Tomato Basil English Muffins

I have always hated the idea of eating the same, boring meal every day. For example, I don't know how people eat cereal for breakfast every day for their whole lives. I also don't understand how people eat sandwiches for lunch every day.

Before discovering this Tomato Basil English Muffin recipe, I always thought that people who ate the same thing every day were boring drones with boring, common personalities. Don't take offense. I have changed my mind. After eating this meal, I have realized that as long as you LOVE eating something, you can eat it every day and not get sick of it!

I have been eating this meal for lunch almost every day for an entire year. That is a record for me! I still can't believe that I can eat this so much and I don't get sick of it. It is the most delicious lunch I have ever had. So I shall share the recipe with you. In the summer, when tomatoes and basil are fresh and meals are light, Paul and I also eat this for dinner. In addition, I found this recipe in a Taste of Home appetizer booklet, so you can also make this as an appetizer for a party. Therefore, not only is it delicious, but it is also a very versatile recipe. :)

What I love: Tomatoes, cheese, and basil = a happy stomach every single day!

Ingredients:
*English muffins, sliced and toasted (2-3 slices per person makes a perfect sized lunch)
*miracle whip
*roma tomatoes, sliced (1 tomato = four slices of english muffin covered)
*fresh basil (preferable) sliced into strips, or dried basil
*garlic salt
*cayenne pepper (optional)
*shredded mozarella cheese

Directions:
1) Heat oven to 350 degrees. Toast English muffin slices.
2) Spread miracle whip on each English muffin slice. Sprinkle each slice with fresh basil (or dried), garlic salt, and cayenne pepper (optional).
3) Top each spiced English muffin slice with tomatoes (approx. 3-4 slices of tomato each)
4) Top with cheese and put in over for approx. 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.
5) Enjoy!


Comments:
*I put cayenne pepper on mine because I love the spicy addition to this meal. Paul, however, does not care for the spiciness, so I hardly put any cayenne pepper on his muffin slices when we eat this for lunch on the weekends. It is up to you, depending on your enjoyment of spice. It is good both ways.

*Nothing compares to this meal when it comes to using fresh basil. However, since basil is expensive in the winter, I make do with the dried stuff and it tastes fine that way as well. If basil is in season, use the fresh stuff for this meal! I guarantee you will get hooked to this like I did if you use fresh!

*I have a strong preference for sourdough english muffins for this recipe. If you can find them in your local grocery store, try them out!

Wisconsin Potato Cheese Soup

Paul and I have been sick for the last few days. We were both quite weak and had very little energy to make dinners, but we also knew that we needed something healthy and light in our system.

Together, we made this soup, which is an old recipe from my recipe box. I have no idea where it came from, but I have been making this soup since we got married.

With a broth-base and mild tasting potatoes, it felt good in our stomachs. It also makes 6-8 servings, so we didn't have to do anything but reheat soup during the duration of our sickness.

What I love: Of course, I love the cheesy broth of this soup. I also love how mild this soup is, because it is great to eat when ill! In addition, when we were first married, we had very little money, so I love how cheap it is to make this soup!

Ingredients:
*2 tbsp. butter/margerine
*2-3 stalks of celery, chopped
*1/2 onion, chopped
*6-7 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
*6 cups of chicken broth
*2 cups of milk
*salt
*pepper
*paprika
*2 cups of shredded sharp cheddar cheese
*4 oz. of velveeta (optional), cubed

Directions:
1) In a large soup pan, melt butter and saute celery and onion until tender.
2) Add potatoes and broth. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and cover and simmer until potatoes are tender, approximately 12 minutes.
3) Stir in milk and spices. Add the cheeses and heat only until melted.
4) Serve with bread and enjoy!

Comments:
*The original recipe wants you to use a blender after step #2 and blend the potato mixture. Then, return to the pot and then do step #3. We do not do this because we like chunks in our soup. If you are weird about texture, this is always an option!
*I don't have much else to say. This soup is easy to make, cheap to produce, and delicious just the way it is!

