Weight Loss Recipes Sweet and Smoky Roasted Pumpkin Soup

• Start to Finish: Less than 1 hour

Ingredients:

• 6 cups cubed pumpkin
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 3 to 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 tablespoons softened butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon ground ancho chili pepper
• 1 dash freshly ground black pepper
• 1 dash salt
• 6 toasted pecans, for garnish (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Place pumpkin, onion, and garlic in a large metal bowl. In a small bowl, mix butter, olive oil, and maple syrup. Pour mixture over pumpkin cubes and mix well. Place pumpkin flat on a baking pan, using a plastic spatula to ensure all liquid transfers from the bowl to the pan. Tear bay leaves into 4 pieces each and place between pumpkin cubes. Roast for 30 minutes until pumpkin cubes are softened.

3. Pour cold chicken broth into a blender and add cooked pumpkin, again using a plastic spatula to ensure all liquid is transferred. Blend to desired consistency.

4. Transfer soup to a pot on the stove and heat to a simmer over low heat. Stir in chili pepper, and pepper and salt to taste. When thickened to desired texture, serve topped with pecans, if desired.

Recipe provided by Season with Spice

By Ellen Thompson

Source: http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/meal-ideas/10-satisfying-soups-weight-loss/sweet-and-smoky-roasted-pumpkin-soup

Vegan Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Crushed Red Chili Flakes A Perfect Thanksgiving Side DIsh

A different approach to roasting Brussels sprouts

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Last Week at Sarahs Forestville Kitchen

Last weekend Doug and I had a lovely dinner at Sarahs Forestville Kitchen. Forestville is about 6 miles down the road from Sebastopol so when a Living Social deal came out for this restaurant, we grabbed it. 

One of the things we ordered was a Sauteed Brussels Sprouts appetizer. They were spicy and crispy and even my husband loved them and hes not a fan of this particular vegetable. The only problem was that they were a bit oily. But to brown them in a skillet, its going to take more oil. I wanted to try and duplicate this wonderful flavor but with a little less oil so I decided to roast them instead.

Roast - Dont Incinerate!

Theres a popular roasted Brussels sprout recipe floating around the internet that just simply mixes the Brussels sprouts with a bunch of oil and roasts them until they are cooked. The problem is, Brussels sprouts are hard little balls and it takes a high temperature and a good bit of time to cook them. In fact, by the time the Brussels sprouts were cooked, they looked like little incinerated balls. Many people commented how much they enjoyed the "caramelization" but to me, it looked and tasted burnt. 

Less Cooking, Less Oil

By pre-steaming the Brussels sprouts, I was able to roast them for a shorter amount of time and with less oil. In fact, I steamed them until they were cooked exactly to my liking (fork tender but not falling apart). Then I mixed them in oil and seasonings, spread them out on a cookie sheet and roasted them until they were brown. Once brown, I removed them from the oven, squeezed some fresh lemon juice over them and served them.

Cut Brussels sprouts in half and steam until cooked

Heat oil and mix in crushed red pepper flakes.

After oil cools a bit, mix in Brussels sprouts and season

Spread out on a cookie sheet and roast in oven until brown.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Crushed Red Chili Flakes

Vegan, Gluten Free

[makes 6 servings]

1 1/2 pounds Brussels sprouts

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, or to taste

1/8 teaspoon dried, granulated garlic 

1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste

Squeeze of a fresh lemon

Clean Brussels sprouts by cutting about a quarter inch off the bottom, removing any damaged outer leaves and wash. 

Cut each Brussels sprout in half and place in a steamer. Cook until fork tender.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Heat oil in a frying pan. Stir crushed red pepper flakes into the heated oil and immediately remove pan from heat. Let cool a bit.

Stir in cooked Brussels sprouts and sprinkle with garlic and salt. Mix well.

Spread out on cookie sheet or shallow roasting pan. Roast in oven until brown - about 30 minutes, turning over half way through.

When done, remove from oven and squeeze a little fresh lemon juice over the Brussels sprouts. Serve immediately.

Per serving: 87.8 calories, 5.1 g fat, 0.7 g saturated fat, 145 mg omega-3 and 488 mg omega-6 fatty acid, 0 mg cholesterol, 3.6 g protein, 10 g carbohydrates, 4.4 g dietary fiber and 125 mg sodium.

Canning Fire Roasted Tomatoes Using A Hot Water Bath

Wash jars. Then place in boiling water until needed.

Cut tomatoes in half and place in shallow roasting pan.

Completed quarts of fire roasted tomatoes.

Sharing Our Canning Experience

First of all I want to point out that my canning expertise is in making jam which is a lot easier than canning tomatoes due to the higher acid content of most fruits. During my recent visit to Minneapolis, my daughter and I were experimenting with trying to can fire roasted tomatoes without using a pressure canner. We are not experts in tomato canning and, in fact, spent much of the day cleaning tomatoes off the walls after a pyrex baking dish exploded in mid air! So take this post as more of a story than a tried and true recipe!

Fire Roasted Tomatoes - The Problems we were Trying to Solve

My daughter loves to cook with fire roasted tomatoes. However, they are quite expensive if you use a lot of them so when we found a big sale on Roma tomatoes at the farmers market on Sunday, we naturally wanted to try to make them ourselves. When we searched for a fire roasted canning recipe, they all involved roasting them first in olive oil. I think this pushed the tomatoes, which are already borderline low acid, to less optimum acidity level necessitating the use of a pressure canner. So the problems we were trying to solve were:

* We wanted a "fire roasted tomato" with its skin, instead of a peeled tomato.

