Potato Soup for 2

... Or potato soup for 1 if you're really hungry.

I definitely make a habit of making lunch for myself that no one else in the house will eat. It's worth it to me that I get to enjoy my favorite foods without having to worry about the rest of the family. So while the kiddos are munching on PB&J and yogurt, I get to enjoy salmon or spinach soup or whatever, and everybody's happy! (Of course, the exception is our little one. She loves anything Mommy is eating. "Mommy, you share wif me?" *big, pleading blue eyes*) Potato soup, unfortunately, is one of those things. It will get eaten at dinner with the family, but not necessarily enjoyed the way it should be.

Potato Soup for 2

1 large baking potato, peeled and cubed
1 garlic clove, peeled and coarsely chopped
3 cups chicken (or veggie) stock
salt and pepper to taste
2-3 tablespoons cream (you can use any milk here - 1/2 & 1/2, whipping cream, 2%, I've done it all.)
1/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Toppings/variations of your choice - chopped broccoli, cooked/crumbled bacon, diced ham, fresh herbs, green onions, sour cream, corn

In a small saucepan, bring the broth, garlic and potatoes up to a boil. Simmer for 12-15 minutes, until potatoes get very soft, stirring occasionally. This is important: using a whisk, stir up the potatoes. You want to break them down to get that velvety potato soup texture. Whisk until the soup reaches desired consistency - it won't be completely smooth, but I love leaving chunks of potato, anyway. Stir in cream, adding more if necessary to thin it the way you like it (add more chicken stock if it's super thick). Salt and pepper to your taste, stir in cheese. Remove from heat and serve with your favorite toppings!

(This is also a great way to use up the last bits of leftover side veggies like broccoli or corn.)

Creamy Spinach Soup

A few years ago, The Pioneer Woman had a Spinach Soup recipe on her blog. Intrigued, I decided to give it a shot. It was love at first spoonful! I have since forgotten what her original recipe looked like, and it's no longer on her blog, so I decided to type up the version I make for y'all to enjoy! Now, despite the fact that this soup is mostly spinach, it's really probably not that great for you ... but please don't tell my tummy that. I ate it twice this week because I love it so much! This soup will make two hearty servings, so I make it by half to have for my lunch.

Creamy Spinach Soup

1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (to taste, really)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 package (6 ounces) fresh spinach, coarsely chopped
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
1/4 cup half-and-half
salt and pepper to taste
Optional: feta cheese

In a medium saucepan, saute the onion for 2-3 minutes. Add in the garlic and red pepper. Saute for 1-2 more minutes; add in the spinach. Once spinach wilts down, pour in the broth. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and let simmer for a few minutes. Remove from heat and pour mixture into a blender. (Leave uncovered and do not process right away!) Return the empty saucepan to medium heat and melt the butter. Sprinkle in the flour and whisk for 2-3 minutes, until it just begins to take on color. Put the lid on your blender and blitz the spinach mixture until smooth. Pour into the saucepan, whisking as you go. Allow to cook for 2-3 minutes until thickened. If it's too thick, splash in some more chicken broth. When thoroughly heated, stir in half-and-half, salt and pepper. Divide the soup into bowls and top with the feta cheese, if desired.

Mediterranean Salmon Salad

 This dish combines many of my favorite flavors. It was inspired by a friend who had eaten a Turkish dish with salmon and couscous. I'm not sure what else her meal involved, and I didn't have any couscous, so I experimented using what I had on-hand. I love that it's such a filling lunch - I didn't even crave an afternoon snack that day! I served mine warm, but I imagine this would be good as a cold salad, too, using leftover salmon.

Mediterranean Salmon Salad

1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon olive oil

6 ounce salmon fillet
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon Greek seasoning
2 cups chopped spinach
1 tablespoon each chopped fresh parsley and oregano
3 tablespoons crumbled feta cheese
1/8 teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice

 Place the salmon fillet skin-side down on a foil-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with lemon juice and Greek seasoning; bake at 375° for 15-18 minutes, or until the fish flakes easily with a fork.

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan combine the quinoa, broth and olive oil. Bring to a boil and cook for 10-12 minutes, until the quinoa is tender and the grain is beginning to separate. Remove from heat.

Using a fork, break off chunks of salmon and add them to the cooked quinoa. Stir in the spinach, parsley, oregano, feta and pepper. Toss with the olive oil and lemon juice. Serve warm or cold.

