Meatless Monday - Cheesy Tortellini and Cannellini Bean Soup

Meatless Monday Week 3 was a rocking success here at Chez Milligan. The Little Milligan was happy, the Big Milligan was happy and that means Momma Milligan was happy. This week, I had a coupon for a beautiful loaf of crusty Italian bread for 79 cents! Immediately I thought soup and bread for dinner on Monday.  Today could not have been a more perfect day for soup. It was a little cold and a little snowy all day.

I knew I wanted to have some color and protein in my soup to make it pretty. I chose rainbow cheese tortellini, and frozen chopped spinach.  I knew I needed more protein so I added cannellini beans. Cooked beans can have anywhere from 14-16 grams of protein per cup. Of course I love cheese so there is some grated cheese in the broth and my secret soup ingredient is a 1/4 cup of white wine. It gives just the nicest bit of acid and it is no longer a secret.

Soup cooking on the stove all day, bread in the oven to crisp up the crust 15 minutes before dinner time. Perfect.

Cheesy Tortellini and Cannellini Bean Soup 

6 cups chicken stock
1 can cannellini beans
1 cup frozen chopped spinach
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup white wine
1 package fresh rainbow cheese tortellini
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 small onion finely diced
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a stock pot on medium heat sauté onion and garlic in olive oil. When onions are tender (about 5 minutes) add chicken stock and wine and bring to a boil. Once boiling add spinach, beans, cheese and tortellini. Simmer until tortellini are cooked.

Meatless Monday - Quinoa and Spinach

Meatless Monday Week two brings with it more protein than week one. I realized that while yummy and delicious if not photogenic Mushroom Stroganoff was severely lacking in protein. Lean protein is what keeps you full, fuels your muscles and is good for your heart.  

Good sources of protein include seafood, white meat poultry, and lean beef. For the purpose of meatless monday, beans, soy, milk, cheese, yogurt and certain grains are all excellent sources of protein. 

Tonight's recipe was built around Quinoa (keen-wah). Quinoa is a great source of protein. 1/3 of a cup is 160 calories and has 6 grams of protein. Quinoa is easy to cook. It follows along the same principle of cooking rice. 1 cup of grain to 2 cups water, boil then turn down to a simmer and cook until all the liquid is gone.  (20 min) 

Quinoa Spinach One Pot

1 cup uncooked quinoa

2 cups chicken stock

1 can mushrooms (drained) 

1 can great northern beans (drained and rinsed)

1 package frozen creamed spinach (cooked)

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

salt 

In a large pot bring 2 cups chicken stock to a boil.  (water can be used but make sure once the water comes to a boil you salt it before adding the Quinoa) Once boiling, add 1 cup quinoa. Bring back up to a boil and then cover and reduce heat to simmer. Cook until all the liquid has been absorbed. 

Remove from heat and add mushrooms, beans, creamed spinach, onion powder, garlic powder and cheese.  Stir to incorporate and serve. Salt to taste. 

This was a hit with 2 out of 3 of the people in the Milligan household.  Surprisingly, it was not the youngest Milligan that turned their nose up at our second meatless Monday dinner. 

Meatless Monday - Mushroom Stroganoff

So, today was the first of 52  meatless Monday's.  In looking over my grocery budget, I had an idea that I could save money with one meatless meal a week, one leftovers day and one night of a hearty salad with protein (perhaps even left over for an even greater savings).

To be honest, I am only one food documentary away from becoming a full on vegetarian. (Anyone with any knowledge of me knows my LOVE of cheese prevents me from being a vegan.) I watched some great ones in the last year Fathead, Forks over Knives, Food Inc. If you haven't seen them I suggest you check them out.

Tonight's meatless dinner was one I have made before. Mushroom Stroganoff. I love beef stroganoff. However, my ability to digest most sources of animal based protein (gastric by-pass) being a crap shoot has me usually just eating the sauce and the noodles. Not too long ago, I took a peek at one of my favorite stroganoff recipes and decided to try to make one on my own using Portobello mushrooms instead of beef. I figured the texture of the mushrooms would be enough like beef to satisfy my husband and yet more easily digestible than beef for me. So off I went and here is what I came up with.

Let me say first I am sorry I don't have a picture of this for you. I tend to mix everything together in one pan before I serve it and it just doesn't make for a pretty picture. It just makes for a beige one. However, it tastes delicious!

