Egg Drop Soup

Have you guys made egg drop soup yet? No? It's SO EASY.

Step 1: Bring chicken broth to a boil
Step 2: Whisk some eggs in a measuring cup or something else that's easy to pour from
Step 3: Slowly stir the boiling broth (not with the whisk, trust me), and at the same time pour a thin stream of eggs into the broth. It cooks on contact, and the swirling of the broth trails out the cooked eggs into ribbons. Really freakin cool, right???
Step 4: Add chopped chives or scallions, salt and pepper to taste. I put in a bit of fresh thyme since it was growing next to the chives, and threw in some chive heads for funsies.

You can mix it up with this soup so many ways with just herbs - or add some veggies and really go crazy!

For reference: I used 8 cups broth, 7 large eggs, 1/4 cup fresh chopped chives, 2 tsp fresh thyme leaves, and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Creamy Butternut Squashed Rice

Not sure what to call this recipe, but this works.

It's really versatile depending on the spices you add. The base recipe is 2 parts cooked rice (I like brown), 1 part butternut squash purée, 1 part cottage cheese. Heat it all up and serve. 

The cottage cheese acts as a soft cheese, somewhere between cream cheese and mozzarella, making the dish oh so creamy and filling. Max and the other daycare kids love it plain, I prefer it spiced up a little with some cumin and/or curry. 

Pancakes Made Easy

We love our pancakes in this house. And by we, I mean Max and I. Really, that's probably the one food that I miss the most with my low-carb-ness diet. I haven't had pancakes in... well, a long time. Months at least.

Now that I'm home in the mornings, we get to do breakfast right! And pancakes = bread = one of the major food groups. What makes making pancakes, especially pancakes for one person, even easier? An easy pour container. Put the ingredients in the bottle, shake like crazy, pour into the pan, and done. The batter will last in the fridge for 3-4 days, plenty of time for a little man to eat his fill of pancakes.

The recipe I like the most is a hybrid of a couple of recipes:

Pancakes

1 1/2 c flour (I use 1 c white, 1/2 c whole wheat)
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups milk (for a pourable consistency)
1 egg
3 Tbsp melted butter

Healthy-ish Cupcakes

Max is turning three.

Three. My baby is turning three. 

<sniffle>

To kick off the festivities I made a batch of cupcakes to bring to daycare. And because I was low on baking supplies, it was late, and I didn't feel like going to the store, they're improvised and healthier to boot. No butter? Use fat free yogurt. Not enough white flour? Sub whole wheat. Don't feel like making frosting (and still no butter)? Use jam, which happens to be low sugar and homemade. 

Healthy-ish Cupcakes

2 cups sugar

1 cup plain low fat yogurt

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup white flour 

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup milk

Strawberry jam for topping. 

Preheat oven to 350F. 

Mix sugar and yogurt until creamy. Add eggs one at a time until combined. Add vanilla. In a separate bowl whisk flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to wet ingredients alternating with milk, starting and ending with flour mixture. Bake in cupcake papers 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool and top with strawberry jam. 

If your flour is particularly dry, add up to 1/4 cup additional milk to achieve consistency. 

Bacon Egg Cups

Oh my yumminess. And so easy.

They taste better than they look. Unless you think they look holy-amazeballs, then yes, you're spot on.

Ingredients:
12 slices bacon
10ish eggs

Splash of milk (optional)
Salt, pepper, spices to taste
Suggested (some or all): minced onion, garlic, basil, oregano

• Preheat your oven to 350 deg F.
• Line an ungreased muffin tin with bacon (see below).
• Zing up the eggs, milk, and spices in a blender, or whisk it really well. You're going for a scrambled eggs/omelet mixture here.
• Pour the egg mixture into the bacon lined cups, up to 1/4-1/2" from the top.
• Bake at 350 deg F for 30-35 minutes.

Done! Pop them out while they're hot/warm, the bacon self-greases so clean-up is a breeze. No frying pans or getting zapped by grease spray.