Pasta with blue cheese alfredo sauce

I am SO proud of myself: I invented my own recipe! :) Okay, okay...all I did was add blue cheese to a can of alfredo sauce, but it's a start!


I don't know if alfredo sauce is VERY healthy, but when you add all the veggies to it, I think it still counts as a healthy-ish meal. It still beats eating gravy-heavy meals, or ground beef, or other heavy foods!

The story: I had leftover chicken from my smoky-spicy chicken and wild rice soup. In addition, the grocery store had a sale on alfredo sauce. We haven't had pasta in a long time, and it sounded like a nice way to use up the chicken. However, I have always found alfredo sauce to be a bit bland. I couldn't think of what to do to make it have a more bold taste. I pored over the recipes and apparently, most people like the bland taste of alfredo sauce. This wasn't good enough for me. Suddenly, I thought about how much I love the gorgonzola sauce recipe that I use for my pasta dishes on occasion. However, I didn't want to fuss over the stove with whipping cream and whatnot to make my own sauce. I wondered if alfredo sauce would taste good with blue cheese in it. It seemed like a nice short cut to having a bold sauce, and blue cheese sounded really good at the time. So I risked it and made this recipe, and it was so good! You might be reading this and thinking it's not a very creative idea, but I couldn't find any recipes that suggested it, and I am NOT creative or daring with recipes, so I am proud of my creation. :)

What I love: the combination of mushrooms and blue cheese was delicious. Also, alfredo sauce and blue cheese combine very well together. Paul and I were going 'mmm' throughout the whole meal!

Ingredients:
*Penne pasta (1 box)
*1 jar of alfredo sauce
*4-6 oz. blue cheese crumbles
*chicken, shredded/cubed, and cooked
*olive oil
*1/2 onion, diced
*1 clove garlic, minced
*mushrooms, chopped
*tomatoes, seeded and diced
*basil
*parmesan

Directions:
1) Cook penne pasta as directed on box, drain and set aside (with top on to keep warm)
2) In a large pan, saute onion and garlic until tender. Add mushrooms and chicken. Cook until heated through. Then add alfredo sauce, blue cheese, and tomatoes. Heat and stir until blue cheese melts into the sauce.  Taste and add spices of choice.
3) Add the sauce to the pasta. Mix and serve. Top with basil and parmesan. Enjoy!

Comments:
*We enjoyed this meal with wine as a beverage. This was a wonderful idea! Blue cheese and alfredo and pasta are great to eat with a side of wine. I highly recommend it.
*The main cool thing about this recipe is adding blue cheese to the alfredo sauce. Everything else that you add is up to you! For example, I think that next time I make this, I will experiment with steak (instead of chicken) and I will add spinach as well. Be creative!
*I don't know if I am daring enough to try it, but I started thinking that cooking the veggies in wine instead of in olive oil might make this meal even better. If anyone tries it, let me know if it's good like that...

Smoky-Spicy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

The other day, I was daydreaming as usual. During my lovely daydreaming time, I realized that I rarely ever eat rice. I can't even remember the last time that I ate rice. It was possibly when Paul made his famous sushi...in October of last year! It's not that I necessarily HATE rice, it's just that rice is a bland, boring food and I like bold flavors in my meals. Anyway, rice is healthy and it is said that it helps people lose weight. This spiked my interest and I pored over many recipes to find a rice soup that actually had taste to it. :)

This is what I came up with. I combined multiple recipes of rice-based soups and "invented" this soup. It was delicious, but perhaps I went overboard on the spiciness of the soup. Next time, I will tame the spice a bit. In my instructions, I give a tamer version, and in the comments, I will explain what I did to make it EXTREMELY spicy, so that if you love spicy food, you can try it that way too. :)

What I love about this soup: it has a deceiving look of a bland, chicken and rice soup, but it had a smoky-type of spice to it that made it SO good! I also loved that it used pepper jack cheese, which I have never used in a recipe before! It really makes the soup perfect.

