Pasta e Ceci Soup

 

We have finally got some cold weather here in Southern California and I have been loving it!  Granted my cold is 55 degrees with a slight drizzle but my thin blood is freezing!  It has been a perfect opportunity to whip up some hardy soups that warm you up.  

I found this recipe in a search to try and find more meatless dishes to incorporate at least once a week.  This is largely in part to Oprah and her recent show on the Vegan Challenge that she and her staff were a part of.  While I will never become a vegetarian or vegan - I love my yogurt and steaks too much - it made me think about my eating habits, and I am trying to incorporate meatless lunches into my work week and at least one meatless dinner into my week.  The hubby is trying to gain weight/bulk with this workouts (must be nice) and so I need to make sure that these meatless meals have a lot of protein.  Not only do the chickpeas in this soup have a lot of muscle building protein (one cup has 14.5 grams) but they are full of heart-healthy folate, fiber and iron which makes this a healthy addition to my meatless recipes. The best part is that I had all of these ingredients in my pantry already and so this made for a very inexpensive main course!

I pureed the soup with an immersion blender but left some chunks of chickpeas and carrots intact so that it wasn't like baby-food.  The pastas gave the soup wonderful texture and I sprinkled with a little bit of mozzarella cheese to add richness. 

I paired this with some cheesy crostini's and it was a hardy meal that we both enjoyed!

Pasta e Ceci Soup

Recipe from Family Bites 

2 tablespoons oil

1 carrot, peeled and diced

1 medium onion, diced

3 celery ribs, roughly chopped

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

1/2 cup white wine

1 Tablespoon tomato paste

1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

1 tablespoon dried sage

2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

6 cups chicken stock

1/2 cup ditalini

Over low heat, warm oil.  Add carrots, onion, celery, and garlic.  Saute until the become soft.  Deglaze with white wine, scraping up any bits on the bottom of the pan.  Add chickpeas, salt, sage, tomato paste and chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

Remove from heat and puree with an immersion blender or in batches in your blender.  If using your blender be careful as always with hot liquid. If you soup is too thick you can add some additional chicken stock.  Return to heat and add pasta.  Cook until pasta is al dente - 5 - 8 minutes.

Serve immediately with a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese.

ENJOY!

Wordless Wednesday - Newport Harbor

Happy National Margarita Day!

Yummy!  Enjoy one with someone you love!

Rosemary Focaccia

This was another adventure in making my own bread, that turned out wonderfully!  You can see the wonderful air pockets that developed in the focaccia making this light and airy.  I added dried rosemary to the top of mine but this bread base lends itself to a great number of topping.  I think this would be great with some slow roasted tomatoes and maybe some feta cheese.    I strongly recommend making this to go with a bowl of tomato soup or along a steaming bowl of pasta!

Rosemary Focaccia

Recipe at Epicurious

1 package dry yeast

1 2/3 cups luke warm water

5 cups flour

1/4 cup olive oil

2 1/2 teaspoons table salt

1 tablespoon dried rosemary (recipe calls for fresh but I didn't have any)

1 tablespoon coarse salt

Sift together water and yeast in bowl of mixture and let stand about 5 minutes.  If yeast is not active and blooms, restart with new yeast.  Add flour, 1/4 cup olive oil and table salt and beat with paddle attachment at medium speed until a dough forms.  Replace paddle with dough hook and knead at high speed until a soft and smooth, about 4 minutes.  Transfer to a bowl lightly oiled and let rise covered until doubled in bulk 1 to 1 1/2 hours.  

Press dough evenly into jelly roll pan, generously oiled.  Let dough rise, covered with kitchen towel until doubled in bulk about 1 hour. 

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Stir together rosemary and 3 tablespoons oil.  Set aside.  Make shallow indentations all over dough with your fingertips then brush oil over top of dough.  Sprinkle with coarse salt and bake until golden brown, 20 - 25 minutes.

Immediately invert onto rack, turning right side up.  You can either serve warm or allow to come to room temperature.

Wordless Wednesday - My office this weekend

Soup-a-Palooza - Lemon Chicken Soup with Orzo

I don't want to make anyone angry but it has been really warm in Southern California the last couple of months, which has meant that I haven't really wanted to make soup.  So when I heard about Soup-a-Palooza hosted by Tidy Mom and Dine and Dish I decided to pull out an old favorite recipe that I have posted before. 
I love the lemony tang of this soup and with a crusty piece of bread this is a delicious and satisfying dinner.  


Come join Soup-a-Palooza with TidyMom and Dine and Dishsponsored by Bush’s Beans, Hip Hostess, Pillsbury and Westminster Crackers!

Lemon Chicken Soup with Orzo
Adapted from Ellie Krieger's The Food you Crave

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
1/2 cup white wine
5 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 cup orzo
2 eggs
3 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Heat oil in large saucepan.  Season chicken with salt and pepper and add to saucepan.  Once cooked through remove to a plate.  Add onion, celery, carrot and dried parsley.  Cook about 5 minutes until vegetables are tender.  Deglaze with the white wine, making sure to scrape up the browned bits on the bottom of the pan.  Add 4 1/2 cups of chicken broth and bring to a boil.  Check seasoning and add salt or pepper if needed.  Add orzo and simmer about 8 minutes until orzo is tender.  Reduce heat - do not let soup boil from this point.

Warm remaining 1 cup of broth until hot but not boiling.  In separate bowl beat eggs.  Whisk lemon juice into eggs.  Slowly add warmed broth into eggs, whisking while incorporating.  Gradually add egg mixture into the soup stirring until thickened.  (You need to be careful at this point because the eggs can cook - trust me I had to skim out some cooked eggs this time!  Be careful not to let the soup boil) 

Serve immediately and enjoy!

Happy Valentine's Day - Faux Hostess Cupcakes

I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day!  I decided to make something special for my hubby and these fit the bill!  I had to work today and wanted to have something easy to pull together, and using my new favorite cake mix - Trader Joe's these came together really quickly.  

Once the cupcakes were cooled I used a melon baller to scoop out a section on the middle of the cupcake.  I used the marshmallow filling in a pastry bag to fill the middle of the cupcake and then replaced the cupcake top.  I topped with the chocolate ganache and then piped a design on the top.  While it was a little more involved then a simple cupcake but well worth the effort!  DELISH!

Marshmallow Filling

Recipe from Annie's Eats

6 tablespoons butter

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

3/4 cup marshmallow fluff

1 1/2 tablespoons heavy cream

Beat together until well combined.  I used this to fill the cupcakes as well as the classic hostess swirl on top.

Chocolate Ganache

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 cup chocolate chips

Heat cream until warm but not boiling.  Pour over chocolate chips and let sit for 1 minute.  Stir until smooth and all chocolate is melted.

ENJOY!

This was shared on Cupcake Tuesday and Sweets for a Saturday!