Lacey's Smokey Cumin Chicken Couscous Soup

Couscous week. Huh. Filler food. Hmmm. Tried it once a while back, didn't like it. Bland. Boring. Blah. Not into this. At all. But in the effort to be a blogging fourchick team player I find a recipe that looks promising. (Sorry, I'm feeling a bit snarky bitch on this fine Wednesday night).

I come home cranky and ready to break open that expensive chocolate bar I've been hoarding in the top of the spice cabinet (yes, I really do have a whole three shelves dedicated to spice), and some wine, but try my damnedest to evade, evade, evade. So I get out my ingredients are start cookin'. Is damnedest a word?!?
Ingredients:
1 chicken breast (mine was already cooked)
2/3 cups couscous
1 sweet potato
1/2 onion
1 shallot
2 green onions
2 zucchini
1 can tomatoe puree (I have organic)
4-6 cups broth. I used veggie and chicken stock. If you like your soup more dense, add less.
3 teaspoons of cumin or more
1 teaspoon of curry powder
fresh thyme and italian parsley
juice of two mini limes (apparently they are key limes)
1 heaping teaspoon of really good smoked paprika (don't skimp on the crappy stuff, trust me)
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
sea salt to taste
pepper to taste

I chop the onion and shallot and cook in some olive oil. Doesn't shallot sounds like a french version of shat? Good thing they don't taste like shat or this soup would be a total waste, get it? ha ha.
Onions done, add in rest of veggies, chicken, spices, etc. etc. etc. And the couscous.


Let it all simmer together for about 1/2 hour and dish it up. It's goOod. It's healthy and whole grained nutritious. It's smokey. It's cuminy and curry-y. And spicy and sweet. The filler...um couscous...was even good for texture in relationship to the crunchy zucchini and sweet potato.

So when you come home in a snarky bitch mood like I did and all you want is some freakin' chocolate, but you can't because you're trying to lose weight, cook this instead. Just taste testing the broth while it was simmering was enough to pull me out of most of my SBM. Not enough to forgo the glass of white wine tonight, but enough to forget about the chocolate. (That was because I ate too damn much soup and am stuffed, but we won't tell anyone that!)

Oh yeah..I found this recipe at http://www.foodandwine.com/ and then changed it to my tastes at the time. Lime for my sour mood. Paprika for my devilled egg craving. Curry powder because I made pineapple fried rice the other night with it and am still on a big curry kick. Thyme and italian parsley because they were in my fridge....you get the idea.

Melissa's Magic Turkey Loaf

So this week the gals have decided to loaf around…with some meat huh?! This surely DOES mean trouble! When I decided to lose weight the first thing that was banned from my home was meatloaf and mashed potatoes because I simply cannot control myself with the combination. It makes my mouth water just to THINK of mama’s meatloaf and I have been known to clear an entire pan in a mere 24 hours…or less!

Although mama made one hell of a meatloaf, I think I can improve just a bit on her perfection and create it a little more healthy at the same time. ...At least we’re gonna try! So what CAN we possibly add to make a meatloaf MORE delectable, MORE tasty, MORE gourmet”ish”, MORE comforting AND keep it from causing a major artery clog? How about layer it with bacon and fill the center with 4 kinds of ooey, gooey cheese! Turkey bacon and reduced fat cheese that is...TOTALLY works for me! The magic of this meatloaf is how quickly it will disappear! Bon apetit’!

Magic Turkey Loaf

2 rolls 97/3 turkey sausage

1 package Onion Soup Mix

1/4 cup diced bell peppers

1/4 cup diced red onion

1/4 cup diced red bell pepper

2 eggs

8 slices turkey bacon

1/2 cup reduced fat mozarella cheese

Sauce:

1 cup ketchup

1 tbsp. Worchestershire sauce

1 tsp. brown sugar

Whisk until well blended.

