $$ (probably nearer to $5 than to $10 - just depends if you can get your quinoa and veggies on a deal)
Difficulty: Moderate, due to the veggie chopping. No tricky techniques.

Lentil Tacos - Review

I was looking for a vegetarian meal and asking for some good recipes, and a friend passed this one along and said that she was a vegetarian for 10 years, and she liked it. So we tried it.

from allrecipes.com

These were shockingly good. Shockingly because they are LENTIL TACOS. From lentils. It is the first lentil-y thing I have tried that I have not felt like I was eating, well....lentils. If you have never met a lentil before and are wondering where you can find them, they are with the bags of dry beans. If you don't know where those are, at least in my store they are by the rice. If they are not by the rice, just ask someone where to find the dry beans. Lentils will be lurking there. They almost look like small pebbles, and are about the same color. And firmness until you cook them. Don't let that keep you from going out on a limb here.

It had a perfect texture for this type of meal and the flavor was perfect. They were a little spicier than our typical tacos, which is not a bad thing, but are way healthier, more cost efficient, and could be made with items stored if needed. I will be making my tacos this way from now on. We also ate ours in wheat tortillas (that seemed to be the consensus from the reviews) and they were perfect. And it didn't gross me out to eat the leftovers like leftover meat meals typically do - no meat! Ha!

Family Rating: ***
My Rating: *****
Cost: $
Difficulty: Easy

Coconut-Curry Lentil Stew served over Quinoa - Review

This year I have decided to branch out our family's palate. Each week we are eating at least one vegetarian meal. The first couple of vegetarian weeks were great, but this week was not so great. Good way to start the new year.... :(

I was searching through allrecipes.com to find some vegetarian ideas, and came up with Coconut-Curry Lentil Stew served over Quinoa. The picture didn't look too exciting, but it was fairly highly reviewed and highly rated, so I thought we would give it a go.

Not so good. But I will blame myself for that one. Possibly.

Before I make anything that I find on allrecipes.com, I read the reviews. Half of them will give a recipe four or five stars, and then will say something like, "This recipe was FANTASTIC! I only cut the salt by half, added a cup more of chicken broth, added a bay leaf and threw in a handful of barley. SO good. Highly recommend." Yeah. So, I tend to read the reviews to find common themes among the reviewers, and then adapt the recipe according to the majority vote. This has proven to be a great way to approach the recipes there. So I read the reviews to this recipe and saw that, well, they all said basically, "Make the recipe as written. Only I didn't add coconut powder because I didn't have it." And half of them said, "And I added an extra can of coconut milk."

I followed the recipe except for two things: 1) didn't add coconut powder (neither does anyone else, apparently), and 2) I used brown lentils instead of red lentils.

Point of knowledge here: Brown lentils are the ones that you typically find bagged at the store. Think of the most drab color you can imagine, and you have brown lentils. Red lentils are more of a salmon color, and are a bit harder to find at stores. BUT, it turns out that they cook faster. Would have been good to know before I started this. :)

I got to the point in the recipe where the lentils were supposed to be done in about 15 mins. Brown lentils didn't soften up as quickly, and here is where a few reviewers added an extra can of coconut milk. I was feeling cheap and decided not to add the extra can, but added some water. This may have been the part that could have saved the recipe, but who knows.

I finished making the quinoa and the lentil stew, and served it to my family. My 7-year old, bless his heart, ate all of his portion - he doesn't like to make people feel bad. The rest of my family, including my husband who will eat almost anything, ate a few bites and then decided they couldn't finish it. I had to have my husband throw it all down the sink. It was WAY too spicy, and not nearly enough flavor to justify all of the spiciness. Even my husband, who dumps tabasco on everything, said it was too spicy. I get that curry is a different breed of spice, but when you add 3T. of curry powder and 2T. coriander, you are going to have a VEEERY spicy dish.

I have a chicken curry recipe that was given to me by a friend that I like a lot more, and it is much easier. I'll have to post that one sometime.

Family Rating: * (because of the child that finished it)
My Rating: * (because I am not sure if adding extra coconut milk would have helped or not. Otherwise it would be 0 stars because nobody ate it.)
Expense: $$ (probably closer to the $10 end - possibly more - depending on what you have on hand. Quinoa runs about $3.25/lb. where I found it, and the spices all add up too)