Gardening

"Mostly Vegetable Soups" to help remove the holiday pounds

Mostly Vegetable Soups

Click to purchase ~ $2

Just before the holiday gluttony kicks in, and just after the New Year gluttony ends, Mike and I fill ourselves up with healthy healthy soups and stews.  These comfort foods give us the boost we need to resist some of the worst abuses, and they also help to get us back on track in the New Year.  This has been our pattern for years now, and I'm happy to say that even if we pack on a few pounds during the week leading up to Christmas and the week in between it and January 1, we always manage to get them right back off before another two weeks have passed.

No, we're not special (as in "well isn't that special?")...we just choose our gluttony wisely!

Well, I've put together an e-booklet with 13 of our favorites.  While I can't make any health or nutrition or even diet claims for these soups (I am not a registered anything), I can tell you that they work for us. 

  
Tomato Basil Soup 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone!  I'll see you again after January 1st :-)

Cranberry-Chocolate Cookies

Using my recipe for Lemon-Macadamia Nut Cookies as a start, I worked up a way to make our Cranberry-White Chocolate Cookies a bit softer and chewier.  I love what the cream cheese does to the base of these cookies.  Both recipes are good, but personally I like this one a bit more than our old standby.

I used dark chocolate chips for this batch, but you could use white or milk if you'd prefer.  White chocolate with cranberries is a really good mix.
 

Cranberry-Chocolate Cookies
(makes about 3 dozen)

2 c flour
1/2 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt 
1 c brown sugar
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c butter, soft
4 oz cream cheese, soft
1 egg
1 1/2 t almond extract
1 c chocolate chips, white, dark, or milk
1/2 c dried cranberries

Prepare baking sheets with parchment paper.  Preheat oven to 300.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour through the salt.  In a large bowl, mix together the sugars, and then beat in the butter and cream cheese until thoroughly combined.  Add the egg and extract, and beat until all ingredients are smoothly combined.  Add the flour mixture, chips, and cranberries.  Blend together with a wooden spoon until just combined.

Using a 1-1/2 inch scoop, dip out portions that are not completely rounded.  Drop onto cookie sheets, about 12 per sheet.  Flatten the balls and bake for about 20 minutes, turning the sheets half way through.  Remove immediately to a cooling rack.

Butternut-cider squash soup

I love adding butternut squash to many different stews and soups that I routinely make during the late fall and winter, and several of our favorite recipes feature it very prominently, so why would we need yet another?  Because this one is like no other!  The recipe for Cider-Infused Butternut Squash Soup comes from Hannaford's Fresh magazine, and the only change I made was to use some of my own vegetable stock rather than water plus boullion.

Our other two favorite squash /soup stew recipes are these:
Simple Butternut Squash Soup
Beef and Squash Stew

Be very careful how you word things...

Pumpkin blondies

These autumn-inspired blondies were a bit too gooey for me, even though I baked them longer than the recipe called for.  Everyone else loved them, though, so what do I know?  I guess I'm just one of those people who prefers blondies and brownies that are a little cakier  :-)  See Pumpkin Brownies with Pecans at Baking Bites.