Directions:

Saute veggies in about 1 tbsp. evoo. Let cool , then combine all ingredients in large mixing bowl except bacon and cheese. Really get your hands in your meat and knead well. Place 1/2 of the meat mixture in a baking pan. Layer with half the bacon and half the cheese. Top with remaining turkey mixture, remaining bacon and remaining cheese. Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes. Top with sauce and bake another 15 minutes until glaze is thickly coating the loaf and meat is done throughout. This is excellent served with curried sweet potatoes as shown above.

Nikki's Savory Sausage Squash Casserole

Ok a quick disclaimer: you're going to see me do a LOT of cooking with italian sausage. Aside from the fact that every girl loves a bit of sausage (wink wink) italian sausage is an EXTREMELY easy ingrediant to cook with, its pre-seasoned, you can serve it whole, slice it into chunks or squeeze it out of the skins and use it as ground meat. It also adds a lot of flavor for a small cost to everything from soups to burgers to casseroles. I don't have a ton of discretionary income for fancy spices and I'm perpetually either running late home from work or making dinner in the middle of finishing up work (hubby's not such a fan of the air card that enables me to access work email 24-7... sorry babe, a girls gotta stay connected in the corporate world!) so I need easy ingrediants that give a ton of flavor for minimal effort & cost.

Now that thats out of the way, ON TO THE COOKING! woo hoo!

Now aside from my love of sausage, I also love finding alternative healthier ingrediants for really filling foods. Most casseroles call for things like cream of chicken or mushroom soup (holy high sodium!), potatoes or pastas, what I'm going to share with you today uses squash with just a little milk & eggs to bind it all together. If you've never had squash before or have and weren't a fan, stay with me here, I gaurantee this is going to taste 1,000 times better than what you're imagining right now!

Oh and before I start I'll add a disclaimer for any vegetarians out there, this dish can very easily be converted to veggie-friendly by replacing the suasage with mushrooms. Keep in mind though that I'm using the sausage for much of my flavor so you'll want to add more seasings. I'd recomend 1-2 tsp each italian seasoning, cumin, salt & pepper, and double the chili powder & red pepper flakes that I'm using.

You'll need one small or half of a large butternut squash. Cut the squash in half and scoop the seeds out of the bell part. If you're one of those that shouldn't be trusted with sharp objects (you know who you are!) please have a loved one handle this part... Now put the squash cut side down into a baking dish with about 1 inch of water and stick it in the oven at 375 for 40-45 minutes or until you can very easily pierce it with a fork.

While the squash is baking you can start on the rest of the casserole. You'll need about a pound of hot italian sausage. Normally I go for turkey but the regular pork sausage links were on sale this week so thats what I'll be using. Squeeze the meat out of the skins and put in a big skillet (if you're using turkey I'd recommend spraying with Pam first!) and break into chunks. Cook over medium-high heat continuing to break apart until there's no more pink. This sausage is a bit greasy so I'm putting it on a plate with some paper towels to soak up some of it.

Pour off the excess grease then put 1 small onion, diced, into the skillet to cook over medium-high heat. I didn't clean out the skillet so that I wouldnt need to add any more oil & so the onions would absorb some of the flavorings. If you're using turkey the you'll need to add some oil. Add about 1 tablespoon of diced garlic and allow to cook.

While the onions cook dice up 3-4 sweet bell peppers (you want about 1 cup). Now I'll share my top secret way to cut peppers with ease... I think I saw it on some Food Network show... anway:
1) slice off the very top of the pepper (don't worry if the stem is still attached)
2) turn the pepper and slice off the very bottom
3) make a cut straight down the side
4) peel the pepper away from the seeds & stem and discard
5) vioala! you now have a nice sheet of pepper that is rediculously easy to slice into strips :)
Toss the peppers into the onions and add 1 cup of frozen corn. Cook over medium heat until everything is heated through and add 1 tsp chili powder & 1 tsp red pepper flakes and toss the sausage into the mix. Remove from heat and set aside while you deal with the squash.

In a medium sized bowl combine two egg whites with two whole eggs and mix them up well.

