Creamy Tomato Tortellini Soup

This is one of the best soups I've made in a long time. I highly recommend this one. It was delicious, quick and very easy to make.

2 tsp minced garlic
2 tbsp oil (I like to use avocado oil)
2 cans of cream of tomato soup (I use Campbells)
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 cups half and half
2 cups chicken stock
1 tsp onion powder
1 tbsp italian seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3 cups tortellini
1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese for garnish


Heat oil in stockpot over medium heat, then toss in the garlic and saute for a few minutes until golden brown. Add in the tomato soup, tomato paste, half and half, chicken stock and spices then bring to a light boil. Once boiling, add in the tortellini and cook as per package directions.


Pour it into your bowl and garnish with parmesan cheese! So easy, and so delicious!


Enjoy!!







Recipe source: Key Ingredient

Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

Salted.Caramel.Frosting..... need I say more?

This is hands down the best icing I've ever made... I want to put it on everything. These chocolate zucchini cupcakes are a pretty darn delicious thing to top with it! ;)

Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups grated zucchini
2 cups flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
3/4 cup sour cream
1 cup chocolate chips

Salted Caramel Icing
3/4 cup butter
3 cups icing sugar
3/4 cup caramel sauce (I just buy mine pre-made)
Sea Salt for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Mix the vegetable oil and sugar together, add in the eggs and vanilla, then the sour cream. Add in the zucchini, then slowly add in the flour 1 cup at a time. Add in the cocoa, and spices. Once mixed well, fold in the chocolate chips.

Spoon into your cupcake liners and bake for about 35 - 40 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool completely before icing them.

Cream together the butter and icing sugar. Add in the caramel and mix until smooth.

Put icing into your piping bag and ice each cupcake. Once their iced you can sprinkle a little bit of sea salt onto the icing of each cupcake (I use a pink Himalayan sea salt grinder and do one grind over each cupcake).

The last time I made these, I dribbled a little bit of caramel over the icing before salting them and that was delish, but I haven't done that every time - they're good either way! :)

Enjoy!!

Pumpkin-snap Cookie Sandwiches with Cream Cheese Icing

First off, let me say... Ohmigoshhhhh were these amazing. AMAZING. I can't wait to make another batch.. they are now my very favorite cookie.

You can make cookie sandwiches out of these babies like I did. Or you can just leave them as pumpkin-snaps.. but let me tell ya... making them into sandwiches with the cream cheese icing took them to a whole new level.

What I did, was basically took my gingersnap recipe, doubled it, subbed out half of the butter for pumpkin, tweaked a few things and voila!! Amazingness!! I promise you, you will love these.

Cookies
1.5 cups butter (softened)
1.5 cups pumpkin puree
4 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup molasses
6 1/2 cups flour
4 tsp baking soda
3 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar (for rolling cookies in)

Cream Cheese Icing
16 oz. Cream Cheese
3/4 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups icing sugar

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cream the butter, pumpkin puree and sugar together. Add the eggs and then the molasses and mix well. In a seperate bowl, mix the dry ingredients and slowly add them into the pumpkin mixture over a few additions.

Roll the dough into 2" balls, then roll them in your sugar and set on an ungreased cookie sheet about 2" apart (I wanted to make the cookies pretty big since they're going to be sandwiches - if you want to do smaller sandwiches, then just do 1" balls, 1" apart).

Bake for about 11 - 12 minutes, let sit on sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring them to a cookie rack to cool.

While they're cooling make your icing by combining all of the ingredients until well blended. Refrigerate the icing until you're ready to use it.

Once the cookies have cooled completely, then you can make your sandwiches. Just fill a piping bag with icing and put about 2 tbsp of icing on the underside of half your cookies, then place another cookie bottom side down against the icing on each of them and there you go! Cookie sandwiches!!

Enjoy!!

Santa Fe Cheesy Beef and Rice Casserole

This time of year I like comfort foods. Nothing's better than crisp fall weather and cozying up inside with a warm, satisfying meal - except for maybe a deliciously satisfying dessert... haha!

I really like mexican, tex-mex, etc. and I was looking for an easy ground beef dinner idea that wasn't boring old tacos, or spaghetti, so I whipped up this Casserole last week and it was a hit! I'll definitely be making it again.

1 lb lean ground beef
1 onion, diced
3/4 cup black beans
3/4 cup niblet corn
1 small can of tomato sauce
1 cup cooked rice
1 cup beef broth
3 tbsp taco seasoning (or more if you like - I like lots).
Sour cream (to top each serving with).
2 cups shredded tex mex cheese
1/2 cup crushed up tortilla chips

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cook the ground beef thoroughly (once browned add in the onion), once beef is cooked then you can drain the grease. Add the beef broth, tomato sauce and taco seasoning and let simmer until most of the broth is absorbed (should still be a bit saucy). Add in the black beans, corn and rice and combine well. Add in 1 cup of the shredded cheese and mix through.

Pour into your casserole dish and place lid on top. Bake for about 15  minutes, then remove lid, add the remaining cheese on top and sprinkle the crushed up tortilla chips over the cheese. Bake uncovered for another 15 minutes.

Top with your desired amount of sour cream for each serving.

Enjoy!!

Super Simple Pecan Pie

First post in a while - looks like a trend here! What can I say, I'm super busy these days and find it hard to get the time to sit down and put up blog posts. As always, I'll try to do better, but can't promise anything! ;) I'm at home sick on my couch at the moment, so whaddya know?! I have some spare time to post!

I took a crack at Pecan Pie this past week and it turned out great!! I will definitely be making this again! It's the perfect fall dessert!

And this recipe is SO easy!!

