Carrot Soup with Roasted Peppers

When I got home today, I found my husband in a foul disposition, for good reason.  To begin my story:  This past week, Alaskan Salmon was on sale, $4.99/lb whole fish.  Amazing deal right? So I bought a fish, weighing in at over 5 pounds.  It was frozen when I purchased it, because they ran out of the thawed fish so quickly.  So it has been thawing in my fridge since Saturday, well over four days.  Well, my fish leaked, fish juice all over my beautiful veggies in the drawer (luckily, they were all in bags, but still.  Precautions must be taken).  So now I need to cook them.  I had over three pounds of baby carrots, almost a full bunch of celery, four bell peppers and my wonderfully large Costco bag of peeled garlic.  What is a girl to do?  Since I had the most carrots, I thought a soup would be good.  So, as we speak, I'm cooking up a wonderful batch of roasted pepper and carrot soup.  Doesn't that sound good?

Roasted peppers out of the oven

To roast the red peppers, you need to halve them and take out the seeds.  Take a baking sheet and line it with foil (I only do this so that I don't have to clean it up after). Spray it with some cooking oil (I used canola) and place them cut side down on the foil.  Your oven should be heated to 450,  cook them for approximately 30 minutes, turning them halfway through, until they start to char on the skin.  When you bring them out, allow them to sweat by covering them for about 10 minutes.  This makes the skin easier to take off, you can peel the skin either by hand or with a paring knife.  Once you have done that, dice them and set them aside.

Peeled roasted peppers

What you will need: 

1 medium onion, chopped

10 (or less) cloves, peeled and diced garlic

3-5 lbs Carrots (baby or regular), chopped

1/2 bunch celery, chopped

4 bell peppers, halved and seeds cleaned out

6 1/4 cup water

1 teaspoon (or two cubes) vegetable bouillon

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 bay leaves

1 Tablespoon minced ginger

While your peppers are cooking, you can begin the soup.  I chopped up all of my carrots, celery and the garlic.  I love garlic, so by all means, feel free to use less.  I took an onion and chopped that up too.  

• Heat up about two teaspoons of oil in a tall pot.  I used olive oil but you can use butter or canola, which ever you have on hand.  Place the onions and garlic in the pot after it has heated and simmer until they start to brown a little.  
• Add your carrots then celery and about two teaspoons of kosher salt.  Stir around for a few minutes, the moisture will have left the pan, so add a little water into the pan, about 1/4 cup so that you don't burn your veggies.  Simmer for about  5-10 minutes.  
• Add about 4 cups of water to the pot.  I also took a heaping teaspoon of vegetable bouillon and added it to two cups of hot water to liquify, add to the pot.  
• Throw in about two teaspoons of kosher salt, ground black pepper, minced ginger, and the bay leaves.
• Simmer on medium low for approximately 1.5-2 hours or until the carrots are tender enough to smash with a fork
• When your peppers are done, add them to the pot to, to mix and mingle with the soup

The soup is thick, so if you want it thinner, add some more water or broth to thin it out.  Once the carrots are tender enough, remove the soup from heat and blend it in a blender or food processor.  Serve hot or chilled with a dollop of sour cream.  You could even sprinkle some croutons on top or serve with some warm crusty bread.  It's so good! 

Fat Free Veggie / Cracker dip

My family loves veggie dips, but we do not want to incorporate all of the extra fat and oils that can be included in store bought dips.  For this reason, it forced me to come up with a really good base dip for veggies and crackers.  Once you make the base, you can add anything else you want to customize this and make it your own.

The base:
1 package Fat Free cream cheese
1 small tub (16 oz) of Fat Free sour cream (Nonfat Greek Yogurt works too)
1/4 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp dill
3 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

Mix it all together.  I use my Kitchen Aid with the paddle attachment.  This makes it nice and creamy.

Here's a short side note story.  I recently purchased one of those huge bags of peeled garlic from Costco, but I never seem to use it all before it goes bad.  Well, I found a site that tells me how to pickle my garlic cloves in the fridge and I did this weeks ago.  The point of my rambling, is that I used some of this pickled garlic and the vinegar with it and made a FANTASTIC garlic dip.

On to the extras.  As I stated above, you can add most anything to the dip and make it your own.
In my pictured dip:
4 cloves pickled garlic (plus 2 Tbsp of the vinegar)
1/4 tsp dried Thyme
1/8 tsp ground Sage
1/8 tsp ground Ginger
1 tsp chopped dried red onion
1/2 tsp chopped chives
1/2 tsp chopped parsley


If you want to make this more like a dressing for salads, you can thin it out with milk to the consistency you desire. I've also been known to add shredded carrots and cucumbers to the mix if it's meant more as a spread for crackers or sandwiches.

If you are interested in other preserving methods for garlic, here is the site I found.  The refrigerated garlic is at the bottom of the site: Preserving Garlic

Braided Apple Pastry

I gained inspiration for this off of a Better Homes and Garden recipe I found years ago.

I made it last night for my family, and it turned out so good!  To start, I'm not very good at keeping track of my measurements  while in the process of making my "goodies".  So, the measurements can be (and should be) adjusted to your liking.

Warm the oven to 325 degrees
1 Sheet puff pastry, thawed
1 Medum apple chopped, I used Pink Lady
1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
2 tsp Flour
Dash of Ground Ginger
Dash of Nutmeg
2 packets of Truvia (or approximately 2-3 tsp of sweetener of your choice)

Mix the apple and spices with 1 tsp flour and the Truvia in a bowl.  Set aside.
On a lightly floured surface, roll the puff pastry out to the thickness of your liking.
On the longest sides of the pastry, make slices towards the center of the pastry (almost like you are cutting hash marks into it), while leaving the center of the pastry intact.
Place your filling into the center of the pastry.
Fold over the ends, to seal in the filling.
Take the strips of pastry and crisscross them over each other, creating the "braid" look.  Once you get to the other end, pinch the last two strips to the end to seal.
Lightly grease a cookie sheet and place the pastry onto the cookie sheet and place in the oven.  It should take approximately 20-30 minutes to cook all the way through.  Remove from the oven and serve!