My Lunch

For lunch today, Little One and I shared Quinoa Cakes. They were fabulous as usual! I made the cakes with chopped broccoli and shredded carrots. I served hers plain, but I made a Greek dipping sauce for mine. I simply combined sour cream, a touch of mayo, salt, pepper, crumbled feta, lemon juice, chopped rosemary and chopped oregano in a small bowl.

Little One made short work of hers!

Apple-Spinach Salad

I really wish I liked vegetables  more than I do. The idea of a lovely salad with all kinds of veggies is really visually appealing to me, but ... I don't like veggies. So I just eat what I like and if I'm not as thin as I could be at least I get to eat bacon any time I want. It's a comforting thought.

I think of salad in the category of "non-recipes". You pretty much just throw together what looks good and then eat it! That's what I did with this salad. Here's the ingredient list:

Spinach
Chopped apple (Honeycrisp)
Toasted pecans
Crumbled bacon
Goat cheese crumbles
Poppy seed dressing

I made my own dressing by combining olive oil, red wine vinegar, honey, Dijon mustard, poppy seeds, salt and pepper in a tiny plastic container and shaking it up. Once when I made this I forgot the honey and man, was the dressing tart! I won't forget again, that's for sure.

One thing I like about this salad is that I could eat it for lunch and it was hearty enough to keep me satisfied. I don't like salads that make me feel like I didn't even eat anything!

I'll leave you with this profound thought for the day:

Those who say that nothing tastes as good as thin feels have never had bacon.

Quinoa Cakes

One of my favorite pasttimes is perusing cookbooks and scouring the internet for new recipes. Often I find recipes that with just a little tweaking make it into my regular rotation. I first encountered quinoa (KEEN-wah or KIN-wah) when researching recipes for my diabetic father-in-law. Quinoa is a type of grain, though more a seed, that is packed with nutrition: it's high in protein, lysine, phosphorus, magnesium, riboflavin, and iron. It's also gluten-free. One serving contains 3 grams of fiber and 6 grams of protein. It's prepared much the same way as rice - one cup of quinoa to two cups of water - and the texture is similar to brown rice.

I found two quinoa recipes I wanted to try that are pretty similar and sounded delicious! In planning to prepare them, I combined elements from both to come up with my own creation. Served with a salad, they'd make a healthful, filling lunch. I usually use a combination of finely diced broccoli, spinach, peppers, shredded zucchini or whatever I'm in the mood for to equal about a cup. I stir that into the mixture to boost the nutrition level.

Quinoa Cakes

2 cups prepared quinoa
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 tablespoons diced green onion
2 eggs
1/2 cup shredded carrot
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt (adjust to suit taste)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Heat a couple of tablespoons olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Drop heaping tablespoonfuls of the quinoa mixture into the hot skillet, pressing down to form patties. Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side, until golden brown. Serve with dipping sauce if desired.

Dipping Sauce - I use this whenever I need a savory dip!

Avgolemono

Some time ago, I posted this recipe for Lemon Orzo Soup. Since then, I found two articles on the soup being referred to by its actual Greek name, Avgolemono, which literally means "egg lemon". Pretty descriptive name, don't you think? Anyway, I've been eating this soup a lot lately because it's so filling and easy to make, not to mention fairly cheap. I've not even had pasta to put in it, and it's still enough to tide me over for lunch. In my original post I mention several add-ins you can use to enhance the soup, and I've discovered a new one: Tabasco sauce! A few glugs of that really push the flavor to a whole new level!

As for the articles I read, I think this recipe is a bit heavy on the eggs, but in the comments section there's a recipe for someone's Yia Yia's (Greek: Grandmother) recipe that sounds perfect and gets rave reviews from commenters.

This recipe is actually inspired by the aforementioned Yia Yia's version. Authentically Greek, apparently, though more complicated than my version. I'll definitely be giving this method a try one day!

As I stated in my original post, this soup is perfect for when you're feeling under the weather with a stuffy nose and/or a sore throat. It's my favorite comfort food for cold, blue days!

Spicy Thai Noodles

I found a delicious recipe for Spicy Thai Noodles via Pinterest a few weeks ago. I have loved this new addition to my lunch repertoire so much that I had to share it with y'all!

The first time I made it, I tweaked it just a bit by adding fresh chopped garlic and ginger in with the oil. Also, I  halved it, added shredded chicken and served it warm. That made enough for me to enjoy for two lunches!

