Ok, it’s confession time. While my eating habits have improved a lot over the past couple of years, I still have a lot of weaknesses for the unhealthy processed food I used to eat all the time. Things like corn dogs and snack cakes and store bought cookies. But the good thing about learning to cook is that you can learn to make all the “bad” stuff you love. Yes, it may still be unhealthy, but at least you know every single ingredient that went into it and you aren’t consuming any weird chemicals or preservatives. I’ve learned to make Oatmeal Cream Pies and Oreos and chewy Granola Bars and while I can’t say I totally gave up the processed versions of those things, more often than not when I really want them I’ll make them at home.

Spaghetti-Os are another one of my weaknesses. I’m calling them Spaghetti-Os because I think that’s how they are best known, but those are actually made by Campbells. The kind I grew up on was from Chef Boyardee and they were called ABCs & 123s or Dinosaurs. Sadly, they stopped making them in the 90s and I had to settle for Spaghetti-Os which are, in my opinion, inferior. I’m mentioning this to illustrate how deep my love for this—admittedly gross-looking—canned soup goes. I figure many people may have liked it as a child as well, but you grew out of it. I never did. It’s thick and warm and comforting and most of all, simple. It’s almost like a tomato-y macaroni and cheese, actually. I was surprised to learn it had cheese in it at all, but it thickens the tomato sauce and gives it more flavor so it makes sense.

In my effort to try to reduce my exposure to BPA I’ve given up a lot of canned foods. I tried to give up my soup but after being tempted by the cans of it on the grocery store shelf one too many times I decided to make my own homemade Spaghetti-Os. It’s taken me several attempts but I finally figured it out! The recipes I tried didn’t taste right but with a few adjustments I came up a satisfying version. It turns out you need to add a little bit of sugar to remove some of the acidity from the tomato sauce. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason the Campbells version has never tasted “right” to me. I’m sure the original Chef Boyardee version had tons of unnecessary sugar—which is probably one of the reasons I liked it so much as a kid—but I found just a few teaspoons is fine.

The recipe calls for canned tomato sauce, which is what I use despite what I said about staying away from canned stuff. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, it’s winter and tomatoes aren’t going to taste very good right now. For another, it’s just easier. If you want to make your own tomato sauce, I solute you. But I’m going to keep buying my Muir Glen organic tomato sauce since I know it tastes good and their cans are BPA free. (Note: this is not a paid anything, I’m just recommending what I like to use!) And one of the reasons I always reached for canned soup in the first place was out of pure laziness, so I didn’t see any point in complicating the recipe. I like that it’s simple and that I already have all the ingredients in my kitchen. I like that it only takes 30 minutes. It’s nice to be able to enjoy this soup again, without the guilt, just like I did when I was a kid.

Click here to get the recipe for Tomato Noodle Soup (Homemade Spaghetti-Os!) »

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I hope all my American readers had a nice Thanksgiving. The past couple of years Brandon and I have had a guest to help us eat all that food, but this year was a simple Thanksgiving with just the two of us. Unfortunately, my brain kinda went on autopilot as I was preparing all my traditional dishes and I wound up making enough food for probably 5 or 6 people! Suffice it to say we had lots of leftovers.

The biggest culprit turned out to be cranberry sauce. I found a new recipe to try this year and went a little gung ho with it, making enough to feed about 12 people. Thankfully, the cranberry sauce turned out to be as good as its name: Cranberry Sauce Extraordinaire. It will definitely be my go-to cranberry sauce recipe from now on. The best thing is that it’s not just cranberries: it has apples, pears, pureed orange and other berries. You can even mix in some pecans if you want. I love cranberries, but cranberry sauce can sometimes be a bit too tart for me, so I like how all the added fruit really balances the flavor.

It was only after I made all that sauce that I remembered Brandon doesn’t even like cranberry sauce. 5 days later, after most of the leftovers were gone I still had a huge bowl of cranberry sauce taking up space in my fridge. So I decided to make it into a dessert since I knew I was more likely to actually finish it that way.