No, these are not low fat, but they're Atkins friendly (if you use cream instead of milk).

"Green" Smoothies

You know, green smoothies don't have to be green. They can be all sorts of colors - just getting that dose of kale or spinach (or green of choice) is the point.

I've been having the same thing for breakfast for the last few weeks, and I feel great. It goes a little something like:

• Handful of kale
• Scoop of protein powder/meal replacement (chocolate or vanilla)
• A banana
• A heaping Tbsp of plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup of frozen berries
• A crushed up multi-vitamin
• Milk/green tea to cover

I blend it all together, and there we go! Easy, and usually brown. :) I vary the berries and whether I use chocolate or vanilla powder, that keeps it interesting enough that I haven't gotten bored. And it's actually holding me until lunch - go figure!

Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies

For an ah-maze-ing twist on a classic whoopie pie, try filling it with peanut butter frosting. Nom.

Bake the cookie/cake as normal (I suggest using Redbook's recipe and make them all chocolate). To make the frosting, mix 1 cup creamy peanut butter, 1 cup powdered sugar, 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) softened butter, and approx 1 Tbsp milk to a thick frosting consistency. Spread between two cookies/cakes to make your whoopie pie, and enjoy!

BTW - I cooked them two different ways - on parchment paper as well as in a muffin top pan. Cooking them on parchment paper resulted in a firmer cookie that didn't fall apart, though slightly less perfectly round than the pan yielded.

While eating one, my friend might have proposed to me, but it was hard to tell with that much cookie in his mouth and all the happy noises and such. They're that good.

Easy Ginger Soy Carrots

Max has been requesting veggies lately - he's such a good boy. :)

These carrots were super quick and super easy!

Easy Ginger Soy Carrots

1 cup chopped carrots
1 packet soy sauce (or 2tsp)
1/4 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp minced ginger
pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and microwave for about a minute to warm the carrots up a bit. Stir again and enjoy!

Shortcut Stir Fry

I admit it: I hate chopping vegetables. I really do. I'm starting to come to terms with this. It seems like a waste to pay extra for already chopped vegetables from the store, but when it means that we then eat less vegetables because I can't stand chopping that's just silly. So, I'm sucking it up and buying pre-chopped.

And it's awesome.

Matchstick carrots are way easier for Max to handle, and they're much easier to use for cooking.

And now I'm going to blow your mind: coleslaw mix is essentially stir fry vegetables. Yeah, I know. Now go to the prepared salad section of your grocery store and look. There's traditional coleslaw mix which is heavy on the cabbage, then there's broccoli slaw mix which is a base of broccoli instead of cabbage.

Now take a bag home, steam it, do a quick toss in the pan and add some sauce (make your own or grab some prepared from the store), and you have quick and easy stir fry. Add marinated, chopped (and cooked of course) meat and you have a great meal.

DIY Pumpkin Coffee

I'm a genius - I made my own pumpkin flavored coffee.

You may think I'm being a little dramatic (genius and all), but I LOVE pumpkin coffee, and when it goes away around December I wait in longing all year long for it to return in October. So this was a major breakthrough for me.

And it's so simple.

Mix 1-2 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice (or 1-2 tsp each cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice) with 2 cups ground coffee. Prepare your coffee as normal and be amazed.

Pesto Burgers

So, now you have all of that carrot top pesto, what are you going to do with it?

Make burgers!

Pesto Burgers

1 cup carrot top pesto
4 lbs ground chicken and/or pork (I used 2/3 pork, 1/3 chicken)

Mix well and form into patties, grill as normal.

These turned out great - a bit of a kick without being overwhelming. Hubby dressed his as normal with ketchup & relish while I had one plain just to check it out (it was very good). The leftovers reheated well and were super tasty!

