Weekday Chef: Fire-Roasted Tomato Soup

 Okay, so I'm a huge fan of Paradise Bakery. I love their Southwest Chicken Ceasar Salad, paired with a bowl of their fire-roasted tomato soup. I mean, it comes with a cookie (yum!), and with that little drizzle of sour cream and those tortilla strips -- heaven.

So I decided I was going to do a soup and sandwich night at home. Who doesn't love a grilled cheese? So I thought, "I want to make that fire-roasted tomato soup." So I went to my best friend--Google--and found a copycat recipe for the soup at Chef In Training.

I followed the directions exactly (usually what I do the first time I make a recipe), and... I didn't like the soup. It still tasted like canned tomatoes.

So I fancy myself a Food Network expert. Ha! I watch a lot of cooking shows, and I've listened to a lot of judges on Chopped and Guy's Grocery Games talk about acids and sugars, salts and sours, and textures.

My first thought to "fix" the soup was to add sugar to it. It literally tasted like tin. I thought sugar would mask some of that and sweeten up the tomatoes.

My husband tasted the soup, and his first thought was to add hot sauce--two great profiles there in vinegar and heat.

We added both, brought the soup back to a boil and let it go for a few minutes.

And it was a thing of beauty! I'm just glad my countless hours of watching Food Network has finally paid off!!

So here's my recipe for the Paradise Fire-Roasted Tomato Soup.

1 sweet onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 (28 oz.) can diced tomatoes
2 (14.5 oz.) cans fire roasted tomatoes
1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
2 cups water
2 cups chicken broth
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 T. brown sugar
1 t. hot sauce (or to taste)
1 cup heavy cream

1. In a large pot, saute onion in olive oil until almost translucent.
2. Add garlic and sauté a couple minutes longer.
3. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, water and chicken broth to pot. Stir to combine and until it reaches a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for 30 minutes.
4. Puree soup as necessary to reach desired constancy. I did about 3/4 of the soup in two batches in the blender. I like a smoother soup, with only a few chunks.
5. Add salt, pepper, brown sugar, hot sauce, and cream to pot with tomato soup and simmer for 10 minutes.
6. Thin 1/2 c. sour cream with 2 T. milk. I had a squeeze bottle and added my sour cream to this for easy streaking.
7. Streak soup with sour cream and top with tortilla chip strips (help from the grocery store!).

Viola! Paradise Bakery Fire-Roasted Tomato Soup that doesn't taste like the can. Enjoy!

Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole

Okay, so I love things that I can put all together in one dish, bake, and serve. Which is sort of weird, because I don't like to let my food touch. Why, yes, I am like an eight-year-old when it comes to food. Ha!

But I do love casseroles. And I love the flavors of chicken cordon bleu. But who has time for all that pounding and rolling and tying?

Not this girl.

So when I found this recipe, it immediately became one of my family's favorites. The secret is in the spice in the white sauce. Delicious!

Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole:
4 c. cubed, cooked chicken (I use a rotisserie chicken, or I've even bought a high-quality chicken from the deli in my grocery store. I ask them to cut it about 1/4-inch thick. Same with the ham. Then I cube it. Easy, peasy.)
2. c. ham, cubed
1 c. swiss cheese, grated

½ onion
⅓ c. butter
⅓ c. flour
⅛ tsp. nutmeg
⅛ tsp. ground mustard
1 ¾ c. milk

Topping:
¼ c. butter
1 ½ c. soft breadcrumbs (I use panko. They're my favorite.)

Directions:
Brown the ham in a saute pan for about 5 minutes, or until it has some color. Set on paper towels to drain. Layer the chicken in the bottom of a 9x9 pan. Top with the shredded swiss cheese, and then the ham.

In a pan, melt the butter and add the onion. Cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the flour, nutmeg and ground mustard, stirring to make a soft paste. Add the milk a little at a time, stirring constantly until incorporated. Bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes to thicken sauce.

Pour the sauce over the ham. Combine all topping ingredients until well blended, and sprinkle over sauce.

Bake at 350 for 25 - 30 minutes, or until bubbly. (I usually turn the broiler on for a minute or two to make sure the bread crumbs are browned. Because as Anne Burrell would say, "Brown food tastes good!")

10 servings = 220 calories/serving.