I seen other recipes for pandowdies around the internet and have been wanting to make one, so this turned to be a perfect opportunity. If you’ve never heard of a pandowdy before, it’s basically a cross between a pie and cobbler. Instead of putting a filling inside of a pie crust, you put the filling in a baking dish and just top it with pie crust. The point is to cut some holes/slices in it, so that all that filling will bubble up and become gooey and delicious. Unlike a pie where the filling usually gels together when cooked, a pandowdy filling is supposed to be juicy, more like a cobbler or a crisp. That’s why using the leftover cranberry sauce turned out to be a perfect fit for this recipe.

I’ve included the recipe for my cranberry sauce if you want to start with that or you can use whatever sauce you have leftover and add some extra apples, pears and whatever else you want to it. This pandowdy recipe is really flexible, you can make it in any size pan you want. I think it would be great in ramekins if want to make a more individual-sized dessert. You don’t even really need to bother with putting the pie crust on top in one piece, it can be cut up into smaller squares and assembled on top of your filling. I rolled it out in one piece because I think it looks nicer that way (and I’m a weird perfectionist), but it’s called a pandowdy because it generally looks kinda “dowdy” so you really don’t need to put effort into making it look nice.

Also, I should say that I’m generally scared of making pie crusts because they can be so temperamental, but this was seriously the easiest pie crust I’ve ever made. According to Bon Appetit you shouldn’t use your food processor or even bother cutting in the butter by hand, you can let your mixer do all the work! Using the paddle attachment on your mixer to cut in the butter prevents the dough from becoming overworked like it can be in a processor. It took me less than 5 minutes to mix up the dough and it rolled out easily without having to be chilled. And it tasted great; slightly sweet and perfectly flaky…my favorite kind of crust! It helps that you brush it with melted butter and sprinkle cinnamon-sugar on top.

The sweet, flaky topping and the warm, bubbly cranberry sauce and tender fruit all taste great together. Especially with a scoop of melting vanilla ice cream. I gobbled it up right after I finished taking pictures. Then I filled up the bowl all over again…

Click here to get the recipe for Cranberry Pandowdy (and my favorite Cranberry Sauce) »

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Hey look, it’s more apple recipes! Have you had enough yet? I promise to cool it with the apples after this, but I just had to share these easy and delicious recipes since apple season is almost over. Thankfully apples are available year round, but they don’t seem to taste quite as good as they do in the fall.

The great thing about this is that it’s two recipes in one. Start with 5 pounds of apples and you can make both applesauce and apple butter in the span of about 2 hours (less than 30 minutes of which is actual hands on time). I honestly couldn’t believe how simple it was.

I always figured making homemade applesauce was easy, but my laziness won out in the end. After trying this recipe, I feel really dumb because this applesauce literally takes 30 minutes to make. 30 minutes! And most of that time is simmering on the stove, so in reality it only takes about 10 minutes of actual work. That is pretty much the definition of a lazy-proof recipe. I usually spend $3-4 a pop for those little cups of applesauce that last me less than a week. Never again!

I love maple syrup and it’s a much healthier, nutrient-rich alternative to sugar so I subbed it for the sugar in the original recipe. The maple flavor is subtle but I wanted the apples to be front and center and I didn’t want it to be overly sweet. You can easily add more syrup or brown sugar to sweeten it to your tastes.

Even though I assumed applesauce would be simple to make, I figured that apple butter would be a lot more complicated so I’ve never even thought to attempt it before. But you know what? It turns out that apple butter IS applesauce. It’s just been cooked longer! As the applesauce cooks down the natural sweetness of the apples and the maple syrup intensifies so it becomes sweeter and more delicious the longer you cook it.

This apple butter tastes great slathered on just about anything, but it’s especially good on those apple cinnamon biscuits I posted last week. The recipe only makes about one and half cups of apple butter, which is fine in the fridge for up to a month so I didn’t bother canning it. One of these days I’m going to teach myself how to preserve things, but I’m not there yet. If you’re interested in canning the apple butter, follow the link to the original recipe for full instructions.