Ingredients:
*Olive oil
*1/2 - 1 onion, chopped
*1 clove of garlic, minced
*3 stalks of celery, thinly sliced
*1 whole carrot, sliced (or 8-10 baby carrots, sliced)
*1 can (10.75oz) cream of chicken soup
*4 cups of chicken broth
*2-3 cups of wild rice, cooked
*2-3 cups of chicken, cooked and cubed/sliced
*chili powder (spice)
*cayenne pepper (spice)
*ground cumin (spice)
*1-2 cups shredded pepper jack cheese
*3/4 - 1 cup half in half *OR* whipping cream *OR*milk
*3 tbsp. chopped cilantro
*cilantro sprigs for garnish
*half a can (4 oz) of green chilies
*1-2 chipotle peppers in adobe sauce (next to green chilies in mexican aisle)
*small spoonful of adobe sauce from chipotle peppers can

Directions:
1. In a large soup pan, heat oil on medium heat, saute onion, garlic, carrots, and celery for 8-10 minutes or until tender.
2. Stir in soup and broth. Add rice and chicken (both cooked), spices, green chilies, chipotles, and most of the pepper jack cheese. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Stir in the cream and cilantro. Heat until warm. Pour into bowls and top with extra pepper jack cheese and some sprigs of cilantro. Serve with bread of choice. Makes about 6 servings.


Comments:
*I used part of a rotisserie chicken so that I didn't have to cook the chicken. I really love using these things since they cut out a lot of the boring parts of cooking!
*I used a whole bag (3 cups) of Uncle Ben's wild rice (see picture below) because it only took 90 seconds in the microwave to cook. Wow! I didn't know that rice could be done so quickly. I know, this shows how little I use rice in my meals. :)
*I had leftover asiago-cheese bread, so we used that with the meal. I am SO glad that I did! I don't know why, but the combination of this smoky-tasting soup and the tang of asiago bread was AMAZING! I will always use this kind of bread as a side with this soup now. I highly recommend it.
*I did not tell you how much spice to include b/c everyone's taste buds are different. I like a heavy dose of cayenne pepper and a light sprinkle of chili powder and cumin. But you might like one of the others better! Use the spices to YOUR tastes. Or even add new ones! (Just let me know what you add if it turns out really really good!) :)
*I also don't give exact measurements with a lot of the parts of this soup because everyone is different. I LOVE cheese, so I added lots of it. But maybe you do not love cheese like I do. Same thing with the cream-base. I poured in half-and-half until it seemed like a perfect amount. But what is perfect to me maybe not be perfect to you. These type of exact things aren't needed when cooking soup. It's probably one of the reasons that I love soup so much.
*Make sure to include at least one chipotle pepper, as this is what really makes the soup taste 'smoky'. I thought the soup was simply spicy, until after I added the cream part of the soup. Then, I tasted it again and it really tasted 'smoky-spicy'. Yum...
*What I did to make it super super spicy: I figured that since I love chipotle peppers and I have made a soup with them before, I could add three (like in my other soup: see Southwestern Soup) and it would taste amazing. What I discovered is that what works for one soup does NOT work for another. :) Three chipotles made this soup REALLY fire-hot! It was a good thing we had bread. Don't worry, though: if it happens that this soup is too spicy for you, just add more broth or cream-base to it to dampen the power of the spice.

Spaghetti Squash, Greek Style

My wonderful sister-in-law Christy suggested that I try this meal. I was a bit skeptical about the spaghetti squash, since I've never had it before. However, this was very delicious! It tastes just like pasta, but you don't have to feel like you had a heavy-on-the-carbs meal.

It fed us for two days, so approx. 4-5 servings. You can out find more about the recipe here.

