Mom's Minestrone Soup

I made a double batch of this soup today, using my mom's recipe. It made 16 servings of soup. E & I are eating 2 servings for dinner and freezing the rest in individual serving size containers. I added up the cost per serving, and it comes to 81 cents; I'd say that's a good deal. My calculation doesn't include the olive oil, salt & pepper, and any cheese that you serve it with, but it's still very thrifty and will be nice around finals time :)

Here is the recipe for one batch (about 8 servings)

Ingredients

• 2 TBSP. olive oil
• 1 med. onion, chopped
• 2 medium carrots (peeled), sliced or chopped
• 1 medium-size zucchini, peeled and diced
• 6 c. vegetable broth or chicken broth (you can use bouillon; we used pre-made broth because the lower-sodium canned broth was on sale this week)
• 2 c. water - or a little more if needed
• 1 (14.5 oz.) can of Italian diced tomatoes with basil, oregano, and garlic
• 1 c. uncooked pasta (elbow or spiral or whatever is in your cupboard)
• 1 can (15 oz.) dark red kidney beans, drained
  
• 1 ½ c. frozen green beans
• salt & pepper
  

Directions:
1. Heat oil in large pot, add onions, sauté for 3 minutes.
2. Add carrots and zucchini; sauté for 3 minutes.
3. Add rest of ingredients. Bring to a boil, turn down after a couple of minutes and simmer until veggies are tender (about an hour). Stir occasionally.
4. Sprinkle with fresh grated Parmesan cheese after dishing it up in a bowl.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

We made up a 1.5 batch of chocolate chip cookies last night. We baked 1.5 dozen cookies right away, and then we froze the rest of the dough. When we freeze the dough, we freeze it in little cookie dough balls on a baking sheet. We freeze it overnight, and then when they are frozen into little cookie dough balls, we put them into a plastic bag in the freezer. It makes it a lot easier, in my opinion. We have 4 1/2 dozen frozen cookie dough balls in our freezer right now :)

My recipe for chocolate chip cookies is based on the Nestle Toll House recipe, with a few changes.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 sticks (1 cup) of unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup of packed brown sugar
• 1 TBSP of vanilla extract (variation on original recipe)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups (12 oz. pkg) of Semi-Sweet chocolate morsels (My variation: I use 1/2 package of semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1/2 package of milk chocolate chips. I think it's a good combination)

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees

2) Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl

3) Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla extract in a large mixer bowl until creamy. (Be sure to use a LARGE bowl)

4) Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

5) Gradually beat in flour mixture

6) Stir in chocolate chips

7) Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets

8) Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, or until golden brown

9) Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely

Tomato, Basil and Cheese Baked Pasta

I knew that I was craving some kind of cheesy baked pasta, but I didn't want to use our normal baked ziti recipe.

Rachel Ray saved the day for us with this recipe, although I changed it up a little.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ziti (instead of shell pasta)
• Italian sausage (we had about 3/4 lb. left, so we just used that)
• 2 TBSP. EVOO
• 3 large cloves garlic (chopped)
  
• 1 small yellow onion (diced) - I bought a new kitchen toy that makes chopping onions a lot more fun. It was so worth it :)
  
• 1 (28 oz) can of crushed tomatoes (Lately the cheapest store for canned tomatoes, including diced, crushed, etc. has been Target - if you buy the Market Pantry brand. I think it's around 54 or 56 cents for a can of diced tomatoes. A store brand, same sized can at the other local stores is $1.06. I think the can of crushed tomatoes was about a $1 at Target; cheaper than Cub has been lately.)
  
• 10 to 12 fresh basil leaves, torn into small pieces
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 7 oz. container of store bought basil pesto sauce (I had every intention to make my own pesto, but my Friday classes sucked the life out of me, so store-bought pesto it was...)
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (we didn't use this kind; we had a bag of half Romano and half Asiago cheese in our freezer, so we used that instead; and it worked out well)
• 1/2 pound of fresh mozzarella, shredded (I cheaped out on this ingredient too; I bought a block of Target brand mozzarella cheese and shredded it. Probably not as good as the fancy mozzarella, but it saved us some $$$)

Directions
1) Brown the Italian sausage, and then set it aside

2) Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt the water. Then cook the pasta according to the directions on the box; cook it until it is al dente. Drain it and set it aside.

