Creamy Tomato Soup with Egg Noodle Topper!

   So today I'm going to give you guys another soup recipe. When I first made this tomato soup I absolutely fell in love with it. Besides being so delicious and creamy it's budget friendly and even more important kids will love it!!!

I really felt inspired to make this dish because of the weather changing. We just moved into a new house in a country like setting. Surrounded mostly by woods and deer in our front and backyard everyday. With my favorite season fast approaching a nice warm and comforting soup is just what we needed. I'm super excited to share one of my new favorite soup recipes with you guys. 

Well let's get started already!! 

Of course I'm going to use my immersion blender in this recipe but your food processor or blender will work fine as well. 

The immersion blender is way faster on clean up though. I'm just saying. ;)

Ok ok for real this time. 

 So you want to start out by heating some extra virgin olive oil in a large soup pot. Chop up:

A few medium carrots

Half of a large onion

A few tablespoons of fresh thyme

And peel 4-5 cloves of garlic

Add that all you your pan and grate your garlic in. You want to sweat this out until everything starts to soften. Season with a  pinch of sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper.

   Once those sweat out add a few tablespoons of tomato paste. Let that cook out for a minute or two while you mix it into all of your veg. 

   Add a quart of chicken stock plus a cup of water. 

 

   Add a large can of whole peeled plum tomatoes. Mash these up by hand with a wooden spoon or a potato masher. It doesn't have to be perfect since we will be blending it up later anyway. Now add some fresh chopped basil. Oh course my grocery store was out so I had to buy either dried or the basil in a tube. I opted for the tube basil and it was surprisingly better than I expected. So add a good handful of fresh chopped basil or a tablespoon or two of the tube basil. Let this simmer for 30 minutes. 

   After your soup has simmered for 30 minutes blend it all up nice and smooth. I of course used my immersion blender. Man I love that thing! 

 

   Now let that keep simmering while you make your béchamel. Now you can just add a cup of heavy cream and be done with it but adding this béchamel makes the soup so creamy and delicious while at the same time thickening it up. 

Start of by melting 3 tablespoons of butter in a pan. Add 3 tablespoons of flour and whisk together. 

 

   Let that cook out about 30 seconds and start adding 1 1/2 cups of half and half while whisking. (Whisking while adding the cream prevents it from being lumpy)

Now keep whisking until it starts the thicken and season it with some sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. 

 

   Once it has thickened up add it into your soup. Stir well to combine. I actually just whisked it all together. Let that simmer and thicken up while you make this super fun and yummy topper for your soup. 

   For your soup topper whisk together 4 eggs, a large handful of fresh chopped parsley, freshly grated parmasan (1/2 to 3/4 cup) and sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. 

   Of course I forgot to take a picture of the eggs in the pan but it's pretty simple. Your going to want a large skillet on medium low. Pour the egg mixture in over a pat of melted butter. Do not touch it. Lay a sheet of foil over the egg mixture and let it cook low and slow. Once the egg "omelet" surface has stiffened up and there is no more runny egg on top you can slide it out onto your cutting board. Let it cool some and then roll it up and slice it into little noodles. (You can trim the edges that are super thin and crispy.) 

   Now you just top your soup with your "egg noodles". The noodles give this soup such an amazing and new take on your tomato soup. They are so so delicious. It blew my mind the first time I made it! 

So with fall fast approaching and the temperatures dropping this soup is perfect to cozy up with on a cold night. Add a gooey grilled cheese sandwich and your set!!! 

   I really hope you guys enjoy this dinner. It is definitely one I'm proud to make for my husband and know he is completely satisfied and that he loves it. I really think that feeding my husband or family a meal they truly love and enjoy is a huge part of the reason I love to cook. It makes me proud of how far I have come with the way I cook. Five years ago I probably couldn't cook to save my life and now I love cooking dinner for my husband most every night.  

I really hope you guys enjoyed!! If you like to read my blog then please go and like my fan page on Facebook. Search "pinch of sea salt blog" and like the page to receive updates. :)) 

Beefy Vegetable Soup!

   So the other day I threw together a soup that turned out amazing! I was pretty proud of myself. I hadn't been grocery shopping yet that week and had some things that I needed to use up so I made this soup on the fly. It turned out delicious! Obviously I threw a bunch of stuff in it but you can substitute anything you would like. Maybe it will inspire you to make your own soup on the fly with stuff you already have in the kitchen! :-)

  I started out with some stew meat I had left over. I seasoned it up with salt and pepper and browned it in my pan. Not to cook it through but to "braise" it basically. 

I fried up a few pieces of bacon I had then set those aside. 

 

   I chopped up some celery, carrots and red onion and sweat them out a bit. 

   Then I chopped up the rest of the huge zucchini I got out of my garden and a few red potatoes. Then I grated in about 4 cloves of garlic.

 

   After I let that cook out for a couple minutes I added two cans of white beans, one can diced tomatoes and one can if corn. Add them with all their juices then add four more can fulls of water. I also added some of my cherry tomatoes and diced up some of my other tomatoes from my garden. 

 

   After I added all of that I thought why not add that little bit of ground beef I had left over. So I browned that up and added it to the soup with the stew meat and diced up bacon. 

