Soup, Salad, and Red Lobster Biscuits

soup6  

You know the term “just quick throw a soup together”? Well, I don’t see it that way!!! Every time I make a soup from scratch, it’s alot of work. But I do get a satisfaction out of starting with raw whole veggies and ending up with a good soup. And it’s fun to make… I just don’t buy the thing of it being ‘quick’. Any comments on that?

This soup is actually pretty easy though because the only raw veggies in it is potatoes and onions.
soup1

Chunky Potato Soup    . ..I’m not sure where this recipe comes from, it’s handwritten it on a blank cookbook page

3 med red potatoes
2 c. water
1 sm onion, chopped
3 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. flour
Crushed red pepper flakes
Black pepper
3 cups milk
1/2 tsp. sugar
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup cubed ham

Peel potatoes and cut into 1″cubes. Cook until tender.
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Drain, reserving liquid.
Saute onion in butter until tender, but not brown.
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Add flour, red pepper flakes, and black pepper. Cook 3-4 min.
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Add potatoes, 1 cup liquid, milk, and sugar to saucepan. Stir well. Add cheese and ham. Simmer 30 min, stirring frequently. Serves 12. Very good! That red pepper gives it some kick and extra flavor.
soup5 I know my dipper for the soup is way too big! I bought a smaller one just this morning.

Red Lobster Biscuits    …from Freida   

Preheat oven to 450. Mix 2 cups Bisquick, 1/2 cup water or milk, and 3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese. Drop onto a greased baking sheet and bake for 8-10 min. After baking and while still hot, brush on 1/4 cup butter mixed with 1 tsp. parsley flakes, 1/2 tsp. garlic salt or powder, and 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning. Serve hot!

biscuits I have tried to copy Red Lobster biscuits SO often! I think every time we go there, we say we’ve gotta figure out how to do them. And this is the closest I’ve gotten to them yet! Still not quite as light and moist, but very close. Definitely the best biscuit recipe I’ve tried so far! You know they’ve gotta be good though… the tops are laden with melted butter! You really oughta try them!!!!!
EDIT: This was my 1st attempt. Then, I got another recipe, which is better… so if you try the biscuits, please use this recipe instead.

Tweaked until it got right…

This recipe originated out of the Derstine cookbook. I thought it was sorta blah, so I tweaked it here and there and now that my recipe is all marked up with a pen and pencil, I’ll try to make sense of it and put it in print! I barely ever make casseroles because I married a ‘meat & potatoes’ guy, but the 2 exceptions of all-in-one meals for us are: this lasagna and wet burritos. I almost always make the lasagna for carry-in at church. Once in awhile I make El Paso casserole, which I plan to feature sometime. I don’t like when my group is on for hot dish… I’m way more in my comfort zone with salad & dessert! That’s why I always make the same hotdish! 

Kay’s Lasagna     … this fits perfectly in a large crockpot (I don’t know the size, but I have a little one and a big one. The inside comes out of the big one.)

16 oz noodles  …For the crockpot, sometimes I cook and cut up lasagna noodles, sometimes I use rigatoni or some other noodles. When I layer it to bake in the oven, I always use whole lasagna noodles.
1 1/2 lbs. hamburger
1/2 of an onion
1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning, more if using mozz cheese instead of Italian
5 1/2 c. speghetti sauce
2 c. ricotta cheese
About 2 lbs. shredded Italian or mozzarella cheese
Parmesan cheese

Cook noodles. Brown hamburger and onion; add speghetti sauce and Italian seasoning. Simmer 10 minutes.

For crockpot:
Layer in this order:
1/3 of meat mixture
1/3 of noodles
Sprinkle a little salt over noodles
1/3 ricotta cheese
At least 8 oz shredded cheese
A good amount of Parmesan cheese
Then, I press down on it a little bit. Weird, yeah, but I do it so that after it cooks down, the crockpot is still full. Repeat layers 2 more times. The lid will easy fit on, but the crockpot will be VERY full. Turn it on HI till you leave for church, plug it in at church, still on HI… and I don’t know what the food committee does with it from there!

This takes me about exactly an hour from the time I walk into the kitchen till the time it’s all in the crockpot and the kitchen cleaned up again. I do it Sunday morning, once every other month, usually from about 7:15 to 8:15.

For oven:
Same layer order as crockpot, but only 2 layers instead of 3. Bake at 375 for 40 minutes or until cheese is starting to brown… less if you don’t like your cheese browning.

This lasagna freezes well. When I make it, I put it in smaller pans, then it’s so handy to pull out on a busy day or on Sunday morning before going out the door.