What I love about this recipe: feta cheese and tomatoes! The fact that the entire meal is ALL veggies is also a plus. :)


Spaghetti Squash, Greek Style

Ingredients:
*One spaghetti squash, halved length-wise and seeded
*Olive oil
*1 onion, chopped
*1 clove garlic, minced
*1.5-2 cups of tomatoes, chopped
*3/4 - 1 cup of feta (or more if you are feta-crazy like me!!)
*One small can of sliced black olives, drained (approx. 3 tbsp. olives)
*2 tbsp. fresh basil (or dried)


Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Put spaghetti squash halves in a large baking dish, face down in 1.5 cups of water. Add to preheated oven for approx. 30 minutes. Test the tenderness of the squash by inserting a sharp knife into squash. If it slips through flesh of squash with little resistance, it is done. Remove squash from oven. Set aside so that it can cool off.
3) Heat oil in a large skillet pan. Saute onion until tender. Add garlic, saute for 2 more minutes.
4) Use a fork on the spaghetti squash to make it "noodle up" by combing it with fork. (It's really simple to do!)
5) Add tomatoes, olives, some feta, basil, and spaghetti squash noodles to the skillet pan. Heat until warm and serve. Top with Parmesan cheese if desired!

Comments:
*I have not made this with fresh basil yet, since basil plants aren't in season. It tasted fine with dried basil, but I bet it will taste even better with the fresh! I can't wait to try it out again!
*Spaghetti squash is pretty cheap in the winter, so this is a great, cheap meal for a winter day.
*Since I LOVE tomatoes and feta, I went crazy with how much I put in of these two ingredients. The nice thing about this simple recipe, is that you can add extra or less of whatever you want, and it will still taste fine!
*Great job, Christy! I was very happy with this recipe. You rock! :)

California Veggie Sandwich

Whoa! Look at me! I'm adding a recipe that isn't a soup! I decided it was time to show that I don't eat soup ALL the time. :)


Once again, I found this recipe at allrecipes.com. This is a wonderful website, but my problem with it is that it is difficult to find recipes unless you know EXACTLY what you want. So I spend hours reading recipes on there, and occasionally I find a recipe on the site that is healthy and delicious.

This recipe is one of my discoveries. It is soooo good! I love eating this in the summer or when my husband and I are pretending it's summer for morale purposes. The recipe calls for using a grill, but we use our George Foreman and it works just as well. Makes four sandwiches.


What I like: the colors of the different types of veggies, the delightfully warm feta cheese, and using focaccia bread, which always looks so good at the store, but I never knew what to do with that type of bread before...

Pay attention to the instructions. I have given the instructions for three different ways to cook this sandwich, depending on your preference or equipment.

California Veggie Sandwich

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup mayonnaise or miracle whip
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• 1 red bell pepper (or green)
• 1 zucchini, sliced
• 1 red onion, sliced
• 1 yellow squash, sliced
• Mushrooms (optional)
• Focaccia bread, quartered and also split horizontally
• feta cheese (at LEAST 1/2 cup)

Directions

1. In a bowl, mix the mayonnaise, minced garlic, and lemon juice. Set aside in the refrigerator.
2. Preheat the grill for high heat, or the George Forman, or preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. For Grill: Brush vegetables with olive oil and balsamic vinegar on each side. Brush grate with oil. Place bell peppers and zucchini closest to the middle of the grill, and set onion and squash pieces around them. Cook for about 3 minutes, turn, and cook for another 3 minutes. The peppers may take a bit longer. Remove from grill, and set aside.                                                *OR*   
4. For George Forman: Put veggies in large pan on stove, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, cook/saute until tender, stirring frequently.                     *OR*
5. For Oven: Make sandwiches completely (see #6 for rest of instructions), wrap in foil, put in oven for 20 minutes.
6. Spread some of the mayonnaise mixture on the cut sides of the bread, and sprinkle each one with feta cheese. Place on the grill (or George Forman) cheese side up, and cover with lid for 2 to 3 minutes. This will warm the bread, and melt the cheese. Watch carefully so the bottoms don't burn. Remove from grill, and layer with the vegetables. Enjoy as either open faced or normal grilled sandwiches. 

