Cream of Broccoli Soup

I'm not normally a fan of cream soups because I know that they are usually made with heavy cream (and lots of it), loads of butter and/or cheese, and not much healthy value.

But then broccoli went on sale at No Frills this week (89 cents/lb!) and I decided to make amends with cream soups. I found a recipe from AllRecipes.com that I could live with, that uses a ton of veggies, skim milk, and is a surprisingly good choice!

(sorry, I forgot to take pictures this time :( )

Cream of Broccoli Soup (makes 6 servings)
1 onion, chopped small
1 stalk of celery, chopped small
8 cups broccoli florets (about 4 stalks, depending on their size)
4T butter
3 cups low-sodium chicken stock (you could use veggie stock too, but I couldn't find a low-sodium version when I was at the store)
3T flour
2 cups skim milk

Melt 1T of butter in a soup pot (you could use olive oil if you want to limit the butter), sautee onion and celery for 3-5 minutes till softened. Add broccoli and chicken stock.
Cover and simmer till the broccoli is very soft, about 10-15 minutes. When done, smash up the broccoli using either a potato masher (if you like chunkier soup), a handheld blender, or pour into a regular blender. You can make your soup as chunky or smooth as you like :)
In a saucepan, melt 3T of butter and stir in 3T of flour to make a roux. When well mixed up, add the milk. Whisk well for a few minutes until the milk gets thick and bubbly.
Pour the thickened milk into the broccoli mixture. Stir it up, take a taste, and enjoy!

Mmmm :)

AllRecipes.com claims that this recipe is worth 207 Calories, 12.4g of fat, 17g of carbohydrates, 3.6g of fibre, and 9.2g of protein per serving. However, the original recipe called for "milk", not skim milk, so the nutritional information will be different with the modified recipe that I've posted here. When I calculated the Points Plus value of this recipe, it was 2 PP's less than this nutritional information gives per serving, making this recipe even more worth it to eat!

What's your favourite cream soup? Is it worth the calories/Points?

Holiday Potluck Extravaganza Part 2 - Chocolate Candy Cane Cake Pops

So this is one of those times where I'm going to post something that isn't exactly health-conscious or weight friendly. But srsly, these things are epic.

Chocolate Candy Cane Cake Pops

There are lots of recipes online that you can find for variations of cake pops. I was crunched for time, so unfortunately had to go with the simplest ones (box of cake, can of frosting). There are tons more that have recipes for cake and fun flavours of frosting that you can use.

Step one: Bake a cake. Any cake. I made a box of Betty Crocker French Vanilla. For added candy cane goodness, I added a tablespoon of peppermint extract. Peppermint vanilla cake?! Yeah! Allow the cake to cool.

Step two: Crumble up your cake. If you have a food processor, you can make this step really easy by simply putting in slabs of your cake and pulverizing them. Alternatively, shmos like me without food processors (I know….) can use your hands to do just as fine of a job :)

Step three: Mix in your chocolate frosting. All the recipes I found online suggested using an outrageous amount of frosting (2 cups, or about one entire can of frosting). As I was mixing it in, I realized that this was an INSANE amount of frosting, and changed my recipe to use only ½ the can of frosting (about 1 cup). This will depend on how moist your cake is, but basically you want to end up with a dough that is moist enough that it can hold it’s shape, but not so moist that it gets sticky and sloppy.

Step four: Roll up your cake pops. Depending on how big your cake pops are, you can get at least 30-40 balls or more. I ended up with about 35, but they were pretty big (about an inch in diameter – lesson learned, next time I’m making them smaller. You’ll see why in a minute J). Make it easier – use a little cookie scoop. All I had was a huge ice cream scoop, so I ended up rolling them up by hand. Put the balls in the fridge or freezer to firm up. In the freezer they’ll need about 20-30 minutes, longer in the fridge.

Step five: Melt your chocolate/dipping candy. I used white chocolate wafers (purchased at the bulk store) and melted in the microwave. You could add a little extra “Christmas cheer” by adding a bit of crème de menthe in there. Just sayin’... I also crushed up some candy canes to use for decorating/sprinkling.

Step six: Insert sticks. Easiest way to do this is to insert a stick into the ball first, about halfway down. Dip your stick into your chocolate/candy, and insert into the hole that you made. Put it on a sheet lined with parchment paper. It might be helpful to put them back in the fridge to harden and secure the stick in place. Or you can be fancy and use candy canes instead of sticks. You know. I’m fancy like that.

Step seven: DECORATE!!! I learned the hard way that you need to insert the sticks/candy canes farther than you’d think into the ball, especially if they’re big, because they get top-heavy and fall into the chocolate and make a huge mess and get cake crumbs all in the chocolate and ruin it for all the other cake pops. True story.

Dip your cake pops into your chocolate/candy (mine didn't get dipped all the way due to the top-heaviness, but you can submerge them entirely if the stick/ball can hold it). Hold them upside down (stick side up) and twirl around/tap them gently on the side of the bowl to let the excess run off. If you just flip them stick side down right away, you’ll end up with chocolate/candy running all down the stick and making a big sticky gross mess. Once they’re relatively smooth, you can decorate with sprinkles or whatever you want (or crushed up candy canes!). If you’re using sticks, let your cake pops cool by putting the sticks into a slab of Styrofoam to harden – that way, they won’t get flat tops. Unfortunately candy cane sticks don’t work that way, so I ended up with flat-topped pops. Whatev.

Step eight: Eat them. Eat them all. Mmmmmmmm!

Holiday Potluck Extravaganza - Spinach and Feta Stuffed Mushroom Caps

One of my bestest friends from university (the first time) invited us over for a holiday potluck this weekend! We had 6 people, a massive dinner of roasted chickens, mashed potatoes, curried cauliflower, copious amounts of wine, and fun appies and desserts.

I made spinach and feta stuffed mushroom caps for appetizers (pictured above - orange plate), and chocolate candy cane cake pops for a delicious tiny dessert. Whooooa! The recipes are a bit long, so I'll have to post them with pictures separately. In this edition...

Spinach and Feta Stuffed Mushroom Caps

You need:

• 1 package frozen spinach, well drained and squeezed dry
• 3 ½ oz crumbled feta cheese (about ½ cup, I weighed it out)
• 2T olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• Stuffing mushrooms (sometimes you can find big button mushrooms. Alternatively you can use regular sized mushrooms, but it’s trickier to stuff them)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350.

Remove stems from mushrooms. You can chop them up and stuff them into the upcoming mixture if you like (I didn’t this time, because I had tiny mushrooms and needed all the room I could get to stuff in the spinach/feta goodness). If your mushrooms are small, it will probably be easier to stuff them if you scoop out the gills inside at this point.

In a skillet, heat olive oil. Add garlic, spinach, salt and pepper. Cook until spinach is heated through and garlic is distributed evenly throughout the mixture. Remove from heat and allow to cool (I put it in a bowl in the fridge for about 10 minutes)

Combine spinach mixture with feta cheese. Stuff each mushroom with about 1T of the mixture (depends on the size of your mushrooms)

Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray. Place mushrooms on sheet in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until mushrooms are soft and a bit darker in colour. Serve warm.

Pre-cooking:

Surviving exams

Wow, I've been gone for a while! This semester kind of kicked my butt. However, now I'm just three short exams away from freedom!

Meanwhile, I've also been learning lots of new fun cooking skills, and loads of neat information to share about healthy living. This time of year is my favourite time to cook and bake, so you can expect to see lots of new recipes in the near future! Soups, veggie dishes, casseroles, drinks and bevvies, and of course DESSERTS!!!

For now though, I'm back to my books. Wheeeeeee...!