I made the recipe again this week, only I was too lazy to pull up the actual instructions on the laptop. I had a couple of changes I wanted to make, anyway.  I kept my additions of garlic and ginger, and reduced the amount of sweetener. I actually used only a tablespoon of brown sugar (I'm low on honey) and it worked perfectly. I used a combination of soy sauce and a touch of apple cider vinegar (cuts the salty soy!). Also, this time I had cabbage in the fridge, so I shredded some of that to use along with the cilantro, green onion and carrots - no chicken this time. I had that for lunch one day with leftovers in the fridge for another day.

The only catch was that Day One was spicy. I love spice, but I wanted to tone it down a bit for Day Two. I decided to add in a dollop of crunchy peanut butter while heating up the noodles. Perfection.

I should note, too, that I did all the prep work on Day One. I chopped veggies for two servings, and made sauce and noodles for two servings. The veggie toppings went into a ramekin, and the noodles I tossed with the sauce and put into a container, and both went in the fridge. Day Two required only heating the container of noodles (with the dollop of PB) and topping it off with the bowl of veggies. Easy as ... Thai.

Delicious Lunch - Tomato Soup

I had a very tasty, surprisingly filling lunch yesterday! I had taken a chance at Kroger the other day and bought a carton of tomato soup from the organic section, and it seriously paid off. I spent about $3 on the carton of Imagine Garden Tomato Soup, compared to about $1 on the standard Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup. Keep in mind, though, that I'll get 3-4 servings from the carton, and the can would only be 1 serving. Continuing the comparison:

Imagine
80 calories
300mg sodium
16g carbs
2g sugar
2g fiber
2g protein
15% vitamin A
30% vitamin C
2% calcium
4% iron

Campbell's
90 calories
480g sodium
20g carbs
12g sugar
1g fiber
2g protein
8% vitamin A
10% vitamin C
0% calcium
4% iron

To boost the flavor and  nutrition, I added 1/2 cup roasted red pepper puree, fresh-ground black pepper and a sprinkling of feta cheese. For the puree, I roasted two peppers in my oven until they were blackened. Immediately after removing from the oven, I covered them tightly with foil and let them steam. Then I removed the skin (it slips off pretty easily!), seeds and stems. The meat of the pepper went straight into the blender along with the juice from the steaming packet and a couple of tablespoons of water. I pureed it, pouring some into the pot with my tomato soup, some into the carton with the rest of the soup, and the remainder went into freezer containers for another time!

Stretching Leftovers

For dinner Thursday night, I made pork tenderloin in a simple marinade of garlic, rosemary, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. It's one of my absolute favorite marinades for pork! After feeding my family, plus a friend who had come over to babysit the little ones (praise the Lord!), I had about a four-inch section of tenderloin leftover. Not much, but I rarely throw anything away! I'm glad I kept it because today I needed a simple dinner to come together quickly for Handsome and me. I ended up doing two different things.

#1: I NEVER fix sandwiches for Handsome for dinner. He eats sandwiches every single day for lunch: I know the last thing he wants to see on his dinner plate is a square of bread staring at him. But ... he had Dairy Queen and ice cream for lunch, so I bent my rule a bit. His dinner was indeed a sandwich: sliced pork tenderloin, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, fresh spinach, and Swiss cheese. He loved it!

#2: I didn't want a sandwich. I made pasta with my portion of the pork tenderloin. I mixed angel hair pasta, spinach, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, cubed tenderloin, freshly ground black pepper and feta cheese. I loved it!

I love taking bits of leftovers and remaking them into something delicious.

Turkey Ranch Quesadillas

My kids are picky in weird ways - they will eat spinach but not rice, cottage cheese but not potatoes, pineapple but not beef ... In short, the stuff that other kids live off of, they won't touch! Some of those choices are good, and some are not. I guess I just do what every mom does and hope for the best! The recipe I'm sharing today is a guaranteed hit with my kids. It combines many of their favorite ingredients so they're sure to gobble it up!

Turkey Ranch Quesadillas

4 thin slices smoked deli turkey
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
4 tablespoons Ranch dressing
1/2 cup fresh spinach leaves
Half and apple, your favorite, cored and thinly sliced
4 flour tortillas, fajita size

Spread Ranch dressing on two tortillas, sprinkle with half the cheese. Cover with spinach leaves, layer with turkey, apple slices, and remaining cheese. Top with remaining tortillas. Heat a medium skillet over medium hat. Add quesadilla, cook for 3-4 minutes per side, until heated through. Cut each quesadilla into quarters and serve warm.

