First Post!

Welcome to my food blog!

I hope to document and share recipes that I like, love and find across the internets. Recipes will mostly be on the healthier side of things and my (light) use of REAL butter for cooking plus a few indulging recipes such as birthday cake from scratch and my never-ending search for the perfect cake recipe even though I rarely bakes.

I use real butter instead of cooking oil spray whenever I can. I'm not big on this organic or "natural" food movement but  using butter to very lightly coat a fry pan instead of an cooking oil spray that may have all sort of additives (such as propellant) makes more sense to me and it adds a nice flavor! Also, a stick of butter lasts for about six weeks in my kitchen..so it's less expensive, too!

I'm looking forward to sharing recipes on this blog. Here are some of my favorite recipes from my other blog

Lemon Chickpea Pasta

Food Addicts Toscana soup (their version)

Kemi's remixed Toscana Soup

-Even with my lightening mojo, it is still a hearty soup with ~170 calories per cup. You can cut down even more by lowering the number of sausages from 5 links to 2 and decreaseing the potatoes to one and cut the sausages and potato up finer to still get the same taste, but less calories.

• 1 lb. spicy turkey Italian sausage
• 2 medium potatoes (skin on), sliced ¼’
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 tbsp. soy bacon bits (or real bacon bits or chopped turkey bacon) 
• **using a dash of smoked salt can also give a smokey flavor without the bacon
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 c., fresh spinach (or kale)
• 8 ¾ c. chicken stock (I used 9 cups of water with powdered broth to taste after simmering)
• 1 c.  skim milk (they used fat free, half and half)
• salt and pepper to taste
• Dash of cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes (i like my soups spicy!)
• I added ~1 tablespoon of roux for more complex flavor and a thicker, richer broth without using the half/half

Directions

1. Cook Italian sausage in a large pot and drain the fat (if there is any) ( I like boiling the sausages and getting rid of the water/salt/fat all together)

2. Add onions and garlic in same pot and cook until aromatics are released from the garlic about 30 seconds to 1 minute.

3. Add chicken stock and potatoes and cook over medium heat until potatoes are soft.

4. Add soy bacon bits, kale* (if using spinach add at very end) and half-and-half (or skim milk) and cook another 10 minutes over a low simmer.

5. If you are using spinach add it at the end, or if using kale--when kale is soft, remove from heat and season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Serving size: 1 cup

Calories: 171.8

Total Fat: 5.6

Sat. Fat: 1.7 

Carbs: 20g 

Protein: 11.5g

Roasted Red Pepper Pasta
*my version inspired my TGI Friday’s red pepper pasta with sausage and chicken. I usually serve this as a side dish, but it can be made into a main dish by adding italian turkey and chicken breast.

1 container of good Alfredo Sauce
3-4 medium slices of Roasted Red Pepper
½ red onion
Some oil for sautéing
1 box of prepared Whole Wheat pasta
Parmesan cheese (for flavor/garnish)

Slice the onion and sauté for 1-2 minutes and set aside.
Heat the alfredo sauce and red peppers use a stick blender to combine. Add onions to this sauce.
Pour this over prepared pasta and mix and top with parmesan cheese.
Can be served immediately or saved for later.

Black Bean Vegetable Soup (from Allrecipes)

This is a spicy, flavorful and very versatile bean soup. I like to add one tortilla chip on top sometimes. 

I personally do not puree the beans as directed in the recipe. I keep everything whole my changes are

that I only use two cans of black beans and no pinto/kidney beans.

I add 1 tsp adobo, flour/starch to thicken, a dash of smoked salt