Carrot Top Pesto

Did you know you can use carrot tops to make pesto? Woah, mama, is it good! It tastes a lot like a normal, parsley based pesto, but with flair. I compared a few pesto recipes, searched the fridge, and my pesto went a little like this:

Carrot Top Pesto

4 cups chopped carrot tops (from approx one bunch of carrots)
1 cup shredded parmesan
1/2 cup chopped toasted almonds
1 cup loosely packed basil
4 garlic scapes (or 2 tsp minced garlic)
3-4 Tbsp minced garlic from the jar (I like a garlicy pesto)
1 cup olive oil or enough to make a thick pesto
1 tsp salt or to taste

Blend it all in food processor (or in batches in your Magic Bullet like me), refrigerate & enjoy!

What a great way to make something special out of compost.

<NOM>

No-Pasta Salad

excuse the low-res cell pic

Summertime = pasta salad. Specifically my mom's elbow macaroni salad... which I'm not allowed to eat on Atkins. <sigh>

BUT, there is hope: Spaghetti squash. Yes, you heard me right. Spaghetti squash might be a less-than-stellar substitute for hot pasta with marinara, but it makes a great base for a cold summer salad.

No-Pasta Salad

1 spaghetti squash, cooked, cooled & prepared (fluff it with a fork)
2-3 cups assorted chopped vegetables
1/2-3/4 cup Italian salad dressing (or dressing of your choice)

Mix in a large bowl, let it sit in the fridge for a few hours, and enjoy! It's even better the next day. :)

And, if you use cabbage as part of your chopped veggies it is very reminiscent of coleslaw, minus the slimey ew factor.

Frugal Luxuries: Iced Coffee (and my desk)

my coffee cup & my desk at work

So, who in the old US of A isn't having a heat wave right now? Anyone?

In anticipation of the second day in a row of holy hotness (and not the Johnny Depp kind), last night I brewed myself some coffee. For homemade iced coffee, obviously.

There are a couple of key differences in making iced (or just cold) coffee versus hot coffee.

Number 1: Make it stronger than usual, it's going to get watered down with ice and/or milk.
Number 2: However you prepare it (milk, cream, sweetener, etc), make it more so. Like double the amounts. Unless you normally drink sweet milk with a little coffee, in that case just make it the same with stronger coffee.
Number 3: Add ice. Or just chill it and drink it fast before it warms up.

I brewed 9-10 cups of strong coffee, added 5-6 cups milk and two Splenda packets and put it all in a 2-quart jar in the fridge overnight. Tastes more or less like those iced coffees you get out of the coolers.

Well, now that I've looked at a map, it looks like the Rockies are pretty chill. And CA isn't doing too bad, but it's still very early morning there. Yes, this is the weather map at 8:45am, and I'm in one of those darker orange areas.

image source

BTW, did you notice how when I took the picture I angled the camera so my cup wouldn't look so large? Yeah, it's a big cup, and I drink at least one of those every day of coffee. Small addiction...

Veggie Stir Fry on Atkins

Contrary to popular belief, you don't just eat bacon while you're on Atkins. You're supposed to eat lots of vegetables too! When you get sick of salad, think stir fry.

Veggie Stir Fry

1 serving, 3.8 carbs (7.2 if you add the pea pods)

1 Tbsp sesame oil
2 tsp minced garlic
1/2 c pea pods, optional
1 c bok choy, chopped
1/2 c sliced mushrooms
2 Tbsp fresh chives, chopped
1 Tbsp soy sauce

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute until fragrant. Add the vegetables and chives, drizzle the soy sauce (and additional sesame oil if desired) over the vegetables. Cook 3-5 minutes or until you've reached desired done-ness. Serve with your meat of choice. I used leftover, fully cooked pork in my stir fry. If you start with raw meat, cook the meat first and set it aside while you cook the veggies then combine with the veggies at the end.

Since 1 bunch of bok choy gave me 4 cups of chopped, I quadrupled the recipe and had some for lunches that week. I also chopped up extra while I was at it and stuck all of the raw ingredients in the freezer for a quick meal later.

Deep Dish Pizza

One of the things that I made for the Superbowl party was deep dish pizza. NOM. I used the crust recipe from America's Test Kitchen (I love that show) with my own sauce. It turned out pretty amazing if I do say so myself! The best part? The recipe makes two doughs, so we had one pizza for that day and I froze the other for later.