Recipe Contest

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you probably know that I love the Taste of Home "family" of magazines. They publish Taste of Home and Simple & Delicious, among others. I've been a subscriber to one or more of the magazines for a good 12 years. Well, a couple of years ago, their website had a couple of contests available for entry and I decided to go for it. I got an e-mail a few months later from an associate editor saying that I had won third place in one of the contests!

"Congratulations! You came in 3rd in our  "Easy, Healthy Suppers " Contest! My name is J--- M------ and I'm an editor here at Taste of Home's Healthy Cooking, and I want to congratulate you on taking third place! Your recipe was Thai Chicken Pasta. Your winnings include a check for $200, and we'd like to feature you and your recipe in the December 2009 issue of Healthy Cooking. (You'll receive a free copy of this issue, too.)"

Yay! He asked me to send a picture (Jeff told me immediately which one that would be) and some background information about the recipe. 

My check, the cover letter for my complimentary copy of the magazine, and the actual magazine!

Here's the link to the recipe on Taste of Home's website: Thai Chicken Pasta

Potato-Spinach Quiche

I've pretty much never met a quiche I didn't like but Handsome subscribes to the theory that real men don't eat quiche. Since I know plenty of real men that DO eat quiche, I've tried to change his mind with various recipes with no luck. So, I've resigned myself to making it just for my lunch. I'm not complaining though, because it just means more for me! Little One loves it, too and I do share with her - if she catches me eating it!

Here's a recipe I developed using whatever sounded good from my pantry:

Potato-Spinach Quiche
1 tablespoon butter
1 green onion, chopped or 1/4 cup chopped white onion
2 red potatoes, finely diced
2 cups fresh spinach, chopped
4 ounces deli ham, chopped
6 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded
salt and pepper
5 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup sour cream

In a skillet, saute onion and potato in butter until potatoes begin to get tender (8-10 minutes), seasoning as they cook. Add ham and spinach. Cook until spinach is wilted and ham begins to take on color. Pour mixture into a greased pie plate. Top with cheese. In a mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk, and sour cream. Season lightly. Pour over mixture in pie plate. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake for another 20-25 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

I made this yesterday for my lunch and just had it again for breakfast. Between that and sharing with Little One, there's only one piece left! Yum!

Sensational Salmon Cakes

This is one of those recipes that is so stinkin' good it's embarrassing how simple it really is. Salmon patties really get a bad reputation for being densely compacted with bread crumbs and mysterious ingredients. When stripped down to essentials, though, so that the salmon is the star, the flavor is out-of-this-world!

Sensational Salmon Cakes

8 oz salmon fillet, baked
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese - shredded (in the bag) or grated (in the green container)
1 egg
1 green onion, diced
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Using a fork, break up the salmon fillet in a bowl. Stir in the remaining ingredients. In a skillet drizzled with olive oil, drop the salmon mixture in scoops of about 2 tablespoons. Flatten slightly as you go along. You're just making sure the egg is cooked through, so they should only take 2-3 minutes per side over medium heat.  Yield: about 8 cakes

This is a great way to use up leftover salmon, since it really doesn't matter how you bake it in the beginning. Since I'm the only one in my family who enjoys salmon, I typically buy a one pound fillet, bake it, eat half for lunch, and use the leftovers to make salmon cakes another day. If I'm making the salmon just for these cakes, though, I do it one of two ways:

1) Place the fillet skin-side down on a foil-covered baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle with lemon juice. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

2) Place the fillet skin-side down on a foil-covered baking sheet. Drizzle with lemon juice and spread with Caesar, Italian or really any creamy salad dressing. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

When baked this way, the salmon fillet lifts easily off of the skin when you slide a spatula in just right. You can use the salmon right away to make cakes, or let it cool in the fridge until you're ready to use it.

You can serve these with the dipping sauce I use for Carrot-Zucchini Fritters, too.

Creamy Marinara Pasta

I'm addicted to simple pasta dishes for lunch! My main reason is that Handsome doesn't exactly enjoy those kinds of meals, and it's the only time I get to indulge in them. My latest creation is one that he definitely wouldn't like, since it involves a cream sauce and spinach.