Click here to get the recipe for Maple Applesauce & Apple Butter »

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It’s nearing the end of the year which means that I only have a few more deliveries from my CSA and I’m starting to get sad when I think about not getting that box every Wednesday. But I’ll definitely be signing up for another year and, thankfully, I only have to wait about two months since they pick back up in March.

I started this blog several years ago to become a better cook and put more effort into developing healthy eating habits, but joining this CSA has really been the final kick in the pants I needed to make that happen. I’ve probably tried more new vegetables in just the last 6 months than in all of the last 10 years. It’s been great and has helped me to finally convert my inner picky eater into someone who will try anything at least once. There’s still quite a few things I don’t like (mushrooms…yuck) but at least I tried them and I’ve even found ways to hide the stuff I don’t like so it doesn’t go to waste (mushrooms always go into my favorite spaghetti sauce).

Squash is one of those things that I used to hate and completely avoided pretty much up until I was greeted with all of the yellow squash in my CSA boxes this summer. It’s still not my favorite vegetable but the more varieties of it I try, the more I like it. I was looking for recipes to use up a butternut squash and this one caught my eye because it combines all of my favorite things into one. First of all, it’s a soup and in the Fall and Winter I’m more than happy to eat soup every day of the week. Second, it has apples and you may have noticed I’ve been kind of obsessed with apples this fall. Finally, the squash and apples are roasted first and as I’ve said before, roasting make everything better.

All of those things combine into one really nice soup. Roasting the squash and apples with sage gives it a deeper, slightly smokey flavor and the apples add a subtle sweetness. It’s a very healthy soup so it’s great for lunch or a light dinner. Plus it’s dead easy to prepare. You just need to roast the squash and apples, puree and then stir in some broth. I think it may be the easiest soup I’ve ever made!

I like to eat most soups with some kind of bread and since this soup reminded me of a tomato soup, grilled cheese was the first thing that came to mind. I’ve been eating grilled cheese sandwiches forever and I always used those yellow squares of American cheese. I’m not gonna lie, I like that stuff but is it even cheese? My CSA has made me look at all food in a different way and eating super processed stuff like that makes me feel a little dirty now. So I came up with a new version of a grilled cheese that I didn’t have to feel bad about, I like to refer to it as a “grown-up” grilled cheese sandwich.

It all starts with the cheese. I just discovered smoked gouda cheese in the past year and now I like to put it on everything, so this grilled cheese has white cheddar and smoked gouda on it. Both of these cheeses are from the deli section of my grocery store so they’re more expensive than those yellow squares but I’ve learned there are some things you shouldn’t be cheap with and cheese is one of them. And if you have good cheese you also need fresh baked bread. I know I should make it myself, but the bakery in my grocery store already does a great job of it and I’m lazy, so store bought it is. I mix in a little rosemary with my butter and then spread it on the each slice of bread. You can use thyme or sage if you like them better but the herbs (even dried herbs) add nice flavor to the bread and I think rosemary pairs especially well with smoked gouda. It’s still a grilled cheese so it’s not complicated, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t class it up a bit!

Since the sandwich packs in a lot of flavor with the cheddar, gouda and rosemary, it’s a nice compliment to the roasted squash-apple soup with its more subtle flavors. The soup (which can be made with pumpkin, too) can be made ahead of time so it’s great to heat up for lunch or dinner. It would also make a great starter on Thanksgiving or to go along with those leftover turkey sandwiches the next day!

Click here to get the recipe for Butternut Squash-Apple Soup & Gouda Grilled Cheese »

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Remember when I said I was excited about making soup this fall? Well, the prospect of soup sounded so good that I may have jumped the gun a little. But that’s ok because this might as well be called “Summer’s Almost Over Soup.” It’s full of fresh and bright summer produce but it’s warm and hearty and creamy and perfect for those late summer evenings when the temperatures are finally starting to drop.

