The Cookbook Experiment: Aunt Lorraine's Carrot Soup

Hello all! What do you do when you have too many fresh veggies and are not in the mood for a salad? Don't let them rot! Make a soup! I turned to my trusty church cookbook to decide what direction my soup would take and came across another recipe submitted by the amazing Martha Lee Cash and her Aunt Lorraine! If you stroll through my previous posts you will find an amazing recipe for her lasagna. 

Aunt Lorraine's Carrot Soup

1 lb. carrots
3 medium potatoes
1 large onion
1 Tablespoon butter
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
Dash of salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups milk

In a soup pot, saute the chopped onion in 1 tablespoon of butter or low fat margarine.  Add 1 1/2 cups chicken broth.  Combine with the carrots and potatoes and cook until done about 15 minutes. Put in blender, blending to mush consistency. Return to pot and add a dash of salt and pepper and 1 1/2 cups milk. Store in refrigerator. When ready to serve, heat and garnish with dill (optional).

SO....once again I goofed it up like I did last night. I went a little off the rails as I wanted to use my Instant Pot. This is what I did since I had veggies to use up.

I used a 16 ounce bag of carrot chips and cut them into slices.
I set my Instant Pot on saute and put the onion and butter in to soften up. After the onions were softened I dumped in my carrots. I did not chop my potatoes very small since I was worried they would break down too far. Next I added the chicken broth.  I also had some stir fry vegetables that consisted of chopped fresh brussel sprouts, red onion and cauliflower.  I did not mush any of them in a blender.  Next, because I knew the Instant Pot needed to pressurize I added two more cups of water. I am just a novice with the Instant Pot so don't just do what I say. Read your manual and judge for yourself how much liquid you need with your food items. I set my Instant Pot on Soup/Broth and then fell asleep and took a nap! When I got up about an hour later the soup was done and it had self-released. All the veg was very tender. I did NOT add the dairy. Dairy does not really belong in the Instant Pot and honestly, I liked the lightness without the milk.

So I went pretty far off the recipe on this one. But it was the beginning and a good start. And it is a healthy lunch for all this coming week.

"Italian" Meatloaf

I struggle lately with using ground beef. I am becoming more and more vegetarian as I get older. I am not exactly sure why, it's certainly not because of the animal factor. My body just seems to be rejecting the majority of it. BUT despite the fact that I am not all that interested anymore, I still have a house-full of people who DO eat meat.

Tonight I decided to make a meatloaf but I did not feel like making it my usual way with a combination of ground chuck (poor chuck!) and hot Italian sausage, mostly because the sausage was still frozen! Inspiration struck, however and I went at it with a couple of my other favorite Italian items.

It started with about a pound to a pound and a half of ground chuck. Next I added two packages of dry Italian dressing.

And then, to me, the most important ingredient is the Parmesan cheese. You can do it if you want, BUT I highly urge you not to...use that awful green container of shredded "Parmesan" cheese that is shelf stable. Yuck! Don't do it! For just about a dollar more you can get REAL GOOD Parmesan. And here is my favorite:

This is Sartori grated Parmesan cheese. You can get it at the specialty cheese section at your local grocery store.  I highly recommend it. It is a mellow yet perfectly wonderful Parmesan. Here is the web link to their website:

Sartori Cheese

I used approximately 1/3 cup of the Parmesan. I added the cheese and the dry Italian dressing into the raw ground chuck (poor chuck!). Then I formed them into small meatloaves because I wanted it to cook faster than a large hunk of meat would.

Make sure to knead the spices and the cheese into the ground chuck very well. I put them in on of my favorite Pyrex blue 9" x 13" pans and put in a pre-heated 350 degree oven. Bake until no longer red in the middle, approximately 35 minutes (times will vary depending on your loaf size and oven! Check the middle before stopping the oven for doneness)

About 20 minutes after the meat was in the oven, I put a new bag of Schwan's bow-tie pasta and veggies in to heat and serve with the meatloaf. I probably should have made more but I just really did not think there was anything else I could add except, maybe, for bread.

When the meatloaf was finished, it was so moist and tender. I believe it was the Parmesan that kept it so amazing.

This is what it looked like....not a whole lot on the plate but the family ate it up! And the asked for seconds. It turned out wonderful and I even ate it. I'm telling you honestly, my secret weapon in a lot of my food is that wonderful Sartori cheese.

Chicken Pot Pie....sort of

Tonight was all about fast. I had a bag of shredded chicken leftover in the refrigerator I needed to use.  I had a can of biscuits.  I had a conversation with my friend Shannon about what she was going to do with her chicken tonight. We talked about pot pie and I started craving it. But I did not feel like fixing it very much. So I dashed off to the grocery store for some frozen veggies (I did not feel like dealing with all the chopping and peeling of fresh so don't fuss!) and some Campbell's Cream of Chicken and Herb soup.  This is how I threw (and I really did just throw) it together.

In the bottom of a pan that I rubbed with some butter I put a layer of shredded chicken. To the top of that I sprinkled some Soul Seasoning, Garlic Powder and Parmesan cheese.

Pardon my shadow fingers in that picture!! Oh well.....I really stuffed the chicken in the bottom of the casserole dish.  Next came the layer of vegetables. I used two bags of an Italian vegetable mix that had zucchini, carrots, lima beans, peas, cauliflower, peppers, beans and who knows what else!

I mixed two cans of the Campbell's Cream of Chicken and Herb soup with one and half cans of milk well mixed together.  This became the next layer over-top the chicken and vegetables.

And then for the next "cheating" part, I took two cans of biscuits and put them on top of the casserole and put it in the oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes until the biscuits are brown. I then put a sheet of aluminum foil on top to protect the biscuits from further browning and let it heat for another 10 minutes so that the vegetables and chicken and gravy could get good and hot.

As you can see from the picture I cheated even further....I used a foil aluminum pan so I did not even need to wash dishes! I had a fast, yummy stress-free dinner.