Mussels in Tomato Broth

Mussels in Tomato Broth

One of my my favorite things to do is mosey on around the grocery store looking for food inspiration.  We have a fabulous local grocer here that carries an array of interesting items that you wouldn't find at Walmart or Target. I was walking around today and came upon some frozen mussels which reminded me of this delicious mussels and broth dish at a local restaurant in Virginia Beach. Mussels are pretty cheap, so I decided to try to recreate that dish with my own ingredients. 

Ingredients:

One 28 Oz can organic crushed fire roasted tomatoes

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp thyme

1 tsp parsley 

S&P

8 Oz frozen pre cooked shell-less mussels, thawed

4 red potatoes

Handful of spinach

I started by cubing the potatoes and boiling until easily pierced with a fork, then I drained them. I then started warming the tomatoes over medium heat. I added the chicken broth, garlic, cayenne, thyme, parsley, and salt and pepper and brought to a simmer. Then I added the mussels, potatoes, and spinach. I tore the spinach before adding. Then I let it simmer for 5 more minutes until the mussels heated through, then served with slices of fresh sourdough.

It didn't taste like the mussels and broth at the restaurant (as I expected), but this did taste good and was a different dish than I usually make.

Sarah's Review 

Ease: 5/5

Taste: 4/5

Comments: Use fresh mussels if you can, the frozen have a different texture, kinda like chicken and a little grainy. Fresh tastes way better (if you can believe it ;). Also I would up the spices. I was a little shy with them since it was my first time making this dish, but it could definitely use more of the spices. 

Chicken Tortellini Soup

Chicken Tortellini Soup

One thing you'll notice as you see more soup posts from me is that I really don't care for broth-y soups. I'm a hungry gal, and a bowl of broth with a few pieces of veggies or meat in it is NOT going to fill me up. I say this because it served as the inspiration for this chicken tortellini soup I made. I came across a picture of a chicken noodle soup-esque soup with tortellini in place of egg noodles, which sounded yummy. I started out making using its recipe but soon discovered that the amount of veggies and such were not enough to satisfy me, so I improvised and ended up making a soup of my own stuffed with delicious veggies and chicken and tortellini. Here's the recipe:

2 chicken large chicken breasts

3 medium carrots, sliced

2 stalks of celery, sliced

1 cup sliced portabella mushrooms

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 cans chicken broth with roasted vegetables (see my turkey meatball soup post about this wonderful broth)

1/2 cup water

2 bay leaves

2 tbsp dried onion flakes

1 tbsp dried parsley

1 7oz box dried multicolored cheese tortellini

Handful of fresh spinach

Start out by searing the chicken in a large pot over medium heat with a little olive oil. Once cooked through, take the chicken out and immediately put in the carrots and celery and cook until tender. Meanwhile, either shred or thinly slice the chicken. I decided to get fancy and thinly slice it. Once the veggies are tender, add the mushrooms and garlic and cook for about 2-3 minutes, until the mushrooms are starting to brown. Once all the veggies are cooked, add the broth, water, bay leaves, onion, and parsley. Turn the burner to medium-high heat and bring soup to a simmer. Once simmering, add the tortellini and cook at a simmer for 15 minutes, or until tortellini are fully cooked. A few minutes before serving, add the spinach and cook until wilted. Don't forget to take out the bay leaves before serving!

Sarah's Review

Ease: 4/5

Taste: 4/5

Comments: My boyfriend and I were split on the tortellini. I didn't like them at all, they had a weird, fake cheese flavor to them (they were clean and made with real parmesan though). My boyfriend did like them though, so let me know if you try them and what you think! Otherwise the soup was delicious. Next time I'll try another brand of tortellini (or maybe get crazy and make my own!).

Turkey Meatball Soup

Turkey Meatball Soup

My favorite thing to do is make a big pot of soup at the beginning of the week and take it to work for lunch throughout the week. Unfortunately, I'm super picky when it comes to soup so I usually stick to some variation of chicken noodle soup. Well, I decided I needed to jump out of my soupy comfort zone and try something new, so I decided on a turkey meatball soup (based off of this recipe: http://chefsavvy.com/recipes/turkey-meatball-vegetable-soup/). I'm not a big fan a ground turkey, but it's so much healthier than beef so went ahead and tried this soup anyways. I made the meatballs like the recipe says to but I also added some garlic powder to the meatball mixture to give it a little more flavor. My motto is you can never have too much garlic. After they were done, I added a head of chopped broccoli and 2 chopped carrots and sauteed those until they were tender. About halfway through I also added 4 big baby portabello mushrooms that I had sliced thin. Once the carrots started getting tender, I added the garlic, sauteed for a minute, then added 4 cups of chicken broth with roasted vegetables*, 1 cup water, and about 2 tbsp dried onion flakes. Once this started simmering I added a few dashes of black pepper, about 1 1/2 tbsp dried parsley, 1 tsp chili powder, 2 handfuls of spinach, and the meatballs I cooked earlier and let this cook until the spinach wilted. I then served with some fresh sourdough bread slices. 

This soup was quite tasty after I first cooked it, but it honestly was way better the subsequent days when I took it for lunch. The meatballs had soaked up more broth and all of the flavors had melded together beautifully. This soup is definitely going to overthrow my usual chicken noodle soup.

*So let me tell you about this broth. One day in Walmart I saw they had these cans of chicken broth with roasted vegetables on clearance, and since they hadn't expired I figured I'd give them a shot. These definitely lifted up this soup way more than normal chicken broth would have. It had a fantastic flavor and little bits of veggies in it. Now, a disclaimer, it's not really "clean" broth, but I'm not about to sit around making homemade broths so it will have to be a cheat. Feel free to add homemade broth to this soup, but I really think this broth is amazing and gave this soup a great flavor.

Sarah's Review

Ease: 3/5

Taste: 5/5