I really wasn’t expecting this soup to be so good, I was just trying to use up the two weeks worth of yellow tomatoes from my CSA and this recipe fit the bill. I wound up changing the original recipe quite a bit, though. That’s what I love about soup, you can almost always add your own spin to it without risking messing it up completely. For instance, if you can’t get your hands on yellow tomatoes, I’m sure regular tomatoes would work just fine.

My main change was to roast the tomatoes. Roasted vegetables are my favorite side dish, I can’t think of any vegetable that isn’t improved by oven roasting so the thought of concentrating all those flavors into a soup practically had me salivating. I roasted the tomatoes along with a yellow bell pepper, onion, garlic and a red jalapeno. The original recipe calls for canned chipotle chilies, which are just red jalapenos that have been smoked so all I had to do was add a little liquid smoke to get the same flavor.

I have to warn you: this soup is really spicy. But I’m a total wimp when it comes to spicy stuff and I loved it. The heat is what takes this soup above and beyond any tomato soup I’ve ever had and I think it would be pretty boring without it. But if you’re worried, I used the whole jalapeno including the seeds; you can remove the seeds for a less spicy soup.

How have I gotten this far and not mentioned the bacon?! Oh yes, lots of delicious bacon. And this soup is really easy to make. The roasted vegetables are pureed (a lot or a little depending on how chunky you like your soup) and then added to the pot with the bacon, some broth and a little wine. After the ingredients have simmered for a little while and all the flavors have come together heavy cream is stirred in to give the soup that perfect creamy texture. This tomato soup is not for the faint of heart, but it’s worth every spoonful. And spicy foods make you burn more calories, right? It practically makes up for itself in the end. (Ok, not really, but it’s so good you won’t care.)

Update: I got orange tomatoes in my CSA box this week and my first thought was to make more of this soup. I used a mix of large orange tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and red peppers. It tastes just as good and it’s actually a much prettier color than the yellow tomato soup. So feel free to use whatever color tomatoes you want!

Click here to get the recipe for Roasted Yellow Tomato Soup »

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I have a confession: I don’t really like yogurt. I’ve tried so many times over the years to make myself like it, but it always ends with me having to throw out a bunch of expired yogurt containers. But then I made that Cherry-Rhubarb Fool last month and I realized that yogurt can be good as long as it’s the base for something else. So yogurt by itself = meh, but yogurt + fruit + whipped cream = yum.

Last week I got some absolutely gorgeous peaches and cherries from my CSA and I had big container of yogurt that was close to expiring, so I decided combining them would be a great way to use everything up. But instead of mixing it all together like I did with the fool I made it a yogurt parfait. Because what’s more fun than a parfait? It just feels so much more decadent than a simple bowl of yogurt topped with fruit. Sometimes I have to trick myself into eating things that are better for me and this is a trick that worked really well.

This is a dead simple recipe to prepare and you could substitute lots of different fruit or berries depending on what you have on hand. The fruit is tossed in a simple syrup infused with lemon and orange. I put a layer of yogurt between the fruit and then topped the whole thing with some fresh whipped cream. It makes an incredibly satisfying breakfast or dessert.

I’m glad to have found a way to make yogurt more palatable for myself, but still, I have to admit that yogurt is not terribly exciting. But Maple Granola Brittle? That is pretty exciting to me. I couldn’t really say for sure how healthy this stuff is for you since it does have quite a bit of sugar, but it at least contains lots of other good ingredients like oats and almonds and fresh orange juice. And that’s good because this brittle is addictive. I’ve been snacking on it all week long!

The recipe is relatively simple to prepare, too: start with some granola, cook sugar, maple syrup and orange juice together until it caramelizes, add the granola to the caramel and roll everything flat. It dries hard, but it’s thin enough that it’s not difficult to chew. When you break it up into smaller pieces it’s like eating little granola cookies. The maple and orange flavors really shine, so I highly recommend using good quality syrup and fresh squeezed orange juice.

This brittle is perfect to serve with the yogurt parfait since its crunchiness is such a great contrast with the soft yogurt and fruit. You can play with the granola mix to add in your favorite kinds of nuts or seeds. I don’t like lots of “stuff” in my granola so I just put in some chopped up almonds and ground up flaxseed, but you can add in or substitute pecans, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds or whatever else you like.

