What's cookin' - Cream of zucchini soup

Not too many pictures for this post, but believe me this is a great recipe! Quick, easy and healthy too!

I this recipe on www.skinnytaste.com. They list calories and Weight Watcher points there if you are interested.

All you need for the soup is:

• 3 medium zucchini, skin on, cut in chunks

• 1/2 onion, quartered

• 2 whole cloves garlic

• 32 oz. chicken broth (1 box)

• 2T sour cream

-Add broth and vegetables to a sauce pot. Bring to a boil.

-Lower heat and simmer 20 minutes, or until all veggies are soft.

-Purée with an immersion blender, or carefully pour and purée in a stand blender, until all ingredients are pulverized and combined.

- Add sour cream and stir.

- Season to taste.

** Before serving, I add grated Parmesan cheese to top and drizzled with olive oil.

** You can make this soup even healthier  by using reduced-fat sour cream and/or reduced-sodium chicken broth!

**Make it vegan without  the cheese and use vegetable broth instead! 

** This soup lends itself easily to being changed up. You can top it with fresh herbs instead of the oil and cheese... If you need a heartier soup, try adding some chopped zucchini (or zucchini noodles!) or yellow squash... Serve it as a beginning to your meal or as a meal itself by serving it with some crusty bread. 

Let your creativity shine!

Enjoy!

Update: zucchini noodles!

I recently told you about how I mixed pasta with zucchini "noodles" in order to cut down on carbs and use some of the zucchini from my garden.

I used a regular old box grater to make the noodles:

BUT

I wanted to let you know that I finally got the kitchen gadget that will do it for you much more easily.

I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and asked  for something that makes zucchini noodles... The young girl knew exactly what I wanted! She pointed me in the  direction of this:

THE VEGGETTI!

She didn't pronounce it like the G in the word "vegetable". She said it with a soft G as in "go".

I recommend you do the same...

One of my boys saw my new purchase and pronounced it like "vegetable"... I almost had to wash his mouth out with soap.

Hahaha

You're all saying it right now, aren't you?

What's cookin'? - Zucchini Noodles with Roasted Grape Tomato Sauce!

These days I'm constantly scouring the Internet or the knowledge of friends for things to do with the over-abundant vegetables in the garden.

My husband loves having a garden and tending to it. We are fortunate that we have the space for a big garden.

 (Note the log cabin shed that my husband is now building in his spare time... The nut!)

We're always trying new things - foods we have never planted before, along with the tried-and-true crops: zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers. 

This year, new foods for us include red cabbage, beets and peas... I thought they were green peas. When I picked some and started shelling them, I did not find a green pea, but rather a black-eyed pea! I guess when we bought the starter plant, the the tag listed them as "cowpeas". Being the naïve planters that we are, we planted them, expecting green peas. Oh well! I cooked them anyway. That recipe I will share on another day!

Some things are still growing and not ready to harvest (like the cabbage). Others are way more prolific than I ever imagined (like the cucumbers!)

That's just the ONE day's picking from ONE cucumber plant in that picture - I'm not kidding! And to boot, my husband always plants about six grape tomato plants and four other tomato plants!

Yikes!

I've given lots away... Thank you Terri, Pat and Patty for taking some off of my hands!

So anyway, I'm sure my next series of food blogs will be about using the vegetables from my garden. Hopefully you will find some new uses for your garden vegetables as well!

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Grape tomatoes.... What to do with six plants that keep producing more ripe ones each and every day? My husband can only eat so many off the vine as he works outside (too much acid gives you heartburn!)

I came across this recipe and thought I would give it a whirl...

Grape tomato sauce (makes approx. 2 cups)

• Line a 9" x 13" pan with clean, stem-free grape tomatoes (about 5 cups)

• Before adding 5 fresh, whole garlic cloves to the pan, crush them slightly with the side of a knife.

• Drizzle with approximately 1T olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss gently to coat.

• Roast for 45 minutes in a 400° oven. Tomatoes will begin to "pop" and release their juices. Don't overcook you don't want a burnt taste to the sauce!

• Once removed from oven, allow to cool (about 20 minutes).

• Put contents of pan, plus about 8 fresh basil leaves in a food processor. Add salt and pepper to season.

• Process to desired consistency. (This solves your problem of having to peel tiny tomatoes - you don't!)

** I heated this on low heat about 45 minutes before we ate it, in order to thicken it up it. (Without heating, the original recipe states that you have 2-3 days to use the refrigerated sauce before it spoils.)

** The sauce was awesome, but I think it could use a sprinkling of sugar to reduce some of the acidic taste - I'll leave that up to you!

** I'm planning to make another batch, heat it through, allow it to cool, and then freeze it for future use.

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Of course you could just serve this marinara over any pasta.... But when you have "oodles" of zucchini you make noodles!

Zucchini noodles (or, "zoodles", as I have seen them called) are all the rage right now. I see them in TONS of low-carb recipes. 

Apparently, there is some kind of kitchen gadget that will help you to make zucchini noodles. I don't own one, so this is what I did instead - not as perfect as the gadget would produce but, overall same effect!

When I was ready to drain my boiling spaghetti, I simply poured the hot water over the zucchini noodles which were resting in the colander. That hot water bath was enough to cook the thin strips of zucchini.