You really should try it, it's fantastic!
http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/detail.php?docid=21349

"Strawberry" Oatmeal

Keep in mind that I'm using the word strawberry very loosely here.

So, you know those oatmeal packets you can get? Specifically the strawberries and cream ones? Yeah, I love those. But I know they're not very good for you, so with some creativity (and bravery) I've come up with an alternative:

"Strawberry" Oatmeal
1/2 cup low fat plain or vanilla yogurt
1/2 cup oatmeal (dry)
1 1/2-2 cups very hot water
1 strawberry flavored fizzy vitamin tablet (like airborne)

Put everything in a bowl big enough to hold it and stir occasionally until the tablet is dissolved. It doesn't taste exactly like those oatmeal packets, but it's pretty darn close.

Per the labeling on my ingredients, it comes out to 215 calories and 3.75 grams of fat - with a really good dose of protein, fiber, and of course vitamins.

Corn & Clam Chowder-Soup

I know what you're thinking: it must be a typo. Nope. I really mean chowder-soup. I was in the mood for chowder, clam or corn, either would do. But I had an inherent problem - no potatoes, and I really didn't want to go to the store. So I pulled out my trusty cookbook, 365 Great Soups & Stews, for a little inspiration. I decided to use the Chinese Crab and Corn soup as a base, kinda. It has corn and shellfish, I wanted corn and shellfish, and the soy sauce and ginger sounded intriguing. Otherwise the two recipes bear little resemblance.

The result is creamy without being thick and chunky, just like a cross between a chowder and a soup. And it's delish. Ignore the odd color, that's just the soy sauce.

Corn & Clam Chowder-Soup

4 cups chicken broth
1 Tbsp dried chives
1/4 tsp dried grated ginger
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 Tbsp soy sauce (or 4 packets)
12oz clams in juice (frozen or canned)
16oz frozen corn (approx 2 cups)
1 package instant mashed potatoes, plain or butter flavor
1 cup milk

Blend half of the corn - it helps to thaw it a bit first. Put all of the ingredients except for the instant potatoes and milk in a large pot. Bring to a simmer. Stir in the milk and instant potatoes. It's important to keep stirring while adding the instant potatoes so they don't clump. Return to a simmer for a few minutes so the flavors can blend. That's it, enjoy!

ANOTHER Birthday Pound Cake

raspberry pound cake

Yes, I know, I already wrote about this... BUT, this post is different enough. I swear.

So, while I was going through the liquor cabinet to find the amaretto for the Amaretto-Almond Pound Cake I spied a bottle of raspberry liquor. I have no idea why on earth I bought raspberry liquor, but it's there, and as I mentioned dad likes raspberry... so I made another pound cake. Just because I had to give it a shot.

I made the cake pretty much the same, just substituting the raspberry for the amaretto and leaving out the sliced almonds. For the glaze I halved the water and substituted more raspberry liquor. Because I can. As a finishing touch I dusted it with powdered sugar (this time it wasn't to cover up the broken parts).

It turned out ah-may-zing. Sometimes I impress myself.

Birthday Pound Cake

Every year I make dad a birthday cake, and every year I try to outdo myself a little bit. He loves raspberry and almond flavors (as do I) so I tend to go in that direction. This year I made him the Amaretto-Almond Pound Cake from Southern Living magazine.

Oh. My. Goodness. It was soooooo good. Seriously. You need to try this cake. I'm drooling again, aren't I? You'll want to make sure to really generously grease the pan tho, because the top got stuck and I had to perform a little minor cake reconstructive surgery. But that's what a sprinkling of powdered sugar is for.

Since the recipe calls for making an amaretto glaze that you soak into the cake (I know, right??) and I didn't want Max to be ingesting that much alcohol, I made him a mini-cake. I just trimmed off the top, er, the bottom?, of the cake before I added the glaze and smooshed it into a heart shaped cookie cutter. Insta-cake. He loved it. Though he probably was wishing for frosting.