The only pictures I have are of one time when I made a double batch for hot lunch at sewing and then took out enough for us to put in a smaller pan for supper. So here they are:     lasagna3   lasagna4  lasagna5   lasagna6  Repeat layers.

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Also that evening, I made a new breadstick recipe. This one will need a bit of tweaking too.

Italian-Style Breadsticks … from an Easy to Bake Easy to Make recipe card

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh basil or 2 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. chopped fresh oregano or 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/8 tsp. black pepper
1 can (11 oz) refrigerated breadstick dough
1 egg
1 Tbsp. water

Preheat oven to 375. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray. Combine first 5 ingredients in a small bowl; mix well and set aside. Unroll dough; separate breadsticks. Cut each strip in half crosswise.
bsticks1
On a lightly floured surface, with floured fingertips, twist the 2 halves together. Beat egg w\ water. Lightly brush tops of breadsticks with egg mixture.
bsticks2 (Side note: On this picture, can you tell that my photographer is about 3 1/2 ft. tall? Can almost see the breadsticks!   Also, yeah, that’s a sweater… hard to imagine in this hot weather. This is from a backlog of recipes/pictures not featured yet, but made earlier this year.)
Sprinkle seasoning over breadsticks, turning to coat evenly on both sides. Place breadsticks on baking sheet, 1 inch apart.
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Press down edges slightly to prevent twists from unraveling. Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Serve warm.
bsticks4

WAY TOO MUCH seasoning!!!!! Next time I’m going to try just sprinkling some Italian seasoning on them over the cheese instead. We could hardly eat them. But man, they sure looked good!!!

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Thanks for all your entertaining/interesting comments in the last post! And I’ll just leave you with a couple things coming in the next posts… Redneck Pizza (designed by my husband) and Steak Fajitas… which one should I feature first?

Italian Bread Wedges

Tired of scones by now?

This recipe is taken off of ilovecooking’s site . She has progressive pictures too, but I’ll put mine on anyway in case you don’t get over to her site. She posts new recipes pretty often (with pictures) and it’s very interesting!  

Italian Bread Wedges      

1 T. dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1 t. sugar
*edit* 2 Tbsp oil, sorry! Thanks, kanadian_mom!
1 t. salt
2 1/2 to 3 cups flour
1/3 cup Italian salad dressing
1/4 t. garlic powder
1/4 t. dried oregano
1/4 t. dried thyme
dash pepper
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (I used more.)

In mixing bowl dissolve yeast in warm water and sugar. Let stand 5 minutes. Add oil, salt and 2 cups flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to form a soft dough.. Knead until smooth and elastic. (I do this in my kitchen-aid.) Place in greased bowl, cover and let rise in warm place until doubled, about 40 minutes. Punch dough down. Press onto greased 14 inch pizza pan.
  wedge1
Spread with salad dressing. Combine seasonings. Sprinkle over dressing. I mixed the seasonings in the dressing before spreading. I figured it would get more evenly seasoned that way. I also used creamy Italian dressing (instead of regular) because that’s what I had on hand.
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Top with cheese.
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Bake at 425 15-18 minutes or until golden brown.
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I usually cut into 16 slices. Serve with pizza sauce for dipping. These look good and are good! It’s made alot different than pizza as far as the sauce and seasonings, but it’s amazing how much it tastes like pizza! It’s easy to make and looks very nice to serve. Yum!

And here was the rest of our meal… fried chicken breasts, cooked veggies.
wedge5

Bread-making… sigh!

I am so impressed with good bread-makers. Mom used to make it all the time. I should try it again, I guess. Maybe I get discouraged too easily. Anyone have any good tips for an amateur bread-maker like me (other than ‘just use frozen bread dough’)?

Maybe you’re wondering what goes wrong. Dinner rolls are a problem for me too. Tough, don’t raise well, too airy in the top half (huge air pockets), and they don’t even taste good, just sorta blah. 

Anybody on a diet? This meal is for you!

  445 calories… including dessert! Not bad!

diet meal

Garlic Chicken Kiev
Chewy Pizza Bread
Cauliflower and Broccoli
Strawberry Pie

These recipes (except the caul and broc, that’s just cooked frozen veggies) all come from Betty Crocker’s Eat and Lose Weight Cookbook . After each recipe is a chart with as much info on it as you’d find on a nutrition label. I’ll just list the calories, carbs, and protein. If you want more info than that, let me know.

