Leek and Thyme Soup...

I love potatoes and I love leeks so this soup, I felt was an excellent way for me to get two of the things I love in one meal.  I really REALLY struggled with adding mushrooms to this recipe since I love those as well.  There's something about the combination of leeks and mushrooms that's...I don't know.  Just so very tasty and I could probably eat that all day everyday.  So since I was trying to stick to the recipe I chose to saute mushrooms and put them on the side so I could see what the recipe was supposed to taste like.  Of course after I tasted it I added the mushrooms anyway.  Oh the woes of following a recipe to the letter!!!  I don't know why that's such a difficult thing for me to do.  Lol

So this recipe was fairly simple and only requires 7 ingredients, all are kitchen staples with the exception of the leeks, mushrooms and fresh thyme.  That is unless you're one of those people or families that keep potatoes on hand like we USED to.  I know that potatoes aren't the healthiest and I notice after I eat anything with them I tend to feel a little sluggish.  Actually down right tired.  I took a half hour nap shortly after eating dinner even though I'm still tired and wanted to sleep much longer.  After reading a book by the fabulous Leah Salmon  called The Ultimate You I began to be more conscious about how I felt after eating certain foods.  It's amazing how your body tells you what's good for you and what's not.  Potatoes taste SOOO delicious, fried, baked, mashed...yum!!!  But my body tells me differently.  Lol  I've been pretty good about not overindulging in them like I used to.  Now if I could just kick my bread and sugar habit I'll be good.  Ok...looks like I got sidetracked a tad bit...back to the point.

So the whole family loved the soup which, of course makes me feel good.  They even enjoyed the addition of the mushrooms as much as I did.  I also though the recipe was rather delicious and am sitting here thinking I would mind have more as I type.  I love creamy hearty type soups which is exactly what this soup is.  It's funny how much flavor leeks add to a recipe and what's funnier is that I had never cooked with a year ago....I didn't even know what they were.  Strange. This soup didn't take long to make.  It took about 20 minutes to chop up potatoes and leeks and maybe a little over and hour to cook.

Chopped leeks, thyme and butter

Chopped potatoes

Sauteed and water added 

Milk added to soup mixture

Sauteed mushrooms...I couldn't resist 

Fresh fruit.  Yum!

Finished meal

Soup close up 

The one thing I dislike is the way soy milk looks when you're cooking it.  I don't think it really blends quite right.  It may be that I need to reduce the heat so that it's not as hot before adding the milk.  I'm not quite sure.  It boils and just looks kind of weird, but it does absolutely nothing to the taste.  I think I'm in love with this soup.  Definitely one that will be added to our rotation of meals.  

So that's it folks...be back tomorrow with another

Peace and Blessings!!!!

and we round out the week with......

Chiang Mai Noodle Soup is what I chose to cook along with a Chinese Chicken Salad.  I've been literally waiting all week to cook this particular soup.  I'm a big fan of Thai food and I was certain that this would be full of flavor and it would be one that I would be a fan of.  Well....I was right.  It had a very distinct flavor and was amazingly good.

I considered using a different noodle instead of the egg noodles that the recipe called for but chose to stick with the recipe....somewhat.  Since I absolutely hated the texture of the vegan chicken in the chicken noodle soup I chose not to use it like the recipe suggests.  I opted for vegan meat crumbles instead because I wanted to have some type of texture in the soup and to make it a little more filling.  Daughter didn't care for the soup...I was SO surprised.  Hubby liked it but said that the flavor was a little sweet which wasn't really appealing to him, but he really liked it overall and said that he would like to have it again.  Part of the way I judge how good meals are is by  whether or not it's something the family would get excited about having again...Silly huh?

Oh and don't let me forget the salad.  It came from the salad book I blogged about several weeks back.  I was a little skeptical...again with the chicken texture, but I stuck to the recipe on this one, using vegan chicken of course.  I seasoned the chicken lightly and stir fried it in olive oil and then tossed it in the salad.  It was so good.  I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  I'm glad I chose this one because, to me, it complimented the soup perfectly.

boiling the coconut milk so that it separates

coconut milk with remaining ingredient combined

garnish for the soup

Chinese Chicken Salad

Finished Meal

Close up of soup.  Delicious!!!

So folks...there you have it.  A perfect end to an almost perfect week.  Glad I saved this one for today.  I'll most likely be back tomorrow with a new soup since we have NO leftovers.  I was kind of looking forward to a break this weekend but it doesn't appear I'll get one.  Oh well.  Wishing everyone a fun filled enjoyable weekend.  