Mix it in with your spaghetti or just have the zucchini noodles, topped your favorite way....

What's cookin'? - Summer pasta!

As you can probably tell by reading my posts -I love pasta!

During the summer, however, we eat less of it because it's too hot, and even too heavy, when you add sauce!

I stumbled on this recipe because I was searching for different ways to use zucchini - the ever-abundant vegetable in our garden! (it's ridiculous when I think back to when we used to plant four zucchini plants! Nowadays, one will suffice!)

Last night, I made zucchini bites -seasoned with fresh herbs and Parmesan, tossed in olive oil and baked.

Today, I made zucchini bread - the food of choice for my boys if I am going to force zucchini on them.

For dinner, I tried this light pasta dish, and it was yummy! IT'S A KEEPER! If I could find a way to incorporate tomatoes, I could rename it "Tastes of Summer"!

Pasta with ricotta, zucchini and corn

• about 2 cups zucchini,  diced

• about 1 3/4 cups corn

• 12 ounces pasta

• one cup ricotta cheese

• 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese 

• 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn

• 2 tablespoons fresh dill, minced

• Salt and pepper, to taste

We had bought corn on the cob when it was a really good price a week or so ago. I spent an hour blanching the corn and freezing it, so I could enjoy that fresh corn taste anytime. It was well worth the effort!

Along with my many bags of frozen corn we have the prolific zucchini crop, as I mentioned!

So this was the perfect recipe - and easy too!

I used zucchini slices that we grilled (we have one of those little "George Foreman grills" so I was able to do it inside!). If you grill some zucchini and have leftovers, this is a great way to use it up! Otherwise, I would probably use sautéed zucchini in this dish. You don't really want raw... just cook it a bit.

One recommendation: don't skimp on the fresh herbs! The flavors really liven  up this dish!

• Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.

• Add your pasta (I used ziti) and cook it three minutes less than what is recommended on the package.

• While pasta is cooking, dice your zucchini.

• When the timer goes off, add your corn to the pasta and cook the final three minutes.

• Before draining, remove a little over a cup of the pasta water and set aside - you will use this for the "sauce".

• While pasta/corn is draining, prepare sauce by whisking together ricotta, Parmesan, and about 1 cup pasta water. (you should still have extra if you need it)

• Put drained pasta into a large bowl, add fresh basil and dill. Add cheese sauce, tossing to coat pasta. IT IS NOT A VERY THICK SAUCE!

•Add salt/pepper, more Parmesan and more basil to serve, if desired.

*You can always make more "sauce" if you need to with the reserved pasta water!

What's cookin'? - Simple Shrimp

Tonight's meal had sort-of Italian flair.

It started out being based on a recipe I had found on the Internet for "Clean Eating Italian Shrimp". Clean eating means eating more plant-based foods or not eating any processed foods in your diet. I don't fully subscribe to the "clean eating" diet, however, I am always looking for recipes that use fresh ingredients as opposed to processed foods. But every now and then, I will used a canned ingredient. It's simply faster.

This simple shrimp dish was the cornerstone of our dinner. It seemed fast, easy and tasty - the "triple threat".

Because it uses some spices and ingredients common in Italian cooking, I decided that the other foods accompanying the shrimp would also follow that pattern. 

I do that a lot - it's like choosing coordinating clothes. You simply do not wear a polkadot blouse with striped pants, nor do you serve mac-n-cheese with chicken Parmesan (at least not in my home!) 

But I am anal like that....

 Therefore my perfectly coordinated meal consisted of: Italian Shrimp, pastina (with egg)  and Herbed Zucchini "Boats".

Yum! (Of course the boys balked at the zucchini, but my husband and I loved it!)

To make the shrimp, I thawed out 3lbs. frozen, cooked shrimp (that were already peeled and deveined). You throw them in a large frying pan along with: 

•2T olive oil

• one small can tomato paste

• 1 1/2T dried basil 

• 1 1/2t garlic powder

Cook until thoroughly heated.

That's it! Done! It can't get any easier than that!

For the pastina with egg, you can check out my blog post from 4/26 entitled "Italian lunch". This made for a perfect "starchy" side. I grew up with a "meat,  potatoes, veggies" mentality. It is apparent in almost all of my meals that you see on this blog. I can't help it! It's ingrained in my very fiber of being!

So, feel free to eliminate that if you are cutting down on your carb intake!

For the Zucchini "Boats", I used 4 small zucchini, cut in half lengthwise.

Place on a foil-lined baking sheet and brush both sides with olive oil.

Sprinkle the tops with a mixture of:

•Grated Parmesan cheese

•Minced fresh rosemary

•Minced fresh thyme

•Salt and pepper

(I used approximately 2T of each herb.)

Bake in a 350° oven for 15 minutes.

Then, broil 3 to 5 minutes, or until cheese on tops are brown and crispy.

The whole meal came together in less than one half hour! This was great because we had come home late from my youngest son's baseball game and we were all pretty hungry. (Not to mention that this finale week on American Idol, and I had to watch that since it's the only TV I watch these days!) 

The zucchini takes about 20 minutes total, the shrimp and pastina - about 5 to 7 minutes each.

Perfect for a busy week night!

Easypeasy and yummy for your tummy!

Mangia!