Click here to get the recipe for Cherry-Peach Yogurt Parfaits with Maple Granola Brittle »

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It feels weird to be posting a soup recipe when it’s almost April, but it actually snowed in Charlottesville this past weekend so Spring isn’t quite here yet, at least for many of us in the top half of the country. And you know what? That’s kind of okay with me. Spring is beautiful time of year up here, but I actually prefer cold weather. Plus I get to eat more soup! I don’t think there’s anything I love more than soup (well anything that doesn’t have sugar in it, anyway).

During the colder months I make soup at least once a week, but I’ve been making it less in the past few months. So last week when the temperature dropped and brought rain and snow with it, I knew I had to make some soup. I figure it’s my last chance before it gets too warm. I recently had some potato soup at Panera Bread and it made me remember how much I love it, so I decided to improvise my own version at home. I love spicy soup like my favorite Chicken Tortilla Soup and I love cheesy potato soup, so I figured I would combine those two into a single Tex-Mex inspired potato soup.

I looked up other potato soup recipes for reference and many were made with ingredients like cream and eggs. I wanted to keep things lighter since I knew I would be adding cheese and bacon, so I made a very thick base by blending up potatoes, carrots (you can’t taste them, but they make the soup a pretty color!) and chicken broth and then I used non-fat evaporated milk and melted 2% cheese to make it creamy. You would never be able to tell this is a “light” potato soup, though. It’s just as thick and creamy as any of the higher fat versions of it I’ve ever had.

The soup is filled with hearty vegetables like onions, garlic, carrots, bell pepper, jalapeno pepper and of course lots of potato. Add to that some bacon, cheese, cilantro and little lime juice for good measure. At first I was worried that all this stuff wouldn’t work well in a potato soup, but in the end I think this the best potato soup I’ve ever eaten! It’s thick and creamy, spicy and cheesy and so very satisfying.

Click here to get the recipe for Tex-Mex Potato Soup »

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After last week’s fried indulgence, I wanted to make something totally guilt-free that used up a bunch of fruit I had sitting in my fridge and freezer. I’m always on the lookout for homemade versions of the store bought snacks I love, so after reading this post about Fruit Bars I immediately headed down to the kitchen to make my own.

I am so glad to have found this recipe because I will never need to buy fruit bars at the grocery store ever again. These taste so much better than anything store bought and they are filled with natural ingredients.

My bars have a crust of ground up almonds and oats along with flour and just enough butter. It’s like a healthier version of shortbread, but it tastes just as good. I had lots of berries and some beautiful blood oranges so I made two different fruit fillings: cranberry-orange and blueberry-orange. The fruit is cooked with some juice, sugar and cornstarch until it thickens and then it’s poured on top of the crust. The fruit is topped with a streusal made with that shortbread-like crust and more oats. Then the bars are baked until the topping is nicely browned and crunchy.

Here’s the great thing about this recipe: it’s incredibly flexible. I made my crust with a mixture of almonds and oats, but you can use all nuts or all oats. It doesn’t have to be almonds, either, you can use any kind of nut you want. And possibilities for the fruit filling are basically endless: apples, strawberries, pears, peaches, cherries, etc. Combine your favorite fruits or add spices like cinnamon or ginger. I didn’t put nuts in my streusal topping, but if you love nuts, go for it!

Tip: make these in 9×5″ loaf pans for easy slicing. They hold together pretty well and would be easy to transport to eat at work or a hike or anything like that. Mine are wrapped individually and stored in the fridge so I can grab a bar to go with my morning coffee or as an afternoon snack. They’ve replaced the muffin as my new favorite snack. I love these things!

Also, I would be a bad Browncoat if I were to make fruit bars with oats and not call them “Fruity Oaty Bars”. If you have no idea what I’m talking about watch this:

Yep, that song will probably be stuck in your head all day now. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Now go rent the movie Serenity (it’s nothing like that video, I promise). You can thank me later.