Peace and Blessings!!!

Day 9...Cream of Mushroom Soup and Tuna wraps

I know we've already had mushroom soup.  I think it was one of the first ones we had but this one is a little different.  The first one had mushroom chunks in it and this one is creamed...so, same soup, but different.  What can I say?  I love mushrooms.  

This was another soup that required very few ingredients.  You could make this soup for under well under $15...actually less than that since everything but the mushrooms are you're basic kitchen staples.   Most of the ingredients we already had so really all I had to do was buy mushrooms, and we already had those since we knew ahead of time that'd I'd be making this soup.  This one I will definitely say, without hesitation, was EASY.  All you really had to do was cut, saute, simmer and process. Simple!

I actually really enjoyed this soup.  I've always loved mushroom soup and have always been fond of creamy soups....especially on warm days.  I had a mushroom bisque that I used to always get from Panera until I found out it had a beef base.  UGH!!!!  I think I'll have to find a recipe for that because it was one of my favorites.

Not to much to say about this soup other than it was delicious and everyone really enjoyed it.  The soups this week have been going pretty quick so there hasn't been much leftovers which is good.  Leftovers are great but I hate when the fridge gets a little too crowded.  Guess this means I'll be blogging this weekend since we don't have leftovers to last us through the weekend.  It would actually be an excellent time to repeat a few of the recipes that I've really loved so far, although part of me feels it's a little too soon for repeats.  We'll see.

Mushrooms and onions

Satueed in sunflower oil and butter 

Soy milk, vegetable broth, basil salt and pepper simmering

Finished soup after being pureed with whole wheat tuna wrap

So there you have it...todays soup.  Another hit.  You cant really go wrong with tuna wraps and todays weather was perfect for it.  As it starts to warm up salads and sandwiches or wraps become more and more appealing.  Maybe I'll have a 30 day sandwich/wrap challenge this summer...Although I seriously doubt it.  lol So far we've only had one soup fail...and I don't know that it was necessarily a fail since some of the family liked it.  I think I just didn't suit MY tastes.  

That's it for me this evening.  Check back tomorrow to see what soup wraps up the week....

Peace and blessings!!!

Day 8 Soup....Curried Salmon

Curried Salmon Soup and Roasted Red Pepper Salad was tonights dinner.  And before anyone even says anything.....Yes, it was a soup with salmon yesterday; I know...I know!!!   I contemplated for some time whether or not to do Salmon 2 days in a row and because the recipe sounded so yummy, I couldn't resist.  My taste buds weren't quite satisfied with last nights dinner and I was really wanting salmon so I chose to give it a try again...only with a different soup of course.  lol   This one was a definite a winner.  

I'm not going to go into how complicated or easy it was...because I think my idea of easy differs from others, but I will say that this recipe called for about 10 ingredients all of which were pretty inexpensive.  I think it took maybe a little over and hour to prepare the entire meal.  I should probably start timing myself to give accurate prep and cook times.  I will say that though that next time I would probably actually prefer it without the salmon mixed in with the soup.  I could do it on the side or even not at all.  It was still very delicious and a meal that I'm sure I'll make for my family often. Everyone loved it so you know it's going to be added to our regular family menu....not that we really have a menu, but if we did.....

So for the ingredients....( the ones I can actually remember off the top of my head because I'm too exhausted to move from my bed right now)  Salmon, onions, butter, red curry paste, white cooking wine, coconut cream, soy milk, parsley, water, diced potatoes, salt and pepper.  Actually I think that may have been all of them.  See, pretty simple right?  The salad was easy...just roasted peppers, garlic, parsley, chopped carrots, sesame oil, honey, soy sauce and I think that's it.  The dressing for this salad actually reminded me of this salad that I made awhile back.  It was very similar.  

So...enough talking typing already...here's pictures of tonights dinner:

Prepared salmon for soup 

Diced potatoes

onions sauteed in butter with curry sauce added

Soup mixture simmering with potatoes

Finished Meal

Closer Look at Soup

Peppers for the salad

Ok, so again I'm apologizing for Blogger, I don't know what's going on with this thing.  When I've tried adding pictures the past few days it's been doing all sorts of crazy things.  My pictures just move where ever they want and so does my text.  I'm not trying to stay up all night trying to figure this out so you all are stuck with it as is....  

So there you have it tonights dinner.  Come back to check out what's cooking tomorrow.  I'm actually pretty excited about tomorrows soup and can't wait to see how it turns out.  *Crossing fingers*

Peace and Blessings All!!!!!