Garlic Chicken Kiev

3 Tbsp reduced calorie spead, softened (I used low-fat butter, half the calories of reg butter)
1 Tbsp chopped fresh chives or parsley (I used 1/2 Tbsp of each)
1/8 tsp garlic powder
6 skinless boneless chicken breast halves (1 1/2 lbs)
2 cups cornflakes, crushed (about 1 cup)
2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 cup low-fat buttermilk or skim milk

Mix spread, chives, and garlic powder, shape into rectangle, 3 x 2 inches. Cover and freeze about 30 min or until firm.     Trim fat from chicken. Flatten each chicken breast half to 1/4-inch thickness between wax paper or plastic wrap.     Heat oven to 425. Spray square pan, 9 x 9 x 2 inches, with non-stick cooking spray. Cut chives mixture crosswise into 6 pieces. Place one piece on center of each chicken breast half.
diet chic1   Fold long sides of chicken over chives mixture; fold up ends and secure with toothpick.
diet chic2   …yeah, as simple as that! Ha! It took me a long time to make these things and I used up to 4 toothpicks per piece! In a perfect world, chicken breast halves would all be shaped the same and be 4 ounces each!      Mix cornflakes, parsley, and paprika. Dip chicken into milk, then lightly and evenly coat with cornflake mixture.
diet chic3   Place chicken, seam sides down, in pan. Bake uncovered about 35 min or until chicken is no longer pink in center. 
diet chic4    6 servings. Per serving: 190 calories; Carbohydrates, 9g; Protein, 25g        These tasted great! Nice and moist chicken! The fresh spices (or is it herbs?) give it lots of flavor! I’ll know more what I’m doing next time and hopefully the whole folding thing will go smoother and faster!!! Will definitely make again! 

Chewy Pizza Bread

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup regular or non-alcoholic beer (Since I didn’t have beer on hand, I used Diet Coke)
1/2 cup speghetti sauce
1/3 cup shredded reduced-fat mozzarella cheese
Chopped fresh basil leaves, if desired (I didn’t do that)

Heat oven to 425. Spray round pan, 9 x 1 1/2 inches, with non-stick cooking spray. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl. Stir in beer just until flour is moistened.    Spread dough in pan. Spread speghetti sauce over dough. Sprinkle with cheese.
diet bread1   Bake 15-20 min or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Sprinkle with basil. Serve warm.
diet bread2     6 servings. Per serving: 145 calories; Carbohydrates, 29g; Protein, 4g      If you keep in mind that this is a diet dish, it’s actually very good! The problem was that there was too little cheese, but that’s diet for ya! I guess we’re just too used to stuff loaded with cheese… refer to previous post! I was surprised about this bread. I thought it would be biscuity, but it was actually more like regular raised bread, only more dense. It’s very filling, too. By the way, the Diet Coke seemed to work great as a substitute!

Strawberry Pie with Meringue Crust

2 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 cup sugar
1 pkg (1.1 oz) vanilla fat-free sugar-free instant pudding and pie filling
1 cup skim milk
1 1/2 cups frozen (thawed) reduced-fat whipped topping
1 pint strawberries (2 cups), sliced

Heat oven to 275. Spray pie plate, 9 x 1 1/4 inches, with non-stick cooking spray. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar in medium bowl with electric mixer on high speed until foamy. Beat in sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time; continue beating until stiff and glossy. Do not underbeat. Spread mixture evenly on bottom and halfway up side of pie plate. I put it to the top of the pie plate instead of halfway up.
diet pie1   Bake 40 min. Turn oven off; leave meringue in oven with door closed 1 hour. Finish cooling meringue at room temperature. 
diet pie2      Beat pudding and pie filling with milk about 45 seconds, using wire whisk. Fold in one cup of the whipped topping. Layer half of the pudding mixture and half of the strawberries in crust; repeat.    Cover loosely and refrigerate till firm, at least one hour, but no longer than 8 hours. Run knife around edge to loosen crust. Top each serving with some of the remaining1/2 cup whipped topping. I put the 1/2 cup Cool Whip on top right away and garnished it with a strawberry so that it would look more attractive sitting on the table during supper.  Cover and refrigerate any remaining pie.
diet pie3   8 servings. Per serving: 85 calories; Carbohydrate, 16g; Protein, 2g       This is just tops (for a low-cal dessert). The crust is great (meringue goes good with this pie), but it’s not too sturdy when you try to get pieces out of the pan. It kind of crumples up with the pie server sliding under it, so you don’t really end up with a picture-perfect piece. But the taste with fresh strawberries makes up for it! Yum!

By the way, one serving of the veggies was 25 calories . Not sure of the other specs on it.

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