Family-Friendly Weeknight Dinner: Sloppy Joes

12 Mar posted by

Every mom needs a quick and easy weeknight meal to satisfy the kids but that still qualifies as healthy. As much as I love trolling the food blogs for great dinner party recipes, I also love finding things that can be ready in a short amount of time and satisfy everyone at the table. Enter an old favorite – Sloppy Joes. Lighten them up with some extra lean ground sirloin and serve with veggies and you’ve got yourself a well-rounded meal that can be on the table in just about 30 minutes.

Sloppy Joes

Ingredients

  • 1 pound lean ground sirloin (I use 94% lean ground sirloin)
  • 1/2 large onion, chopped
  • 1 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1/2 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
  • 1/2 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
  • 1/4 cup ketchup
  • 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons packed brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon and 1-1/2 teaspoons soy sauce
  • 6 hamburger buns

Directions

In a skillet, cook beef, onion and garlic over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Put back in the skillet and stir in tomato sauce and paste, ketchup, brown sugar and soy sauce; mix well. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. spoon about 1/2 cup meat mixture onto each bun.

Original recipe found on allrecipes.com.

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Filed Under: Recipes, Weeknight Meals

Tomato & Spinach Soup With Mini Raviolis

5 Mar posted by

This is not your mama’s tomato soup. Well, actually in my case it kind of is since I got the recipe from her originally but if your mama is still cracking open a can of Campbell’s, then I’m talking to you. I didn’t realize until trying this recipe that tomato soup can actually be good, and can actually be made with recognizable bits of tomato – imagine that.

This is a seriously great weeknight staple, it comes together fast and packs a TON of flavor from a relatively short list of ingredients. I bumped up the original recipe with the addition of mini raviolis to make it a more satisfying meal versus just a side but I’ve also done it with lots of other small pastas and tortellini and it’s good every time. My kids even love this which could be in part due to the fact that we call it muscle soup and make a big show of telling them their arms are getting bigger every time they take a bite (hello, Popeye reference that they totally didn’t get). Hey, whatever works, right?

Tomato & Spinach Soup With Mini Raviolis

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons evoo, extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 large shallot, finely chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes in juice, drained
  • 1 can crushed tomatoes, 28 ounces
  • 2 cups good quality vegetable stock, available on soup aisle
  • 1/2 ten-ounce sack triple washed spinach, stems removed and spinach shredded with knife
  • 1 9 ounce package of refrigerated mini raviolis
  • Salt and pepper to your taste

Directions

Heat a medium soup pot over medium heat. Add oil, shallots and garlic. Sauté 5 minutes. Add drained tomatoes and crushed tomatoes, stir. Add stock and stir to combine soup. Stir in spinach in handfuls to wilt it and combine with soup. Season soup with salt and pepper to your taste. Bring soup to a boil, add in package of refrigerated mini raviolis. Stir and reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes to reduce.

*Note: If you have leftovers and are storing them in the refrigerator, the raviolis will soak up some of the stock and leave you with a much chunkier soup. Simply add 1-2 cups of additional stock while reheating over medium heat and stir well to combine. This will bring the soup back to the original state.

Adapted from the original recipe for Tomato & Spinach Soup by Rachel Ray

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Filed Under: Kid-Friendly, Lunch Recipes, Recipes, Soup, Weeknight Meals

Quick & Easy Weeknight Meals: Chicken & Rice Soup

12 Dec posted by

I don’t know about you, but once the temperature hits a certain level, I switch heavily into soup and stew mode. Living in the Northeast, I get A LOT (as in WAY more than I would like) opportunities to cook cold-weather comfort food and throughout the years, some definite favorites have emerged. What makes a favorite? Well, taste, obviously, but as a mother of three young children it also needs to be quick and easy to prepare and most importantly, has to be something that the whole family will eat (and not complain about while doing so). This recipe for Chicken & Rice soup is just that, my kids ask for it all the time and even ask for leftovers the next night. Success!