* We wanted to use a water bath canning technique since we didnt have a pressure canner.

Our Approach

Instead of roasting the tomatoes in oil, we just put them in a pan with a little water and sea salt. After baking them at high heat, we broiled them to get that fire roasted look and taste. In order not to die of botulism, we added lemon juice to every jar to make the tomatoes more acidic. Then we put them in a hot water bath for a long time. Heres our recipe.

***

Fire Roasted Tomatoes

[makes 6 quarts of tomatoes]

About 20 pounds of Roma tomatoes

6 quart glass canning jars with rims and new lids

12 tablespoons fresh or bottled lemon juice

2 cups water or more

Salt

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.

Wash the jars in soapy water. You can use a dishwasher with a sanitizer cycle if you have one. Once washed, submerge the jars in boiling water. You can use the water bath canner or another pot.

Boil the lids and rims in a small pot and leave in boiling water until needed.

Wash tomatoes. Cut off the tops and cut in half lengthwise. Place them in a large, shallow roasting pan. You will have to do this in several batches. Sprinkle about 1/2 cup of water over the tomatoes and a few pinches of salt. This will make some bubbly tomato juice that you will use to fill your jars to the top.

Bake the tomatoes at 500 degrees F for 15 minutes and then move to the broiler until they start to blacken.

Remove from broiler and fill the jars with roasted tomatoes.

Put 2 tablespoons of lemon juice over the tomatoes in each jar.

Fill each jar to 1/2 inch from the top with the juices from the roasting pan.

Run a plastic knife around the edges to remove any air bubbles in the jars.

Wipe the tops of the jars clean with a paper towel.

Place lids on the jars and screw on the rims (snug but not too tight).

Boil in a hot water bath covered with 1 to 2 inches of water.

Process for 45 minutes (some experts say 85 minutes when packing them with their own juices but that seems excessive to me) and even longer if you are at high altitude.

Lift the jars out of the hot water bath with a jar lifter (my favorite tool for canning).

Place jars on a towel and let them remain untouched until they cool. (this may take a while, maybe overnight).

Once cooled, press down on the lid to see if it sealed. If it moves up and down, it is not sealed. You can refrigerate the jar and use it within the next week.

Lessons Learned

* We were surprised how few jars 20 pounds of tomatoes made. Canning your own tomatoes makes a lot more sense if you start with "free" home-grown tomatoes. If you dont, Im not sure its worth it when you can buy organic fire roasted diced tomatoes from Muir Glen for about the same price.

* DO NOT broil tomatoes in a pyrex baking dish. With the baking and broiling and handling, you may have an "exploding pyrex" incident like we did. If you have never washed 5 pounds of hot tomatoes off of an entire kitchen, trust me, its not how you want to spend your Sunday!

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Grilled Zucchini and Roasted Red Pepper Sandwich What To Do with a Giant Zucchini

Slices of the giant zucchini filled the entire grill.

This Could Happen to You

My daughter-in-laws sister lives nearby. The other night she sent me an email. "Ive left something at your door", she wrote. Ive eaten all that I could but no one else in the family eats zucchini. I thought youd know what to do with it". I went to the door and there it was, leaning up against the side of the house. Its August and I shouldnt be shocked as these things can get this big this time of the year. It was chopped off at the top where the poor dear tried to eat her way down the mutant zucchini that her neighbor left for her. At least two feet of it remained. I cut it in a few sections so that I could fit it into the refrigerator as I needed a day to figure out what to do with this thing.

The next day, after much deliberation, my husband Doug and I decided we should try to grill it. We just bought a big Webber BBQ and Doug is really handy at this type of cuisine. I had some nice roasted red peppers, goat cheese and red onions in the house and fresh basil in my garden. We picked up a fresh loaf of seeded sourdough at the local bakery. After carving off some of the bottom which seemed a bit tough, I cut the zucchini into 26 thick slices. Luckily the seeds had not yet matured so the inside was still fleshy enough to eat. The skin wasnt too thick either. The giant slices, each measuring at least 4 inches in diameter, filled the entire BBQ and Doug patiently brushed each slice with a 1 to 1 mixture of balsamic vinegar and olive oil with some garlic powder and salt. He flipped them over several times until they were nice and brown. Finally, the moment of truth came and as luck would have it, the slices were tender enough to eat!

We brought the warm zucchini slices into the kitchen and prepared the first sandwich. A little spicy mustard was spread on one slice of bread and soft goat cheese on the other. I put down a layer of roasted red pepper, then three slices of zucchini, a slice of red onion and a few leaves of fresh basil. A little freshly ground black pepper to top it off and the sandwich was complete and turned out to be very delicious. More importantly, we saved this poor overgrown zucchini from the compost pile. Of course we still have 20 more slices to eat before I can comfortably declare victory.

Be Prepared

We were lucky to save this one. Many of these baseball bat sized zucchini simply are too tough to eat. But if you have neighbors with gardens, youd better be prepared. Either you must keep your doors locked and stop answering the phone until the fall or keep a few sandwich ingredients around and the BBQ handy. It wouldnt hurt to watch over the fence and remind your neighbor that theres a nice, tender, young zucchini ready for picking.