You could always serve it with some whip cream or ice cream too.  This reminds me of the apple pie from McDonalds only "super-sized" and so much better.

Picked, primed and ready...

It's been one of those weeks for me, by the end of Monday, it felt like it was the longest week of my life!  I kid you not, come Tuesday, I felt defeated and thought that someone should be picking out my plot and start prepping it for me.  Then Wednesday rolls around and I woke up thinking it was Thursday.  When I realized my mistake, I was so upset.  Still hopeful that I could catch up but alas, I was wrong again.  Today was no different, if not a bit worse then the rest of the week.  Tomorrow is the blessed Friday, and I'm still hopeful that it will be better, we'll see.  I did have one shining moment today, when I realized that this coming month I will only have to work 1.5 days the first week.  It made my day really, I got so excited when I realized this beautiful thought.  It helped the remainder of my day.

It's difficult to grasp the thought, that you work to enjoy your weekends but your weekends aren't long enough to enjoy and recoup.  I don't understand why things have to be so... what's the word.. tiring and complicated.  Simplicity is good, needed really.  Our society as a whole feels the need to overwork, over-stress, and undercut family times.  Without family and friends what's the point?  How are we suppose to guide our children into adult-hood if we aren't there for them?  Why are there so many corporations cutting some of the most important things?  Vacations, sick-time, medical.  What is the point of working, if you can't provide the basics or you never get to see your family or friends?  What's the point?  Does it make any sense?  To work your employees to the point where they are too exhausted to function?  If they can't function, they won't have their job to worry about any longer because they would get let go.  I don't understand it.  When I was single, it didn't make any difference to me.  I was young, unattached and no one to answer to but myself and my job.  I could do it then, but now.  I want to be a good mother, wife, daughter, friend, and employee, but how can I accomplish that on all levels without slacking in one area or another?  When I was younger, my job is what I related my identity to.  Now that I'm older, I relate my identity to how well I can accomplish being good at all of the above.  It's tiring, isn't it?  I think it is, and I don't know how so many people do it, with less then what I have on top of it all.  It's an admirable quality to hold.  Maybe one day, I will feel like I had it, even if for a short time.  Are we getting to a point where we are over working and undercutting family?  I think we are at that point, and beyond it.  What I want to know, is what do you think?

It's gone...

Today, was a tremendously busy and hectic day at work.  Nothing I set out to accomplish was, and it was cloudy and overcast to boot.  Typical Seattle weather really.  Driving in, I saw white all over the edge of the road, and thought it had hailed earlier, I thought to myself, it is June right?  It's not cold enough to hail, then I came to realize later that it was only white petals that had fallen during the rain and littered the streets edge.  Hind-sight, it was quite pretty, and made for a pleasant ride in.

By the end of my day, coming home I was ready to sit, and do absolutely nothing for the rest of the night. As every night, this didn't happen but I was welcomed home with a really tasty meal made by my hubby and found out that my son took second in two races during field day today at school.  I got to relax a bit after dinner and when I put my son to bed later, he was full of laughs and joy that made my stress melt away.  I have to say that after it's been all said and done, my day could not have been better.

It's funny how simple things can make life a bit more enjoyable.  I hope I get to accomplish more on my list tomorrow, then I did today.  If not, then I hope my day ends just as pleasant as it did today.

Living the sweet life, mind the thorns...

My life as I know it, is constantly changing.  I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.  To cherish the sweet moments, and try to forget the bitter ones and learn from them, is something I strive to achieve on a daily basis.  Our lives are so chaotic and filled with, well, fillers and I find myself wishing that I could live in the "simpler" times.  You know what I'm talking about, when you were a kid, and life seemed so big and 30 seemed so old.  Now, here I am in my 30's and life doesn't seem so big anymore, and 50 seems to be creeping around the corner.  I try to make things as simple as possible and get back to the basics, whether it's through cooking, cleaning, or simply living everyday without letting life get in the way.

I enjoy cooking and baking and most of my meals are true concoctions.  I don't follow a recipe to often, only when I don't know how the end result will be, most of my dishes are purely improvised.  Growing up, most of my meals were boxed and tasteless, until I started cooking on my own.  A whole new world was opened up to me!  My husband is into nutrition, and he's broadened my horizons with food to a whole new level.  I found myself experimenting with xylitol and stevia and agave nectar in place of sugar, and figuring out how to utilize almond meal, garbanzo bean flour, and brown rice flour in place of white flour.  I will admit, every time a new idea came into play on how to "improve" our diet, I was against the idea, and had a difficult time rethinking how our meals would pan out.  Do you realize how difficult it is to teach yourself to think about making a meal without some sort of starch involved?  To swim against the current and reshape how our meals are prepared, without foods that are so convenient and starchy, that fill in the gaps on the plate and sop up all the juices and flavors of the meal.  My challenge was given to me, and I did not jump to the plate.  No, I sulked and I fought the change, as I do with anything in my life it seems.  To date, it is still difficult for me to rethink how to prepare a tried and true meal, but I've learned so much in the process.  My nutritional knowledge is broader, and my cooking arsenal is greater then it has ever been.

I will admit that cooking differently has become a huge part of my life, but living a different life from the one I had is even more important in the end.