Flour, Too's Sausage and Lentil Soup

One of our most favorite soups ever, this stew from Flour, Too was amazing.  Aaron and I gave this a perfect 10, and the boys gave it a 9.  I made a couple of changes to make this more our style, and it was so flavorful and delicious.  Each serving, for 12 servings, was 189 calories the way I made it, and here's the recipe:

12 oz sweet Italian sausage
1 onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 T tomato paste
salt and pepper to taste
2 bay leaves
1 T paprika
1/2 t thyme
1 t turmeric
1 t oregano
3/4 t cumin
1/2 t fennel seeds
1/2 t curry powder
2 small potatoes, chopped
1 parsnip, peeled and chopped
2 leeks, white and light green parts only, rinsed and chopped
1 small turnip, peeled and chopped
2 quarts chicken broth
1 c tomato sauce
3/4 c green lentils, rinsed
2 c arugula

Cook the sausage over medium heat until well browned, then with a slotted spoon remove the sausage to a plate.  In the left over grease, cook the onion, garlic, carrot, salt and celery until the onions are translucent, scraping the bottom of the pan.  Add in the tomato paste and salt, then add in the bay leaves and stir for 2-3 minutes.  Reduce the heat to low, add in the spices, and toast the spices for 3-4 minutes.
Add the sausage back in, then stir well, add in the potatoes, parsnip, leeks, and turnip.  Add the broth and the tomato sauce, and stir in more salt and pepper to taste.  Bring the soup to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.  Add in the lentils and simmer, stirring occasionally for about 45 minutes to an hour.  Discard the bay leaves, then add in the arugula.  Serve.

Michael Symon's Couscous in Tomato Sauce

So Noah and I really enjoyed this, giving it a 9, while Owen and Aaron only gave this a 6.  I love that this has so many veggies, but doesn't taste like veggies only.  This came together relatively quickly and easily, and was a great side dish to have with our bacon wrapped chicken.  Each serving, and the servings are large, was 337 calories.  This came out of Michael Symon's Carnivore cookbook, and he called for fregola, but since I can't find that, we used couscous.  Here's what to do:

6 T olive oil
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 onion, chopped
1 turnip, peeled and diced
1 rutabaga, peeled and diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 sprigs fresh thyme
salt
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 t red pepper flakes
1 c couscous, cooked in chicken broth or well salted water
1 bunch thinly sliced kale
1/2 c freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Heat the olive oil over medium heat, then add in the vegetables and thyme and some salt.  Cook about 10 minutes.  Add in the tomatoes, 1 cup of water, and the red pepper flakes and simmer for 30 minutes.  (I wish I had cooked this longer, I would've liked my veggies a little mushier, but that is just a personal/family preference.)
Add in the couscous and kale, and cook for a few minutes.  Pick out the thyme stems and discard.  Stir in the Parmesan, adjust the seasonings, and serve.

Chicken Bacon Wraps, Bean Salad, and Mashed Potatoes

For dinner we had some really great recipes. The first recipe, Sweet Chicken Bacon Wraps from Paula Deen were such a big hit, they disappeared before I could take a picture.  These were delicious, fast to eat, and fun.  Look at the link for a picture, that's just what they look like.  Aaron gave them a perfect 10, the boys and I gave them a 9.  I wish I would've salted the chicken before wrapping it in bacon, but other than that I thought they were awesome.  The calories for the recipe the way it was written are for 24 rolls, about 63 calories per roll.  They are actually much less than that though, because I used maybe 1/4 of the brown sugar mixture, which would lower the calories quite a bit.  Fun and not too calorific!  We like that kind of food around here. :)

Next comes our veggie.  My parents brought me a bunch of veggies from their garden, so I looked for a recipe online that would use both zucchini and green beans, but wasn't a soup.  There aren't that many, surprisingly.  This Keeping up with the Beans salad was delicious, and uses tons of veggies, so we really liked it.  We gave it a 9, and the dressing was great.  I used less than it called for, especially less balsamic vinegar, because we're not huge fans of vinegar around here.  Anyway, this is a great salad to make for all those veggies coming out of your ears days.  The calories will vary based on what kinds of veggies you use, but for 10 servings, ours was 189 calories per serving, and they are big servings.

Last of all we had some garlic mashed potatoes.  They are Guy Fieri's Johnny Garlic's Famous Garlic and Rosemary Mashed Potatoes.  The boys and I really liked them, but Aaron said they had a funky flavor.  Go figure.  I'm not sure what was wrong.  The boys and I gave them 8, and Aaron gave them a 4.  Oh well.  I cut the garlic down to 4 cloves rather than 4 tablespoons of garlic, and I only used 1 T olive oil, and only 6 potatoes, rather than 5 pounds of potatoes.  We got six servings out of this, and each serving was 143 calories.  Hopefully you'll like these as much as the boys and I did, and not like Aaron did :)

Tomorrow we're having shrimp fried rice and fried zucchini.