I started with a recipe I found on Epicurious and have adapted it along the way to fit the tastes of my family. The key to this easy soup is that you can mix and match vegetables, and the amounts that you put in, to make it work for you. I learned a long time ago that the real key to finishing off a nice chicken soup is adding a healthy squeeze of lemon to the bowls right before serving, so that’s what really makes it for me. You can skip this step altogether if you’re not a fan of lemon (although I may hunt you down and force you to try it if you do). This is also a great way to get picky eaters to eat vegetables. My oldest son claims he doesn’t like carrots but for some reason, he eats every last one of them when they come in soup version, and asks for seconds.

I have a really tall stock pot and I couldn’t quite get high enough to snap a decent pic. Sure, I could have gotten a stool but that would have been too smart so we’re stuck with this. At least I never claimed to be a food photographer.

Raw chicken grosses me out almost as much as the word ‘moist’, so I couldn’t bring myself to take a picture of it by itself but trust me, it’s down there.

Not raw chicken. I can deal with it when cooked.

Cute baby in the background is not absolutely necessary for the soup, but I think he helps it to turn out better. You might want to consider grabbing yourself a baby before attempting this recipe.

I’m aware that this does not make for a photo that will have you leaping off your seats to go make soup, but trust me, it’s GOOD!

So this soup is categorized as quick and easy, which it is, but if you’ve ever made soup or stew before, you know that to achieve good flavoring, you need to let things simmer for a while. Prep time is very quick, and very easy, but make sure to count on an extra hour for the soup to cook, plus time for the chicken to cool enough to shred before you’ll be sitting down to eat. Also, it makes a lot and you’ll probably have leftovers so be aware that when you take it out of the fridge the next day, a layer on the top will look kind like really gross jello. This freaked me out to no end and I scraped it all off thinking I’d done something wrong, but when it kept happening every time I made this, I got smart and googled it. Apparently, when you boil the chicken, gelatin comes out of the bones and when it cools, this forms a jello-like layer on the top which is gone upon reheating.

Chicken & Rice Soup
Serves 8

  • 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
  • 5 large celery ribs, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
  • 5-6 large carrots, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
  • 1 (4 1/2 – 5 1/2 lb.) chicken (I grab one from the organic section and have the butcher cut it for me. It’s SO much easier to make this soup without trying to finagle the whole chicken)
  • 1 1/2 cups frozen corn or 1 large can of corn, drained
  • 1 cup long-grain brown rice (do not use white, it will fall apart)
  • 1/3 cup packed fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
  • 3 teaspoons salt
  • 3 quarts water
  • Freshly ground black pepper and salt, to taste
  • 1-2 cups chicken stock (optional)
  • 4 lemons (optional)

Combine onion, celery, carrots, corn, chicken, rice, parsley, and salt in a 6-quart stock pot. Add water and bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer, skimming off fat as needed, for 1 hour. I find the best method to getting rid of the fat that rises to the surface is by putting white paper towels onto the top to soak it up, and removing quickly, until you see the fat is mostly gone.

Transfer chicken to a colander. When cool enough to handle, remove meat; discard skin and bones. Coarsely shred chicken and return to soup. Add 2-4 teaspoons salt plus pepper to taste and reheat if necessary. I also like to add 1-2 cups of organic, low-sodium chicken broth here.  I know this is a from-scratch recipe, but sometimes when removing the fat I find too much of the liquid goes with it, or sometimes I just need to bump up the flavor a bit so this step is optional. I think you’ll find you like the results better when adding a bit of extra broth to the end product.

Ladle the soup into individual serving bowls and, if desired, squeeze some fresh lemon into each. I do about a third of a lemon into my older two kids’ bowls (none for the baby) and a half a lemon into the adult bowls. You don’t need to do this but it’s amazing and you can thank me later if you do.

Enjoy!

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Filed Under: Kid-Friendly, Recipes, Weeknight Meals