At this point the squash should be done baking (can you easily stick a fork in it?) carefully take it out of the oven and scoop the insides out. When I say carefully... I really mean it... its HOT! Put a very little bit of the hot squash guts into the eggs to temper them (if you dump all the squash in at once it'll start cooking them and you'll have chunks of scrambled eggs in your casserole... which you might like... however its not what I was going for... Anyway add just a little bit at first then dump the rest in and mix it up. You can use a hand mixer, however I just LOVE any opportunity to use one of my FAVORITE cooking gadgets: the pastry cutter!!! (cue angels!). Now I'm not sure that I've ever used the pastry cutter for actual pastry cutting... however its EXCELLENT for making chunky mashed potatos or sweet pototo soufle... and it looks like an impressive cooking tool... Mix the squash & eggs together and add about 1/4 cup milk (I used 1%) then add the meat & veggies, give them a stir and dump them out into a casserole dish (pre-sprayed with Pam). Top with about 1/2 cup shredded low fat cheese & another tsp of chili powder and stick that bad boy back in the oven at 375 for 20 minutes and you have dinner!

One of the things I love about squash is its versatility, this recipe was adapted from a similar one that called for potatoes (it also tripled the cheese & added cream of chicken soup but we won't go there today) If you're watching your carbs & calories squash is a GREAT tradeoff and can be used in a TON of different things. Squash has half of the calories & carbs as potatoes and in this recipe if you didnt know the squash was there all you'd notice is a orangey color that most would attribute to more cheese. Don't get me wrong now I love potatoes in all of their baked, fried & smushed forms, and potatoes DO have twice the protein & potassium, but to shave off some extra calories I'll gladly make this swap :)

Nikki's Italian Stallion Balls (aka "Inconspicuously Healthy Meatballs That My Husband Will Eat")

*edit* OMG I just realized I never posted the pics... I am so sorry that I have deprived you of the beauty of my balls... it will NEVER happen again (until the next time my camera's battery dies...)
*Disclaimer* I will be adding pictures tomorrow, the battery in my camera died and apparently you can't retreive the pictures until its been re-juiced!

I opted for a more traditional italian style meatball that I served in meatball subs for friends on Saturday night. I must note that my hubby is not happy with the name of my balls (he's Polish, not Italian) although after some deliberation he decided that Polish Balls wouldn't be much better as he wasn't particularly crazy about saying that he was eating Polish Balls... Anywhoo here we go:

My history with meatballs is a short one, hubby and I have attempted to make them on several occasions only to come up with balls that are Sahara Desert Dry and horribly bland. Our very own Hooker Chick, Kim told me her super secret ball boiling method so I decided to give that a shot... I have coupons for Pizza Hut if this doesn't work out.

My guests were due at 6pm so I headed out shopping at about 4 (I'm not so good at the advanced planning thing...) and got immediately to work when I got home.
This is everything but the egg and breadcrumbs...

Into my skillet went the healthy stuff:
1 red bell pepper diced itty bitty tiny
1 small yellow onion diced itty bitty tiny
4 oz of portobella mushrooms (you guessed it) diced itty bitty tiny
I drizzled about 2 tbs of EVOO over the top added the lid & turned the heat to medium-high.

Into bowl number one:
1 italian sub roll torn into small pieces
1/3 cup 1% milk
I mooshed that together and realized there was WAY too much milk in there so i drained off the excess and was left with probably 1/4 cup. Set this aside to soak.

Before moving on to the meat mooshing I gave the skillet with my veggies a little jiggle to make sure everything was cooking evenly & turned the heat down to medium.

Into bigger bowl number two:
20 oz (1.25lbs) hot italian turkey sausage (it was in "link" form so I had to squeeze it out...)

.98lbs of 90% lean naturally raised ground beef
1/2 cup Sargento's Italian Blend cheese
(don't start smooshing yet!!)

At this point the veggies were sufficiently softened so I added them to the milk/bread mixture (I was afraid start cooking the meat if I dumped them in still hot... probably this wouldn't have made a difference... but it made me feel better... and that makes AAAALLL the difference...)