   Now let it all simmer for 45 minutes to an hour so your stew meat can get super tender. About 10 minutes before I was about to serve I added 3/4 cup of my favorite pasta for soups. Acini Di Pepe. 

 

   Now just serve it up!!! 

   See how easy that was?? It was super delicious! Make sure you season this with salt and pepper to your liking. If I would have had some fresh parmesan I would have grated some up on top. Mmmm! 

I know it's summer but we love to enjoy all types of food year round. People think we are crazy because we BBQ with a foot of snow on the ground and eat soups in the winter!! I don't mind it a bit! ;-) 

  Hope you all enjoy! 

Ham and Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Gravy and Mashed Potatoes!!!

               So in this post I started playing around with my lighting and used two different cameras to try and make the pictures look better for you guys. I am by no means a photographer and I'm still messing around with everything. Trial and error I suppose. So bare with me until I figure out how to make everything look great for you guys. Suggestions are also welcome. :-)

              Alright so I almost made a pasta dish and was looking back on my posts and realized most of them are pasta. Oops! So I decided to make a dish my Nana introduced to me. Now she has probably sent me the recipe to it countless times and I always forget to save it so I "wing" it 90% of the time. 

Good thing I'm not afraid of straying from original recipes. Plus straying helps you become more creative and thats how you come up with your own recipes. Anyway I can't quite call this one my own because I'm pretty sure it's very close to the original. I'm going to jump right in and will post the shopping list at the end of the post. Happy Cooking!!! 

So you are going to start out with as many chicken breasts as your family needs. This is a good recipe to make if you only have to cook for one or if you have six. I used three large chicken breasts for two of us so we could split the third one for lunch the next day. 

You want a larger chicken breast because you are going to butterfly them open. 

Place your hand on top of the breast to hold it still and slowly run your knife toward you. (well that doesn't sound very safe does it?) I just find this method easy for me. Try it any way you would like. Just don't saw through the chicken. Use single strokes then open the chicken up and make sure your cut is going where you want it to. In one of the pictures you will see I had to re-direct my cut. 

Now I'm almost positive the original recipe calls for procuttio but I let my husband decide what he's in the mood for. Usually he picks out procuttio but this time he decided on some thick cut ham. It was very good too!!! So be creative. I've even used Canadian bacon.

Also the recipe calls for mozzarella and most of the time I buy the fresh ball but for a more budget friendly trip to the grocery store I bought mozzarella slices. Still delicious!!!! 

Now place your desired amount of meat, cheese and spinach onto one side of the chicken breast. Sometimes I don't use spinach, sometimes I do it just depends on my mood. Close your chicken breast like a book and season with salt and pepper. I have never used a toothpick to secure the chicken shut because once you start to brown it the chicken will stiffen up.  I pull all of the meats and cheeses out of the packaging before I touch the chicken so I don't have to reach into the bag with raw chicken on my hands. Just make yourself a little assembly line before you start. 

Add some extra virgin olive oil into your pan on medium to medium high heat. This is a good time to preheat your oven to 350 degrees as well.

Now lightly flour the outside of your chicken and brown it on both sides. Your not trying to cook the chicken all the way through in the pan. We will finish cooking it in the oven. While your browning your chicken chop up your potatoes and start them on the stove. 

Now place them in an oven safe pan and cook them all the way through. It will depend on the size of your chicken, mine took about 16 minutes. 

While your chicken is cooking and potatoes are boiling you can make your gravy. In the same pan you cooked your chicken in your are going to make a roux. A roux is a thickening agent. Melt a few pats of butter in the pan over medium heat. Once the butter is melted add a few spoonfuls of flour and whisk together. Let that cook out for about a minute then add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of chicken stock and whisk until combined and thickened up. It can take a minute or two to thicken. Now that it's thickened add a couple splashes of cream and whisk to combine. Don't forget to season with salt and pepper. The gravy is very easy to over season so add your salt carefully. 

When your potatoes are soft drain them and return to the pot. Add a few pats of butter, salt and pepper and cream and mash up. I used a handheld potato masher but an electric one works just fine!!

( I always use red potatoes since we prefer them over russet. And you don't have to peel them because their skin is so thin!) 

Once your chicken is done pull it out of the oven and let it rest. You can probably have them resting while you mash your potatoes up. 

Right before I was about to serve I melted some shredded mozzarella into the sauce. (I decided to do this last minute.)

Now plate up and spoon gravy onto potatoes and chicken. I also steamed some sugar snap peas to serve with it with just a little pinch of sea salt. :-)

                                                               Shopping List:

For the stuffed chicken:

One chicken breast per person (medium to large)

Procuttio or ham

Mozzarella

Spinach

Flour for dredging

Salt and pepper

Extra virgin olive oil

For the gravy:

A few pats of butter

A few spoonfuls of flour

1 1/2 to 2 cups chicken stock

A couple large dashes of cream (preferably heavy whipping cream but half and half works good as well)

Salt and pepper

Shredded mozzarella for melting in at the end (optional)

For the potatoes: 

Potatoes

A few large pats of butter

Cream

Salt and pepper

I don't have an exact measurement for everything because it all depends on how many people you are feeding. I was feeding two but cooked enough for three. With this recipe it's very easy to convert everything to your needs. In my recipe I made enough gravy for four servings since we love gravy!! :-)

I hope you guys enjoy!!!!!!! 

Thanks for stopping by!