Dinner last night
Every now and again when I make a really good dinner, I will share it. I cook pretty healthy meals which can be changed according to your own tastes. I change a lot of things about a recipe if I think it will make it healthier and taste better, but I don't freak about fat and carbs and all of that. I don't quite know how to use this site so if I can figure out how to put all of the posts about recipes in one place, I'll do it, otherwise, you'll have to read everything.
We had this for dinner. YUM YUM. Everyone liked it, except for the tomatoes, but who cares if my kids don't like their veggies? Too bad for them. Oh and one more thing. We had a pretty big garden last year and I can't wait to plant one this year. Of course, it needs to stop snowing, but I am already planning it. Anyway, I always look for recipes that I can use during the summer months too. Here it goes:
Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
Tomatoes with Vinaigrette
French Bread
As you can see, it was a simple meal, but delicious. I almost ALWAYS cook simple meals. There is no reason whatsoever to spend more than an hour a day in the kitchen cooking. Now some of you may think that's too much, but that's too bad. Our family dinner time is important to me and I want them to be happy and healthy. An hour a day is a paltry investment when you compare it to eternity.
I changed the soup a bit. I did not add any extra salt and I used whole milk instead of cream. The ratio for making a roux is 1:1. Meaning if you use 1/2 C of butter, you'll use 1/2 a C of flour. If you want your soup thicker, then use a bit more flour. I only used 1/3 C of butter and 1/3 C of flour for this recipe because I didn't think it needed all of that fat. If you use 2% milk, definitely add more flour. Your soup won't be creamy enough if you don't. Another thing I did was saute 1/2 C each of onion, carrots and celery to add to the soup. It was delicious. You can easily make it more healthy by buying unboxed wild rice and cooking it beforehand, but you'll add almost an hour to the prep and cooking time. You would also need to add more spices since the spice packet in the boxed rice (Uncle Ben's or Rice a Roni) added a lot of flavor.
The only change I made to the tomatoes was to add some feta cheese after pouring on the dressing. These were so good. I can't wait to make this when we have our own tomatoes and lettuce.