Yummy Chicken & Veggie Soup With Parmesan

I made this soup today and it was so awesome and so chucked together that I thought I'd better write it down so I could replicate it!  I made a huge batch so I could freeze extra portions.   The Parmesan rind in the stock was the stand out flavour addition.  This would be equally good without the chicken as a vegetarian soup.

Ingredients:
- 3 litres of stock
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 piece of Parmesan cheese rind
- 1 small piece of pumpkin
- 2 zucchinis
- 1/2 a head of cauliflower
- a small bunch of silverbeet
- 1 packet of small soup pasta

Optional - roughly 500 grams of chicken breast cut into small, thin pieces - roughly 3 cm square in size and 0.5 cm in thickness.  I used Lilydale free range chicken stir fry pieces that I cut up in to smaller pieces - they happened to be on sale and worked well for a post kinder, quick cook up.

Directions:
- put the stock in a large pot on the stove and bring to a simmer. If you have any tired but flavoursome veggies in the fridge, add them in large pieces (so you can remove them later!!) to the stock.  I added a bunch of wilting spring onions and the chunky stalks of the cauliflower.  Add the Parmesan rind and the crushed cloves of garlic.  Allow to simmer gently while you prepare the other veggies (10-20 minutes for a lovely flavour).

- grate the pumpkin and zucchini and cut the florets of the cauliflower into small pieces.  Wash the silverbeet very well and tear or cut it up in to pieces.

- fish out the large extra flavouring veggies (spring onions & cauliflower stalk in my case) from the stock as well as the Parmesan rind and set aside.

- add the pasta and cauliflower and gently simmer for 5 minutes.

- add the grated pumpkin and chicken (if using it) continue to gently simmer for 5 minutes.

- add the grated zucchini and the silverbeet and continue to gently simmer for 5 minutes or until the pasta is al dente and the chicken is cooked through but still tender.  Take off the heat and add 500ml of cold water. This helps to stop the soup continuing to cook (so the pasta doesn't overcook and break apart). You don't want to overcook at this stage if you're reheating it so portion it up quickly to also help it cool. Freeze any leftovers.

If you like you can serve with a small sprinkle of finely grated Parmesan cheese and some fresh bread on the side - this is how my boys enjoyed it, but I think it's already a meal on it's own.

Yummo!!!!

I am already looking forward to having this for dinner again tomorrow night!

Love Amy xoxo

Roast Pumpkin & Pine Nut Lasagna

This is one of my favourite recipes.  I often vary it greatly and have outlined some options below the recipe.  Adding other veggies or changing the "white sauce" are all good variations.  You can definitely make it lower in fat with some of the variations too - eg using low fat ricotta and less mozzarella and Parmesan, roasting the veggies in just a tiny bit of oil spray instead of liberal amounts of olive oil.  I usually do make it lower in fat when I make it for a regular family dinner, but this version is the tastiest and most rich and pumpkiny in my opinion.

Ingredients:
- Lasagna sheets - I either use the dried instant ones or make my own fresh - I don't think the "fresh" from the supermarket are as good for this recipe (although I've used them several times). I like the thickness of the dried, instant ones and the al dente texture which you can't really achieve with fresh pasta.
- 2 very large pieces of pumpkin - I usually use 2 different varieties - this time I used Kent and Grey.
- 3 whole garlic cloves, unpeeled
- 12 fresh sage leaves, washed and dried
- good quality olive oil
- a few good handfuls of freshly grated, good quality Parmesan cheese
- 300 grams of grated mozzarella
- 180 - 250g mascarpone - (I had a 250g tub which I'd already used some of for another recipe. If you're only using the mascarpone for this recipe, then you use the entire tub so as not to waste it.)
- raw pine nuts

Method:
- preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius
- peel and cut the pumpkin in to large chunks and scatter on two oven trays lined with baking paper
- add the garlic cloves (unpeeled), drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt and ground pepper & roast for 20 minutes

- Turn the pumpkin around, add the sage leaves and drizzle with more olive oil if needed
- When the pumpkin is well roasted and the sage is crispy, remove from the oven and turn it down to 180 degrees Celsius

- set aside the crispy sage leaves

- squeeze the garlic out of the skins and discard the skins
- roughly mash the pumpkin and garlic together with a fork