Click here to get the recipe for Berry-Orange Fruity Oaty Bars »

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Since last fall I’ve tried a ton of soup recipes looking for that one perfect soup. A soup recipe that could stand up against my absolute favorite: Chicken Tortilla Soup. I’ve found quite a few good soups, even some great ones, but nothing that I loved as much as that tortilla soup. But, finally, after months of looking I think I may have found it. I’m not sure I’d say I like this chowder more than tortilla soup, but it’s definitely tied with it.

I would call this chowder a cousin to tortilla soup. The recipes produce very different soups despite having a lot of the same ingredients. That’s probably why I like it so much. (I also like it because it’s a Cooking Light recipe so it’s healthy.) Both have a base of pureed vegetables, but this one doesn’t have tomatoes in the base like the tortilla soup does. This chowder is much creamier (the one unhealthy ingredient is a very small amount of heavy cream) and has potatoes, which only makes me love it more. I’ve made this recipe several times and adapted it a bit by adding some corn and a bell pepper to make it even heartier.

And don’t be scared off by the chipotle part! This only has a single chile in it and little bit of adobo sauce. I am a big wuss when if comes to spicy foods and I didn’t think this was too bad. You can always adjust the amount of chiles and adobo sauce to your own tastes. Cornbread goes great with this chowder, and also helps to cool your mouth down!

This recipe isn’t difficult, but it’s about an hour of cooking time, divided up. The most time consuming thing for me is always the prep, chopping up the vegetables, etc. My knife skills are not great so I chop really slowly. Things go much faster when Brandon is my sous chef! Since most of the vegetables are pureed, you don’t need to be precise so that saves some time.

What I really like about this recipe is that you poach the chicken in the broth. This is such a good idea! The soup and the chicken get to cook at the same time and it’s gives the chicken more flavor. It’s much simpler than having to cook it separately. I’m going to do it this way with my tortilla soup from now on, too.

There’s still a month of winter left, so if you’re looking for something to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, this chowder is for you! And if you have a cold it’s especially helpful because it will clear those sinuses right out.

Click here to get the recipe for Chipotle Chicken Chowder »

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Well, I don’t know about you, but I am absolutely swimming in leftovers after Thanksgiving. Every year I say I will halve all the recipes, but I never do! This year we wound up having a surprise guest when Brandon’s brother called a few days before Thanksgiving asking if he could join us, so it was good that I had planned to make so much. But even with one extra person eating, my fridge is still stuffed with food almost a week later. I decided I needed to get rid of the turkey since that was taking up the most space and this soup was the first thing that came to mind.

This recipe is sort of a combination between a creamy soup and a–I guess I’d call it–brothy soup. It has the stock/broth base with evaporated milk added in which gives it a bit of creaminess, but it never really gets very thick. The rice is what gives the soup more body. I don’t normally even like wild rice, but combined with all the vegetables and turkey, it’s very good in this soup.

I originally made recipe with chicken, but it’s just as good with turkey. In fact, if you use some of your own turkey stock it has even better flavor. It made me realize that I need to start making my own stock more than just once a year. According to Ruhlman, canned broth is total crap and you’re better off using water if you don’t have your own stock. I had no idea! I have made this soup with the canned chicken broth before, but I could definitely taste the difference when using my own stock. It’s much more flavorful!

If you’ve already used up all your turkey or you just want to make this with chicken instead, I would recommend buying two chickens and roasting them at the same time. You can have one chicken for dinner that night and shred the other one and save it for this soup. I usually make this Thyme-roasted chicken recipe. If you don’t want to do a whole chicken you can get 4-6 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts and roast them instead.

Roasting ahead of time makes this about the easiest recipe ever, which is definitely nice after spending two entire days in the kitchen for Thanksgiving. Cook the vegetables and liquids and then throw in the rice and poultry last. It only takes about 30 minutes. The rice and vegetables make this soup very filling and yet it’s low-fat, which is also welcome after eating all that rich food last week.

Click here to get the recipe for Roasted Turkey (or Chicken) with Wild Rice Soup »

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