Chicken and White Bean Soup

I saw this recipe in an old Bon Appetit magazine, and it sounded great and easy. It's fairly similar to another soup I like to make from Cooking Light, involving Great Northern Beans and turkey sausage.

So, tonight I made this recipe for Chicken and White Bean Soup and it was quite good. I didn't make it exactly as written, mostly because I'm lazy and cheap. I skipped the herbed oil part entirely and instead put some Italian spice blend (from the Giant Eagle with the grinder on top) into the soup as it cooked. I also used up all my onions the other day, so instead I chopped up a few garlic cloves and 1 1/2 large shallots. I used tomato paste (not sure if that's the same as puree or not) and I also never use as much oil as the recipes call for. I also skipped the parsley and bay leaf, as my spice cabinet has not been restocked since my move yet. I used two goods-sized chicken breasts (halves) which were over a pound.

Anyway, I highly recommend this. It had a lot more flavor than I was expecting and is very easy to adjust to your own personal taste. It was very filling and I just ate it with a piece of whole wheat sourdough toast.

That was my new recipe for the week! :)

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

So, it's not really a recipe, per se, but I finally made roasted brussels sprouts. I've made lots of sauteed brussels sprouts, and I love them, but I've been wanting to roast them and finally did. All I did was take a package of sprouts, cut off the bottoms and peel off the outer leaves, and cut them in half. I tossed them in some olive oil, salt and pepper. I cut up one half of a shallot and threw it in there too. I threw all of it onto a foil-lined cookie sheet and roasted it at about 400 for maybe 15 minutes. (I didn't really keep track of how long, sorry.) YUM!!! I ate all of it in less than 24 hours. While sauteeing them in butter with bacon is delicious, this is easier and healthier. I say 2 thumbs up!

I'm baaaack

So, it's been quite a while. I'm sure no one is even reading this blog anymore, but that's ok! Mr. T and I just broke up and I moved into a new apartment in Grandview, so my adventures in cooking and eating are either about to get a lot more exciting or a lot more boring. :)

In an attempt to stick to the latter, I'm going to pledge to try one (or more!) new recipe every week, and blog about it here. I probably won't get to this week's until the weekend, but that's ok.

I also joined a different CSA this year. I liked Sippel a lot last year, but I just thought it would be fun to try a different one. Plus, Wayward Seed is most likely going to have a pickup location at my place of employment. Pretty hard to beat that! So look for CSA updates starting in May (I think).

My new yard does have some gardening space, so I'll be planting some no-yet-determined goodies and will keep you updated on that as well. Definitely some herbs and tomatoes, not sure what else. I don't know yet how much sun it gets, so that will affect my choices. I did buy some little starting pots so I can even do some from seed! (um, good luck with that!)

So, exciting things on tap for this year! Hopefully we'll have some good eating ahead!