And as an added bonus, this dish is spectacular reheated for lunch the next day -- and we all know not everything is like that...

Enjoy!

30 Minute Meal: Sloppy Joes

Okay, so I'm a huge fan of getting in the kitchen and getting out. With our schedules getting busier and busier, I think everyone is! Sure, there are days when I'll slow down and bake or enjoy making something that takes 31 minutes, but mid-week dinners are not one of those times.

One of my go-to recipes is the sloppy joe. I have several different recipes I use, and this one is my favorite. I think I got it from my husband's mom at some point. A bonus to this recipe is it only has 6 ingredients. 7 if you use the onion. 

Fast, easy, and delicious!

Sloppy joes:
1 1/2 pounds ground beef (You can also use ground turkey or ground chicken, especially if you don't eat red meat or want to cut the calories. I calculated the calories below using 85/15 ground beef.)

1 onion (I leave the onion out. I don't know why, but I am not a fan of having onion chunks in my meat. I know some people love it, and I eat onions in other things. Just not this... Don't ask me why! I don't know!)

1 can tomato soup
2 T. brown sugar
2 T. mustard
¼ c. ketchup
1 T. cider vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Brown the ground beef.
2. Add everything else, combine well, and simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Serve with buns, fruit, veggies, or whatever you like!

Nutritional Information:
10 servings -- 128 calories for the meat mixture.

I eat half a sandwich -- and I buy the 100 calorie “thin” whole grain hamburger buns, so my sandwich is 178 calories. I normally slice apples to eat with this meal, or fruit that is in season like strawberries or pineapple. A small gala is 71 calories, so my whole meal is about 250 calories.

Enjoy!

A Pork Paradise

Okay, so I eat a lot of chicken, because it's the lowest calorie protein. As I've worked to lose weight and still provide my body with the nutrients and energy I need, I've turned to other meats. Specifically, the Other White Meat: Pork.

I took a recipe I got from Cook's Country (I love watching their shows on Saturday afternoons!) that used bone-in pork chops and took 1.5 hours in the oven. One and a half hours?!

I don't have time for that. I like to be in and out of the kitchen in less than a half hour. Sometimes that includes cooking time and sometimes it doesn't. But I definitely don't have time to let my chops cook for 1.5 hours.

So I did some modifying for my busy lifestyle. I came up with these breaded pork chops with an onion pan sauce. It's a pork paradise!

Depending on what's on sale at my grocery store, I sometimes use thin-cut, boneless pork chops and do all four (I have four people to feed every night). But if I get a thicker chop like what you see here, I'll only do two.

The trick to eating less is making sure every bite has a ton of flavor. So everything is seasoned, every step of the way.

First, the pork. Get your pan on the stove over medium-high heat with 2 T. olive oil. It needs to be H-O-T before you put in your meat. That's the trick to cooking protein. A hot pan.

While the pan is heating, mix together:
1 T. garlic powder
1 T. onion powder
2 t. celery salt
1 t. salt
1 t. pepper (I always back off on the pepper. It's not my favorite flavor. If you like it, add a bit more.)
1/2 c. panko breadcrumbs

Coat your chops in the seasoning mixture. I use my hands to pack it on, because the bigger breadcrumbs can keep the finer seasonings from adhering.

When the pan is hot, put the chops in. Don't touch them. Don't move them. Let the pan do it's work.

These are quick-cooking, depending on the thickness. For the thin ones, I literally time them for 2 minutes, and then flip them. For these thicker chops, I gave them 4 minutes on the first side, and 3 on the second. 

See what happens when you start with a hot pan and let it do it's work? Golden brown! And brown is delicious.

Remove the chops from the pan. Add 1 T. butter and another splash of oil.

Then add:
1 onion, chopped (I like a smaller onion when I'm eating it, so the size of the chop here is small)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Season veg with salt and pepper

Cook for a couple of minutes.

Be sure to stir! You don't want the garlic to burn.

Add 1 c. of beef broth and scrape up all the delicious bits from the onions and pork chops. Mix together 1 T. cornstarch with 1 T. water and add to the pan. 

Add pork back to pan (along with any juices that have come out), and cover. Cook for a couple of minutes, or until chops are cooked through.

Slice and serve with your favorite side! This is the broccoli slaw I love.

Deliciousness in less than a half hour!