- finely crumble the sage leaves and mix through the pumpkin

- *important* Add some water to your mashed pumpkin so it's runny. You need the extra moisture so the lasagna sheets have enough liquid to cook them through and so the final dish isn't too dry. I used probably about 180mls this time as I used dried instant lasagna sheets.  If you're using homemade fresh lasagna sheets then you'd only need to add a little bit of water to loosen the mixture.  You can see the difference in texture in the above photo and the one below.
- divide the pumpkin in to 3 decent sized portions and 1 smaller, half sized portion
- spread a layer of the pumpkin mixture on the bottom of your dish and top with one layer of lasagna sheets

- add another layer of pumpkin mixture, this time add a large handful of mozzarella and Parmesan cheese before you add another layer of lasagna sheets

- another layer of pumpkin and lasagna sheets
- spread the final, smaller amount of pumpkin mixture over the top lasagna sheets, add the mascarpone cheese and spread evenly (the mixture will become a pumpkin and mascarpone combination rather than two separate layers)

- top with lots of mozzarella and Parmesan, drizzle with a bit of olive oil, cover with baking paper and foil and bake in 180 degree oven for 45 minutes

- remove the baking paper and foil and bake until starting to lightly brown (approximately another 10 minutes)

- scatter the pine nuts on top and bake until browned

- serve hot on it's own or with a rocket salad.  It's even better the following day and it freezes very well.

Variations:
- add a layer of thinly sliced half moons of roasted zucchini
- add a layer of balsamic roasted cherry tomato halves
- add a layer of wilted spinach
- make a traditional white sauce with flour, butter, milk & cheese
- use a combination of ricotta and feta for the "white sauce" layer
- use creme fraiche or sour cream for the "white sauce" layer
- use low fat ricotta and some milk stirred together for a lower fat version


I hope you try this and love it as much as I do!

Love Amy xoxo

Faux Mexican Lentil Soup

Firstly, apologies to all Mexican people for this meal. It's certainly not authentic in any way!!!  However, it is delicious, easy and super duper healthy, so hopefully I can be forgiven it's name!!!

I like to cook soup in bulk so I can freeze it in portions for my husband's lunches or for dinner when I don't have time to cook (or can't be bothered!).  You can easily halve this recipe for a more reasonable serving quantity.  It's a thick soup, but feel free to add more stock if you prefer it thinner.

You could definitely make this in a slow cooker if you have one - I have before and it turned out great.  I'm not usually organised enough for this though, so a chuck it in and ready in 40 minutes is more my way. ;-)

Serves 12-16 depending on your portion sizes. (I use the little yellow bowl which is about 1 cup and my husband uses the blue striped bowl which is a standard size so we got about 16 serves, but if you all use standard size bowls, it would be more like 12 serves.)

Ingredients:
- 3-4 carrots
- 2 zucchinis
- 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 3 cups of red lentils, rinsed well
- 1 cup of french lentils (or green lentils or whichever other type of lentil you like really - just check cooking time), rinsed well
- 2.5-3 cups of stock (veg or chicken)

- 1.5-3 teaspoons of ground cumin (depending on your spice/flavour preference and if your kids might be eating it.)
- 2 teaspoons of oregano
- 2 teaspoons of paprika
- 1-3 teaspoons of cayenne pepper (depending on your heat preference)
- 2 cans of tomatoes (if using whole ones, which I prefer, chop/mash them up)
- a bag of baby spinach or a bunch of silverbeet

Directions:
- finely chop the carrots and zucchini
- roughly chop the spinach or silverbeet
- saute the carrots in some olive oil for a minute or two (in the photo below you can see that I added the zucchini at the same time, but I prefer to add the zucchini a bit later.)
- add the spices and cook for another couple of minutes

- add the red lentils, hot stock and tomatoes

- cook, covered, on low/medium heat for 15 minutes - stir once or twice
- add the zucchini, spinach and French lentils and cook, covered, for 25-30 minutes - stir occasionally and add extra stock or water if it's getting too thick

- add salt and pepper to taste

Serving suggestions:
- on it's own
- with a dollop of light sour cream
- with a dollop of natural yoghurt
- with some chopped avocado and a squeeze of lemon or lime (and coriander if you are that way inclined - I'm not!!!)
- with some natural corn chips on top or on the side - my husband uses a bowl of corn chips as a spoon to eat the whole bowl of soup - his metabolism allows this, mine does not!!!
- or any combination of the above!  My fave is light sour cream and natural corn chips - yummo!!!!

Happy cooking!

Love Amy xoxo