Awesome Tomato Basil Soup/Grown-Up SpaghettiO's

When I was a kid, I was succumbed to eat different varieties of the Chef Boyardee and SpaghettiO's line of canned spaghetti in tomato sauce. I was particularly fond of the spaghettiO's with meatballs. Of course, as a child you never realize the quality of food you are eating just as long as it was quick to make and tasted somewhat decent. I have forgotten the days of those canned spaghetti products until a few days ago when Laura and I were experimenting with a recipe for a Tomato Basil soup. A friend gave us about 20 leaves of fresh basil and we needed to find a way to use them before they went bad. We made this soup and it was pretty good. However, then next day we had a stroke of genius and added some pasta to the soup and made our own amazing "grown-up version" of SpaghettiO's. So here is the Tomato Basil soup recipe along with the optional step to make it the Grown Up SpaghettiO's.

Tomato Basil Soup

Ingredients:

1 28oz. can of whole peeled tomatoes (or 5-6 fresh tomatoes)

4 cups of tomato juice (1 quart can)

15-20 leaves of fresh basil

1 cup of heavy whipping cream

1-2 tsp. of chicken bullion to taste

2 cloves of garlic

7 tbls. of butter

1/3 cup of Parmesan cheese

Salt and Pepper to taste

Optional:

1/2 pound of rotini pasta

In a large stock pot, place tomatoes and tomato juice and heat on medium. Simmer for 25-30 minutes. Add the garlic, bullion, and chopped basil leaves to the tomatoes and puree with a immersion blender or remove and puree in a stand blender and return to pot. Keep on medium heat and add the heavy cream, parmesan, and the butter. Season with salt and pepper and stir until the butter melts. Simmer for 10-20 minutes and serve.

To the Grown-Up SpaghettiO's, cook the rotini pasta until done and add to the soup. It is so amazing and even better the next day!

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Sweet Pork and Creamy Tomatillo Ranch Dressing

While living in Provo a few years ago, we became friends with a really fun couple, the Noordas. They, like us, were major foodies. One day they shared this recipe with us and we were blown away. They have since moved to Chicago but we still think of them every time we make these recipes. (and we hope they don't mind us sharing their recipes with everyone on our blog)

There has been an explosion of Tex-Mex type restaurants in the past 5 or 6 years around us. They all pretty much serve the same type of food, large salads, burritos, and tacos. They are all pretty much known for their sweet pork and Creamy Tomatillo Ranch Dressing. Laura and I spent a while trying to find a replica recipe for these and failed to recreate them. Then the Noordas shared their version with us and we have been making it ever since. So thanks to the Noordas for this awesome recipe!

Sweet Pork

1 big hunk of pork butt (again we highly recommend the pork roasts available at Costco, if there is one nearby)

2 cans "el pato" (green or yellow cans in the Mexican aisle by the salsas & enchilada sauce. Just an FYI: the yellow can is milder than the green can)

3 cans of tomato sauce

2-3 cups of brown sugar

1 cup of water

We like to cook this on low in the crock pot for up to 8+ hours. By that time it should be really soft and easy to pull apart with a fork or tongs. Put the shredded meat back in and cook for a little longer to get the flavors to penetrate the shredded meat. Serve in any of your favorite styles of Mexican dishes. We really like it with taco salads and large burritos, but our new favorite is making large nachos.

Creamy Tomatillo Ranch Dressing

3 fresh tomatillos, peeled and quartered

juice of a lime

1/2 c. buttermilk

1/2 c. mayo

1/2 c. sour cream

a pkg dry Ranch Buttermilk Dressing mix

1 c. fresh chopped cilantro

6 stalks green onions, with ends

2 cloves crushed garlic

3-4 tsp sugar

5 cross-section slices of a jalapeno pepper(optional if you want a kick)

Mix well in blender or food processer. Refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.

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Bruschetta

So the other night we watched Julie and Julia which made us really want to cook again. And of all the dishes cooked in the movie, Laura was fascinated with the Bruschetta. So we had to try it out the Julia Child way. We first tried this recipe over the holidays in Seattle with my family and have made it almost twice a week since then, they are that good! Here's the recipe:


Easy (but addicting) Bruschetta

5-6 Roma tomatoes (or plum tomatoes)
Olive Oil
Garlic Cloves
Fresh Basil
Parmesan Cheese
Bread (traditional Baguette or we used French bread and really liked it)
Salt and Pepper
Italian Seasoning

Cube tomatoes and finely chop about 5-7 leaves of basil and place in a mixing bowl. Also add about a 1/4 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese to the bowl. Pour about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the tomato mixture and combine. Sprinkle some Italian Seasoning and Salt and pepper to taste. Let that sit in the fridge for a while so the tomatoes will take on some of the flavor of the basil. Next, slice the bread in 1' slices. Coat the bottom of a skillet with olive oil and place on med-high heat. When hot, add the bread and brown on both sides. You may have to keep adding more oil to make the bread crispy. Peel a garlic clove and cut it in half. Rub the garlic clove on one side of the toasted bread. How much garlic you rub is up to your taste in garlic, but 5-6 rubs works good for us. Place the tomato mixture on the garlic side of the bread and enjoy!