I now added all of my ingredients together and commenced with the smooshing (after removing all jewelry first, I didn't want my guests choking on my wedding rings... the only CPR I know is what learned from TV...) after thoroughly smooshing all ingredients dear hubby reminded me that I forgot the egg... I couldn't remember why I needed an egg but figured it couldn't hurt so had him crack one in there (I forgot Lacey's cardinal rules and had both hands in on the mooshing) At this point hubby points out that it seems to sticky so we tried to form a ball... and it just wasn't happening so he got the bread crumbs down for me and dumped about 1/4 cup in. I mooshed that together and had another failed attempt at creating a solid ball. Hubby got in on the mooshing and declared that I had over-moisturized them to the consistency of snot. I ended up having to add a full cup of bread crumbs before everything held itself together.

On to the ball rolling and boiling!!

I dumped a really really big can of low fat, low sodium chicken broth into a pot, turned the burner on high (or rather my lovely husband did all this because I was... goopy...) and started rolling balls while it heated. Now, I prefer bigger balls than the rest of the chicks(I like to have something substantial to sink my teeth into) so I made each one about 2 to 2 1/2 inches in diameter. Once the pot reached a rolling boil I dropped about 10 in and timed them for about 8 minutes before pulling one out to check for pink. Everything looked good so I pulled them all out to drain on a papertowel and dropped in the next 10.

While those boiled I tasted my first ball and it was FANTASTIC! Not too spicy, not bland, not dry, not overly vegified, my only complaint... the reason I picked red peppers is I wanted them to blend with the meat (remember these are supposed to be INCONSPICUOUSLY healthy balls) BUT after boiling the meat turned really pale and the peppers stuck out like a sore thumb. It all worked out though because once I added them the pot of simmering Prego Mushroom spaghetti sauce too keep warm everything blended right in :)

I completely forgot to count the balls but I know I boiled 4 batches with about 10 in each plus there was one last half batch so we'll guestimate that it turned out to be 45 good sized balls.

Hubby prepared the foil boats for the italian sub rolls and I put three balls in each, topped them off with a little extra sauce and more italian cheese. They went into the oven at 350* for 10-15 minutes (until the cheese is good and melty and the buns are sufficiantly toasty). We sat down to eat at about 6:30 (see my shopping procrastination only made us a half hour late!)

The meatball subs were a hit, and no one got food poisoning so I would declare the Italian Stalion Meatballs to be a success!!

Official recipe for Italian Stallion Balls (aka "Inconspicuously Healthy Meatballs That My Husband Will Eat")
1 red bell pepper (locally grown!)
1 small yellow onion (also locally grown!)
4oz portobella mushrooms (from the grocery store... but I tried!)
2tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil (note: I used a nonstick pan, if you don't you'll need more oil!)
1 italian sub roll (2 slices of italian bread will probably work just as well)
1/4 cup 1% milk (rBGH free!)
20oz lean hot turkey italian sausage links (5 links)
1lb 98% lean ground beef (naturally raised with no hormones or antibiotics!!)
1/2 cup italian blend cheese (I used Sargento's... because they make tasty cheese)
1 egg (free range AND locally... um... layed...)
2/3 to 1 1/3 italian seasoned bread crumbs
1 48 oz can low fat, low sodium chicken broth

Dice the red pepper, mushroom and onions up itty bitty and stick them in a skillet over high heat. drizzle EVOO over them and toss lightly to coat, allow to cook covered while you assemble the rest of the ingrediants. Tear your sub roll into tiny peices and let soak in a bowl with the milk. Toss veggies lightly again and turn heat down to medium. In a large mixing bowl squeeze turkey sausage out of casing add ground beef, egg, cheese and 2/3 cup bread crumbs. Add veggies to milk/bread mixture then dump everything in the big bowl. Using the Lacey approved one handed method smoosh to mix, then attempt to make a ball roughly 2 inches in diamiter. If the ball isn't sticking add more bread crumbs in 1/4 cup incremints until your ball retains its shape (no one likes saggy balls!) and then form all of your balls. Pour chicken broth into a medium sized sauce pan and bring to a light boil. CAREFULLY add 8-10 balls into the pot (I burned myself a few times on boiling ball broth...). Boil for 8 minutes and put them directly into a pot of simmering sauce or onto a serving dish. ENJOY!