3) Preheat a deep, big skillet over medium heat. (We used the 11" chef's skillet from our wedding set)

4) Add the 2 TBSP of EVOO to the skillet; coating the bottom of the pan.

5) Add the garlic; let it cook for a couple of minutes. Then add the chopped onion. Cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes (until the onions look cooked).

6) Add the tomatoes and stir. Let the tomatoes come to a bubble, and then reduce the heat to low.

7) Stir in the basil pieces and wilt them. Season with salt & pepper.

8) Preheat the broiler and place a rack in the center of the oven.

9) Add the pasta shells to a casserole dish. (We used 2 dishes, so we could freeze a batch for another night). Add the Italian sausage, pesto sauce, ricotta cheese and a handful of the romano & asiago cheese. Stir, coating the pasta with the pesto and cheeses.

10) Pour the hot tomato and basil sauce over the pasta.

11) Top with the mozzarella cheese and the remaining romano & asiago cheeses.

12) Place the casserole under the broiler in the middle of the over (about 10 to 12 inches from the heat). Let the cheese melt and bubble on top; 3 to 5 minutes.


Notes: It turned out really yummy. We also had garlic bread. We prepared 2 casserole dishes of this, and we froze one without baking it. My thought is that we might have been better off with setting the oven to 350 degrees and baking it for a longer period of time. The broiler did a good job of melting the cheese, and it tasted really yummy, but I didn't think the dish was hot enough. When we bake our frozen batch, we will probably thaw it out in the fridge, and then bake it at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes (or longer) instead of broiling it. Other than that, it was a great recipe.

Updates

I finally got over my sinus infection. Thank God. It was not very pleasant. Also, it's sunny and somewhat warm here, so that is nice :)

I'm trying to be more optimistic about the job search. I've started applying to jobs where a J.D. is an asset but not a necessity. They are jobs that I would enjoy working at, and where I would still be helping people. Hopefully something will eventually pan out. The job descriptions for the positions to which I am applying are jobs that I think would be a really good "fit" for me. I feel like I would be happy working at them. This makes me feel more optimistic, too.

I am pretty sure that my tube moved to my left side (instead of hanging straight down). It's causing me some pain, but I know that it could be worse. And I will either get used to it soon, or it will move again. I know that I could have it much much worse. A girl from my h.s. just found out that she has an orange-sized tumor in her brain. She is having neurosurgery this week. I hope that it isn't cancerous, and I hope that she makes a speedy recovery. I'm so thankful that my problem wasn't a tumor. An arachnoid cyst (even a huge one) really isn't a big deal at all.

Now for some recipe updates.

We tried the chicken stew recipe. I couldn't taste it (thanks a lot, sinuses!). But E really enjoyed it, so it must have been good :) I froze 4 chicken thighs, some bacon, tomato paste and chicken stock, so we can recreate the meal in a month or so without having to buy very many ingredients.

We also made a beef barley soup in the crockpot. Again, thanks to the sinuses, I couldn't taste it. The only thing that I could taste was the thyme, and it was actually overwhelming to me. But, again, E enjoyed it. We got a lot of leftovers, and we had some to freeze. So that's good :)

Freezer Garlic Bread

Italian bread is on sale at the local grocery store. $1 for a BIG loaf. E & I eat a lot of garlic bread, but we know that fresh bakery bread doesn't keep very well if you leave it sitting out (yuck to moldy bread). We usually freeze it, and then thaw it, slice it, and make garlic bread.

Then I read a recipe for "Freezer Garlic Bread" and decided to try it.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 loaf of Italian bread
  
• 1/2 stick of butter, softened (our poor arteries!)
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
• aluminum foil
• freezer bag

Directions:
1. Cut the loaf into 1" slices
2. Blend the butter and garlic powder in a bowl
3. Butter one side of each slice of bread and stick them back together so that a buttered side of bread touches an unbuttered side of bread.
4. Use a brush to butter the outside of the loaf with butter (why not?)
5. Wrap the garlic bread in foil and then put it in a bag
6. Freeze it (or if you are going to eat it within 3 days, put it in the fridge)
7. Heat frozen bread at 375 degrees for 30 minutes

I prepared six 1/2 loaves of this. We are having one tonight and one with another dinner this week. 4 loaves are in the freezer for another week. It was a lot of work, but I would rather do that work all at once, than have to go through the process every time we want garlic bread. I just hope that it turns out :)