Creamy Marinara Pasta

I started with this simple white sauce, using a 1-1-1 ratio, adding in a chopped clove of garlic with the butter, and stirring in a 1/4 cup of shredded Parmesan to finish it. I used about 2 ounces of angel hair pasta, but you could use whatever.

After the sauce is completed, simply stir in:
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 cup chopped fresh spinach
1/2 cup marinara sauce
and heat through. Toss your cooked pasta with the sauce and Bob's your uncle! A delicious lunch for one.

Note: this really makes a lot of sauce for one, so you could easily stretch it to two servings.

Un-recipe - Greek Pasta

A lot of lunches that I make for myself are really not recipes at all, just ingredients I threw together because they sounded good. I pretty much start with pasta and go from there! Case in point, the Greek Pasta I made the other day. I cooked up a couple of ounces of angel hair pasta -- at 2-4 minutes, the timing can't be beat. In a salad bowl, (a low, flat soup bowl) I drizzled about a teaspoon of lemon juice, a bit of salt and fresh-ground pepper, and a half-tablespoon of butter. When the pasta was done, I tossed it in the bowl, mixing well. Then I topped it off with a couple of tablespoons of feta cheese and tossed that together, too. I was too lazy (and it was too cold!) to go out and clip some fresh oregano or parsley, but that would have been great!

Add a simple salad and you've got the makings of a delicious quick lunch. This would also make a good side dish beside baked chicken or fish.

A New Snack

A part of the diet I'm on is that you have to eat snacks five times per day, and it's specific about what makes up each snack. I've found it to be kind of fun taking my limitations and creating little "meals" to look forward to every few hours. One of my favorites is very simple and very filling!

1/2 whole wheat bagel
1 wedge Creamy Swiss (Light) Laughing Cow cheese
Smoked deli ham
Banana

I spread the cheese on the bagel and top it with ham for a yummy open-faced sandwich. The banana I eat on the side, of course. This is a really good snack to eat on-the-go, too.

Perfect Pairs

I love salmon! One super easy way to prepare it is to place it skin-side down on a baking sheet, coat it in Caesar salad dressing and bake it for 15-20 minutes. It's delish! And the leftovers make wonderful salmon cakes later in the week. And yes, you'll have leftovers because neither your Sweetie nor your munchkins eat it.Of course.

Salmon and Caesar dressing. You must try it someday.

Lemon Orzo Soup

This soup is so very simple that you won't believe how these flavors come together to make such wonderful comfort food! I'm giving you the proportions to make one serving, or two small ones because that's how I make it the most. The recipe is easily doubled, though.

2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth (homemade is best!)
pepper to taste

Bring the broth and pepper to a boil. Stir in:
1/4 cup orzo pasta

Cook for 9 minutes. Remove from heat.

While pasta is cooking, whisk together 1 egg and 1 teaspoon lemon juice until foamy. Just after removing broth from the heat, stir a spoonful of broth into the egg mixture to temper it. Pour the mixture into the pot, stirring constantly. Serve immediately. (Note: this results in a creamy-looking soup, not with strings of egg like in egg-drop soup.)

That's the basic recipe and method. One great thing about this soup is that it's a terrific starting point for a heartier "makes-you-feel-all-better" soup for when you're sick.

Chicken broth: especially if this is homemade, it has major healing powers -- just ask your mom!
Pasta: carbohydrates to give you energy
Egg: protein to fill you up and build energy
Lemon juice: a little jolt of vitamin C

Now to have fun with it, you can add a variety of different stuff either at the beginning, when you add in the pasta, or to finish. Here's a starting point:

diced mushrooms
green onion
grated veggies like carrot or zucchini
parsley
cilantro
ginger
spinach
Parmesan cheese
shredded, cooked chicken

Chicken Salad

Chicken salad is one of those dishes that's really a non-recipe. Everyone has a method for chicken salad in their repertoire, and everyone always thinks their own is the best! I've made it lots of ways, but have really hit on this "recipe" that my Sweetie and I love.

1 lemon-pepper rotisserie chicken, deboned and shredded/chopped
1 celery rib, finely chopped
1/2 Granny Smith apple, finely chopped
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
1 green onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt-free lemon-pepper seasoning
1/2 cup olive oil mayonnaise

Combine all ingredients and serve immediately or chill in the fridge until ready to use.