No-Cream Cream of Broccoli Soup

All that talk of reigning it in in my last post reminded me that I wanted to share this excellent recipe for light, healthy, easy cream of broccoli soup. I've made it twice since reading it two weeks ago. Even my parents liked it, and they really do like cream in their soup. The secret ingredient is a can of white beans. I was worried it would be too beany. It's not.

A light, refreshing salad for ushering in the New Year

Like many people, my festive holiday diet has left me feeling the need to reign things in a bit. So imagine my delight to "discover" this excellent, super easy salad tonight. We were having pasta with mushrooms (I know, not exactly diet fare...), and I wanted a vegetable to go with it, and did not want to leave the house. We had carrots, lots of carrots, because my husband bought a whole bag by accident even though we already had an unopened bag at home. So I started searching the indexes of my cookbook for an easy, new, and different carrot recipe and stumbled across this delightful carrot salad from Moosewood Cooks At Home (circa 1994 - this was my old college cookbook!). I have no idea why I haven't been eating this for the past 15 years. See the real cookbook for the actual recipe. Here's the lazy girl adaptation I made:

Ingredients:

- About 1/2 of a one lb. bag baby carrots
- A generous handful of washed and semi-dried fresh parsley (use a salad spinner or pat with a paper towel)
- Juice of one large lemon
- A drizzle of olive oil (about 1-2 tsps)
- One garlic clove
- Salt and pepper to taste

Throw all ingredients into food processor (use the s-shaped blade) and pulse a few times until the carrots are chopped into small dice and the ingredients are well mixed.

Serves 2-4 (main course/side dish)

I know, it doesn't sound like much, but it is surprisingly good. I'll be eating this a lot this month. The original recipe says it keeps well for a few days, so I'll be making big batches and packing it for lunch, to eat with some hummous and pita, a sandwich, or whatever else is in the fridge.

Gingerbread House

Sorry it's been so long since I posted. In terms of food, there's definitely been some yummy stuff this month, but it's mostly been quick things I've already posted about before. And today's post isn't a recipe, but gingerbread houses are such a fun food-related holiday tradition, I thought this was the place for a little visual essay of our gingerbread housemaking this afternoon. This was from a kit...maybe next year we'll bake our own gingerbread and make our own icing.

Better than takeout, part I

Tonight my husband made a wonderful, quick dinner: farfalle with mushrooms, served with old-school frozen peas on the side, with a little butter, salt, and pepper. I'm guessing that even with the olive oil, parmesan, and bit of butter on the peas, we consumed fewer calories than if we had ordered pizza, and I know we spent less cash. We happened to have some fresh mushrooms on hand. Everything else is a kitchen staple at our place - veg bouillon paste for making stock, parmesan, pasta, olive oil, garlic. The whole meal was on the table in 20 minutes, and so delicious I'm taking the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.