Tag: tomato

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Herbed Yellow Tomato and Lentil Soup

imageFinishing my last bowl of soup, I thought it might be time to share this one with you instead of keeping it all to myself. Using the last tomatoes from the garden. Oh no, they have not been out on the vine for a while now. I had to pick them a while back when we were expecting a hard frost, even though they were hard and green as a granny smith apple. But oh wonder, after a couple of weeks, (yes folks, it took that long) they started to turn yellow and even a little red/orange in some spots, I guess because they remembered they were Pineapple tomatoes after all. But knowing that the flavor would not be a sun-ripened version of tomato, I decide soup might be a good bet. And since they are probably less sweet than their sun-ripened cousins, I pondered, maybe creamy would be the way to go? But I also did not want to make it too heavy or rich and full of fat, well I think I struck the balance just right, but judge for yourself. I have eaten the entire pot of soup (serves 4) over the past week, all by myself, there was no sharing here, I admit 😉

imageBy the way, I bet this would be even better with real ripe tomatoes

As I write this, it is very calm outside and very hard to imagine that there is a storm brewing that might outdo last years Halloween Snowstorm. (For those of you not familiar with my area, we don’t usually have snowstorms this early in the year and last year all the leaves where still on the trees, which made the foot of snow into a disaster leaving some of my friends out of power for 2 weeks. I got lucky mine came back on in 2 or 3 days, not too bad, considering. Well this time they are not calling for snow, but a WHOLE LOTTA rain and wind, and for a much longer time) Thank goodness for weather service, or I would have happily packed my bags for a week end hike and ended up blown away 🙁

Instead I might make some more soup tomorrow, and work on one of my little winter projects…

imagePretty, right? You can get the pattern from Pam Powers’ website

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Ingredients

  • 5 medium counter ripened tomatoes, yellow or red (sun ripened would work too), chopped
  • 1/2 onion, diced
  • 1 rapunzel vegan bouillon cube or 2 cups of vegetable broth
  • 1 cup cottage cheese
  • 1 medium carrot, grated on the coarse side of the grater
  • 1/2 cup Le Puy (french green) lentils
  • 1 red pepper, seeded, peeled and chopped
  • 3 sundried tomatoes, cut into small pieces
  • 2 tbsp pesto
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • 1/2 tsp thyme
  • water, 2-4 cups

Directions

  1. Heat some oil over medium high in your soup pot, then add the onions and cook until slightly browned in spots, then add the tomatoes. Add salt, pesto and herbs and cook until the tomatoes render their juices (and it all becomes soup-y)
  2. Add the bouillon cube and about 4 cups of water (or 2 cups broth and 2 cups water) and bring to a boil.
  3. Add the rinsed and sorted lentils. Add the sun dried tomatoes. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer and cook until lentils are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.
  4. In the meantime cook the bell pepper over the grill until blackened, set aside covered or enclose inside a paper bag, and when cooled enough to handle peel the blackened skin off (rubbing it with a paper towel works pretty well), then chop the roasted pepper and add to the soup
  5. Add the cottage cheese and stir until mostly melted.
  6. When the lentils are cooked, season the soup to taste with black pepper and more salt if desired

image© 2012 SimpleHealthyHomemade

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Tomato Kale and Cheese Omelette

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Not much words, just quick food 🙂

For those mornings, or lunch time, when there is not much time, but you are hugely HUNGRY, (or you will be hungry later if you don’t knock something out quickly and run), and there is no time to make a big production.

You need:

  • a handful of grape tomatoes, cut in half
  • a scant cup cooked kale with garlic
  • 1 egg
  • 3/4 cup egg whites
  • 1″x 3″ pc of cheese, (the size of a pack of gum) I think I used asiago, but anything that melts would work
  • freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste

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How to make it happen

  1. Heat a small amount of oil in a skillet
  2. Scramble the egg with the egg whites and pour into the heated skillet.
  3. Add the cooked kale, the tomatoes and add the chopped cheese over top, cover with a lid and cook until the top of the eggs are set and the cheese is melted. (About 3 minutes)
  4. Grind some black pepper over your omelette and serve

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Copyright © 2012 Simple Healthy Homemade. All rights reserved

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Four Greens Vegetable Soup

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Today I got myself a Crinkle Cutter! I know, I know that might not sound very exiting for you, but I am a sucker for kitchen gadgets, especially when they are on sale. And it just so happened that my local grocery store had them on closeout sale… what can I say

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So now being the proud owner of a brand new crinkle cutter, I realize there are many, many things that could be ‘crinkled’ with this, but to start I decided to try it on something relatively soft, hoping to get an easy start, and picked zucchini. And since tonight they are calling for the first frost of the season a yummy vegetable soup seemed like the perfect fit.

As we are heading into the colder months with people worried about getting sick, many stay cooped up inside more than is good for them and a good many eat less vegetables than in the summer exposing them to higher risk of in fact getting sick, while also being exposed to more recycled air in a heated environment. Soooooo, I wanted to make something to give your system an antioxidant boost and what tastier and better way than greens could there be?

So for this mean-lean-green bad boy we are going to use kale, spinach, celery and zucchini (ok, ok, I know, not a ‘green’ but c’mon, you can see the color, right? 😉 )

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Ingredients:

  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 1/2 red onion, finely diced
  • 4 stalks celery, chopped
  • 1 small zucchini (crinkle cut, or sliced into 1/4″ rounds)
  • 1 can or 1 qt size bag frozen tomatoes *(if using canned, pick one that is either no salt added or a low sodium version)
  • 1 can canellini beans, drained and rinsed or 1 portion frozen **(snack bag size)
  • 1 good quality vegetable buillon cube, for making 2 cups(I use Rapunzel no salt added)
  • 1/2 to 1 tsp salt
  • 2 good hand fulls lacinato kale, center stalk removed, washed and trimmed
  • 3 to 4 oz baby spinach
  • small amount of whatever other veggie you have on hand that could stand to get used up (I had a little broccoli left)
  • Parmesan for grating on top (optional, note that using Parmesan would make the recipe no longer vegan or dairy free)
* Note: I have had great success dicing and freezing a bumper crop of tomatoes in zip top bags and using it instead of canned for soups and stews in the winter. Leave cherry tomatoes whole.
**Note: To save time, money and cut salt from your diet, buy dried beans, soak and cook them, (I use my pressure cooker) and freeze in snack size baggies to be used like you would canned.

Directions

  1. Heat oil in a soup pan, add the onion and cook over low until glazed and starting to turn soft
  2. Add celery, stir and cook until you can smell the celery, then add the tomatoes
  3. Fill the pot with water until the vegetables are covered by about 2″ of water, add salt and bouillon cube and if using tomato paste and parmesan chunk.
  4. Bring to a boil
  5. Add kale, zucchini and beans, cook until kale is soft.
  6. Divide spinach into serving bowls, using about 1 cup per dish, ladle the hot soup over and serve, if desired, with fresh grated Parmesan.

Makes about 6 bowls ( Serves six as a first course)

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Copyright © 2011 Simple Healthy Homemade. All rights reserved.