Mandy and Jace

Lately, I have become a big fan of soups. I usually eat some kind of soup for lunch at least twice a week, sometimes three or four times. I found that soups are very low in calories and they fill you up more than just a salad. While I am fine with just chicken noodle, when I have time, I like to take my Saturday afternoon to let a big pot simmer on the stove, then eat it through the week. It also makes the house smell amazing!

Chicken tortilla soup
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1/2 onion, julienned
1- 1 1/2 cartons chicken broth
1 can diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Velveeta cheese
Salt, pepper and fajita seasoning to taste
chicken, cooked and shredded (optional)

Heat a Dutch oven or pot to medium high heat. Cook the onions and peppers down until very soft. Pour in tomatoes, a carton of chicken broth, and the tomato paste.

Cook for several hours and add more chicken broth as needed. Using a emersion blender or regular blender, blend until smooth.

At the end of cooking put in little bits of velveeta to the desired thickness and taste and add chicken.

We officially have a new favorite seasoning in our little household, it’s Chinese 5 spice powder. This combination of Szechwan pepper, star anise, fennel seeds, cloves, cinnamon, salt and white pepper smells like Christmas morning, but when you put it on something it gives it this spicy, yet cinnamon taste. In other words, heavenly. I had printed out a recipe that required this spice a long time ago and one day when we were putting together our meal plan we saw the recipe and decided to try it. It quickly became a regular in our kitchen. You can use any type of veggie you prefer. The original recipe had bok choy and sugar snap peas in it but that didn’t sound appealing to me. Give it a try. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.

5 spice beef stir fry
1 pound flank steak, chopped into small slices
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 teaspoons fresh ginger, minced or grated
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon Chinese 5 spice powder
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 red bell pepper
1 onion
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons oil (whatever you have on hand is fine)

Combine the soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, garlic, sugar, 5 spice powder and red pepper flakes in a bowl and whisk together. Place your beef in a zip top bag, pour the marinade in, close the bag and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

While that is marinading, julienne your onion and bell pepper.

Remove the beef from the marinade. (Don’t throw the marinade out!) Pour the remaining liquid into a bowl and add the cornstarch. Set aside.

Put about a tablespoon of oil in your saute pan over high heat. When the pan is hot add the meat. Cook for a couple of minutes stirring often until it is brown. Remove the beef and set aside.

Add another tablespoon of oil and add the onion and pepper. Cook until tender. Put the beef back in the pan with the veggies and pour in the marinade. Cook for a couple of minutes until the sauce is thick.

Serve over rice or noodles.

The Boy here with another installment of And Now For Something Completely Different where we’re focusing on veal stock. Tonight we’re making a fairly simple cream sauce that works well on pretty much anything, but it’s more of a…. philosophy than a recipe. We like to use it on chicken and pasta, but it would be good with something mild like fish and pretty much anything starchy.

We’re going to start with some sautéed chicken (or fish, or turkey, etc). We’ll post a recipe for Chicken Provençal pretty soon, but just basic chicken breast seasoned with salt and pepper sautéed in about 2 tbsp of butter will do quite nicely. Just after you get the chicken done and you have all those amazing little brown bits just begging to turn into a sauce. So that’s what we’re going to do.

Let’s start with two cups of veal stock. Just pour it in and scrape up the little bits with a whisk or metal spatula. Let that bubble away and reduce for about 2 minutes on medium to medium-high heat. Next up we’re going to pour in 1/2 a cup of heavy cream.

Hey? Where are you going? I said it’d be good, not healthy. Good. You can eat a salad or something with it.

So, we’ve added the cream and the sauce is pretty close to awesome. Lower the heat–for fear of having the cream de-nature and break apart (that’d be gross)–to medium or medium-low and let it bubble away for another minute.

Here’s where you need to make some decisions. If you plan on using it as a thin dipping sauce, like an au jus sort of consistency, then just skip this step. If you, like we, plan to make it a fairly thick sauce for pasta and chicken, then we need to thicken it up. The easiest way to do this is to make a slurry by mixing 2 teaspoons of corn starch and 2 teaspoons of water in a small bowl or cup and mix it all together. This stuff will thicken any hot thing you pour it into very, very quickly. It’s like magic. Seriously, it’s pretty fun to watch.

Now you’ve got your perfectly thickened–or maybe still thin–sauce and it’s just about done. Grab yourself a clean spoon and give the sauce a taste. Mine needed about a teaspoon of salt and a pinch of pepper. You also want to put something in here to tie it with your main dish; we used some herbes de provence and freshly grated nutmeg. But we’ve also used cajun spices, Italian seasonings and, well, I bet anything would probably work pretty well.

