Broccoli Cheese Soup

Broccoli cheese soup is one of my favorite soups. It was the soup that made me appreciate broccoli as a vegetable. I'm trying to find the perfect combination of veggies, cheeses, and flavors. This is a pretty good pit stop on that journey.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

What You'll Need: 

5 tbsp butter
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/3 cup all purpose flour
2 cups vegetable broth
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp spicy brown mustard
2 1/2 cups milk
3/4 cup half and half
3 1/2 fresh chopped broccoli pieces
2 carrots, grated
2 cups freshly grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

How to Make It: 

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and thyme and cook for another two minutes. Add the flour to the mixture and cook for one minute, stirring constantly to prevent it from burning. Slowly pour in the vegetable broth, milk, and half and half. Add the Worcestershire sauce, mustard, nutmeg and bay leaves and cook, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes or until hot and bubbly. Remove the bay leaves from the pan and add in the broccoli and carrots. Cook another 6-8 minutes or until the veggies are cooked and a bit soft. Remove the soup from the heat and add in the cheeses and salt and pepper to taste (you're probably going to want to be generous with both of them.) Cover to keep warm until ready to serve.

Spicy Chicken Dip

I tried this stuff at a baby shower a few weeks ago, and I'm kind of obsessed with it. I got the recipe, tweaked it ever so slightly, and made some a few days ago. We have actually been eating it for meals, as kind of deconstructed nachos. Brandon was skeptical at first, but when he smelled it cooking he insisted on trying some...and then his face broke into a big grin!

Spicy Chicken Dip

What You'll Need: 

2 large cans (12.5 oz each) cooked, chopped chicken (or 3-4 cups leftover cooked, chopped chicken)

Scant 1/2 cup hot sauce

1 cup ranch dressing

2 8 oz pkgs cream cheese, softened

2 cups shredded cheddar, divided

1 tsp onion powder

Tortilla chips and veggies for serving

How to Make It: 

Drain the chicken and place it, along with the hot sauce, in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring to combine it well. When the chicken is hot, add the cream cheese and ranch dressing. Continue stirring and mashing the mixture until the cream cheese is melted, the chicken is shredded, and everything is fully mixed together. Add the onion powder and half the shredded cheese, and stir until the cheese is melted. At this point you can either add the rest of the cheese and transfer the dip to a serving bowl, or move it to a small slow cooker and turn it on the "keep warm" setting. This stuff is not remotely healthy, but it is amazingly delicious, and I'm really sad that we finished off the rest of our leftovers for lunch today.

Slow Cooker Barbecue Chicken

Six ingredients. Super fast. So yummy. That's all you need to know.

Slow Cooker Barbecue Chicken

What You'll Need: 

Three boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 18 oz bottle honey barbecue sauce

1/2 cup Italian salad dressing

1/3 cup brown sugar

3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp garlic powder

How to Make It: 

Place the chicken in a large slow cooker. In a bowl, whisk together all the remaining ingredients. Pour the sauce over the chicken, cover, and cook on low for 6 hours. Before serving, shred the chicken with a fork and stir to combine it well with the sauce. Boom. That's it. This recipe would double or triple very easily- and it's so good! 

Crock Pot Chocolate Pudding Cake

Sometimes I feel like I really need something sweet, but there aren't enough ingredients in my house to make anything really special. If you feel the urge to scarf down some warm, chocolate-y goodness, but don't have a lot of ingredients on hand, this is the dessert for you.

Crock Pot Chocolate Pudding Cake

What You'll Need: 

6 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup self-rising flour
1 3/4 cup sugar, divided
1/4 cup plus 1 1/2 tbsp cocoa, divided
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups very hot water

How to Make It: 

Pour the melted butter into a slow-cooker.  In a bowl, combine the flour, 3/4 cup sugar, and the 1 1/2 tbsp cocoa. Stir in the milk and vanilla until everything is well combined. Pour the batter into the slow-cooker, on top of the butter. In another small bowl, stir together the remaining sugar and cocoa. Sprinkle this mixture over the batter. Pour the hot water over everything in the slow-cooker- don't stir it! Cover the slow-cooker and let the cake "bake" on High for 2 hours. This would be really good with ice cream or whipped cream!

Chicken and White Bean Soup

This was originally supposed to be some sort of chili. But then I lost the recipe, and then forgot my grocery list, and ended up winging it anyway. I think it turned out pretty fantastic. Normally I am not a big soup-eater, but I'm looking forward to having leftovers for lunch today! The great thing about this is that you can easily adapt it for a slow cooker, or swap the chicken and broth for seitan and vegetable stock and make it vegetarian!

