Fauxtato soup success!

Ohh, long time no blog, friends! Life has been crazy but in a good way and I haven't had much time for blogging. However, I made something so delicious I just have to post about it here. Trust me, you'll be glad I did, especially if you're a low carb eater who misses that good ol' comfort food we know as "potato soup"!

For years I've heard of using cauliflower to make something akin to potato soup but none of the recipes I'd found appealed to me. Until last night, that is. I received email with a recipe for a simple but delicious sounding baked potato soup and as I read the recipe, I realized I had all the ingredients to turn it into fauxtato soup, including the cauliflower. I was very excited and started the dish last night before I headed to bed.

Here's a picture of the delicious but easy to make soup I ended up with.

Uh huh, makes your mouth water, doesn't it? Trust me, it's as beautiful to the taste buds as it is to the eyes!

And it's very easy to make. In a nutshell, I put one head of chopped fresh cauliflower, some chopped onion, about 3/4 of a package of onion soup mix combined with 2 cups water (since I didn't have broth on hand and wasn't making any for a few days), several whole cloves of garlic, and some spices in a slow cooker and left it all night. In the morning I mashed about a third of it with a block of cream cheese and put that back in the cooker. When the cheese was melted and incorporated well, I put some in the bowl and topped it with chopped green onion, crispy beef bacon, cheddar cheese, and a bit of fresh cilantro. If you leave the beef bacon out, it's vegetarian deliciousness in a bowl.

That's it! A little bit of chopping, a tad of mixing, throw it in the slow cooker and leave it all night, a little mashing up of stuff in the morning, and voila, delicious fauxtato soup!

This will definitely be on my menus as our weather cools. I hope it's on yours, too.

Black Bean and Pepperoni Soup

I had a few things languishing in the fridge and decided to use some of them to make a hearty Black Bean and Pepperoni Soup. I had it with half a deli flat and a small salad and it was a hearty lunch. There's enough left for one or two more servings so later this week I'll remake it into a Tex Mex (sort of) dish. 

Black Bean and Pepperoni Soup

Handful or two of pepperoni (I used turkey pepperoni)
3/4 cup of cooked black beans (I used canned)

1/2 to 1 cup of tomatoes (I used plain canned tomatoes)

4 ounces of broth, water, or other liquid

1 Tbsp chopped onion

2 Tablespoons chopped bell pepper
Dash of celery salt
Salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste

Put the beans and other ingredients in a sauce pan and heat. Add pepperoni and voila, soup! It doesn't get much easier than this. :)

What to do when the meat you prepared isn't as good as you hoped...or Beefy Cheesy Spinach Soup

I bought some tenderized skirt steak yesterday and broiled it thinking it would be really tasty with a salad. I wasn't impressed with the meat at all though, Apparently I don't like skirt steak when it's been tenderized but I couldn't handle the thought of throwing it out so I morphed it and some leftovers from the fridge into this lovely soup...

It actually turned out beautifully, tasting a lot like spinach cheese dip, and I'll make it again the next time I have the same leftovers.

Those leftovers, by the way, were skillet cooked spinach, a hand full of green beans, some queso, and some broth. I added green onions, a little half and half and some crema mexicana, some snipped fresh cilantro and voila, a delicious soup perfect for a cool night.

As a bonus there are leftovers to eat before I head to work this evening!

Worthy of a comeback - Fire Roasted Tomato Soup!

Not for the soup but for me! It's been way too long since I posted on this blog. Really, I should be a winner of the Worst Blogger Award if there is such a thing. However, today I made Fire Roasted Tomato Soup for the first time and it was so good I just have to share!



I had fire roasted tomato soup for the first time a few months ago at Newk's Express. It was incredibly good and I hunted for a recipe that I thought would give me a dish close to theirs. None that I found seemed to be right, though, so today I just experimented and came up with my own version. It's not quite as good as the soup at Newk's but it's darn close and a little more playing with it should give me a just as good fire roasted tomato soup.

If you like the look of the soup and want to try it, here's my recipe so far:

1/2 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 an onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 cans fire roasted diced tomatoes, undrained
12 ounces chicken stock
1 Tablespoon dried whole rosemary
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
a few red pepper flakes
1/4 cup crema mexicana

In a skillet or wok heat the olive oil until it's hot but not smoking. Add the onion and garlic and cook until onion is tender. Reduce heat to a simmer and add the tomatoes and stock. Simmer about 15 minutes then add herbs and black pepper. Reduce heat a little more and very slowly add the crema mexicana and red pepper flakes, stirring constantly. Cook and stir for about five minutes. Serve topped with sour cream or more crema mexicana and whatever cheese you like. I used sour cream and a little parmesan this time but plan to really play with cheeses for this dish.

I think this soup could easily be adapted and a version with black olives, cilantro, chili powder, and cheddar or pepper jack would help make a great fiesta inspired tomato soup. Watch for more experiments with this basic recipe. I promise there will be some!