The sauce we just made is really tasty. It’s got a deep flavor with a velvety kind of feel to it; it also has enough body to stick to pasta but thin enough to keep from being a stew. Give it a try, and I promise, you’ll be hooked.

Veal Cream Sauce with Herbes de Provence

1 Pan full of little brown (not black) bits after cooking chicken
2 cups veal stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tsp corn starch
2 tsp water
1/4 tsp herbes de provence
salt and pepper to taste

After sautéing some chicken, quickly deglaze with 2 cups of veal stock being sure to scrape up all the little brown bits. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and allow to reduce for approximately 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of heavy cream and lower heat to medium and allow to simmer for a minute or two, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, mix 2 tsp of corn starch with 2 tsp of water in a small bowl. Add the slurry to the pot and continue to stir until the sauce is all the same consistency. Simmer for another minute. Add 1/4 tsp of herbes de provence and season with salt and pepper to taste. Finally, add just the tiniest pinch of freshly grated nutmeg at the end.

For about a year and a half now I have been on a mission to get healthier. There were several reasons to get healthy, but I have to admit the main reason was to lose some weight. Nothing like looking at photos of yourself and seeing something totally different than what you expected. Also, I went to the doctor for my yearly check up and they said I had the cholesterol of a 60 year old man. That’s definitely not the most comforting thing to tell a patient. So began my quest to get healthy. I started working out and eating not only better, but less. It was definitely not easy. It took me a year but I am to where I only eat about 1500 calories a day and not starve to death. Most of those calories are good foods like whole grains, fruits and veggies. I tend to eat just what will get me by during the day then splurge at night when Jace and I cook. I am now 12lbs lighter than I was when I started and my cholesterol is not better but we decided that it was genetic and no amount of diet and exercise could fix it.

One of the things that I have found that will help with my hunger throughout the day is having a smoothie for breakfast. Not only is it VERY nutritious but this one is delicious. Don’t freak out when you see the flax oil. It is just for my cholesterol and you can leave it out if you’d like. Remember though that it is great for your heart and does wonders for your skin and hair.

Acai berry smoothie
1 banana
1 cup frozen mixed berries
1/2 cup acai berry juice
1 tablespoon flax oil

Place all ingredients in your blender or magic bullet and blend until smooth. Pour in a glass (or not if your using the magic bullet) and enjoy!

I have a confession to make. I never liked meat balls. All the ones that I’ve tried were always huge, bland and in a thick, slimy sauce that drowns what little flavor that the meat may have. I didn’t like them until Jace found these while watching food network and made me try them.

Jace loves to watch Alton Brown on Food Network. Now, it’s not that I dislike AB but he tends to be too smart for his own good. When I cook, I like to use as few dishes as possible and keep everything neat and tidy. When he cooks he uses every dish in the kitchen plus most of the power tools in his work shop. So any time we watched him I just got more and more annoyed seeing him pull dish after dish out of his cabinets. You can just imagine me yelling at the TV telling him to WASH YOUR DISHES BEFORE FOOD DRIES ON THEM AND THE WORLD ENDS. It’s hard to imagine, I know. So, when this meatball recipe came up I was very skeptical of AB and meat balls in general, but I’m a good wife and I made them. Lo and behold, they were amazing. They have a little bit of a kick to keep you on your feet, but the parmesan and bread crumbs make them so smooth and wonderful. We don’t put a sauce on these because they just don’t need them. We cook some spaghetti and drizzle some olive oil and lemon juice then put the meat balls on top. Pure perfection!

Meat balls
adapted from Alton Brown
1/2lb ground pork
1/2lb ground lamb
1/2lb ground beef
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or just a bit more if you want them pretty spicy)
1/2 cup bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

If your meat is not pre-ground grind your meat using a meat grinder. I used the grinder attachment to my big kitchen aid mixer.
In a large bowl, combine the pork, lamb, beef, cheese, egg, basil, parsley, garlic, salt, red pepper flakes, and 1/4 cup of the bread crumbs. With your hands, form the meat balls into the size you want.

Place the remaining bread crumbs in a bowl or large coffee cup. Take each meat ball and roll it in the bread crumbs coating each one. Place each meat ball in the cups of a mini muffin tin. (If you don’t have one a baking sheet will do). If you have time place the whole tin with the meat balls in the fridge for about an hour so all the flavors can come together. If you don’t have time it’s ok.
Cook the meat balls for about 20 minutes or until they are golden brown and cooked through. Serve on top of spaghetti.