Spicy Tortellini Chowder

Hello again! Today's recipe is another from the Biggest Book of Soups & Stews that was featured in my previous post. We've made the Spicy Tortellini Chowder before and it always comes out AMAZING! I shared this with a co-worker today and she loved it. This recipe is a real crowd-pleaser!

Cooking some veggies! Here we have onions, red and green bell peppers, poblano pepper and jalapeno pepper. You can see my Rachael Ray lazy spoon here! I love this spoon, great tool for any cook.

Yay, potato! Cubed up this baking potato I had sitting around for the recipe. That's Jon's fancy knife there.

Fiona was pretending to be helpful...

Tortellinis are a key part of Tortellini Chowder... these are fresh whole wheat cheese tortellinis from Publix!

Looks like soup! Half & half mix has been added. I didn't buy half & half at the grocery store, just mixed half heavy cream and half 2% milk.

Final verdict: SUPER TASTY! Definitely will be making this again, it's a great comfort food that really fills you up. Probably wouldn't recommend for someone watching their waist line as some key ingredients in this soup are pasta, butter, and cream...

Harvest Trio Soup

Long time no post! Tonight's dinner is the Harvest Trio Soup from the Biggest Book of Soups & Stews. As a soup lover, this book is a favorite of mine! You can purchase this book on Amazon.com.

First the recipe called for tomatoes and eggplants to be halved and prepped for roasting! I hadn't cooked with eggplants before so this was new for me.

Sautéing up some leeks in Jon's handy cast iron pot!

Veggies have been roasted. Next step was to scoop out the eggplant guts. The eggplants were still kind of hot...

Getting ready to add some garlic, paprika and cayenne. Spicy!

It's starting to look soup-like now that I have added the vegetable juice

It looks kind of disgusting here... all the veggies have been added.

Blend, blend, blend!

Goldeny~

Final verdict: delicious but spicy! The recipe called for .25 to .5 tsp cayenne and I elected to use .5. Might be better to use .25 unless you like it hot! Jon's not a huge eggplant fan so I probably won't be making this particular soup again, but I will still enjoy my leftovers.

Cajun Chili with Scallion Corn Cakes

I was in the mood for something spicy and Jon wanted something with meat, so this chili was a good compromise. The corn cakes were simple, coming from Jiffy corn bread mix with some scallions. The recipe called for ground pork, but I replaced it with ground turkey for something a little lower in fat. I thought it was just as good!

This recipe was meaty and full of veggies! It had garlic, celery, red and green bell peppers, yellow onion, and crushed tomatoes. It also had half a bottle of beer for a little something extra! Great meal!

Tira Misu

One of my FAVORITE desserts is tira misu! I had to make it, of course. We chose a simple recipe from the internet and improvised with a little kahlua and it came out absolutely divine!

It was just as good as it looks! We managed to eat the whole thing over one weekend...

Tomato, Onion, and Mozzarella Salad

I made this quick and easy salad for a 4th of July party at my co-worker's house! It's a simple combination of tomatoes, vidalia onions, and mozzarella cheese. The sauce was made with red wine vinegar, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, canned tomato sauce, and extra-virgin olive oil.

I doubled the amount of onions, tomatoes, and mozzarella and still had plenty of sauce. It was quite popular and not much was left over!

Chicken Wing Pizza

One of my favorite things to eat is pizza! In Western New York, where I grew up, chicken wing everything is popular, especially chicken wing pizza. Home of the Buffalo Wing! Jon and I made an AWESOME chicken wing pizza last week!

We used a frozen bread crust from Kroger, we usually use home made but didn't have time. We also got a whole roasted chicken. We pulled the chicken off the bones and marinated it for a little while in a bowl with some Frank's Red Hot Wing Sauce (I put that sh*t on everything!). Once the dough was rolled out, I put a layer of Frank's, then a layer of chicken, then a layer of blue cheese dressing, and topped it all with some monterey jack and mozzarella cheese and a dusting of parmesan.

The finished product is, as you can see, gorgeous! It was also TASTY!

Sesame Noodles

My boyfriend, Jon, comes over on Wednesday nights so I can cook dinner for him. I get practice cooking and my boyfriend gets to be my guinea pig!

Tonight's dish was Sesame Noodles from Classic Rachael Ray 30-Minute Meals. Some of my friends don't seem to be fond of R.R., but she makes awesome food!

The dish was angel hair pasta, soy sauce, tahini (sesame seed paste), toasted sesame oil, cayenne pepper, garlic, ginger, scallions, and toasted sesame seeds and crushed red pepper flakes for garnish. Pictured is my boyfriend's plate, he loves spicy food so I added a LOT of red pepper flakes! The egg roll is a chicken egg roll from the grocery freezer section.

The dish was very sesame-y! To be expected with three sesame seed ingredients. I did find it a touch bland, so we added some more soy sauce. We love our strong flavors! It was definitely a tasty dish, though.