Comments: 

*Feel free to add whatever spices you like to these sandwiches. I have a lot of fun doing this and I experiment with different spices all the time. I especially like using cayenne pepper, garlic salt, and fresh basil.

*I always use a whole 8 ounce container of feta cheese, because I adore cheese so much. It is really good this way, but you can probably add just a little bit and still like the sandwich.

*Have fun with your focaccia bread selection! There are always so many delicious options at my grocery store. I especially love using either the 'Three Pepper' or 'Three Cheese' types of this bread.

*In case you were confused by the instructions, the George Forman is used only to warm the bread and melt the feta cheese. The veggies are done on the stove. Sometimes I add the veggies to the bread and leave it on the Forman grill a few minutes longer. That is, if I can wait that long before eating this amazing sandwich! :)

Southwestern Soup

This is my favorite soup. I was so excited to share this recipe that I could not wait to take a picture of it. This is a picture of a similar soup, in fact, it's nearly identical to my soup (at least visually). Anyway, I promise to upload a real picture of my soup eventually. :)


At least once a month, I get a crazy craving for green chilies. Every time that happens, I make this soup. Also, I make this soup really spicy (you don't have to), so whenever I have sinus problems or one of us has a cold, I make this soup to encourage drainage and for a general healthy feeling.

I found this recipe years ago on allrecipes.com but I have changed it so much over the years, that I couldn't even find the original recipe again to give it proper credit!

What I like: the spiciness of the soup, the green chilies, the abundance of tomatoes, and the ease of making a visually-beautiful presentation of the soup every time I scoop it into bowls for dinner. It also makes 6-8 servings of soup, which is great for when we are busy with our jobs: I don't cook again for 3 days!

Southwestern Soup
Ingredients:
*1.5 cups of shredded chicken (cooked)
*4 cups of vegetable broth
*1 (28 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
*2 cans (15 ounces each) diced tomatoes
*1 (4 ounce) can of chopped green chilies
*1-2 chipotle peppers, chopped, from a can of chipotles in adobe sauce (next to green chilies at store) (optional)
*a small spoonful of adobe sauce from chipotle can (optional) 
*1 onion, chopped
*1 clove garlic, crushed
*1 tbsp. lime juice
*1 can (15 ounce) of black beans, drained and rinsed *1/2 - 1 tsp. cayenne pepper
*1/2 tsp. cumin
*salt/pepper (to taste)
*1-2 avocado, diced
*cilantro 
*shredded cheddar cheese
*sour cream


Directions:
1) Cook in large soup pan: Chicken, broth, tomatoes, chilies, chipotles (optional), onion, garlic, lime juice, and black beans. Season with spices. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 15-20 minutes. Taste and add more spices or more chipotles as needed. You can also add some shredded cheddar cheese to the soup at this time (optional).
2) Scoop into bowls. Make it look beautiful with a lovely topping-display of shredded cheddar cheese, avocado, sour cream, and a few leaves of cilantro on each bowl of soup.
3) Serve with tortilla chips and enjoy!


Comments:
*Some people don't like chipotles or really spicy soup. If that's you, just leave those peppers out and this soup is barely spicy at all. I, however, love spicy soup so much that I add 3 or more chipotles to this soup and lots of the adobe sauce. Yum!
*The longest part to making this meal is cooking the chicken beforehand. It took me a while to realize that I can save time by buying a rotisserie chicken at the store and use parts of the chicken for this soup. I then use the rest for other soups or meals throughout the week. So if you want to save time, I strongly recommend using one of those already cooked chickens!
*I love cilantro and I used to add extra to the soup as well as putting some on top. However, my husband had a nightmarish cilantro-farm experience as a child and despises the stuff. So now I just add some to the top of the soup, but if you don't have husbands with weird cilantro-phobias, adding extra cilantro to the soup makes it extra good (in my opinion)
*Don't leave out any of the toppings on the soup! The beauty and taste of avocado, cheese, sour cream, etc. is wonderfully balanced with the soup. It is seriously so wonderful to look at AND eat!