Organic Butternut Squash Soup

So this past grocery haul was my favorite so far! We bought so many beautiful vegetables that I have never cooked with before. One of them being Butternut Squash which was tonight's dinner, and turned out amazing! It was a little time consuming but I would suggest you prep all of your vegetables before you begin cooking. You will also need an emulsifier blender, I bought mine a while ago as a hand held mixer with interchangeable heads, and the second head is an emulsifier. I think you could use a blender but it could get messy.

Ingredients:

preferably organic

1 medium to large Butternut squash, peeled and chopped into small pieces, the smaller the better

1 large onion, diced

8-10 baby bells, sliced

5-6 garlic cloves, minced

1-2 cups spinach

32 oz broth, preferable vegetable, I made mine from boiled onion and garlic skins

salt and pepper if you'd like

If you have everything prepped this will be super easy to do, I know because I did not prep and it probably took me twice as long to make. 

1) Saute your onions and mushrooms in butter or oil and set aside. I prefer butter's flavor in this recipe.

2) Saute your squash and garlic until soft, I used a lid so the steam could help the cooking process.

3) set broth to simmer and add squash, emulsify until there are no chunks left. 

4) Add in spinach, mushrooms and onions.

Enjoy a healthy, delicious, and filling vegetarian recipe. I promise made from scratch can be easy! make sure you sign up for the email updates at the top of the page! I will be cooking with rainbow chard and golden beets later this week! 

Thanks for reading, until next time,

Mostly Meatless Mama 

Recipe adapted from: http://theharvestfoodblog.com

Mexican Beef Stew

So in the past few weeks aside from learning the ropes in mommyhood I have been trying some new recipes! My favorite so far has been my Mexican beef stew! I was shopping at Albertson's and happened upon some freshly roasted Hatch Chiles and I knew I had to make something with them, so here's my recipe for my readers.

Mexican Beef Stew:

Ingredients: (these are not set in stone! Don’t like something? Substitute something else! Very loose interpretation)

Beef for stew (about 1 lb.)

Red potatoes, quartered and then halved again

Baby carrots, cut in half

½ of a cabbage head, sliced thinly

Spinach, two large handfuls, chopped

1 red bell pepper, diced

4-5 cloves of garlic, chopped finely

½ lb. roasted hatch chiles

½ an onion, chopped

1 bunch of cilantro, chopped

1 can of chick peas, rinsed

1 can of diced stewed tomatoes

1 can of tomato paste

1 32oz vegetable broth

Direction:

·        Melt 1-2 TBL spoons of butter in a pan and start browning beef, cook to medium and remove from heat. At the same time boil red potatoes and carrots until soft. Drain and set aside.

·        In a crock pot, put everybody in the pool! Set on high and cook for about 4 hours or until cabbage is translucent.

·        Season however you like! I sprinkled a thin layer of garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper.

If you can’t already tell I kind of winged this, I never write down recipes I try but this is definitely a keeper! Fed two people for three days, for lunch and dinner. AND we didn’t get tired of it! Also relatively cheap to make. Let me know how you made the recipe your own in the comments section!

Next week I hope to get back into up-cycling and crafting so check back to see what I made!

Until next time, MMM

Vegetarian soup fit for a carnivore!

NEW ORGANIC RECIPE!!! woot woot right?! and its delicious and vegetarian if you want it to be or add meat of you'd like. Like usual this recipe was winged by yours truly in desperation for something new and hot for this cold winter. My carnivore husband absolutely adored it and between the two of us finished the pot that night!! This recipe also freezes very well. My usual routine now after grocery shopping is to immediately chop and freeze the veggies for this recipe and make about 4-5 batches of this soup it makes life so much easier and what mom doesn't want easier?


Ingredients(organic if you like):

• 3 large carrots sliced into rounds
• 2-3 red potatoes cut into bite size
• 4-5 stalks of celery
• one can of chickpeas rinsed and drained
• 4-5 large garlic cloves minced
•  1 onion quartered
• cilantro if you like, chopped
• one can of stewed tomatoes
• 2 veggie broth cans or chicken or beef really(Or 1 carton, it all equals 4 cups). 
• 1 cup water
•  rice/noodles/pasta
• season to taste

The cooking is pretty simple all the kids in the pool at once except for the pasta! Add your choice of pasta/noodles/rice when veggies are done continue cooking until done to desired tenderness and remove from heat and enjoy!! Don't forget the cheese and crackers on top!!

Spinach Lentil Soup

So twice this week, and as I type right now I have made an awesome "winger" soup. I literally threw some stuff in a pot and hoped it worked, and it did. so for the soup you will need:

• Spinach (it shrinks a lot so 2 handfuls chopped, or if you're lazy like me freeze whole leaves ahead of time then crumble when frozen for easy no mess chopped spinach)
• Lentils (1/2 cup rinsed and drained)
• Rice(any kind, I used 1/2 cup of white)
• Chicken broth (4 cups or one 32 oz container)
• 1 cup water
• 1 Medium Onion quartered
• 3-5 cloves of garlic minced
• salt & peppa, minus the spinderella, (hi-five if you get that!)
• Garlic powder
• Onion Powder

Optional ingredients:

• Sausage( 2 links I used andouille, taken out of the casing, rolled into balls and cooked in a separate pan)
• shredded Colby jack cheese for garnish
• chopped cilantro
• 1/3 can of cream of mushroom

First you are going to want to bring the broth, rice and lentils to a boil then set on medium heat because these take the longest to cook. Once they are almost done add the all of the other ingredients including the sausage balls you already cooked to the pot and season. Voila! Spinach Lentil Soup. See how easy that was and it's such an easy meal to throw together or freeze to cook for another day.