Mushroom Stroganoff

1 8 oz package sliced baby bella mushrooms (or 8 ounces of portobello mushrooms cut into 1 inch pieces)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup water
1 envelope Lipton's beefy onion soup mix
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 cup red wine
3/4 cup sour cream

Melt butter in a large pan and add mushrooms, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Sautee mushrooms until soft. (about 5-7 minutes) Once mushrooms are cooked add 1/4 cup red wine. Continue cooking over medium heat until wine has been absorbed into the mushrooms.  Add 1/2 cup water, can of cream of mushroom soup and beefy onion soup mix.  Stir to mix all ingredients together and let simmer over low heat 10-15 minutes to thicken.  (This is when I add the cooked egg noodles to the pan and let everything simmer together) Just before serving, add sour cream. Mix to incorporate.

If you have not added the cooked noodles to your dish on the stove, serve over noodles or rice.

2014: The Year of the Blog?

2014 is upon us, it is time for resolutions, and new beginnings. I was a bit ambitious last year in my creation of this blog. I threw myself in with no thought or plan just the knowledge that I loved Pinterest and that I wanted an excuse to be there. 

This year I am going to try to be a bit more methodical about this blog. I have hatched a plan. I still will have recipes both original, tweaked and outright stolen from Pinterest (with credit given to the original pinner, of course. I am not a total creep). But I also want to incorporate my love of crafting, being a mom to a special needs child, being an aunt to my amazing nieces and nephew and my love of being a Girl Scout leader. 

I am trying to develop my tiny ilk of fashion sensibility and will be sharing what it is like to be round and slightly fashionable. As well as loving who you are and being comfortable in your own skin.  I am on a journey to be a more health minded person. I have come to the realization this year that I can not exist on popcorn, cheese sticks and Coke. I am on a mission to use less convenience foods in my meal planning and make more scratch made meals. 

Finally, I am reaffirming my commitment to save, save, save. Frugality is my new middle name. 

I can't wait to start sharing my thoughts, experiences and experiments (good and bad) with all of you. 

Bonne Annee! Kimberly 

Meatballs and Sauce

It is funny why we do certain things we do. How much of who we are and what we do is shaped by our parents. How we adopt different qualities and habits from them. Even ones we hated as children we find ourselves doing as adults.

Last night, my sister's family and mine sat down for dinner to remember our Daddy. Over the last 5 years we have frequented various restaurants in the area he enjoyed (the man loved a chinese buffet) but this year I decided to cook. For quite some time after I got married my daddy would have Spaghetti Sunday at his house. He would make sauce from scratch, roll meatballs and have some sort of pasta or spaghetti. He then would invite everyone he knew! You can after all always throw more pasta on the stove.

Sauce was a big deal to my daddy. He always made his own and he very rarely ate anything with a red sauce out. When we were visiting the venue for my wedding reception, he sat down at the bar to discuss some points with the owner of the club and promptly asked him to taste his sauce. This is something that had never been requested before but the owner graciously went to the back and brought out some sauce and bread. My daddy would deem the sauce acceptable and sign the contract for the venue. When we got outside I asked him what he really thought of the sauce and he said "Its pretty fucking good sauce."

One of my proudest moments was when my own sauce was declared "pretty fucking good sauce." But why would it not be I studied at the knee of the master. I loved cooking with and for my daddy. My pasta salad was called a taste adventure. I packed it so full of stuff that no two bites were the same. I was allowed to help with the preparations for La Vigilia (Feast of Seven Fishes) on Christmas Eve. And sometimes he would ask me to make him something I made for him before. (highest praise)

One afternoon I went over to make sauce and meatballs with him and while we were rolling the meatballs I asked him why he rolled his meatballs so big. When I say so big, I am talking a meatball the size of a regulation tennis ball.

Does it have to do with keeping them so moist? No
Do they hold their shape better in the sauce? No
Is it better for them when you are baking them in the oven? No.

Then why are you rolling them so big?

The answer was simple. He hated rolling meatballs. So instead of rolling 20-25 little ones, he made 10 big ones! And they were awesome!

He was also the pioneer of the Pink Scrambled Eggs and Poundcake and Pudding dessert, but those my dears are stories for another day.

Joseph Russo February 4, 1944 - October 11, 2008

It has been 5 years since you left us, suddenly and without warning. I don't think I will ever be used to the idea you are gone. I miss and love you. So lucky that I got to call you Daddy.

Death Is Nothing At All

Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away to the next room.

I am I and you are you.

Whatever we were to each other,

That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.

Speak to me in the easy way

which you always used.

Put no difference into your tone.

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed

at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word

that it always was.

Let it be spoken without effect.

Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.

It is the same that it ever was.

There is absolute unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of mind

because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.

For an interval.

Somewhere. Very near.

Just around the corner.

All is well.

Henry Scott Holland ~ 1847-1918

Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral ~ London. UK 

Please stay tuned for more posts starting August 1.