1 (9") pie Crust (or you can do homemade, I'm lazy so I bought one!)
1 1/2 cups pecan halves
3 eggs (beaten)
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp butter (melted)
1 cup dark corn syrup
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 F. and place your pie crust in your pie dish. Sprinkle the pecans evenly in the bottom of the pie crust.

Beat your eggs in a small bowl and set aside. Melt butter and set aside.

Combine eggs, sugars, melted butter, and mix. Add in your corn syrup, ground cinnamon and vanilla extract, whisk with your mixer until well combined.

Pour the mixture into your pie crust over your pecans, the pecans will rise to the top.

Pop in the oven and bake for about 45 - 50 minutes. You may need to cover the edges of your pie crust with tinfoil after about 20 minutes to prevent your crust from over-browning.

The middle of the pie should be a tad jiggly when you take it out. Let the pie set for about an hour and it will firm up.

Store uneaten pie in the fridge.

Enjoy!!! :)

Gingerbread Cake Balls

I really love holiday baking... and I really, really love gingerbread! These gingerbread cake balls are super moist and have a really strong yummy gingerbread taste!

You can use either milk or white chocolate dipping wafers when doing your coating, I've done both ways and both are good. (Milk chocolate pictured).

Cake 

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup molasses
1 cup boiling water

Preheat your oven to 375 F.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and ginger, then set aside.

In a mixing bowl beat together the butter and brown sugar until creamy (about 2 minutes) Beat in the eggs and then add in the molasses until well combined. Immediately stir in the boiling water. Add in the flour mixture and mix until smooth.

Pour the batter into a 9" x 13" pan and bake for about 30 minutes.

Let the cake cool. While the cake is cooling make your cream cheese icing.

Cream Cheese Icing

2 cups icing sugar
8 oz. pkg of cream cheese

Mix the icing sugar and cream cheese together with mixer until creamy and thin (you don't want it to be thick and creamy, it should be a bit runny - you can add some cream to it if you need to 1 tbsp at a time).

Store in the fridge until the cake is cooled completely.

Crumble the cake into a large bowl and pour the icing mixture overtop. Using your hands, mix the cake and the icing together until the cake is completely saturated with icing - pop into the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Line a couple of baking sheets with wax paper.

Once the cake/icing mixture is cold, roll the mixture into 1 inch balls and place on wax paper. Put back into the fridge for about 15 minutes.

While the balls are setting, you can start your chocolate coating.

Chocolate coating

3 cups chocolate dipping wafers (milk or white - whatever you prefer)

Place a saucepan filled about a quarter of the way full with water over low heat. Place a glass bowl into the saucepan (make sure it's not completely submerged in water, it should sit so only part of the bowl is in the saucepan).

Pour your chocolate dipping wafers about 1 cup at a time into the bowl and let them melt, stirring until thin and creamy (you can add a tsp or so of shortening to help thin it if you need to).

Drop the balls into the chocolate mixture one at a time coating completely. Retrieve them with a fork letting the extra chocolate mixture drip off. Place onto wax paper and top with nutmeg or sprinkles.

Let them set in the fridge for about 30 minutes, then they're ready to eat!

Store in the fridge.

Enjoy!!

Caprese Chicken with Gnocchi

This is my first blog post in FOREVER... I know, I know. But I have a good reason.

I've been a little down in the dumps lately in regards to cooking. My little girl is currently nursing and she's allergic to A LOT of things which means I've had to cut a lot out of my diet which really limits my cooking. When I say a lot, I mean a lot too... Milk, Soy, Egg, Nuts, Beans, Peas, Lentils, etc. So basically any kind of normal baking is not in the picture right now. She's 9 months old and I plan on weaning her to a milk alternative at 1 year, so I'll hopefully be posting a bit more come the fall... so please bare with me.

I posted a pic of tonights dinner on Instagram and a friend of mine asked for the recipe, so I figured it's a good opportunity for a blog post.

You can cook the chicken any way you'd like to, me personally I BBQ'd it... so that's what I'm going say to do for this recipe.

4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
Salt and Pepper (to taste)
3 Tbsp EVOO
3 Tbsp Minced Garlic
1 Cup Cherry Tomatoes (cut in half)
1/2 Cup (loosely packed) Torn Basil Leaves
1/2 Cup Shredded Mozza Cheese
1 Pkg Gnocchi

Cook the chicken breasts however you prefer (I BBQ'd ours... or rather my hubby did!).

While your chicken is cooking, in a large skillet heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add in the minced garlic and saute until fragrant (a few minutes).

Add in the cherry tomatoes and cook for a few more minutes until the skin on the tomatoes starts getting wrinkled. Add in the torn basil and cook for another minute or so. Then move your tomato mixture to the side of the pan. Reduce the heat to low.

Boil your gnocchi. The nice thing about gnocchi is that it only take about 2 minutes to cook. Once they all float to the top you're done! Drain the gnocchi and set aside.

Add in your chicken breasts, top with about 2 tbsp of shredded mozza cheese (I used vegan cheese for this due to my dietary restrictions.. but I used real cheese for my hubby's). Spoon about 1 - 2 tbsp of the tomato mixture on top of each chicken breast, cover with a lid and let sit for a few minutes until the cheese is nice and melted. You'll have lots of leftover tomato mixture.. don't worry.. that goes with the gnocchi.

Remove the chicken breasts and turn the heat back up to medium-high, then add the cooked gnocchi to the skillet. Saute the gnocchi for about 4-5 minutes until it's a little bit browned, mixing it together with the leftover tomato mixture.

Plate you're meal and voila!! You're done! Easy as that.. this whole meal took all of about 20 minutes to make. :)

Enjoy!