Chicken and White Bean Soup

What You'll Need: 

2-3 cups chopped, cooked chicken (I had a rotisserie chicken, so I just used that)

4 cups chicken broth

4 cans white beans, drained

3 tbsp dried chopped onions

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp garlic powder 

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, or more if you like it 

1 cup sour cream or heavy cream

2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese

How to Make It: 

In a large pot, combine the chicken, broth, beans, and all the spices. Stir, cover, and heat on medium-low for about 30 minutes, or until hot. When soup is heated, scoop the sour cream into a bowl and slowly add about two cups of hot soup, stirring to combine. Then add this mixture, and the cheese, back into the soup pot, and stir well. If you add the sour cream directly to the pot of soup on the stove, it's going to be overwhelmed by the heat and won't blend in well. Stir everything to combine it thoroughly, cover, and simmer until it's all heated through and you're ready to eat! Serves 6-8.

There really isn't a great way to make white beans look pretty. Sorry. But they're so good! 

Review: The Dollop Book of Frosting

It's past time for my next book review!

The Dollop Book of Frosting: Sweet and Savory Icings, Spreads, Meringues, and Ganaches for Dessert and Beyond
by Heather "Cupcakes" Saffer

Four stars

OK, to start with, I'm going to automatically like anyone whose nickname is "Cupcakes." They are my favorite food, no exaggeration. I'm not a big fan of cake, but I never met a cupcake I didn't like. The author of this incredibly creative book was the winner of Food Network's Cupcake Wars, which I did not watch because I don't have cable. Sorry!

I ordered this book from my local library based on the title alone. Everyone knows that the best part of any cupcake (or cake) is the frosting- everyone except my best friend (I eat the frosting, she eats the cake! It's a match made in heaven.) I was pretty excited to see that the library had purchased a book filled solely (I thought) with frosting recipes. You may think that such a book wouldn't have much to offer, but I knew better! And I definitely wasn't disappointed by this book.

The Dollop Book of Frosting offers much more than everyday, run-of-the-mill frosting recipes. We start with basics like chocolate, vanilla, and peanut butter (everyone should be able to make basic frosting- it's so simple and tastes much better than the stuff from the can!) and progress to more inventive dessert toppers, like s'mores, margarita, and "coffee toffee ganache." As if that wasn't enough, Saffer also presents us with savory options- Brie frosting! Tahini currant frosting! Cashew sriracha frosting! Even better, each frosting recipe is paired with a "receptacle" recipe, for lack of a better word. These aren't limited to cupcakes, though. We get waffles, pancakes, crackers, cookies, wafers, trifles, sundaes...the list goes on and on. Yet despite the insanely wide array of combinations and flavors, the book never feels overwhelming or over-complicated. It's actually rather small: a bit shorter than your average kitchen tome, and just over 150 pages. I also appreciate the fact that the recipes are short. Very few take up more than a single page! Top that all off with gorgeous, vibrantly colored photography- the frosting on the cake.

I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone who likes to bake and wants to add some new recipes to their repertoire. I personally think it's very handy to keep recipes for different toppings- if you've got a base that you love, it can be fun to change it up with something new! I'm so glad I read this book, and will be looking into purchasing it.

To learn more or to purchase this book, click here.

Simple Parmesan Mushrooms

I often say mushrooms are my favorite vegetable, even though they are actually a fungus. No one is going to like you if you go around talking about your favorite fungus. Mushrooms are amazing, though, and we need to eat more of them. At least four times a week, I say. This is a super simple and very satisfying side dish to throw together when you don't have a lot of time or energy.

Simple Parmesan Mushrooms

What You'll Need:

2 small packages sliced mushrooms (about 1.5 lbs)
Olive oil, for drizzling
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 cup grated or shaved Parmesan (or more- I won't judge)
Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper

How to Make It: 

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Lightly oil a rimmed baking sheet, or spray it with nonstick spray. Rinse the mushrooms and pat them dry with paper towels, then transfer them to the baking sheet. Drizzle with a generous glug of olive oil (about 3-4 tbsp), and sprinkle with the garlic, thyme, Parmesan, salt and pepper. Toss the mushrooms to coat and combine. Bake them for about 12-15 minutes, until tender. Serve them immediately.