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Easy Chicken Salad

In keeping with our little theme of really quick and easy meals, we thought we should share our little Lunch secret. Chicken Salad! I'm sure everyone has made chicken salad before, but this is our quick and easy recipe for those who aren't as cooking literate as others. We always make this on Sunday night and make enough for both of us to have for our lunches all week. It literally takes only 5 minutes to prepare. And the best part about it, you can do so many different variations with it. However I'll share with you our normal recipe.

Easy Chicken Salad

2 large cans of white chicken breast. (you can find these at Costco or Sams for a really good price)
2-3 large spoonfuls of Best Foods Mayonnaise
2-3 large spoonfuls of sour cream
Season-All Seasoning
Salt and Pepper
1 cup of chopped almonds
1/2 cup of shredded parmesan cheese (not the dry grated stuff)

Okay, so I never measure for this recipe because it's a lot up to your taste. So first things first, place the chopped almonds in a flat layer on some aluminum foil and place in the oven under the broiler to toast. (It is crucial that you keep an eye on this! Almonds can burn really quickly so you need to check it almost every 30 seconds.) When the almonds are starting to turn slightly brown and you can smell the awesome nuttiness, pull them out and let cool.

Drain the cans of chicken and place in a large Tupperware container. Mix in the mayonnaise and the sour cream with a fork. season with the Season-All. Add the shredded Parmesan cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. Finally add the cooled roasted almonds and mix thoroughly. Place in the fridge overnight to let the flavors meld together. Enjoy with your favorite bread or croissant.

There are tons of different things you can add to this, it just depends on your taste. You can add chopped celery, sliced apples and grapes, cashews, carrots, onions, and lots of other stuff to make it fancy.

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Honeymoon Monte Cristo

So we have envisioned this blog as being both a place to share some of our favorite meals and recipes, but we also want it to be a place where we can dispel the myth that cooking is hard and needs to take hours of preparation and skill to create something delicious and satisfying. A good example of this is our next recipe, Honeymoon Monte Cristo.

When Laura and I first got married, we stayed at the Anniversary Inn the night we got married. In the morning they bring you a breakfast of yogurt parfait, juice, cinnamon roll, and this really good croissant type sandwich, which they called a Monte Cristo (even though a real Monte Cristo is a sandwich that is dipped in batter and fried, but I think I'd prefer it this way). When we left SLC and stayed in a beach house in Oregon for the rest of our honeymoon, we needed to find something for breakfast since we had to make it ourselves. So we decided that we should try to make our own version of the croissant sandwich that we loved so much. What resulted was something that I think we ate almost every day for about a month, our Honeymoon Monte Cristos.

The Recipe is really simple and quick and addicting. But I think that is what makes this a great breakfast sandwich:

Honeymoon Monte Cristo

1 Large Croissant (Preferably the large ones from Costco)
1-2 Slices of Black Forest Ham
1-2 Slices of Tillamook Swiss Cheese (Yes it has Tillamook. Why? because there is nothing better! Well, I guess you don't have to use it but we recommend it highly)

The instructions are super easy: Cut the croissant in half, place the ham on one side of the croissant and the cheese on the other side. Place in the oven "open faced" under the broiler for a few minutes until the cheese gets all bubbly and the sides of the croissant start to turn brown from toasting. Pull out of the oven and close the sandwich and serve. That's it! Really simple and it only takes about 4-5 minutes to do. We enjoyed playing around with the ham to cheese ratio in this sandwich until we both found a combination that we really liked. Laura likes more ham than cheese, where I personally like the balance of both. But we hope that you will try this out and love it as much as we do.

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Sweet and Sour Meatballs

Here is one that I have to give credit to our friend Matt and Rebekah. They shared this super easy and quick appetizer recipe with us a while back and it's always been a big hit. We made these for the Super Bowl and they went fast!

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

A bunch of meatballs. (we like the ones from Costco but homemade ones are the best too)
3/4 cup chili sauce
3/4 cup red current jelly

In a sauce pan, heat up the chili sauce and the current jelly until the jelly melts and mixes well with the chili sauce. Place in a crock pot with the meatballs. Coat and cover and let cook until the meatballs are fully done. And that's it! It's so easy and awesome! Enjoy!

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Ranch Sliders

When I was in Ohio/Kentucky on my mission I was introduced to the wonder that is White Castle and it's little hamburgers nicknamed such names as "sliders", "belly bombers", and "gut rockets". These little hamburgers were kinda good but I have always thought that I could do better, so for the Super Bowl this year, we decided to create our own version of "Sliders." they turned our really moist and delicious, and they didn't "slide" like the White Castle burgers of yore, if you know what I mean. Here is our version:

Ranch Sliders

2 lbs. of Hamburger
1/4 cup of bread crumbs
1 egg
1 Pkg ranch dressing mix
1/4 cup of chili sauce
Salt and Pepper
Half of a diced onion
Rolls

Mix all of the ingredients by hand in a bowl until fully incorporated. If the mixture seems too wet and not mixing well add some more bread crumbs, but not too much or it will not hold up when cooked. (Hows that for some vague instructions) Form into small 1" balls and squish them with your hands until they are flat and about a 1/4' thick. Place them on a plate, cover, and place in the fridge for at least an hour or two.

To cook, either grill or broil them until they are not pink inside. Wrap tight in tin foil and let sit for about 15 minutes. Cut rolls in half and use as a bun. Use any toppings you wish!

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